Copy - Paste images

I’m sorely missing the ability to paste an image into Gigapixel and then to copy the result out again. I waste so much time having to round-trip between programs to save the source image to disk, locate that file somewhere on the disk via the Gigapixel UI, save the upscaled image (a temp-image) again, and then load it into some other program for continued workflow execution.

This pain and time-sink could be completely eliminated if Gigapixel was to have the option to paste an image into it from the clipboard, and then get the upscaled image copied back into the clipboard without having to constantly go through file import and export disk operations via the multi-click process of the product.

My two most common workflows are as follows:

1: One-off upscaling of existing images on disk

  1. Use Irfanview to scroll through small images, to spot ones that I need for a project.
  2. Crop a region of interest to use for the project.
  3. Save the cropped image to PNG in the same folder as the source image.
  4. Alt-tab to gigapixel, click browse.
  5. Navigate to wherever that image resided on the harddisk (takes a long time)
  6. Use Gigapixel as usual to find a model and settings to upscale the image.
  7. Save the image by wading through the slow Export process.
  8. Rename the exported image to the same as the source image.

2: One-off upscaling of selected video frames

  1. Open video in Virtualdub
  2. Scrub to a frame of interest.
  3. Press CTRL+1 to copy the frame to the clipboard.
  4. Alt-tab to irfanview, paste the image and save it to disk.
  5. Alt-tab to gigapixel, click browse.
  6. Navigate to wherever that image resided on the harddisk (takes a long time)
  7. Use Gigapixel as usual to find a model and settings to upscale the image.
  8. Save the image by wading through the slow Export process.
  9. Open the scaled image into Irfanview, press CTRL-C (copy)
  10. Alt-tab to photoshop and press CTRL-V (paste)
  11. Proceed with using the scaled frame.

With Copy-Paste the first process would shrink to 5 steps, and the second process to 6 steps. The number of steps is not commensurate to effort and time wasted. With copy-paste a 1-2 minute process could be shrunk to 10 seconds! That’s an order of magnitude workflow speedup.

CTRL-C, CTRL-V is the workflow when using multiple programs, since the steps can be performed at the speed of thought rather than constantly being hindered by each UI’s process dialogs.

PS. This is unfortunately a cross-post, since it was originally a reply to a feature for the PhotoAI product, which I didn’t recognize until after posting. It was intended for Gigapixel, so am posting it here in case the different product teams don’t look at each other’s feature request sections.

Thank you for the recommendations.

I just wanted to let you know that you can use copy/paste shortcuts from your file explorer to copy and paste images into Gigapixel.

I’ve just tested on both Mac and Windows and can confirm this functionality is already built into Gigapixel version 7.

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Paste confirmed as working in v7. Great!
I had v5 when I made the comment and there it didn’t work.

Now, if you could also implement Copy that would be awesome.

I was able to use cmnd/ctrl C → cmnd/ctrl V from the file system to import images with 7.2.1.

Are you unable to do so from your file directory?

Are you able to Press CTRL-C (or some other key combination) in Gigapixel and get the upscaled output back into the clipboard buffer?

I was not. Thus the feature request.

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Just so I can fully understand, were you hoping to copy an image, paste to Gigapixel, upscale the image, and then have that new upscale file still copied to the clipboard?

Yes, putting the upscaled version in the clipboard buffer on some key-press, so it can be pasted into another program.

Ah, the upscaled image will no longer be the original, as an upscaled copy of the image is created.

If you adjust your settings in Gigapixel to allow for the original file to be overwritten, your newly upscaled image will still be the image copied to your clipboard.

Sorry, I’m not following you Justin.

You are talking about saving files. This discussion is about being able to copy the upscaled image into the clipboard, thus avoiding the whole disk-I/O busy-work.

Example:

  1. In a graphics software, copy a source image to the clipboard (e.g. snipping tool, irfanview, photoshop, gimp …)
  2. Paste it into Gigapixel (already implemented and works).
  3. Have Gigapixel upscale the pasted image by clicking on some model in the AI-models panel (optionally tweaking parameters to make it look satisfactory, usual gigapixel interaction).
  4. Once the preview image looks good, press some keyboard shortcut to have Gigapixel place the model-upscaled version presently shown (or selected) onto the clipboard.
  5. Switch to some other graphics software and paste the upscaled image Gigapixel placed on the clipboard in step 4, then continue working with the gigapixel result in that other tool.

Are you saying it is already possible to do step 4 in the current version of Gigapixel?

In order to upscale an image, the image must be processed after the preview with the Export Image button.

The preview is just that, a preview of what the image will appear as after processing/creating/saving.

You will not be able to simply copy the image from the preview as the image has no been enhanced/upscaled at this point.

We do have a list of available shortcut commands. You can find these commands by opening the Gigapixel > Preferences dropdown menu.

image

Your recommendation is acheiveable, but you must specify that the original file should be overwritten after processing within your Export settings like I listed in my previous response.

By default, Gigapixel will not overwrite the original file and your workflow is not achievable as you’ll need to adjust the clipboard image to the newly create file after export.

I have brought up this idea to our development team for future consideration.

I’m still not following.
I tried doing what you described.

  1. Pasted an image.
  2. Clicked export.
  3. Changed overwrite to True
  4. Alt-tabbed to another graphical program and pressed CTRL+V

Only the original image placed in the clipboard buffer in step 1 was pasted into the program at step 4, not the gigapixel upscaled version.

So I don’t understand how overwriting the random filename a clip-board pasting into Gigapixel results in will make the program automatically read that overwritten (and upscaled) file back into the clipboard, for it to be used in other applications.

The feature request is simple. Not having to go through the export file process but just press CTRL-C (for instance) on a previewed image to get the rendered result placed into the clipboard for use in other programs.

How that is implemented, well that’s up to you. You might trigger the export process under the hood if that’s easiest for you, or solve the problem some other way. I’m not prescribing how to solve the problem, only describing the user’s problem; what problem we are seeking to solve (paste->upscale->copy)

I like the idea to copy and paste the final processed image too!

Wonderful, thank you for the insight.

I’ve just raised this with my product team and we are going to dive deeper into the best practice for achieving this functionality as I love this feature.