Hi there all,
I've got a question regarding available freeware packages or scripts, including those that can be found at GitHub or SourceForge.
My duties include revising new publications on special subjects. I have accustomed to screenshotting the most interesting pages in order to meta-tag them and be able to find them quickly at later stages.
The standard structure of image meta-tags include such fields as Copyright, which may capture the information on the source of a particular screenshot (such as the author of the publication, the title and the link). The only problem is that the screenshots can be shared with people who are barely familiar with computer and often don't have special software to read the meta-tags from images. That's why the information about the source of a particular page is placed right on the page in its top or bottom part (sometimes I even have to extend the page in order to add something).
See attached two examples of the same page 1) BEFORE it was processed by me, 2) AFTER I made an amendment by indicating its source.
Now lets move to my question. Sometimes when revising a publication I may extract more than just 1 or 2 pages. Sometimes it's more like 5 or even 10 pages. Therefore I'd have to add the source stamp 5 or 10 times.
The question is if there is any solution to automate such operations? Most importantly, any additions should not shade or hide whatever information is contained on the original page.
Thanks in advance.
I don't know of any standardized programs or scripts but this would be the type of thing that you would make scripts using ImageMagick (https://imagemagick.org/). There are probably ImageMagick commands to try and locate some blank space at the bottom, but I would think the easiest would be to add padding to the bottom and place your text there.
Actually, I found on Fred's ImageMagick Scripts (http://www.fmwconcepts.com/imagemagick/index.php) a script called AutoCaption (http://www.fmwconcepts.com/imagemagick/autocaption/index.php). It "Places text automatically in a specified square size region that has the least color variation". It's a bash unix shell scripts so you could use it on Mac/Linux. For Windows you'd have to look into re-writing it.
Seems precisely what I needed. Thanks a lot for the recommendation. I shall investigate this in detail by installing ImageMagick first.
QuoteIt's a bash unix shell scripts so you could use it on Mac/Linux. For Windows you'd have to look into re-writing it.
Oops, that seems a little more painful than I was hoping to get. Is there any other workaround?
In case someone ever comes across the same task, IrfanView does the job via Batch conversion -> Advanced options menu -> Add overlay text
See attached picture with instructions