Retrobatch – flexible batch image processing for Mac | Hacker News Reader

Retrobatch – flexible batch image processing for Mac

flyingmeat.com

74 pointsfirloop14 comments

This is from Gus Mueller, who writes my favorite image editor for macOS, Acorn (https://flyingmeat.com/acorn/). I've reported a bug to Gus and received a new build with a fix within minutes. I highly recommend his software, even his pizza-themed blog http://maybepizza.com/ which includes a nerdy pizza dough recipe generator.

I wonder if Retrobatch could have been made as a series of Automator plugins, allowing integration with more complicated workflows (e.g., upload the processed images or put them in a specific Photos app album or something).

Does Acorn have a ‘content aware fill’ type feature?

I don’t think so. Most effects are done through Apple’s CoreImage filter API, but content-aware fill doesn’t quite fit that mold. I would like to see this as well.

Alright, thanks for the reply. I've not found Affinity Photo or Pixelmator's to be that great, at least compared to the paint.net plugin I was using on Windows, so was hoping for an alternative.

I'm curious if you can make a recommendation for a good image viewer/organizer app. That's the main thing I was hoping for when I saw your Acorn recommendation.

I use Apple's Photos app which for me is pretty good: photos I snap on my phone appear automatically on my Mac; I can search by date, location, person, or object; I can share photos with family; the Memories feature is sometimes delightful; touch-ups can be reverted any time in the future.

But if you are asking for recommendations I'm guessing Photos doesn't fit your needs.

I have a feeling Retrobatch could export Automator actions if it wanted to. I think they’re distributed as part of an application?

Unfortunately I think Automator is on the way out. I suspect we’ll see Shortcuts for Mac fairly soon, so it may make sense for FM Software the wait for that.

I just used this to build a really neat little workflow. Wasn’t sure if it would work but the results were amazing.

The workflow took company logos and turned them into squares, in a specified size, with the logo in black, the background in white, 20% padding around the edge, and png-crushed. They looked fantastic at the end.

Steps like flat background colour removal just worked. Transparency handled fine. Pretty intuitive.

Only minor gripes would be I found a few images that crashed it. Resaving them as other formats fixed that. And the UI for manipulating the workflow step connections is a bit fiddly.

Make sure to send me the images that crashed it (support at flyingmeat.com)! I'd love to get that fixed, as I'm not aware of any cases right now where this happens.

Hey! Thanks for reaching out in HN comments! Unfortunately I'm not sure I have them any more I'm afraid, I've been dealing with a lot of images.

I was very diligent about submitting the crash reports, so you should have 10-20 examples. Not sure if you can see who they come from, but if you can hopefully you find them.

Could this FINALLY replace Graphic Converter? Probably not on the number of image formats covered, but it does look very promising otherwise.

https://www.lemkesoft.de/en/products/graphicconverter/

One feature that would get me interested would be good ML upscaling. Pixelmator Pro does a good job of it, but has no batch processing until I figure out how to drive it with Automator. And as far as I know ImageMagick still lacks such a feature.

Topaz’s GigaPixel AI seems to do a decent job of it if you’re happy to pay for it but iirc it doesn’t do batch

Fine software, fine company.

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