Combining two resized (matched sizes) images together with image magick - vb.net

I have two images I want to combine together with image magick. The way I have it setup right now is a form will upload an image to a server, resize the image to make a smaller version, then save both to a folder. I have my code setup correctly for this using image magick and it works just fine.
What I'm looking to accomplish is sort of like annotating it, however I'd like to do this by appending a header image to the top of the file. I know I can accomplish this using the -append flag. What I'm confused on is how I can match the image sizes so I don't need to do several resizes.
I'm making the resizing occur only if the uploaded files exceed 1000x1000 (using the -resize 1000x1000> argument), but this doesn't guarantee that all files will be 1000px wide. I've made the header image 1000 pixels wide, and when the image is at 1000px, appending those is no problem.
My problem is deciphering how it should be handled when it's smaller than that. Do I resize the header image to the other images size, then append? I know it'd be better to avoid scaling the image up to 1000px, then appending the header and scaling back down, as that would affect image quality. Can I resize the header image without writing it to a temporary file? Like, chain the events and only end up writing a single completed file to disk?

Related

matplotib: two overlaid transparent images look different when saved as svg or png

I'm trying to overlay two transparent images with matplotlib and save the result, but the result looks different depending on the file type. Specifically it's much more washed-out when saving to svg.
Here's an example. In this case, I could just add the two images before displaying them, but this is just a simple example. In reality what I'm trying to do is more complicated (images of different sizes with different colormaps), so they have to be plotted separately.
Example code:
f, ax = plt.subplots(figsize=(2,2))
ax.imshow(np.eye(3), alpha=.5)
ax.imshow(np.eye(3)[::-1], alpha=.5)
f.savefig('example.png')
f.savefig('example.svg')
The png file looks just like it does on the screen, but the svg file looks washed out. I would like to know how to save as svg, without the washed-out effect (i.e. it should look like it does on the screen).
As a bonus question, why does the png plot appear different depending on the order in which I plot the transparent images? The second image always looks stronger. Interestingly, in the svg, both are equally washed out.
Example saved as png:
Example saved as svg:
matplotlib version: 3.1.3
python version: 3.7.7
Thanks for any tips!
I'll post what I think is going on, but if someone can answer with more legit information I'll accept it.
I think that every time you call imshow with an alpha value, it blends the current image in the axis with the new image, using (new * alpha + current * (1-alpha)). The problem with this is that if you display 10 images each with alpha 0.5, then the first image is attenuated to nothing by the iterative blending, whereas the last image gets to be 50% of the final result. Nonetheless this is apparently the method used for rendering to the screen and saving to png.
In contrast, when saving to svg, it saves each image as a separate overlay with its own alpha. The svg container or renderer then uses some more intelligent method that considers all overlaid images at once. However, in my particular case, this leads to a more washed-out look because all the images are partially transparent.

Why the size of file with cropped image is the same as of initial one?

I have scanned my copybook and want to crop out extra white regions with Inkscape.
To achieve this, I import initial image (PDF) to Inkscape, draw appropriate rectangle, and use Object->Clip->Set to cut out needed region. Then I resize page to drawing and save obtained page as new PDF file through File->Save a Copy.
I expected that the size of the new PDF file (with cropped image) will be less than the size of the initial PDF (with image without crop), but they are the same.
What is the reason of this and may it be worked around?
I use Inkscape 0.91 at Linux Mint 18.2.
Thank you in advance.
Because the original image is still there, fully intact and with all its contents. The cropping rectangle are just instructions to the PDF viewer to crop out those regions when rendering the image.
However in Inkscape you can bake the crop rectangles and when exporting to PDF "apply raster effects" which should actually alter the contained image(s).

Conditionally resize images using imageresizing.net

I want to intercept the imageresizing.net pipeline to conditionally resize an image. The scenario is this.
Any image 600px or larger should be resized down to 600px wide
if an image is 300-> 599px it should be resized to 300px wide
if its less than 150px it should be padded with whitespace to 300px wide.
I know i can achieve each of the above using the library but i don't know in advance of making the call the size of the source image. Is there an entry point where i can intercept the original image size and adjust the resize criteria as above?
I did find this but I'm not certain exactly how to implement it. How to avoid imageresizing if width and height is same as original?
To accomplish this in an efficient manner, you would have to store the source file width/height somewhere fast. Opening the source file each time isn't acceptable.

How to get crisp image for search result suggestion in Windows 8?

I'm using a 40 x 40 sized image as a search result suggestion image in Windows 8 search. Only advice about the image format I can find is to have correct size for it (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/Hh700542.aspx: "Windows will scale or crop smaller or larger images").
However, the correctly sized image blurs annoyingly. The same thing happens whether I use jpg or png. Original image looks fine, but the result suggestion in the search charm is very ugly, being still of same size! Is Windows converting the image somehow, and how could I get the image to stay crisp?
I haven't noticed blurring with photo-like images, but this image contains clear lines and areas which are vulnerable to any scaling etc.
Update Sep 24:
Here is the test image I used when trying to figure out the problem. I also created different scale versions, but in my case the 100% version was used (that's why the "100" marking) - as I supposed because the resulting image really is 40x40. As you can see, the resulting image (right) is of same size as original (left), but blurry.
it does not happen that often but it seems the right solution in this case was simply to wait ;) I haven't done anything new regarding result suggestion images in my solution and today I realized that the images became crisp. Probably fixed by any of the windows updates.
[Took a stab at answering what seems the related question mentioned in the comments, so I'm posting here as well.]
It sounds like this could be related to automatic scaling of the images. Windows will automatically scale up/down based on pixel density, and you can help things scale well by either using vector-based images or, for bitmap images, supplying scale-specific versions.
For example, to scale an image referenced in markup as "AppLogo.jpg", you'd include these images:
AppLogo.scale-100.jpg
AppLogo.scale-140.jpg
AppLogo.scale-180.jpg
You can also use folders, e.g. "\scale-140\AppLogo.jpg".
For search result images, the 100% image is the 40x40 pixel version, 140 is 56x56, and 180 is 72x72. Just reference the image as "AppLogo.jpg" and the appropriate version will be used automatically. (You can also detect scale with DisplayProperties.ResolutionScale and manually choose an image.)
Here's a couple of articles with more examples/details:
"Guidelines for scaling to pixel density"
"Quickstart: Using file or image resources"
There's also some scaling discussion in the forums (general, not specific to search) here and here.

About animating frame by frame with sprite files

I used to animate my CCSprites by iterating through 30 image files (rather big ones) and on each file I changed the CCSprite's texture to that image file.
Someone told me that was not efficient and I should use spritesheets instead. But, can I ask why is this not efficient exactly?
There are two parts to this question:
Memory.
OpenGL ES requires textures to have width and height's to the power of 2 eg 64x128, 256x1024, 512x512 etc. If the images don't comply, Cocos2D will automatically resize your image to fit the dimensions by adding in extra transparent space. With successive images being loaded in, you are constantly wasting more and more space. By using a sprite sheet, you already have all the images tightly packed in to reduce wastage.
Speed. Related to above, it takes time to load an image and resize it. By only calling the 'load' once, you speed the entire process up.