
I've got a folder structure with multiple levels of subfolders, each containing groups of images in sets of 6 or 8 or 10 or 12.. some have as many as 50.. almost all are 512x512 pixels.. some contain degrees of alpha transparency and some don't. I'm using IM on windows XP from a command shell.
What I'd like to do is create montage'd contact sheets for each folder, saved in each respective folder, that places the images in the most logical grid fashion, for example 6 images into a 3x2 grid, 8 images into a 4x2 or 3x3 grid, etc.. (using -geometry 110x110+9+9 seems to work well and gives me a 512x512 output image, but doesn't work when the grid is not 4x4 so I think I'm doing something wrong there.)
I'd like to be able to do my contact sheets montage'd over a custom-made grey-and-white checkerboard pattern so that those images which have alpha will show as having alpha (i.e. the checkerboard pattern will show through the alpha areas and maintain the specific degrees of alpha per pixel)... I'd like that checkerboard pattern to only display "within" the confines of each image tile stacked above it, and I would like the entire montage to sit over yet another custom image which will basically just act as a backdrop for the entire contact sheet.. some kind of subtle pattern or gradient perhaps.
So, basically, "My Images" sitting over "Checkerboard Pattern" sitting over "Lightly Textured Backdrop"
Lastly, I would like to force the entire montage'd group of images downward on the sheet, so that there's a built-in ~100px "Header" space at the top of the image wherein I can include a custom title or logo that would essentially be part of the bottom-most backdrop layer. I'm attaching an image here which attempts to illustrate what I want to accomplish, and here is the command line I've come up with so far..
Code: Select all
montage -background "transparent" -texture e:\Contact_Sheet_Backdrop.tga -depth 8 -type TrueColorMatte *.tga -geometry 110x110+9+9 -tile 4x3 -matte -transparent "transparent" -type TrueColorMatte -depth 8 ContactSheet.png

It's still missing the alpha checkerboard inclusion between the thumbnails and the backdrop, and it's missing the "downward push" to create the margin/header space at the top. Also, the issue with forcing an output size of 512x512 regardless of grid size has been confusing me... Can anyone help with this?
(I read in another post that some users are creating batch files with their specific command structures and were then dropping the folder onto the batch file and having it process the folder and outputting the contact sheet into the folder.. something like that would be absolutely ideal but right now I'm more concerned with figuring out the exact structure of the command.)
Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.. getting this set up with a deadline looming is giving me a headache

-ohai