Web Development

Ask something
Discussion Locked

Batch image processing with Python

0 helpful
3 replies

by Mark W. Kaelin

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.
The Jan. 9, Software Development TechMail discusses the Python Imaging Library (PIL). Have you ever been part of a project that required the batch manipulation and processing of images? What solution did you use? Would PIL have helped you manage theprocess more efficiently?

3 replies

by garlin

I see that Rocksportrocker beat me to commending Image Magick (http://www.imagemagick.com/) as a flexible, fast and powerful free image processor.

My only complaints about Image Magic are:
1) it appears to work on only one graphic at a time (butI have written a batch program to loop through multiple files)
2) while the documentation may be adequate for someone familiar with graphics processing, it is difficult to follow if you don't have a graphics background
3) the interactive interfaceis much less powerful than the batch commands, and
4) the setup instructions are hard to follow, and it took me way to long to figure out that the program won't work without a MAGIC_HOME environment variable pointing to the modules folder.

On the plus side, this program has options to manipulate graphics from the command prompt that I have never even heard of before (by now you must realize I am a graphics amateur), and I was able to use it to programmatically convert digital camera photos into graphics I could use on a website.

Does anyone out there know of a site with additional documentation for Image Magick? I would like to learn to make better use of it in the future.

by rocksportrocker

I made one mistake: pythonMagick wraps Magick++,
the object oriented version of ImageMagick, not ImageMagick itself.

ad 1): Magick++/pythonMagick supports handling of multiple images at a time, e.g. see the tutorial at pythonmagick.procoders.netfor generating animated gifs.

ad 2): the Magick++ documentation is better than the documentation of raw ImageMagick, but the learning curve is steep, I agree. May be its to powerful for simple manipulations, but if you learned Magick++ / PythonMagick you got a powerful tool.

ad 4): have a look at the installing instructions at pythonmagick.procoders.net, it's just two lines of text.

This discussion is closed to new replies.