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Sorting Desktop Graphics Files


Glenn9999

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I'm not sure if this would be a good topic for here or another place such as Desktop Screenshots, but I wanted to get some discussion on something.

I have a number of graphics files intended to be desktop backgrounds (1800 right now to be precise) that I'm trying to sort out based on quality and other factors and burn to disk. Now I figure one can apply certain standards to those as to figure out what is crap and what isn't and what is best used for each kind of thing.

My first thought in having that many is to create a program to sort these files based on certain criteria. I can get some numerical tests out of the file resolutions, but the main issue is knowing what is best.

1. In sorting by resolution, I've found there really isn't anything consistent = in one case, I had sorted files of 1600x about 20 other widths. So the question in having so many file resolutions (I ended up with about 100) becomes how do you generically group up files? I can assume higher resolutions are better than lower in files that aren't meant to be textured. Where would you set the lines (i.e. less than xxxx is low-res, etc)? What resolution is too low to keep around (i.e. crap), and how is this determined? What becomes high resolution, or otherwise? Basically, I'm asking if there's a good way to group these up.

2. Then, there's the issue of aspect ratio. I can divide width by height and get an aspect ratio value, representative of whether it's more a full screen image, wide screen image, or the like. But again, I get a multitude of these and nothing uniform. I know 1.33333333333 is strict full-screen and 1.6 or so is strict wide-screen, but is there a good variance that's acceptable without too much stretching or the like? Can one block out wide-screen images on a full-screen monitor and make them okay? Or a fullscreen onto a widescreen? Is there anything different for other devices? I know I've got a few double-width files, I presume are for double-monitor situations? Then some weird half-width ones. Are those for mobile devices?

I guess where I'm at is that I'm not really sure what's the best way to handle this and am looking for some advice on how to sort images so as to identify the device they'd best fit on and identify what is good to keep and what is crap. Or am I just overthinking it? So, any ideas?

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Even if your adopted naming convention has the H x W as part of the file

name, it may be worth preceding that with a 'p' for portrait, a say 'c' for

landscape and a say 'e' for either... any screen with Whistlers' mother

rocking on her back will look fairly strange, but a carpet of daisy's is

unremarkable in pretty much any orientation you view them...

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Even if your adopted naming convention has the H x W as part of the file

name, it may be worth preceding that with a 'p' for portrait, a say 'c' for

landscape and a say 'e' for either...

I've already visually verified all of them as I've collected them. Basically the issue is more organization than anything else. I got the before mentioned program functional enough that it does the job if I pump the constants in such as directories and the like and fudge things enough to handle pixel size differences. Mainly the issue seems to be more taxonomy of size - I got the program to successfully identify 16x9 suitable pictures versus 4x3 (and even group off the oddball sizes for further review). There wasn't very many oddball sized pics, so #2 seems solved.

Mainly the question left is taxonomy regarding size: 640x480 is obviously crap if it can't be tiled, so probably should delete those? What's the low water mark for most people when it comes to desktop images? I guess whatever the common monitor size is right now? What point becomes hi-res/hi-quality? Anything 1080p (1920x1080) or greater?

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... I got the before mentioned program functional enough that it does the job if I pump the constants in such as directories and the like and fudge things enough to handle pixel size differences. Mainly the issue seems to be more taxonomy of size - I got the program to successfully identify 16x9 suitable pictures versus 4x3 (and even group off the oddball sizes for further review).

What is this "program" that you used to sort your images?

Cheers and Regards

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What is this "program" that you used to sort your images?

A custom one (unreleased) I wrote for the job (more or less, because I don't know scripting too well, but there you go). As I wrote in the first post:

My first thought in having that many is to create a program to sort these files based on certain criteria.

Basically, load up JPG into graphics object to find out dimensions, do calc to find aspect ratio, then copy/move file to appropriate output folder. Of course, it's not very polished. This thread is asking about taxonomy (can pick a value and call it HQ, but not really *sure*), mainly what rules it should use, because I'm not too sure of what is universal. Of course, I can make it cut off a "quality line" at whatever I want, but I'm looking for an opinion as to what "high-quality" image resolution is these days.

The main reason why it exists is mainly trying to cut out a good amount of the grunt work in Explorer of going through these 1800 files and sorting them like I want.

Edited by Glenn9999
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Well, the definition of HQ obviously changes over time. At one time, 640x480 was HQ for computer use, and 4K images are coming soon, so it really seems rather arbitrary. Today, video seems to be considered as HQ if it is 720p or larger, so you could go with that definition. It might also depend on the purpose you have for the image and the actual subject matter and quality of the image, not just on the dimensions. For images intended for computer desktop wallpaper, I've seen some images that can be "stretched" to fit and still seem to look very nice, while others start looking distorted or blurry if displayed at anything but the actual dimensions. Some smaller images are great to use "tiled", and others could be used for cellphone wallpaper.

Windows explorer and similar software can sort images by dimensions without using any extra "program", but sorting by aspect ratio is more difficult. I would think there are other programs out there that can do that, but I've not looked for one. Good job on "rolling your own". :)

Other than sorting by size, you might also consider sorting by subject matter, (seascapes, mountains, lakes, forest, space, architecture, fantasy, movies, cars, people, animals, etc), basic color, or whatever. Being able to sort in multiple ways, including size, would depend on each image being properly tagged, which will take you awhile if they are not tagged already, then using software that can sort via those tags.

Good luck in your quest.

Cheers and Regards

Edited by bphlpt
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For images intended for computer desktop wallpaper, I've seen some images that can be "stretched" to fit and still seem to look very nice, while others start looking distorted or blurry if displayed at anything but the actual dimensions. Some smaller images are great to use "tiled", and others could be used for cellphone wallpaper.

Yeah, or another one of my questions with the program - I found out pretty quickly as in #1 that there are very few *strict* 4x3, 16x9, 16x10 files, so I had to make it sort in a more "fuzzy" way (i.e. 4x3 plus or minus a certain value). The "certain value" is a difficult one, too, as it's hard to tell how many pixels off you can get before the picture begins to distort. Of course, I think I found the right value that sorts most of the files into those bins but punts the oddball aspect ratios to another place to be manually reviewed, as I tested some of the outer cases. Things that require visual judgments get hard.

Windows explorer and similar software can sort images by dimensions without using any extra "program", but sorting by aspect ratio is more difficult. I would think there are other programs out there that can do that, but I've not looked for one. Good job on "rolling your own". :)

There are, but I find it easier to just take off and do it than search sometimes, especially if I have most of the code already lined out from other projects. Of course, there's harder tasks that I don't get the time to, where I eventually just stumble across a program (last being id3v1 to id3v2 copy on MP3 files, or actual image duplicate checking). Sorting by resolution is easy in Explorer, so I probably won't bother with this program, but it wouldn't be too hard outside of working out what the "bins" should be in that case.

Sorting by subject matter will be much easier, too, with smaller groups of "like" images.

Edited by Glenn9999
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  • 5 months later...

However since you have programmer powers, there should be no problem in batch converting the files then comparing size value of the file itself. The easiet thing to do, is take the files and say "if FILE > then X = new location, if FILE < then X size, then file goes into this folder. This way, the wallpapers would be divided among a group of folders by file size, and not by resolution, which is more quicker. I could assume the files that are a bigger resolution all have bigger sizes, unless they are different image types, like ART, GIF. If that is a problem, and you are using these files for wallpapers, you would batch convert all the files before doing an comparison in size.

Otherwise it is wall papers, and should not really care about how you organize it. What I do, is that I dump all my projects into one folder, then use the desktop as...........my desktop, and repeat, until time passes.

Edited by ROTS
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  • 1 year later...

Windows explorer and similar software can sort images by dimensions without using any extra "program", but sorting by aspect ratio is more difficult.  I would think there are other programs out there that can do that, but I've not looked for one.  Good job on "rolling your own". :)

 

 

I recently had occasion to polish this program up (add some more variabiltiy rather than constants, and add file conversion capabillity).  I can share, if someone feels like playing with it.  Of course, if the demand's there for this kind of thing, that'll make it real good to release.

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  • 2 months later...

Glen..........it really depends on the usage of the files itself, on why you need to sort them. If you have duplicates, just dump the dupes, unless they serve a purpose. I sort things based on topic/genre, change in trends, or something along those lines, and then go up from there. Like would you put Clay items with plastic print outs? It really depends. It depends on the job on hand.

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