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I'd like to automate the creation of collages

Each day I create about 50 mockups of a product in 9 different colours. With these 9 different colours, I create a collage of the 9 square images, resulting in a square 3x3 collage with no space, just simple stitching of the images is all that's needed. They need to be in a specific order and the output file size must be less than 500kb, with the output image name be 'b'. Is this possible with automator? Currently I'm using a web app to carry out the task but it is always manual. Any help would be greatly appreciated! (pictured is the 9 colours and the output collage)

MacBook Pro 16", macOS 10.15

Posted on Apr 9, 2020 5:07 AM

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Posted on Apr 10, 2020 9:37 AM

You must have large source images. Each of my 1-inch square, 300 dpi images, even at 100% JPG quality — was 20KB, and the final, 300 dpi B.jpg is only 70 KB.


Try this, and see what the size reduction is in Bnew.jpg:


convert B.jpg -strip -quality 90 Bnew.jpg


You can also combine these in the montage command line:

montage [l-t].jpg -geometry +3+3 -tile 3x3 -units PixelsPerInch -density 300 -adjoin -strip -quality 90 -background black B.jpg



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Apr 10, 2020 9:37 AM in response to palnoch

You must have large source images. Each of my 1-inch square, 300 dpi images, even at 100% JPG quality — was 20KB, and the final, 300 dpi B.jpg is only 70 KB.


Try this, and see what the size reduction is in Bnew.jpg:


convert B.jpg -strip -quality 90 Bnew.jpg


You can also combine these in the montage command line:

montage [l-t].jpg -geometry +3+3 -tile 3x3 -units PixelsPerInch -density 300 -adjoin -strip -quality 90 -background black B.jpg



Apr 11, 2020 2:45 PM in response to palnoch

I assumed that the downloadable ImageMagick that I instructed you to install would just work. Instead, it is broken on Mojave and Catalina 10.15.4, because when montage is run, it attempts to load an ImageMagick dynamically linked library (dylib), and that fails stating that it could not load the dylib, and there was a image not found. This occurs with any other ImageMagick tool (e.g. identify), and even when run in the same directory location as the images.


The downloadable ImageMagick tar file solution will not work.


My original testing was an ImageMagick (with dependent libraries) that was downloaded and compiled with the homebrew (brew) package manager. The zsh script does what is expected, error free, when using montage from that build, whether on Mojave and Catalina. I was trying to avoid the overhead of the package manager solution, as the one I asked you to try was simpler to setup — if it had worked.


The steps to a package manager built ImageMagick solution is tedious, and requires a compilation suite, either Xcode 11.4 (Catalina 10.15.2 or later), or without Xcode, the downloadable Command-Line tools for Xcode 11.4, which saves huge GB in storage and download time. The command-line tools require a free/fee developer account to access.


Once the compilation suite issue is resolved, one has to install homebrew (brew), which wants to go into the /usr/local tree. The following may get the homebrew package manager installed from the Terminal. Note that the sudo command will prompt for your admin password, which will not echo as typed.


sudo /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install.sh)"



If that went well, then some initial house-keeping:

brew update
brew upgrade
brew install ImageMagick
brew cleanup


The ~/.zshrc file should have these adjustments:

export PATH=".:$HOME:$HOME/bin:/usr/local/bin:$PATH"
export HOMEBREW_NO_ANALYTICS=1


In Terminal, once you have saved the ~/.zshrc file, source ~/.zshrc


Now, the montage executable is installed in /usr/local/bin, which is in your PATH, and can be used by name, rather than explicit path to it. The zsh script will work as intended.


Apr 9, 2020 7:35 AM in response to palnoch

palnoch wrote:

Each day I create about 50 mockups of a product in 9 different colours. With these 9 different colours, I create a collage of the 9 square images, resulting in a square 3x3 collage with no space, just simple stitching of the images is all that's needed. They need to be in a specific order and the output file size must be less than 500kb, with the output image name be 'b'. Is this possible with automator? Currently I'm using a web app to carry out the task but it is always manual. Any help would be greatly appreciated! (pictured is the 9 colours and the output collage)
https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/e92dca50-d33e-4632-b955-0fd6d224dbca



Sound like you need a better third party software (?)


https://apps.apple.com/us/app/picture-collage-maker-lite/id500623480?mt=12


https://apps.apple.com/us/app/photo-collage-maker-collagefactory-free/id620343399?mt=12


https://themacbeginners.com/make-photo-collage-mac/


https://www.pearlmountainsoft.com/collageit-for-mac/

Apr 11, 2020 5:17 AM in response to palnoch

The Zsh script that I have written will expect the parent folder as a selection, and then it will recursively drill down through every product name folder, and only run montage on the contents of each mockup folder, where it deposits the B.jpg result.


zsh source:


#!/bin/zsh

PARENT="${1:a}"
# JPEG quality
QUALITY=50
PPI=300
# so this script knows where the ImageMagick montage binary is located
source ~/.zshrc

# recursively get just the folders paths (F) in the parent directory
for adir in ${PARENT}/**/(F)
do
    # only perform a montage on the contents of the mockups folder(s)
    # and ignore any other folder or its contents
    [[ ${adir%/} = ${PARENT}  || ${adir:a:t:r} != "mockups" ]] && continue
    montage ${adir}[l-t].jpg -geometry +3+3 -tile 3x3 -units PixelsPerInch -density ${PPI} \
        -adjoin -strip -quality ${QUALITY} -background black ${adir}/B.jpg
done
exit



AppleScript source:


use scripting additions
on run {input, parameters}
	
	display dialog "Mockup montages complete" with title "Montage Processing"
	return
end run



I have tested this in an Automator application and it works as expected. The Automator solution uses three actions in its workflow:

  1. Library : Files and Folders : Ask for Finder Items
    1. Select the parent folder
  2. Library : Utilities : Run Shell Script
    1. The previous Zsh script that processes the product mockup folders
  3. Library : Utilities : Run AppleScript
    1. A dialog letting you know that montage processing is done


When you open Automator, choose the Desktop, and then click New Document. A type of document panel will then appear and you want to choose Application, and then click Choose.


Automator will then open into a three panel presentation left to right : 1) Libraries 2) Library actions and 3) a large workflow window. You drag and drop the preceding bold named actions in order onto the workflow window.

  1. Ask for Finder Items
    1. Set the Start at: to Desktop
    2. Set the Type to Folder (only)
    3. Do not select Multiple Selection
  2. Run Shell Script
    1. Shell is /bin/zsh
    2. Pass input: as arguments
      1. This will allow the folder you selected to pass into the zsh script as $1.
    3. Replace all default content in the Run Shell Script window with the copy/pasted Zsh script from above that follows Zsh source in bold.
  3. Run AppleScript
    1. Replace the entire default content with the AppleScript from above that follows AppleScript source in bold
    2. Click the hammer icon in the Run AppleScript
  4. Save the Automator application to your Desktop with a meaningful name
  5. Quit Automator
  6. Double-click the Automator application on the Desktop to run it.


Looks like this when done:


Apr 10, 2020 3:39 AM in response to palnoch

There is a discussion of homebrew just before the compiled binary download that is ImageMagick-x86_64-apple-darwin19.3.0.tar.gz. The latter, in reality is the recent ImageMagick 7.0.10 build once it is installed. In the Terminal do the following:

  1. mkdir ~/bin
  2. Download ImageMagick-x86_64-apple-darwin19.3.0.tar.gz. This should be in your Downloads folder.
    1. cd ~/Downloads
    2. tar xzf ImageMagick-x86_64-apple-darwin19.3.0.tar.gz -C ~/bin
      1. Unpacks the tar hierarchy as ~/bin/ImageMagick-7.0.10
  3. Add the following to ~/.bash_profile
    1. export MAGIC_HOME="$HOME/bin/ImageMagic-7.0.10"
    2. export PATH=$HOME:$HOME/bin:$MAGIC_HOME/bin:$PATH"
    3. export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH="$MAGIC_HOME/lib/"
  4. source ~/.bash_profile


I have done all of the above steps, and when you launch Terminal in the future, it will read the ~/.bash_profile and set the environment variables needed by ImageMagick.


The numeric information in that ImageMagick tar file (e.g. 19.3.0) appears to be tracking the uname -r version of Catalina just prior to 10.15.4, so it is 64-bit compatible there too.


I have run Malwarebytes v4.3.5 after this installation and nothing was found.



Apr 9, 2020 7:39 AM in response to palnoch

There are no automator actions that can do collage/montages for you.


It seems like the imagemagick tool's montage command can do this for you. I replicated your color objects as gears inside nine, one-inch, 300 dpi squares. I then performed the the following inside of the directory with the images. The *.jpg takes advantage of UNIX's collation sequence so images are processed in alphabetic order:


montage *.jpg -geometry +3+3 -tile 3x3 -adjoin -background black B.jpg


Before:


After:


And a closer look at B.jpg (70 Kb on disk):

Apr 10, 2020 8:36 AM in response to VikingOSX

Thank you. Now I try to type the location of the files I want to be montaged into terminal after?


I've tried montage /Users/charlie/Documents/Work/Neon Beach/DESIGNS/SHAPES/Psychadelic/SHAPE_Cocktails/MOCKUPS/[l-t].jpg -geometry +3+3 -tile 3x3 -units PixelsPerInch -density 300 -adjoin -background black B.jpg


But no luck.


Apr 10, 2020 3:47 PM in response to palnoch

The short answer is yes. A zsh script can get the individual folders in a parent directory, and apply the montage to each of these children folders images [l-t].jpg just as before with the familiar montage command line.


Are there images in the parent folder, or confined solely to the children folders? I am testing something right now, but having been up since 5am, i am fading, and this likely will get resolved tomorrow. The script is short and reasonably uncomplicated.


Is the folder structure more complicated that the following, where TestX would be the parent folder?

I'd like to automate the creation of collages

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