Command line call for power users ( batching)

I put in a request today for having a more sophisticated batching setup - the current one is very very limited. In the old day TL worked with Photoshop action allowing for very sophisticated chains of batching. Here was the request I put in - if you agree maybe you can tell TL this would be a great future power user feature.

REQUEST

The Batch Processing is still very simple/limited for batch processing and does not do allot that is needed. I suggest a simple fix ( a command line call). For instance with your current batching - you can not have a folder of mattes and a folder of images and have it work with both, so if you pulled mattes you can not use them in a batch. You can’t call two different adjustment effects ( only one). There are many things you can only do in one effects sequence ( like make it look like a watercolor in one effect sequence and use another to pull really nice ink lines - then later put them together) - which is why you sometimes need several to be run on an image. You can not work with layers. It does not work with other tools even if you are in Photoshop. For instance if photoshop actions and their batch tool was supported you could mix and match TL Studio with any tools you have in photoshop including other plugins, you could move layers around with the memory of the script for say matting or using transparency in complex ways, you could save results through the process not just the end result and again you can call TS effects many times in one batch. And on and on. Many of us need this level of batching and were used to it with old Topaz working with Photshop actions. I especially need calling more that one effects process at a time. So if I need to run many batches, now I have to manually go into TS , find an effect, run it, then setup a batch – and do this for every batch I want to do - rather than list many of them and have them run for hours. These tools you make are amazing, it would be nice to have an automation top layer above them with the power of Adobe Actions. I would therefore like to request a simple command line tool where you can call TS like follows:

TSbatch [effect name] [input pix name] [output pix name]

where TS opens, runs the effect seqeunce (like it would in batch mode) on the input pix and outputs the output pix name.

It would then be very easy for users to use say .bat or any scripting system to use a for loop to run through a folder and output to another folder ( like batching does) but also every variant of these possiblities ( all those I mentioned above).

Is it possible ( like most modern tools including Photoshop, filterforge, … ) to have a power user command line way into your TS system, like this. It would help us out amazingly. The power user community would share simple scripts and grow the usage of TS to a large extent - allowing for so many automated image processing jobs that they need and cutting hours of labor time.


Do you the community agree with me on this.

-steve

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I absolutely second the request. My workflow involves processing several hundred photos (from sporting events) and batching them to do things such as noise reduction and sharpening after I have cropped and processed each photo.

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My biggest frustration with Topaz products is how hard it is to integrate into actions in PS. A tool which lets us do this and enter parameters would be fantastic.

My way of working is to do a batch process which opens a TIF file, creates a new image layer, runs, for example, a Topaz Studio effect on the layer, sets the opacity of the layer, makes a new image layer (stamp visible) and runs a different Topaz tool on that layer, sets the opacity, saves the file, opens the next TIF file in the folder.

This allows me to get a whole bunch of files processed at one go while I do something else. Are they always all perfect? no. But if there are shortcomings, I can fix just those files. But, most of the time, it works.

The problem is, there is no way to set a “default” setting in Topaz products and I have to go into each product and manually create the state before I run the batch process.

Alas, this does not work in the new Topaz Adjust AI at all, as far as I can tell :disappointed:

1 Like

Hey all, please check out cloudai.topazlabs.com to see our new cloud service for Gigapixel AI.

Are there any developers here?
This cloud service comes with an API that can be used to automate your Gigapixel upsampling tasks.

There is a contact form at the bottom of the page where you can request your API key.

If you are not a developer, don’t worry, you can still upload images through the website and have your processed results sent back to you.

Please let me know if you have any questions guys. Thanks :slight_smile:

Hi !
I have tried several of your products, I like them very much, I was able to produce beautiful images!
But at the moment, the only product I am considering buying is AI Gigapixel because of its ability to batch process (and also because of the astonishing results I get with it, of course).
I would be very interested in the other products, but unfortunately they do not, for the most part, allow batch processing (I have groups of images on which I would like to apply the same settings, because they were taken in the same conditions). So until I have the opportunity to do so, I will not buy them. It’s a shame for you as for me, because I don’t plan to spend my free time editing images one by one!
Thank you and goodbye !

I can understand that you may be reluctant to allow batch processing, as someone who has a collection of moderate sized images could potentially touch up all of these images during the trial period. I imagine there must be other reasons why this feature is not available. But if this is one of the reasons, why not offer it only to those who bought a license?

I am the original poster, still no command line tool or others. ut for folks wanting something, I am able to use (somewhat fragile) macro PC recording tools to run any automation I want in topaz ( I use topazlab studio and gigapixel and original labs apps - not topaz studio2 ). The tool I use on windows10 is autoit. check it out ( or goole auto it mac alternatives for hte mac). This will fake a human interaction of button pushing that can be automated.With that I build a script that can call a style present and perform it on a input pix and save it. Then I can run scripts to call that with anything like for loops with all pix in a folder and such. There is batching of course in topaz studio - which is incredibly fast ( faster thatn this autoit method). I use that when I can for speed (it is limited to one preset style only) - I just contributed to a big art piece for a well known NYC museum with allot of topaz studio batching of my ai video frames. As well with two other art shows. So it is my main tool ( along with my AI code). But at times I need to do way more than batching a single preset. So in that case I switch to my slower command line and python scripts wth autoit. I can now use topaz studio in a script with our tools like photoshop macro calls and AI and such - where TL studio can be one of the calls in a progression of processing. Try autoit if you need similar. Still would be best if TL added this functionality like command line calls I describe in the original post which then would allow the community to share scripts to do anything with this great set of tools.

3 Likes

Hi diapaola,

Instead of a command line tool (that you and I know how to use!) I think it’s more sensible to add the functions your asking for to the application for the common users well being :wink:

I like your Batch suggestions, but think they could easily be created in a “Advanced Batch Processing” part of the existing app!

Regards,

David

1 Like

I’m in the trial period right now for Gigapixel AI and the only way I would be willing to drop $100 on this product is if I could use it from the command line to be able to incorporate it into scripts. Any reputable power user immediately drops to terminal and bodges together a bash script when needing to do repetitive tasks.

Yes it “technically” has batch processing through the GUI, but when I drag 1,000 photos from Finder into the app, I have to sit there and wait for the program to realize what I’ve done and that quickly becomes unmanageable. Any larger folder than 1,000 causes such a delay that it might as well have crashed the program because I’m not willing to wait for minutes upon minutes for it to load all the images.

Please add command line functionality to the Mac version.

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I have the exact same issue. I’m converting video and that contains 180 000 pictures. I had to leave running my PC for the night to just realise such amount of pictures in the program. I tried to scroll at one image at the time, but it turns out to be a nightmare. I had to leave the settings to auto and hope all best. Scrolling is just impossible. UI is not responding at all. However, at least it is processing pictures, according to CPU/GPU usage cycles.

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Command line batch options are always good, it should also support returning results in ERRORLEVEL for batch file development (and equivalents in other supported OSes).

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again original poster here - still no batch tool for all products including studio ( yes I have gigipixel as well but it should be for more than that). My suggested solution above was for a simple command line tool which just means that topazlabs would have to add accepting these command line parameters and have it run ( photoshop has command line options too). I have my own tools to batch topaz work and have it talk with photoshop but it is fragile.

2 Likes

I’ve just started using DeNoise AI for processing astrophotography images. If it were able to be run from the command line then it could be better integrated into my processing flow via scripting. I wouldn’t even mind if the UI still appeared while it did its thing.

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same here, testing the product, I like it, but without batch processing is not so useful.

dipaola, When you say batching in Topaz Studio is limited to one preset only, could you elaborate? I’m trying to use the batch processing to call an AdjustAI preset, but not having any luck. Can go down the automation route if needed, but like you said that just adds unneccessary overhead / time.

instead of making a command line, i prefer the software to be simple for people like me, i want the advanced options people are mentioning but i want it with the click of a button or adjusting a slide on a parameter, please god dont make no commands , thats what free software is for like ffnmpeg, i dont want to have to remember a command or type out a script. people pay for high end software so they have a nice gui to avoid complexity of command line, so i agree with advanced features but make the advanced features in a nice easy to use gui format that allows you to combine multiple options not command based.

+1 to this feature request.
Otherwise please allow selection of a folder location WITHOUT having to pre-load all the files.
Then simply clicking process which will then START the loading of all the files in that folder.
Currently if a folder has 100,000+ files it will just sit for hours loading every file.

I would like a command-line for GigaPixel AI. Would make the tool so much more useful since it’d work seamlessly in my workflows. Hope they implement it!

I am still waiting for command line or some Advance panel to process entire folders from Input to Output, It is a night mare when you put 20, 000+ to process. Also multi-threading will be amazing as lettings the computer seating doing nothing or taking 1 sec per image to process it’s just creasy.