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I want to batch process images but I have a very specific task that I want to do

  1. I do not want to change image type
  2. I want to make them black and white
  3. I want it to create/preserve images and sub folder structure

I did this in Photoshop but it did not preserve folders and sub folder content it just threw every converted file in one directory.

My only hope is Linux :D

Thank you in advance!

You can see different discussion about this here but Basharat Sial worked for me

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2143992

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  • And the images are in which format: RAW, TIFF, JPEG? Please edit your question with the information.
    – user68186
    May 10, 2013 at 20:02
  • @levan Convert images in place or create a new directory structure? May 10, 2013 at 21:16
  • Do not quite understand what you mean what I want is this for example main folder "F1" contains 4 different sub folders "2003" "2004" "2005" and "2006" and all of this sub folders Constantine 100-120 files so what I want is the new black and white files have the same structure as they where I do not care if it will overwrite or create a new folder all I care is them to be black and white and be in the same folders as they were for example if williams 2003.png was in "2003" I want the new file to be in "2003" as well
    – Levan
    May 10, 2013 at 21:21

2 Answers 2

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We can use convert command to convert images to black & white:

convert -colorspace GRAY image.png b-w_image.png

Where image.png is the input image and b-w_image.png is output imgage.

Combining this command with find we can create a bash one liner to convert all the images found under parent directory.

How-to:
Open terminal by hitting Ctrl+Alt+T, cd to parent/main directory and run the following command:

for img in $(find . -iname '*.png'); do echo -n "Converting $img"; convert -colorspace GRAY $img $img && echo ' [Done]'; done

It will convert and overwrite all the images under parent directory. I will suggest to test it on some temporary images and if you're satisfied with the results than run it on actual images.

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  • I think I love you worked like a charm Thank you very much
    – Levan
    May 10, 2013 at 21:52
1

-monochrome is an option if you want binary black and white (1bit per pixel).

It uses some smart dithering and generates very visible output:

convert -monochrome in.png out.png

Before:

enter image description here

After:

enter image description here

To maintain directory structure, you will have to script it up as mentioned by Basharat.

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