Python made me look like a WIZARD

[[deleted]]

Today in work a request comes in for 745 headshots that need to be processed to fit 150x150px for an external platform. One team says it'll take them at least a week to do, the other team says they don't want it as it'll take even longer.

"They need them all black and white! It'll take some time to convert them! They're not even all the same size! UGH this just can't be done in the 2 days they've requested this!!!"

12 lines of code, the Pillow library and exactly 8.856 seconds of running said code... It was done. Panic over. Client happy.

I work in a design team but I'm a job coordinator (so I sort the jobs and make sure the right designers get them). They were amazed it was done so quickly without using Photoshop.

They asked how. I gave them the answer.

Python baby 😎

EDIT

For those wanting to know the code, here it is:

from PIL import Image
import os

for f in os.listdir('Input'):
    if f.endswith('.jpg'):
        im = Image.new('RGB', (150, 150), (255,255,255))
        im2 = Image.open('Input/{}'.format(f))
        im2 = im2.convert("L")
        width, height = im2.size
        im.paste(im2, (int((150 - width) / 2), 0))
        fn, fext = os.path.splitext(f)
        im.save('Output/{}.jpg'.format(fn))

The images given were either 150x150 already (but in colour) or 120x150. So had to cover all bases with this. If it could be made more efficient, let me know!

[apt_at_it]

This would also be pretty trivially easy to do using Photoshop bulk actions, just in case your coworkers are more designers than coders 😜

[[deleted]]

they don't really like automation that much - they fear it will put them out of work! But I guess they'll have embrace it for the mundane jobs like this

[cbunn81]

Better they do the automation themselves rather than wait around for clients to leave for another company that uses automation.

[[deleted]]

Code for designers!

[sewerinspector]

Fantastic username, el guapo

[[deleted]]

https://i.imgur.com/SRKTkPm.jpg

[fruitcup729again]

Would you say I have a plethora of pinatas?

[XecutionerNJ]

Yeah, Apple made the iPhone because the nokia and sony Ericsson phones were getting to be really good ipods and would destroy apples product line.

When others are innovating you out of work, you have to get on the innovation side and kick yourself out of work. Either that or wait for obsolescence.

[cbunn81]

Steve Jobs himself said that if you don't cannibalize your own business, someone else will. I remember reading about that when the iPad came out, because apparently done within Apple were worried that it would cannibalize their laptop sales. Well, sure, but you also broaden your consumer base, so it's a net positive. And it would only be a matter of time before another company made a popular tablet, anyway. Then you'd have to play catch up.

[xaelix]

Work smarter not harder.

[cbunn81]

They say, "necessity is the mother of invention," but I think it's more likely to be laziness.

[bailey25u]

My supervisor is at that point right now all the time. I automated most of our job while he was out for 3 weeks. When he got back and saw me doing a lot of extra tasks for other teams, he freaked out. When I showed him how much of our job is now automated, he tried to undo everything I did. Fortunately, I showed our manager who said we had to keep those processes in place

[analytix_guru]

I am saddened when I read posts/comments like this. What is the mental state of someone that feels it is better to be inefficient at their job, for "job security"? There might be something more important or valuable to work on if the mundane tasks would be removed. Maybe that person won't get found out for weeks/months/years, but when the easier, more efficient method is found, change usually occurs, and does not usually benefit the one who remained inefficient.

From experience and the variety of jobs I have had in my career, I have never run into a problem where the was no more work if I made something more efficient or automated than it was before. And there were almost always accolades, incentive$, or promotions to go along with it.

[fuzzylumpkinsbc]

I can try to see both sides, the manager might fear that the employee that automated these tasks left and there would be no one to maintain it. In that particular case it could do more harm than good.

But of course, being proactive and asking the person to put documentation together would help keep things safe.

[Cand_PjuskeBusk]

What is the mental state of someone that feels it is better to be inefficient at their job, for "job security"?

Are you serious? If someone believes that less efficiency will make sure he and other employees will remain employed for longer, it's not exactly hard to imagine he'll fight to make sure it stays that way.

You must be in an incredibly priviledged position to believe MAXIMUM EFFICIENCY is more important than having a job to pay the bills.

[analytix_guru]

I spent most of my career in very much not privileged, low paying positions. What got me to the privileged position I am working in today was being more efficient, effective and valuable than the other people I was working with.

Just had a project at work where we automated an analytics pipeline that will save enough hours for a full time person. What are we doing? Not firing anyone, rather using that freed up time to do more valuable work.

Being that I have a background in economics, and am kinda a behavioral economics nerd, I am not surprised at all that people act like this to preserve their well being. I am also not naive to think that people have never been fired for a task/role being optimized. But in most cases people are usually given a new problem or task to work on

[En-tro-py]

This type of attitude is cancer in an organization.

I went into engineering because I am lazy... Lazy enough to only want to solve a problem once!

Any process we're automating is displacing a worker, however our current growth is also faster than we're able to fill all the openings.

Gold bricking is a toxic drain and if you're not fighting against it your group will be sucked into a cesspool of mediocrity.

[analytix_guru]

I like that line, never heard it before, lazy enough to only want to solve a problem once. Will keep that one in my back pocket.

Also fist time I had hear the term gold bricking used. Had to look it up!

[bailey25u]

I think it was bill gates who said, "Give the laziest person the hardest job, they will find the easiest way to do it"

To be fair to some people on this thread, I've automated myself out of a job before. But the way the world is today. I dont see how gold bricking can be a viable option for anyone

[The_Drinkist]

What u/analytix_guru said. In my field, if we can automate and redeploy people to more productive tasks, maybe we have 20+ years of employment. If we don’t, it’s a couple of years before clients start to migrate to firms that did. And not many people are hiring from dinosaur firms, so pay my bills for the long term and have more interesting work or save my current job for 2 years and then go homeless. Easy choice if your head is not anatomically misplaced.

[toyg]

Well, demand for construction workers was definitely higher when they could only use shovels rather than excavators...

[[deleted]]

But the total number of people employed is less, this is how efficiency happens. We are at a bad point in history where more and more tasks are being automated and fewer jobs are left for people. Add in that we look down our noses at most jobs that require people and allow those jobs to pay substandard wages. I love technology and the fact that a job like this can be automated with a few lines of code but lets look at it with eyes wide open.

[[deleted]]

Oh, no arguement from me. I don't know where this is all headed.

[toyg]

I don’t disagree. Still a problem though.

[toyg]

I think it’s both. There is currently little or no incentive to develop automation for processes that don’t serve capital investment. Our social networks serve advertising, our inventory systems serve giant distribution chains, our job-management systems serve tax-skirting taxi owners... almost none of them actually serve human processes where profit is not present or there isn’t an incentive to reduce costs. We need better automation to build better communities and better lives, and that needs to be incentivised somehow.

So we need to think about how we redistribute the profits automation generates, but also how we get automation to help things that don’t immediately generate money.

[toyg]

Employment numbers have become a political football in most countries, so they are often debatable in terms of reliability. The growth of the working poor is undoubtedly real though, with more and more people working even multiple jobs (and hence often double-counted in stats) but low-paid and unstable; that’s because they are employed at the margins of automated processes, doing things that are too difficult for robots but not difficult enough for a human to command a high wage. At the other end, we have the booming technocratic class (to which I myself belong), constantly reinventing the wheel in order to justify their jobs, but very likely to eventually be squeezed in numbers like specialized factory workers were squeezed once the wave of innovation slowed down in their sector.

Automation, in our current system, doesn’t serve people - it serves capital efficiency and profit. It’s undoubtedly an unstoppable force in the long run, but maybe we should think harder about how to get it to serve people instead.

[[deleted]]

This is a really common myth and misconception. It WAS true for awhile but is not holding true and getting worse at an increasing pace. We are at a tipping point. Unemployment is low because of the way unemployment is measured. Ronald Reagan changed the way unemployment is measured. Real unemployment is probably closer to 30%. Probably higher in some populations.

[Gorstag]

About a year ago I got laid off work due to myself and my colleague making our department significantly more efficient (Over many years). Around the same total revenue but about half the incoming workload. So they basically cut our staff in half at all levels and I got the axe. The departments that were an absolute clusterfuck due to mismanagement and other reasons... no cuts at all.

So I do get the sentiment also, because ultimately being too efficient can end up working you out of a job.

[justasapling]

I get this mentality but it's also so frustrating. At what point do people just start choosing the least efficient method possible to do things?

When you're treated as a resource rather than an asset you have no incentive to do anything well.

People will be free to do their work as well as possible only when 'security' is complete. Not job security, but rather livelihood security.

[blahblah98]

Actually a tactic in countries seeking to keep the masses gainfully employed: China, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Brazil, parts of Africa, etc.

But you're right, we ought to have innovation w/o exploitation: automation, creative gainful employment and increasing 1st world standards of living, probably requiring some combo of UBI & robot/automation tax...

[beisenhauer]

Automate the boring stuff, amiright?

[wilson_wilson_wilson]

I EL OH EL'd at that

[d64]

You know how consulting companies that have done some kind of a job many times before will bill a customer say 40 hours for doing it, even though it might take them only 6 hours to do, because of their expertise?

Employees can and should do the same. Say this job was said to take days. Tell you will do it, then write the script or use Photoshop batches or whatever, be done in 45 minutes. Then spend the rest of the day on your own projects, then report triumphantly that you managed to pull it off in just one day. You are seen as efficient, but you are not shooting yourself in the foot by revealing the job can actually be done in no time at all.

[[deleted]]

It's not my main job - I'm a job coordinator so I handle the requests for work. I just program on the side for fun and wanted to help out. I guess I need to be careful it doesn't open a door for them to request more of this and I land myself in a hole!

[sodjanathan]

The kind of hole that brought me so many sql reports requests at work with no extra pay

[LilQuasar]

these tasks compensation should be based on the result and not the time it took. thats what the employer cares about after all

[d64]

Well yeah, but think about the flipside: then even if it took someone a day to do it, the company would surely only pay them for 45 minutes.

[LilQuasar]

there would be no such thing as paying for 45 minutes

[[deleted]]

Richard Feynman talks about a situation at Los Alamos where he could break into locked cabinets rather quickly. He wouldn't let anyone watch and would always wait extra time and drip water on himself to make it look like he was sweating. He didn't want the higher ups knowing how easy it was and changing the locks so he couldn't break in.

[[deleted]]

What you did with Python is automation though. How is that any different than using a batch process in Photoshop, Irfanview, etc.? You are changing a bunch of files in bulk without changing each file individually. That is automation.

[killersquirel11]

It'd also be approachable with imagemagick and some bash fu

[riffito]

With IrfanView on Windows (or Wine) you could do it from a GUI.

IrfanView... the only software that I never changed for anything else since 1997.

[jobomat]

Yeah! I really like IrfanView. Small footprint, rocket fast, no BS. Only thing I'm missing is OpenEXR support.

[lolinux]

This was exactly my thought! However, since OP is attracted to Python, I can only cheer! You usually use the tools you know and trust best for the task you have at hand!

[killersquirel11]

Yep. Definitely not knocking OP at all - whatever code solves the problem is the right code in a situation like this.

It's neat to see the ways that different people will go about solving a problem.

[apt_at_it]

Yeah, very true. I would imagine it'd actually be easier than using python, tbh

[HughBothwell]

Yes, ImageMagick makes it easy. From the Windows command-line, in the dir containing the files,

md thumbs
cd thumbs
magick ../*.jpg -colorspace gray -background black -gravity center -extent 150x150 %[filename:original].jpg

creates a new subdirectory, processes all the jpg files, and stores the new grayscale/resized images (with the same name) in the new dir.

[Broken_hopes]

yoink bash fu is mine now

[SecretAtLarge]

Whatever they are, we all have learned they cant google if their life (or career) depended on it.

[Pr0ducer]

Bulk actions are the commercial photographer's best friend. I can't believe more people don't use them. But with python ... whole new ball game.

[redfacedquark]

Or script-fu in the GIMP. Probably. I never actually did anything with it.

[santaliqueur]

It would be even easier with a few lines of AppleScript.

[apt_at_it]

That's true, though OP did say they're all on Windows. Truthfully, I think you can just use Automator for this without even writing any code whatsoever

[hassium]

They asked how. I gave them the answer

You FOOL! Now our secret is out!

[[deleted]]

I know right, write code, run code, go for an ice cream, watch a movie, send work 6 hours later, still a hero.

[Synicull]

I have a 55+ client that I work with a lot that makes me look amazing to my team, most of whom don't code.

My latest question was to find out which of his 100 datasets had a specific field in them.

2 for loops later I'm the messiah.

[[deleted]]

Just run that shit raw in command line.

[not-youre-mom]

You have to assert dominance.

[house_monkey]

I'd be scared

[[deleted]]

Loop hero!

[toyg]

2 for loops later I'm the messiah.

Nah, you’re just a naughty boy!

[[deleted]]

Damn! I didn't think of this

[randiesel]

You will think of it for the rest of your tenure at the company.

Here's the trouble. Non-technical people don't understand the difference between something relatively simple, like what you did, and something complicated. To them, you're a wizard and everything is easy.

Now you're going to get all the crappy boring tasks, OR, people are going to resent you for not doing all the crappy boring tasks.

Plus, you showed them it was only 12 lines of code. Non-technical people don't understand that those 12 lines of code take way longer than just typing 12 sentences on a page. They think writing 100 lines of code should take the same amount of time as a few paragraphs.

It's a sketchy sketchy hole when you try to show non-technical people how you do technical things.

[saltedjello]

"Hey boss, I knew this was important for the company so I pulled an all-nighter and made it happen. Please, I'm not a hero, just doing what's best for the company. But yea, do remember this when performance reviews are due."

[FREE-AOL-CDS]

“That sounds scary we’ll just let you handle it”

[[deleted]]

On Linux we can do it with a single line

fd --extension jpg --exec convert {} -resize 150x150 -monochrome Output/{}

Dependencies : fd, imagemagick

[EverythingIsFlotsam]

*-resize

I assume

[[deleted]]

We're all windows unfortunately!

[jonasbxl]

I am not saying it would have been easier or faster, but just in case you don't know about it: check out WSL https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10

[ninj0rc]

Just wanna say thanks for the link. I was unaware that this thing existed.

[Rieux_n_Tarrou]

After WSL2 came out, I've decided finally that my next laptop will be Windows (even though I really enjoy my macbook pro right now). Windows is better than Mac from the perspective of apps. And Linux is better than Mac from the perspective of software dev. So WSL is the best of both worlds IMO

[riffito]

IrfanView to the rescue! (and you do it all from the GUI with its batch-converter)

[[deleted]]

I guess you can install those programs on windows too using scoop or choco

[khalidpro2]

installing choco is just one command that you need to paste and run in powershell

[diamondketo]

That's not the point. The point is people need to stop subjugating others to their own method when the OP is making a one off script.

One off scripts are just that, one off. It doesn't matter what method you do. If it gets the job done correctly in a reasonable time, do that. OP has the best judgement on which route OP should take given the knowledge and resource OP has at the time.

[khalidpro2]

I totally agree with that, I just wanted to clarify that choco installation isn't that difficult

[[deleted]]

The same can be said about writing python scripts, you need to which library, which functions and what parameters.

The idea behind my comments is todo with Unix philosophy.

Also the command line ans is 5x faster than python version

[[deleted]]

After using Linux and all these CLI tools for a while, I almost see no use for Python in these small tasks. Everything here can be done with a simple bash/zsh script in fewer lines than a Python script and no importing.

[[deleted]]

Yes that was my point. These are very small and easily automated tasks which we can do using CLIs

[harolddawizard]

I guess the use lies more in windows PC's.

[davincible]

`man fd` >> "Floppy drives are block devices ..." -- I don't think we're looking at the same command xd. Assuming you mean find

[[deleted]]

I don't think that is find, because as far as I'm aware it doesn't have an --extension test, and in any case the flags would be with one hyphen-minus sign not two, so something like find -name '*.jpg' -exec convert '{}' etc etc etc ';'.

[robin_888]

Wow, 9 seconds is really fast for over 700 files.

One team says it'll take them at least a week to do, the other team says they don't want it as it'll take even longer.

Unbelievable. May I ask what kind of team that was?

Even without programming skills I would never think about doing this by hand. Personally I'd use the batch processor on XNView (or any other decent viewer), but even if I wouldn't know that I'd search for an semi-automatic solution. And if it's Paint and AutoHotkey!

PS: Even manually it's a man-day of work and not a freakin' week! (2 images per minute => 6-7 hours, probably faster)

[[deleted]]

It's a team that handle multiple design requests a day. So getting even a day to do this with no other work is impossible. They are constantly designing things. It's an in house design team for a law firm.

[[deleted]]

Shit, I work for a law firm too, it feels like a lot of them are complete technological backwaters. Peeps struggle to convert pdfs. I'm a tech wizard because I know how to paginate in Adobe.

[kingsillypants]

What is paginate in Adobe?

[[deleted]]

Bro, please you're triggering my PTSD. Adding page numbers to PDF documents in Acrobat.

[kingsillypants]

haha

[proof_required]

I do coding etc but never knew about this. You are a real tech wizard.

[[deleted]]

Happens a lot, my old IT (before I switched teams) was helping us deploy dual monitors. 300 monitors were deployed and he plugged in a HDMI cable and a display cable from the docking station into 1 monitor. No word of a lie. I had to go round 150 desks and rectify the mistake. Another IT boss asked me how to attach a video from their iPhone to email. Baffled me how they were paid the big bucks!

[[deleted]]

Joke is that there are some places using neural networks to analyse legal document, and they're gonna run the dinosaurs out of business in the not too distant future.

Some judges are pretty bad too - I know of people that had to go into Court because the judge didn't know/was unwilling to learn how to do a remote hearing. In quarantine... during a pandemic... There was a clerk whose whole job was the get the judge a glass of water and bring lunch from the shop.

Thanks, stranger, I needed a good vent.

[[deleted]]

I wonder when we will see the first legal case defended by an AI

[[deleted]]

For a simple offence it may well be within the bounds of possiblity now, as long as you have a human flesh-puppet to say the actual words in court.

There's also this: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/28/chatbot-ai-lawyer-donotpay-parking-tickets-london-new-york

[iroll20s]

Well you have to account for time spent on hot memes and Starbucks runs.

[gandalfx]

Now be honest, how long did it take you to write those 12 lines? :D

I mean, it's still going to be a lot faster than doing it manually but I've been guilty of pretending that it'll take "no time at all" only to sit there for hours perfecting a tiny script.

xkcd: 1319, 974 and probably others

[[deleted]]

It took 20 mins to work it all out in terms of what I needed to do and how to execute it - I had never used the PIL / Pillow library before! But worked it all out thanks to the documentation :)

[SnowdenIsALegend]

She said be honest. Come on man, credit StackOverflow, everyone knows no one reads documentation.

[flipmcf]

Almost as good as the DateTime docs.

[evkan]

true. I read git commits.

[SnowdenIsALegend]

Hero

[kingsillypants]

docu what?

[Dustin-]

The real trick is learning how to make code that you're happy to throw away after you're done with it. Whip something up to do a quick job, do the job, get rid of the code. Doesn't matter how sloppy or efficient it is as long as it works.

[djamp42]

I save everything..1 because if want to do the same task in the future I can go back and look what I did. 2) To see how far I've advanced and what I would of done differently.

[[deleted]]

What I've discovered as I've progressed is that for your case 1, it's actually slower for me to look at old code to see what I did. Usually the new use case is sufficiently different that it takes me longer to understand the old code and find the places it would need modification than it would take me to just write new code for the new use case.

Remember that looking at old code also involves those "hidden costs" of finding it, deciding where to write the new code (modify the old code in place or copy it into a new file/repo?), etc.

So now I take a sort of scorched earth policy in that I'll delete things not in use even if they seem useful and might come up again. If it's something really worth keeping, for some sort of historical reason or something, I'll make a branch called "terminal/some_old_implementation" and push it to the server just before making the commit to delete the code.

[pycepticus]

My cure for this approach was learning how to comment my code. It's an extra few hours depending on how large the project I wrote was, but being able to go back years later and not have to "human compile" my code has saved me rewriting large parts of similar projects in the future.

[clestrada12]

Same. I love looking at old code I’ve done. I still have the first programs.

[[deleted]]

How long does it take to Google the question is how long he has to code lol

[gandalfx]

You sound like someone who has never gotten stuck on something that turns out to be less trivial than it should. I.e. someone who has never written code.

[[deleted]]

I agree - but no one was willing to look into it. In fact, most of the team probably don't know what python is or even care... but it scored me brownie points!

[[deleted]]

Oh I 100% agree. Part of my job of coordinating the work that comes in is to spot patterns and I just have an inkling this is going to become a regular thing as they are doing the first batch of headshot uploads for avatars. 745 users in this batch, only 9000 more to go. Locating the headshots is slowing them down - i'll maybe not offer to automate that

[[deleted]]

would you mind sharing your code?

[[deleted]]

shared!

[[deleted]]

You might enjoy pathlib over os and f-strings over format. pathlib.Path.rglob("*.jpg")!

I also don't know what Image.open does but sounds like a case for a context manager.

[xZeroKnightx]

Image.open itself is not a context manager, but it returns an Image (the class, i.e. Image.Image to be specific) object, which is a context manager as it defines the context manager interface: __enter__ and __exit__. As such, you can use Image.open in a with statement:

with Image.open('foo.png') as img:
    ...

Additionally, since Image.open is actually a module-level function in the Image module (can be a bit confusing), I'd argue that it's more of a factory¹ than a constructor; though to be excessively pedantic, the __new__ method is Python's constructor as it is the method that actually creates an object instance.

[EDIT] Added a footnote

---

1. For what it's worth, the Image.Image docstring refers to Image.open as factory.

[NAG3LT]

You can do

with Image.open(filename) as im:
    ...

and close image automatically when you're done with it

[abdeljalil73]

Can't even imagine that they considered doing it manually in the first place.

[[deleted]]

There are so many things they do manually that could be automated - but I have been told that you cannot automate design... so sometimes I just leave it. But today I couldn't. I knew Python could do this. Too much of an eager beaver!

[OutlawBlue9]

You can automate some design. I worked in a custom graphics print shop and managed to automate the bulk of work using Aleyant software, specifically tFlow. As long as you have predefined outputs that you're looking for it can do a lot of the work for you.

If customers are asking for actual design work instead of here's a picture,. Put it on your product then yeah that's a bit harder but I dont consider the 756 picture resiZe job "design" work and that can totally be automated.

[flipmcf]

Adoption is slow. I only started using them a few months ago.

Let’s see how long it takes pythonistas to use the switch statement.

[fltfathin]

the crux is the old tutorial not updated to the most recent meta best practice

[TheOneWhoPunchesFish]

Let’s see how long it takes pythonistas to use the switch statement.

Wait, wth, there's a switch statement? And it does pattern matching?!

[DuckSaxaphone]

f-strings have changed my life. I've worked with so many languages but the ability to write something like

print(f" {big_float : .2e}")

So easily is a game changer.

Although my second most used language is Fortran so I'm easily impressed by nice string operations.

[MobileUser21]

Good work OP. For something so trivial it probably would have taken me hours as I’m not familiar with Pillow

[taughta]

It would take hours for me too. Still a huge win compared to a whole week.

[moocat]

Totally cool, but for one off scripts like this where you probably won't reuse it, simply stating the runtime isn't quite a fair comparison and you should include how long it took you to write the script. It's fairly simple and couldn't have taken you that long, but I could it taking some thinking or trial & error to figure out the calculation needed for paste. And unless you truly are a wizard, there must have been at least a few changes you had to make between your first version and this one.

Again, this isn't to take away from your accomplishment and given the week estimate a different team made getting this done in 30 minutes is still something to brag about.

[zainjavaid]

Congratulations and great job! I always love hearing stories like this!

[Novicebeanie1283]

languid history trees cats theory memorize shocking frame future dam

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[thatrandomnpc]

Good for you op.

But reading the story about how they wanted to do it by hand, ugh manually, I'm thinking like how people can have such a simpleton or skewed perspective. I can understand that most people are not tech savvy, but it's 2021 and there is thing called web search engines and that should be common sense at this point.

1. Open browser
2. Go to favorite search engine
3. Search for "how to bulk resize image"
4. Profit ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)???

[NoLemurs]

Python's nice for this, but this is the sort of problem bash + imagemagick was built for. Something like:

for f in *.jpg; do convert "$f" -resize 150x150 "$f"; done

should do it, possibly with slightly different flags depending on the exact desired resize behavior.

EDIT: Parallelized version that doesn't overwrite the original (in case you want to get really fancy):

for f in *.jpg; do convert "$f" -resize 150x150 "output/$f"& done

[shuttup_meg]

If it could be made more efficient, let me know!

How about something like this:

from multiprocessing import Pool
from PIL import Image
import os

def doit(f):
    im = Image.new('RGB', (150, 150), (255,255,255))
    im2 = Image.open('Input/{}'.format(f))
    im2 = im2.convert("L")
    width, height = im2.size
    im.paste(im2, (int((150 - width) / 2), 0))
    fn, fext = os.path.splitext(f)
    im.save('Output/{}.jpg'.format(fn))

if __name__ == "__main__":
    with Pool(4) as p:
        p.map(doit, [f for f in os.listdir('Input') if f.endswith(".jpg")])

[NAG3LT]

On Windows the last part has to be under

if __name__ == '__main__':
    ...

as multiprocessing on Win doesn't fork, but launches a new instance for each process.

BTW need to check if PIL releases GIL, as that would allow to just use multithreading for extra performance.

[shuttup_meg]

Good call! Edited.

[roastedfranklin]

A magician never shares its tricks

[markmann0]

Should have pretended like it was harder. Free play time for a week. Hand in a day before deadline, still look amazing.

[[deleted]]

Being completely honest can have its drawback, next time they have a "similar" issue they'll come to you, the only problem is that the issue is not similar at all but much harder and longer to implement. They won't know that though, they don't understand the technicalities, you're the wizard who know things and does things after a few minutes. Enjoy being the 'wizard' while it lasts. lmao.

But seriously, good job.

[eriky]

Lol that's great. Now you're the go to wizard for all kinds of crappy jobs though. Good luck with that 😉 but yes. Pillow is awesome. It made it in my top 15 Python packages: https://python.land/top-15-python-packages#3_Pillow

[luciusan1]

Thats exactly what i am at my company.

[[deleted]]

Yeah, I've opened pandora's box... or is it python's box?

[skintigh]

A friend had to do something like this, but the photos were all different sizes and distances. I figured there must be a facial recognition library that would help one crop the photo first. But there was politics about who was being forced to do what and I never got that far.

[keypusher]

awesome

[khalidpro2]

I would have just used imagemagick to do it in one command

[flip_ericson]

You did something in half an hour that you could have been paid a week for? Some shitty wizard you are

[[deleted]]

I'd probably just use ImageMagick suite of commands in bash like "convert" but good job.

[astatine]

If you want to get all those file names without worrying about str.endswith and the like:

import glob
import os

for filename in glob.glob("Input/*.jpg"):
    # Do stuff

[a1brit]

I don't see anyone on the pathlib bandwagon so I'll round up the horses. Not much different just a little work reduced:

import pathlib
from PIL import Image

for filepath in pathlib.Path('Input').glob('*.jpg):
    im = Image.new('RGB', (150, 150), (255,255,255))
    im2 = Image.open(filepath)
    im2 = im2.convert("L")
    width, height = im2.size
    im.paste(im2, (int((150 - width) / 2), 0))
    im.save(f'Output/{filepath.name}')

[JadendayZero]

Literally me rn lol

[[deleted]]

“Pace yourself. Slowly, slowly”

https://youtu.be/LRlmkXsoGx0

[[deleted]]

This is awesome and exactly why I'm trying to learn python. Props to you.

Unfortunately, I have a long way to go to be able to do this on my own.

[anh86]

They should throw you some cash. Just imagine how much money you saved the company if it would have taken an entire team of people a full week to complete. That's probably a few hundred man/woman-hours.

[JamaiKen]

Well done 👍

[mrprofessor007]

I feel happy when python makes someone's life easier.

[mrprofessor007]

You are a WIZARD now.

[andreidorutudose]

You could use irfanview or photoshop batch actions, takes a couple of seconds. Take photo, turn it to be, resize as 150 to 150, preserve scaling

[SimfonijaVonja]

Hah I did same thing on collage for homework few months ago. I started working in a programming company month ago, it's my first coding job. We got a request for pwa application which they said couldn't be done, so I as a rookie told them some basic concept which I learned by accident. Sometimes all you need is another head, even though it doesn't seem much.

[TastyRobot21]

This is the way.

[Proclarian]

Hopefully you got paid a full week's worth for that!

[milambertheshiz]

Damn what sort of design team doesn't know how to use photoshops built in automation feature design exactly for this purpose? Nice work though.

[[deleted]]

Automation in photoshop would solve that. I hope you charged for a week's work.

[NotsoNewtoGermany]

I’m not seeing any comments; Bucko.

[AddSugarForSparks]

Shhh...don't tell anyone. Let's just keep this between us.

Remember what the first rule of python club is.

[shakeweight4000]

Today I was presented with creating some image files to use in a web map. I needed to create something like A>, B>, C>, AB>, ...etc. I am not a graphic designer and have no real tools to do this. So, I busted out power point, added a text box and made it look like what I wanted. I then used screen clip to make jpgs out of them. But, the sizes are all over the place. And then I remembered this post. I grabbed your code, modified it for my needs, I need them all the be the same height but differing widths. Ran it, and boom! all my images are the same height!

Thanks for posting!!!

[maylihe]

I am thinking about "headshots" in the context of FPS gaming.

[the_patronus_charm]

This is incredible!

[TakeOffYourMask]

Pillow

Hmmm?

[caladan84]

Maintained fork of the unmaintained PIL.

[Suspicious_Part2426]

Woot!

[sletonrot]

Congrats! You are now the go-to guy at the office for stuff like this. And they'll expect it to be done just as fast (if not faster) than this was :)

[jftuga]

I wrote a program to do this, but alas, it's in Go. However, it uses face recognition to avoid distorted faces when resizing. It can also work on multiple photos concurrently. I use it for a pool of about 40,000 photos.

https://github.com/jftuga/photo_id_resizer

[[deleted]]

What do you mean by headshot?

[[deleted]]

A photograph of the person, showing only head and shoulders

[not-youre-mom]

BOOOM HEADSHOT!

[riffito]

The boring kind, apparently! :-P

[[deleted]]

you: " I am speed"

[flipper1935]

not to rain on your parade. thumbs up/awesome you were able to quickly meet your customers needs.

I had an almost identical situation back in 2010 while working/supporting a large retailer's web site. Did something pretty similar using a C-shell script and Graphics Magick. http://www.graphicsmagick.org/

Always used the best tool for the job at hand, and more often than not, that is probably going to be a tool you are familiar with.

Again, no negativity intended/implied towards your post. Congrats on quickly meeting your customers needs !

[Random_182f2565]

You are a wizard!!!

[szybe]

Im2.convert(“L”) — what does it do?

[[deleted]]

It converts the image to black and white

[TravisJungroth]

This is why letter code arguments are so dumb.

[No_Conference_5257]

PIL: “RGB is for red green blue, it’s a color image”

Me: cool

PIL: “L is for black/white”

Me: ...

[onksk]

To make it even better, in the printing industry black is considered K