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 GI ...

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 or

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) t ...

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. 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 Python Imaging Library is a free and open-source additional library for the Python programming language that adds support for opening, manipulating, and saving many different image file formats. It is available for Windows, and Linux. The lat ...

. Phatch uses

Bazaar A bazaar () or souk (; also transliterated as souq) is a marketplace consisting of multiple small Market stall, stalls or shops, especially in the Middle East, the Balkans, North Africa and India. However, temporary open markets elsewhere, suc ...

in combination with

Launchpad A launch pad is an above-ground platform from which rocket- missiles or space launch vehicles take off vertically. Launch pad may also refer to: Computing * Launchpad (macOS), an application launcher introduced in Mac OS X Lion * Launch Pad (s ...

for coordinating its development and translations. Phatch has a

Python Python may refer to: Snakes * Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia ** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia * Python (mythology), a mythical serpent Computing * Python (pro ...

(

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 mod ...

) 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 ...

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 D ...

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 the ...

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. Phatch requires

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'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 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 task ...

and Imagemagick, 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+ 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