Combine images side by side or grid

Hi,

Noob here. Does anyone know how to combine images (if possible)?

I’d like to have two images next to each other. I’m using for A and B comparisons of screenshots, typically.

Thanks in advance.

It’s possible!

The best way is to open up the bigger of the two images, and then use the File ▸ Add Images… menu item to add your second image to the canvas. Then increase the canvas size via the Image ▸ Resize Canvas… menu, and double the width. Move your second image over to the right and get it all lined up. You can then use the Image ▸ Trim to Edges… menu item to get rid of any extra space that might be around.

Hope that helps,

-gus

Thanks for the help. I was looking for an automated workflow, however.

I currently have something I’ve made with ImageMagick, but I’d rather have something more easily configurable with RetroBatch.

The one I made with ImageMagick takes two files from the desktop, a.png and b.png, and combine them into one image keeping aspect ratio.

Oh, sorry- I thought this was an Acorn question :slight_smile:

So I might have a solution with a new plugin api I’m working on, if you’re willing to be a little tester. It’s Thanksgiving right now, so I might not get to it till next week- but can you tell me a little more about the images? You mentioned aspect ratio- so they have varying heights? And how does your ImageMagick script work to decide which two images to mash together?

Oh, okay :slight_smile:

Sounds cool with a plugin. Would like to test that.

It’s barely a script, actually. It’s a command that takes images a.png and b.png from the desktop. It takes the height of the larger of the two and resizes the smaller one until it has the same height while keeping aspect ratio. It then combines the two, where it places a.png next to b.png. A on the left and B on the right.

The resizing part isn’t really necessary, actually. It could just as well fill it with transparent if PNG or white if JPG.

This iOS workflow/shortcut does something similar:
https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/9a1c4dee622e4de5a5a63960c0714c1b

OK, so here’s something to start with. First up, grab the latest version of Retrobatch from here:
http://flyingmeat.com/download/latest/#retrobatch

That’s build #611

Then, put the linked plugin in your ~/Library/Application Support/Retrobatch/Plug-Ins/ folder (you can also choose the Help ▸ Open Retrobatch’s App Support Folder menu). https://flyingmeat.com/stuff/TwoStitch.retrobatchplugin.zip

Then restart Retrobatch, and you should see a new plugin named “Two Stitch”. It combines every two images together. You can see the source for it here: Retrobatch-Samples/MyScript.js at master · ccgus/Retrobatch-Samples · GitHub , as well as opening up the plugin package and snooping around.

Let me know how it works out- I’m sure there’s something that’ll break…

-gus

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Thanks a lot! So far it’s working great. I have made a little Apple Script that I can run from Alfred.

Unlimited picture editing power with a couple of keyboard button presses. Awesome.

Some settings that would make it more awesome (but not need-to-have).

  • Being able to select number of images to be combined
  • Choosing to either “enlarge smallest image to fit while keeping aspect ratio on [width or heigth]” or “fill space with blank if images are not same size”

Those are some good ideas. I’ll have to see about adding them, and then maybe even make it a built in node some day once it’s all fleshed out.

TwoStitch.retrobatchplugin.zip

Cool plugin - very useful.

Have any others been released?

Not yet, it’s something I’m working on for 1.2- it’s still in the incubation stage.

There is now an ‘Image Grid’ node available. It places images into a grid with options to set the number of images going across, down, and the spacing vertically and horizontally between images.

Earlier this year I put together a script to do exactly this. I’ve been meaning to try out the Retrobatch approach since it released.

My script did one thing I think might be a useful addition to Retrobatch’s function — it tries to generate the grid with a 16:9 aspect ratio. The reason for that is I literally want contact sheets to look at folders of large images and I have a 16:9 screen, so that makes sense to get all of the images on screen at the largest size possible. The calculations are pretty simple so it shouldn’t be a stretch to offer any aspect ratio to the user.

Details of my solution are at the link below.

https://techth.ink/index.php/2019/generating-contact-sheets-on-macos/