Phatch (PHoto & bATCH) is a

raster graphics editor A raster graphics editor is a computer program that allows users to create and edit images interactively on the computer screen and save them in one of many raster graphics file formats (also known as bitmap images) such as JPEG, PNG, and GIF. ...

used to batch process digital graphics and photographs. Phatch can be used on the desktop as a GUI program or on the server as a console program.

Operation

Typical actions include resizing, rotating, cropping, converting, applying shadows, rounded corners, perspective, reflection, and converting between different image formats. Phatch can also be used to rename or copy image files based on the

Exif Exchangeable image file format (officially Exif, according to JEIDA/JEITA/CIPA specifications) is a standard that specifies formats for images, sound, and ancillary tags used by digital cameras (including smartphones), scanners and other syste ...

IPTC Information Interchange Model The Information Interchange Model (IIM) is a file structure and set of metadata attributes that can be applied to text, images and other media types. It was developed in the early 1990s by the International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC) ...

tags. The image inspector can be used to explore the metadata tags stored in images. The tabs can be passed to any action, which is especially useful for renaming or copying files, but also for data-stamping such as date, time, aperture or shutter speed on the picture. Multiple inspectors can be opened at once to compare tag values with a preview of the image. Phatch can turn itself into a droplet which stays a small graphic on top of the other windows. It processes any images which are dragged and dropped on it. Phatch has a built in interactive Python console to explore the internals of the program.

Development

Phatch is being developed on Linux (Ubuntu) by

Stani Michiels Stani Michiels is a visual artist, architect, and coin designer who was born in 1973 in Geel (Belgium). He lives and works in the Netherlands (Amsterdam). Michiels has a master's degree in architecture from the Catholic University of Leuven (1991� ...

. The logo, mascot and some icons are designed by Admiror Design Studio. The other icons are taken from the Open Clip Art Library. The image processing of Phatch is done with the Python Imaging Library. Phatch uses Bazaar in combination with Launchpad for coordinating its development and translations. Phatch has a Python (

wxPython wxPython is a wrapper for the cross-platform GUI API (often referred to as a "toolkit") wxWidgets (which is written in C++) for the Python programming language. It is one of the alternatives to Tkinter. It is implemented as a Python extension ...

) API and is extensible through Python.

Limitations

Phatch does not provide a live preview of the image manipulation and has no built in support for remote file systems. Although Phatch runs from source on Windows and Mac OS X, there are no final binary installers available for these platforms, although a pre-release binary installer for OS X was made available by the developers in May 2010.

Distribution

The source code of Phatch is released on its homepage. Binary packages are available in the repositories of the major

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which i ...

distributions such as

Debian Debian (), also known as Debian GNU/Linux, is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software, developed by the community-supported Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. The first version of De ...

Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in three editions: '' Desktop'', '' Server'', and ''Core'' for Internet of things devices and robots. All th ...

ArchLinux Arch Linux () is an independently developed, x86-64 general-purpose Linux distribution that strives to provide the latest stable versions of most software by following a rolling-release model. The default installation is a minimal base system, ...

Fedora A fedora () is a hat with a soft brim and indented crown.Kilgour, Ruth Edwards (1958). ''A Pageant of Hats Ancient and Modern''. R. M. McBride Company. It is typically creased lengthwise down the crown and "pinched" near the front on both sides ...

and

OpenSuse openSUSE () is a free and open source RPM-based Linux distribution developed by the openSUSE project. The initial release of the community project was a beta version of SUSE Linux 10.0. Additionally the project creates a variety of tools, s ...

. Phatch requires Python, Python Imaging Library and

(2.6 or more) for the GUI. Users can install pyexiv2 for better Exif and IPTC IIM support. Currently the website is down and Phatch is no longer downloadable along with python dependencies for Phatch.

Critical reception

Softpedia Softpedia is a software and tech news website based in Romania. It indexes, reviews and hosts various downloadable software and reports news on technology and science topics. Website Softpedia hosts reviews written by its staff—each review in ...

's editor's review of Phatch 0.0.bzr157 overall awarded 4 stars, highlighting the clean and simple interface, program stability, and batch processing actions. Allowing the user to use Python to create additional batch process was also seen as an advantage over similar products. Criticisms included the lack of a help file or preferences menu. Some processes such as "Convert Mode" caused errors that were not reported to the error log. It was the opinion of

Linux Pratique Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which inc ...

magazine that Phatch 0.1.3 filled the gap between

GIMP GIMP ( ; GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a free and open-source raster graphics editor used for image manipulation (retouching) and image editing, free-form drawing, transcoding between different image file formats, and more specialized ...

and

Imagemagick ImageMagick, invoked from the command line as magick, is a free and open-source cross-platform software suite for displaying, creating, converting, modifying, and editing raster images. Created in 1987 by John Cristy, it can read and write ove ...

, with a user-friendly interface saving a lot of time for batch processing. Overall it was felt that it offered fewer features than these two programs. Phatch 0.1.6 was featured together with GIMP on the front page of

Linux+ The Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) is an American non-profit trade association that issues professional certifications for the information technology (IT) industry. It is considered one of the IT industry's top trade associa ...

magazine, May 2009.

References

External links

* {{Raster graphics editors Free software programmed in Python Free raster graphics editors Free photo software Raster graphics editors for Linux Digital photography IRIX software Macintosh graphics software MacOS graphics software Windows graphics-related software Software that uses wxPython