Imagemagick gurus?

[gerardsweeney]

(Sorry if this is in the wrong section - hopefully someone can move it if required?)

 

 

Hello, all..

 

We are getting ready to make the move to Windows 7 sometime, and I'm hoping to customize the 7 logon screen.

 

No, I'm not asking how you do that

 

Our Council's Corporate division has a standard wallpaper, but I'd quite like to have a slightly modified version of it - one for each school.

 

 

Essentially, what I'm thinking of is something a bit similar to this:

 

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/windows-7/52991-windows-7-logon-screen.html#post485058

 

where I have a picture of the school (perhaps tinted in some fashion) and a text string with the school name underneath.

 

There are 32 of 'em, so I don't really want to create one manually as I suspect my Boss would kill me for the time spent on such a frivolity

 

 

I've had a play with ImageMagick, and my results have varied from bad to laughable mostly because my artistic abilities are non-existant.

 

Is there anyone out there willing to give me a few pointers?

 

Kind regards,

Gerard

[tom_newton]

I can *use* imagemagick, but i'm also artistically challenged. What's the "crapness" issue? Maybe if we can see the bad we can help better?

[gerardsweeney]

Heh.. The crapness was trying to get the 3 things done in a semi-decent way..

 

I'm at home just now - my WIP files are at work - I'll try to put them up somewhere for you to laugh at - erm - view

 

Regards,

Gerard

[gerardsweeney]

Right - I've been playing some more, and I've got it looking not TOO bad though I'd more than welcome some input..

 

I'm also looking for some advice (at a tangent here!!)..

 

One of the schools provided a JPG of their school logo which I've managed reasonably successfully to make to a transparent PNG, but it's still a bit jaggy..

 

I've followed the guides on YouTube about using Inkscape to convert a JPG to a vector, and that works. However part of the logo is white, and Inkscape's "remove background" in the Trace Bitmap picks that up as being the same white as the background, so it ends up looking weird.

 

I'm sure there must be some easy way to fix this, but I'm at a loss - any Inkscape folk know?

 

Anyhoo, back to topic

 

 

My BAT script currently looks like:

 

 

Rem Lifted from http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/thumbnails/


Rem Generate the PC info (with blank lines for appearance)
convert -pointsize 18 label:"     \n\n     PC name: %COMPUTERNAME%     \n     Model: Hewlett-Packard HP Compaq 6910p     \n     Serial number: 12345678     \n\n" %temp%\pc1.png


convert %temp%\pc1.png -alpha off -fill white -colorize 100% ^
    -draw "fill black polygon 0,0 0,15 15,0 fill white circle 15,15 15,0" ^
    ^( +clone -flip ^) -compose Multiply -composite ^
    ^( +clone -flop ^) -compose Multiply -composite ^
    -background Gray50 -alpha Shape    %temp%\thumbnail_mask.png



convert %temp%\thumbnail_mask.png -bordercolor None -border 1x1 ^
         -alpha Extract -blur 0x10  -shade 130x30 -alpha On ^
         -background gray50 -alpha background -auto-level ^
         -function polynomial  3.5,-5.05,2.05,0.3 ^
         ^( +clone -alpha extract  -blur 0x2 ^) ^
         -channel RGB -compose multiply -composite ^
         +channel +compose -chop 1x1 ^
         %temp%\thumbnail_lighting.png


convert %temp%\pc1.png %temp%\thumbnail_lighting.png ^
         ^( -clone 0,1 -compose Hardlight -composite ^) ^
         -delete 0 -compose In -composite ^
         %temp%\glass_bubble.png


rem Merge the Corp logo with the crest
composite.exe -gravity SouthWest WWHCrest-Transparent3(PaintDotNet).png -geometry +20+20 CorpStrt.bmp %temp%\outputimage1.bmp

rem merge the Corp/crest with the bubble

composite.exe -gravity SouthEast %temp%\glass_bubble.png -geometry +20+20 %temp%\outputimage1.bmp Backdrop.jpg

 

which gets me:

http://www.ea.e-renfrew.sch.uk/masterclass/gerard/Win7Screens/BackdropWithTransparentLogo.jpg

 

 

My issue is now what I do with ones which don't have transparency (EG some schools provided a photo of their building):

 

which leaves me with:

http://www.ea.e-renfrew.sch.uk/masterclass/gerard/Win7Screens/BackdropBusby.jpg

 

I'm not artistic in any way, but I just don't think that's quite as good as the logo. So does anyone have any suggestions? Maybe just have the school name in place of any of the school pics?

[cromertech]

Could you do a bit of simple feathering with the school images and save them as png

 

I've had a little play

 

 

edit: Didn't have the individual elements so some of the background is cloned

Edited March 4, 2011 by cromertech

[gerardsweeney]

Oops - I forgot to upload the individual components, but I see you've got round that

 

Yep - that looks nice and simple - thanks very much for the suggestion!!

 

I'll have a browse at ImageMagick's site on how to get such an effect.

 

 

And if any Inkscape bods know how to go about fixing the "wrong" transparency, that would be appreciated

 

 

Regards,

Gerard

[cromertech]

Sorry that was done in photoshop but I'm sure it should be possible with imagemagick.

[gerardsweeney]

Heh - no problem, I'll dabble

 

One thing I was hoping to fix was the system information bit.

 

What I would like to see is it changed from:

 

PC Name: 123

Model: Hewlett-Packard HP Compaq 6910p

Serial number: 12345678

 

to something a bit like:

 

 

PC Name:123

Model: Hewlett-Packard HP Compaq 6910p

Serial number: 12345678

 

where the "sections" are bold, while the data is in normal font... However, I've had no luck with that with ImageMagick - anyone??

[gerardsweeney]

So I don't look like a complete sponger..

 

This:

 

convert ^
-pointsize 18 -font TIMESBD.TTF label:"   PC name:" ^
-pointsize 18 -font Times.TTF label:"         %COMPUTERNAME%  \n" ^
-pointsize 18 -font TIMESBD.TTF label:"   Make/Model:" ^
-pointsize 18 -font Times.TTF label:"    Hewlett-Packard HP Compaq 6910p  \n" ^
-pointsize 18 -font TIMESBD.TTF label:"   Serial number:" ^
-pointsize 18 -font Times.TTF label:"    12345678  \n" ^
+append pc2.png

 

Gets me it all in one line:

 

PC name: abcde Make/Model: Hewlett-Packard(etc) Serial number: 12345678

 

If I remove the +append, then I get a png file for each line.

 

SO close, but not quite.. Can anyone provide the magic syntax??

[gerardsweeney]

(Answering myself heh)

 

convert -pointsize 18 -font TIMESBD.TTF label:"\n    PC name: " %temp%\pcname1.png
convert -pointsize 18 -font Times.TTF label:"\n         %COMPUTERNAME%   " %temp%\pcname2.png

convert -pointsize 18 -font TIMESBD.TTF label:"    Manufacturer:  " %temp%\Manuf1.png
convert -pointsize 18 -font Times.TTF label:"Hewlett-Packard   " %temp%\Manuf2.png

convert -pointsize 18 -font TIMESBD.TTF label:"    Model: " %temp%\Model1.png
convert -pointsize 18 -font Times.TTF label:"             HP Compaq 6910p   " %temp%\Model2.png

convert -pointsize 18 -font TIMESBD.TTF label:"    Serial number: " %temp%\serial1.png
convert -pointsize 18 -font Times.TTF label:" 12345678   \n" %temp%\serial2.png


convert %temp%\pcname1.png %temp%\pcname2.png +append %temp%\pcname3.png
convert %temp%\Manuf1.png %temp%\Manuf2.png +append %temp%\Manuf3.png
convert %temp%\model1.png %temp%\model2.png +append %temp%\model3.png
convert %temp%\serial1.png %temp%\serial2.png +append %temp%\serial3.png

convert %temp%\pcname3.png %temp%\Manuf3.png %temp%\model3.png %temp%\serial3.png -append %temp%\pc1.png

 

produces something pretty darn close to what I was looking for. The spacing is a LITTLE out, but it's looking not too shabby (by my limited abilities, anyway)

 

I suspect ImageMagick folk out there will be spluttering their coffee over the screen at this shonky code, but heigh-ho..

[gerardsweeney]

Aha!

 

convert ^
-pointsize 18 -font TIMESBD.TTF label:"   " ^
-pointsize 18 -font TIMESBD.TTF label:"PC name:" ^
-pointsize 18 -font TIMESBD.TTF label:"Manufacturer:" ^
-pointsize 18 -font TIMESBD.TTF label:"Model:" ^
-pointsize 18 -font TIMESBD.TTF label:"Serial number:" ^
-pointsize 18 -font TIMESBD.TTF label:"   " ^
-append %temp%\pcbold.png

convert ^
-pointsize 18 -font TIMESBD.TTF label:"   " ^
-pointsize 18 -font TIMESBD.TTF label:"   " ^
-pointsize 18 -font TIMESBD.TTF label:"   " ^
-pointsize 18 -font TIMESBD.TTF label:"   " ^
-pointsize 18 -font TIMESBD.TTF label:"   " ^
-pointsize 18 -font TIMESBD.TTF label:"   " ^
-append %temp%\pcspace.png

convert ^
-pointsize 18 -font Times.TTF label:"   " ^
-pointsize 18 -font Times.TTF label:"%COMPUTERNAME%" ^
-pointsize 18 -font Times.TTF label:"Hewlett-Packard" ^
-pointsize 18 -font Times.TTF label:"HP Compaq 6910p" ^
-pointsize 18 -font Times.TTF label:"12345678" ^
-pointsize 18 -font Times.TTF label:"   " ^
-append %temp%\pcnobold.png


convert %temp%\pcspace.png %temp%\pcbold.png %temp%\pcspace.png %temp%\pcnobold.png %temp%\pcspace.png +append %temp%\pcall.png

 

gets an aligned (as near as I can tell) system info box - yay!

 

Now back to the feathering... Or, erm, maybe I should get back to fixing these 2 PCs that I'm meant to be doing