So, I’m still going through all of the Libre Graphics Meeting videos and today I watched a short tutorial on Phatch, a batch image processor. Basically, it’s a graphical ease of use layer on top of many command line tools such as ImageMagick or the scripting languages of other open source graphics applications such as Gimp, Inkscape or Blender. It’s also a batch processor making it a snap to edit many files all at once.
It serves as an image “recipe box” rather than an editor. Therefore it allows you to save how you edit one image so that later you can come back to that recipe and rerun the edits simply, whether after a lunch break or a year later for another project. It also shows the power of mashing open source applications together to get huge productivity gains with a minimum of effort.
Phatch makes it easy to do effects you see all across the web such as reflections, rounded corners and perspective changes. It also allows you to mix and match them in any order. This has got to be a huge time saver for website image content managers. I’m sure I’ll be using it in the future as I start to develop the look and feel of this blog.
It’s probably also helpful for those of you that aren’t very tech savvy. Phatch can function as a quick way to do more complex effects without having to figure out all of the intricacies of a more powerful image editor like Gimp or Photoshop.
Since it was already in the Ubuntu software repositories (the repositories are basically an “app store” for open source software where everything is free), I had it installed in seconds. I tried it out and it worked just like the video showed. Looks like Windows and OSX are supported, but still don’t have a standard installer. Help them out if you get a chance to get the installers tested out so that it is easier to use for your non-techy friends! Here’s a great opportunity to contribute.
Really the only downside I saw was that their website was obnoxiously littered with Google ads which made it hard to figure out what was content and what wasn’t.
Hope it comes in handy! Let me know how it goes!
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