Re: [Gimp-user] time saver?

[Jay Smith <jay JaySmith com>]

On 11/15/2012 09:48 PM, rmooney wrote:
> I enjoy using GIMP, but I'm looking for some help to cut down on my time
> watermarking my photos. Currently I am opening a photo, adding text, rotating
> text, duplicating the text layer, then moving each layer to the top left and
> bottom right corners. Surely there must be a way to make this process quicker?
> Any help will be appreciated.


A few years ago I was using Imagemagick for similar watermarking in an 
automated batch process.  However, at that time there were some bugs (at 
least on our system) that prevented me from getting exactly what I 
wanted in terms of text appearance.  However, it was _supposed_ to work 
and seemed to for other people.  I suspect it does now (if not then 
also) and would work now on our more modern o/s.

http://www.imagemagick.org/script/index.php

When I was using it, it was part of a larger process I ran: making 
multiple scaled JPEGs from single TIFFs, and applying the watermark, all 
in the same process (without messing up the TIFFs).

We still use Imagemagick for the sizing/scaling to process thousands of 
images.  We use a Perl script wrapper to manage the process of running 
through hundreds of source directories/folders containing tens of 
thousands of images, processing only those that are newer in the source 
than the target, and pushing the results to a matching output 
directory/folder structure.  (Thus any changed image will get 
reprocessed.)  We use a complicated algorithm in the Perl script to 
decided the min / max size for each output, with max limitations on 
width and/or height (but maintaining original scale), based on the four 
target uses and on the physical size of the input object TIFFs (the 
TIFFs are all scanned at 100% of size (said from a printing perspective) 
at 300 dpi.  The original source objects range from 1x1 inch to 20x20 
inches (flatbed scans).  The output sizes need to be "sane" to fit in a 
web page that is "sane" and yet takes advantage of whatever size is 
available without making the page too wide.  The logic and math of this 
hurts my head; among other things, the differences input and output dpi 
really warps the math, while you are scaling differently depending upon 
various rules.

Anyway, it works great and runs like cat with a bell tied to its tail. 
(I'm a cat person, but that would be fun.)  The more RAM and the more 
processors the better and if you can control (increase) the number of 
simultaneous processes on your machine, you can make it scream.

If we were to go back to watermarking, of course the watermark needs to 
be applied _after_ the sizing/scaling, but before saving the JPEG.

You could also set up a "watched folder" type of system into which you 
could drop the source images and have a 'cron' job that checks and 
processes the folder however often you want.

Jay