Re: Scripting graphics manipulations, improving speed overGraphicConverter 4
Re: Scripting graphics manipulations, improving speed overGraphicConverter 4
- Subject: Re: Scripting graphics manipulations, improving speed overGraphicConverter 4
- From: Jeremy Reichman <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 09:33:12 -0500
I'm doing this at home, so I'm limited by my own silly budget (which led me
to writing my own script to do this in the first place) but also gives me a
lot of leeway, because I get very few hits on the Web site I'm creating with
this script (or any others hosted on the same server, which is on a cable
modem link). I'm also trying to use it to expand my AppleScript knowledge.
Therefore, I am limited by fundage but not load/hits.
Photoshop and PhotoScripter are out of the question. Even though I could get
an .edu license for Photoshop, it's still $300. Photoshop + Windows PC + all
that is also out, since I'm hosting this site on a dual G4/450 (I have no
PC's at home, but 11 Macs) and I want the automation stuff to run there,
since that's where I've already set up all the other things I wanted ...
AppleShare IP, Userland Frontier/Manila, USB Printer Sharing, etc. That, and
I'm compelled to do it on a Mac because that's me.
GraphicConverter definitely does what I want, perhaps not as reliably and
quickly as I'd like. It does seem that the new 4.05 version that came out
yesterday is infintessimally faster than 4.04 -- I have this feeling the
"whit!" sound that announces the closing of each image window is coming at a
faster pace than it used to. (But perhaps I've just gone insane while
listening to it and should turn off the system sound set on that computer.)
I'm investigating ImageMagick/AE and just made the leap that should let me
use the image info record it returns to replace part of what I was using GC
for. I already had ImageMagick/AE working to reduce the size of images so I
could create thumbnails, and it seems faster than GC for this. Don't know
how IM/AE will react to having thousands of images thrown at it, but GC
already doesn't like that in my experience.
The scripting for IM/AE actually seems to be a little more straightforward
and more compact than GC's ... once you grok the docs, play with the
samples, and figure out what all of IM/AE's commands do. (They aren't
obvious ... and I'm still seeking what command might be the equivalent of
"autolevel" in GC, since I'd like to use it.) You don't have to tell it what
format to save a picture in, it knows by file name extension. You also don't
have to tell it *not* to save a document when closing a window, which really
confused me when I had that problem in GC, where it kept overwriting all of
my originals with the transformed versions ... seems wildly
counter-intuitive to have to use "without saving" in the "close" statement.
on 3/21/01 12:02 PM, Mohamed Shams at email@hidden wrote:
>
I went through the same stages to try and find out the best/fastest/most
>
reliable image manipulation automated tool using applescript... the
>
result are not completely satisfactory to me though (however, we got a lot
>
done with the tools) and here is a brief:
>
>
- Graphics Converter will do your job.. but PhotoScripter with PhotoShop is
>
slightly faster, more reliable and definitely offers more control and
>
manipulations (it starts at 300$ for a single license plus initially owning
>
PhotoShop... a lot of $$)
>
>
- GC will read the file info great but if you modify it in the script and
>
put it back it will go in the resource fork so it won't be available when
>
opened on a PC.... sucks..
>
>
- if you want real speed .... I would say... drop AppleScript completely
>
and automate photoshop on a PC with windows using visual basic and photoshop
>
as an automation server... all the documentation you may need is available
>
in the SDK on Adobe's site... works much better but a lot harder to figure
>
out.
--
Jeremy Reichman, aka "Jaharmi"
Software Specialist III (Mac OS) / Instructor
Customer Support Services
Information and Technology Services
Rochester Institute of Technology
Rochester, New York, USA
World Wide Web <
http://www.rit.edu/~jjracc/>
Electronic mail <
mailto:email@hidden>
Tip - The ITS computer buying guide is on-line at:
<
http://www.rit.edu/~750www/Buying_Guide/>