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Retrobatch Changelog

What's new in Retrobatch 2.1

Mar 19, 2024
  • New:
  • A new Look up Table (LUT) node! The LUT node can be used to quickly and easily alter the color and tone of your images. LUTs can be used to create a wide range of effects, from subtle color adjustments to dramatic stylistic changes — it's like a pre-programmed filter, but with more flexibility and control. Use one of Retrobatch's LUT presets, or download additional LUTs that emulate film stocks, create specific moods (like warm, cool, or vintage), or simply enhance the natural colors in your image.
  • You can also adjust the opacity and blending mode of the LUT. Use a grayscale LUT and then dial back the opacity to create some dramatic effects in your images.
  • (Retrobatch Pro only)
  • New "Tile Chop" node which will take an image and split it up into multiple images based on a width and height set in its properties.
  • New "Camera Capture" node which uses your Mac's built in camera to take a photo (Retrobatch Pro only).
  • Photos Export now has an option to export the Current, Unadjusted, or Original versions of your Photos Library images.
  • New "Auto Process" option in the RAW Import node. This lets you skip the fiddly options and just lets Retrobatch make the best guess at how the image should be processed.
  • Two new nodes for renaming files. "File Rename" which will take one search string and replace it with another, and "Web Safe Rename" which will take a sequence of characters and then replace those with a given string. This is handy for tasks where you need to take out special characters or spaces from your images to make them easier for handling on the web.
  • There's a new Advanced tab in Preferences, with some new options:
  • A new "Default Write Folder" that will be used anytime you add a Write node.
  • A "Clear JavaScript console when a workflow runs" option, which is useful for plugin authors.
  • A "Allow unknown file types" option, which can be used to load ancient file types that MacOS no longer recognizes (Pro only). Find out more about this preference if you find it intriguing.
  • Fixes:
  • The Multi-Scale node will now scroll its properties in the case of it getting overly large.
  • The Super Resolution node now supports images with transparency.
  • Fixed a problem where using Folder Actions + AppleScript might not work correctly with the App Store version of Retrobatch.
  • Fixed a problem with the RAW Import node where images were being rendered much too dark because of some bad configurations.
  • Fixed a problem where the Multi Scale node would give incorrect dimensions for the image width and height filename tokens.
  • Fixed a problem reading RGB101010 HEIF images from Sony a7C images.
  • Fixed a problem where the Multi Scale node would show a bit of nonsense in the filename tokens by default.
  • Other:
  • When a preflight is interrupted, the file counts in the nodes could be off. Retrobatch will now prepend a ~ to the total when this happens. (You'll generally see this with nodes which take a long time to work, such as the "Classify Images" ML node.
  • The "Fix EXIF Rotation" node is a bit more efficient.

New in Retrobatch 2.0.3 (Dec 4, 2023)

  • New:
  • The Super Resolution node now has an option to scale your image by 2x, 3x, or 4x.
  • The Photos Export node how has an option (turned on by default) to embed any assigned location information as GPS location metadata in the image.
  • The Rules node has a new "File Extension" rule you can match on.
  • Fixes:
  • Fixed a problem where Retrobatch would show a warning that you didn't have a Write Node, but you did have a Write Back to Photos or Import to Photos node, which should count. The same goes for writing to the clipboard.
  • Fixed a problem where the Super Resolution node was accidentally only scaling images 3x instead of the advertised 4x.
  • Fixed a problem where the Image Watermark node was blowing out some alpha channels when it was scaled.
  • Fixed a problem where the Photos Import node might import incorrect image data.
  • Fixed a problem when using the Photos Export node where Retrobatch could ignore any metadata change nodes.
  • Fixed a problem where the old Photos Library node was still showing up (it was replaced by the "Photos Export" node).
  • Other:
  • The Photos Export node will now show a little warning if access to the Photos Library is denied.
  • The Clipboard node is also under the Write category now, with a default of "Write to clipboard" when it's selected.

New in Retrobatch 2.0.2 (Nov 21, 2023)

  • Fixes:
  • Fixed a problem where Retrobatch would close an already open workflow if it was used in a Shortcuts action. Now Retrobatch will keep it open if it's already up, and close if it had to be opened to run the action.
  • Fixed a problem where Shortcuts would show an error when running workflows with a Quit Retrobatch node.
  • Fixed a problem where you were unable to copy and paste certain nodes on the canvas.
  • Fixed a problem where writing of WebP images would not work (App Store only).
  • Fixed a problem where manually entering GPS coordinates wouldn't always work correctly.
  • Fixed a problem where Retrobatch could crash when adding the Photos Export node on MacOS 13.
  • Fixed a problem where the properties for the Trim to Edges node wouldn't show correctly after dismissing it's popover and bringing it back.
  • Fixed a problem where the image orientation flag could be lost when setting the GPS coordinates, DPI, or other meta-data only operations.
  • Tweaks to the Indexed PNG node.

New in Retrobatch 2.0 (Nov 7, 2023)

  • New Nodes:
  • New "Super Resolution" node, which uses machine learning to scale up your image 4x its size.
  • New "Film Grain" node. Does what you think it does. Combine it with a Vignette to make your photos look older and analog!
  • New "Get Selected Finder Images" node, which will use any selected images in the Finder for your processing (not available in App Store version).
  • New GPS node, which will allow you to assign a specific location to your images using the GPS image metadata fields.
  • New "Photos Export" node which replaces the "Photos Library" node (which Apple has deprecated libraries it uses). This new node will download from iCloud as well as export the unmodified originals from Photos, including RAW photos.
  • New "Photos Library Import" where you can send images to a specific album in your Photos library.
  • New "Photos Library Modify" which will send an image back to the Photos Library from which it came. If you want to modify a set of images all the same way, this is a good way to go.
  • New "1Bit" node which turns your images into 1bit images.
  • New "Finder Icon Writer" which will use the processed image to write back an icon in the Finder for the original image being processed. If you've ever wanted custom thumbnails for an image, this is the way.
  • New "Quit Retrobatch" node which will quit Retrobatch when a workflow is done. This is useful for droplets when you want to make sure Retrobatch is dead and gone after it runs.
  • New "PDF Quartz Filter" which gives you access to the various PDF filters in ColorSync Utility. You can apply filters to a whole PDF like "Reduce File Size" or Sepia Tone".
  • New "Contrast Stretch" node which will improve the contrast for your image by stretching the intensity of the image to cover a larger range.
  • New "Image Equalization" node which will spread out the histogram peaks of your image, making certain areas less intense (or at least more even).
  • New "Download" node which you can plug a URL into and Retrobatch will download it for you.
  • New "Replace Color" node which finds a specific color in your image and replaces it with another.
  • New "Acorn Maker" node which will make a layered Acorn image (similar to the PSD Maker node). You can combine this with the Screenshot and Windows node to make a new Acorn image of all your visible windows, with a layer for each window.
  • New Retrobatch Pro Nodes:
  • New "Auto Level (Straighten) node which will rotate your image a bit if it looks like it might not be very level .
  • New "Recognized text" option for the Rules node which you can use to filter out images based on character recognition in the image.
  • New "Clipboard Watcher" node which will look at your clipboard every second and if there's a new image on there, it'll run the workflow using that image as input.
  • New "Periodic" node which will run the chain of nodes it has attached to it after a certain number of configurable seconds.
  • New "Extract Text" node that will scan your images for text and write it out to a file.
  • New "Image Diff" node which will compute the difference in colors between every other image.
  • New "Extract Metadata" node that can write out the metadata from an image in either plain text or JSON formats.
  • Improvements & New Features:
  • The preview window has been enhanced so that you get a list of selected nodes on the left, and larger preview of the images you're processing on the right. You can bring up the sheet by pressing the space bar, then tweak your nodes to get them exactly how you'd like them to be, and then pressing the spacebar (or escape key) to dismiss the preview.
  • Shortcuts support! You can now make a Shortcut which points to workflow, allowing you to pass in images, or folders of images. You can also use this to setup Quick Actions in the Finder.
  • Retrobatch can now read SVG files, which is awesome if you want to convert a bunch of them into JPEG or PNG files (MacOS 13+).
  • Retrobatch can now read and write JPEG-XL files. Visit https://jpeg.org/jpegxl/ for more info.
  • WebP (and JPEG-XL) now have options for lossless encoding.
  • The Write node now has compression options for the TGA image format.
  • The Write node has a new option to embed a thumbnail for JPEG and HEIC images.
  • The Write node now has a "Read back encoded image", which is handy if you want to write your image out as a specific type and then throw it on the clipboard as the newly encoded type.
  • The Image Watermark and Text Watermark can now have negative values for the offsets.
  • The Windows & Screenshots node now has an option to exclude the shadow from windows.
  • You can change the color accent of a node by control clicking on it and choosing "Change Node Accent Color…" or selecting a couple of nodes and using the View ▸ Change Node Accent Color… menu item.
  • You can now set the working color profile for workflows. This is for cases where you want certain filters to work more closely to certain image editors, or if you're using something like the Custom Convolution node and you want to tightly control how pixels are processed.
  • New option to the Clipboard node which allows you to write the native type of an image to the clipboard. If you have a compressed JPEG, it'll write that exact data to the clipboard if that option is selected. Otherwise it'll write PNG and TIFF data by default.
  • A new Document Settings sheet (under the View menu) which allows you to have per-document settings for the following things.
  • Manual node connections.
  • Wether or not a preflight is automatically run.
  • A pixel processing profile to use for various filters (mostly Core Image based).
  • The Animated Image node now has a token field for setting the name of the image it produces.
  • There's a new token in the Write node for the album name when pulling images out of Photos.
  • The Drop Shadow node now has an option to keep the original dimensions of an image, for cases where you're processing images with transparent cutouts and you want the shadow to appear inside the image only.
  • The Border node now has an option to have a corner radius.
  • The Scale node now offers the Lanczos and Bicubic scaling algorithms for resizing images.
  • The Delay node can now specify when the delay should happen: Preflight, Every image (the default), or Postflight.
  • Open in App node: Dragging an app icon from the Finder onto the Open in App node will use that app to open the images.
  • Open in App node: Dragging an app icon from the Finder with the option key held down will now add an Open in App node to your workflow.
  • Open in App node will now remember the last app you picked, and use it for newly created nodes.
  • New option in the Write node to encode your JPEG files using the MozJPEG encoder.
  • The Screenshot node now has text field you can use to filter which screenshots are used in a workflow. For instance, if you only want to capture windows from Safari, you would enter "Safari".
  • Nodes on canvas have a new contextual menu to enable/disable the node, as well as bring up the properties.
  • Shell Script node improvements: It'll now show a warning if the shell script you choose isn't executable, and even offer a recovery solution. It also includes a link to online documentation about what you can do with it.
  • A new Retrobatch setting to only show properties when double clicking on a node.
  • Differences between App Store / Sandboxed and Direct versions:
  • The AppleScript, Shell Script, and Get Selected Finder Items nodes are not available in the App Store / Sandboxed version of Retrobatch.
  • Using Retrobatch as a command line tool will run into file reading problems in the App Store / Sandboxed version of Retrobatch.
  • Changes:
  • The "Set Finder Tags" will decide when to write the tags in based on if you have a write node behind it or not. If there is no "Write" node farther down the chain from the "Set Finder Tags" node, then the "Set Finder Tags" node will apply tags to the last read/written place an asset has occupied. So you can have a workflow with two nodes in it: A "Read Folder" → "Set Finder Tags" node, the tags will be written to the original location (this is the original behavior). But if you have a "Read Folder" → "Set Finder Tags" → "Write Images" workflow, then the tags will be added to the images where they were written via the "Write Images" node.
  • The Rules node will now take float values for the "Megapixels" rule.
  • The "Photos Library" node has been deprecated (since it's using APIs Apple wants to get rid of). Instead, use the updated Photos Export node.
  • When using Retrobatch 1.x from the shell, passing a folder as an argument would search through that folder for all image files and synthesize a "Read Files" node and the path hierarchy information would be tossed out. In Retrobatch 2, when a folder is given as an argument Retrobatch will now synthesize a "Read Folder" node for each folder argument it comes across and preserve the folder hierarchy for any images found.
  • Fixes:
  • Fixed a problem where the $SourceFolderPath$ token working correctly with the Indexed PNG and Animated Image nodes.
  • Other:
  • When running Retrobatch from the Terminal with the --workflow option, it will now print out information about what node is currently working on a file.
  • The "PDF Image Extractor" node does a better job at finding images, is faster, and will not re-encode image data if not necessary.
  • The Write node will now open up multiple folders if options like "Write back to original image" or the "Source Folder Path" options are enabled (and it's cases like these where output might be to multiple folders!)
  • Retrobatch will now offer to move itself to the Applications folder if it isn't already there.
  • Did you know you can pull out meta from IPTC tags without a token in the Write node? Just use "$assetMeta.{IPTC}.City$" to grab the city from the IPTC metadata.
  • Retrobatch is a bit smarter at figuring out what type of images it's loading up if MacOS can't figure it out on its own.
  • The Shell Script node will now always append the (last saved) path to the image being worked on when "Every Process" is set for the Run at: option. Previously, Retrobatch would only append the path if no argument options were supplied.
  • The "Quality" slider in the Write node has been changed to "Quality / Comp." as an indicator that it effects compression as well.
  • Double clicking on a node connection will reverse the direction of the connection.
  • Retrobatch now gives you a little bit of play when single or double clicking on a node to bring up the properties. So if you're using a trackpad or have unstable hands and move the pointer a little bit (no more than 5pt), RB will just assume you meant to bring up the properties.
  • If you hold down the option + command keys in the Feedback window, you are given the option to email the report using your prefered email client.

New in Retrobatch 1.5 (Nov 6, 2022)

  • New Stuff:
  • New "Photos Export" Node which will read out all of your images from Photos.
  • New "Document Enhancer" Node which enhances a document image by removing unwanted shadows, whitening the background, and enhancing contrast. (MacOS 10.15+ only)
  • New "Pixelate" Node under the Blur category which will pixelate your image with different scales.
  • New QR Code Node which will generate a QR code to put on top of your images.
  • Other Stuff:
  • Fixed an isssue where droplets were not working on MacOS 13 Ventura. To fix this issue, open the droplet in Retrobatch and save it once.
  • Retrobatch will now attempt to copy over any existing Finder tags it encounters when writing images from the Write node.

New in Retrobatch 1.4.5 (Jul 20, 2022)

  • Fixes:
  • Fixed a problem where you couldn't scale or use certain nodes with images containing an extended range color space.
  • Fixed a problem where the Source Folder Path write token wouldn't work correctly when reading folders with sub-directory reading enabled.
  • Fixed a problem where the rules editor could strip out part of a number because of an errant comma.
  • Fixed a problem where undo/redo could be a little wonky.
  • Fixed a problem where Instant Alpha for 64bit images wasn't as smooth as it could be.
  • Fixed a problem where the $FileNumber04$ token wouldn't always work as expected in the write node.
  • Fixed a problem where sometimes converting a PNG to a GIF would fail.
  • Fixed a problem on MacOS Big Sur where Apple Events via Automator were sometimes sending weirdly formatted URLs to Retrobatch and it was unable to process the event correctly.
  • Other:
  • Thumbnails for 16bpc images are now showing again if you're using MacOS Monterey (it's disabled on 10.15 / 11 because of a big memory leak in the system frameworks, which is now fixed in Monterey).
  • Added a new "ExifAux" group for the Remove Specific Metadata" node.
  • New hidden pref for keeping around the portrait and depth data from HEIC images when you write them out as JPEG or other file types:
  • defaults write com.flyingmeat.Retrobatch keepDepthData 1
  • Should this be a new node? Or maybe an option in the write node? This is a fun hidden pref to experiment with, but it'll probably change in the future.

New in Retrobatch 1.1.1 (Jan 24, 2019)

  • New:
  • Create indexed PNG files with the a new "Indexed PNG" node. This node builds on top of pngquant, which is a handy tool for reducing the number of colors in a PNG file resulting in smaller images.
  • New node for Retrobatch Pro: Mask to Alpha, which converts grayscale images with blacks to transparent and keeps the white areas opaque.
  • MacOS 10.13+: A new "Extract Disparity Image" node which will pull out a disparity map images which contain it (iPhone X(s), iPhone 8+, etc.)
  • MacOS 10.14+: A new "Extract Portrait Matte" node which will pull out the portrait matte on images taken iPhones which support it (iPhone X(s), iPhone 8+, etc.)
  • Fixes:
  • Fixed a problem where the DPI of a PNG would be lost when using the Crush option in the write node.
  • Fixed a problem where Retrobatch could crash if a text watermark font previously used went missing.
  • Fixed a problem where the Page Splitter node wasn't remembering the right DPI for TIFF files.
  • Fixed a problem with the HEIC to JPEG template.
  • Fixed a problem where Retrobatch wouldn't run via the command line tool correctly.
  • Fixed a problem where Retrobatch could hang when running via Folder Actions.
  • Changes:
  • The scale node now takes decimal values for the scale as percentage field.
  • Removed the "ImageAlpha" node, in favor of the "Indexed PNG" node.

New in Retrobatch 1.1 (Sep 10, 2018)

  • New:
  • Automator support. You can now create an Automator action which runs a workflow, passing in image paths to the workflow to run. You can even make a droplet from your Automator action.
  • New Instant Alpha node which removes pixels from your image based on a sampling location like the corners or center of your image.
  • New Auto Enhance node, which does some black magic to make your photos look better.
  • New preference for manual connections (control-drag to make connections between nodes).
  • New JavaScript node (Pro only) where you can sort out images, print out information on images, or apply Core Image filters. Visit the JavaScript documentation for more information.
  • New Dither node with Atkinson, Classic Mac, Floyd Steinberg, Gaussian Blue, and Ordered Reproducible algorithms.
  • New "Only scale smaller" option for the Scale node, which will only resize your images to a smaller dimension if the option is enabled.
  • The "Set Specific Metadata" node now allows you to use tokens for setting various values. For instance if you wanted to have the copyright notice set to the current year, you would add "Copyright (:date token here:)". Or if you wanted to pipe the image through a classification node before the metadata node, you could add the "Top Classification" node to the keywords field.
  • New "PDF Image Extractor" node (Pro only). This doesn't turn PDF pages into bitmaps, rather it pulls out bitmaps from PDF files and writes them out either as JEPG or PNG files. A PDF page can have multiple images in it, each at different resolutions. This node grabs the raw data for it, and pulls it out.
  • You can now call Retrobatch from the command line, with arguments for a workflow, output folder, and images / folder to process:
  • Retrobatch.app/Contents/MacOS/Retrobatch --workflow path/to/workflow.retrobatch --output ~/Desktop/foo/ /path/to/files.jpeg /or/folders/
  • Added GIF as a writable format in the write node.
  • The Raw Import node now has an option to adjust the tint of your image.
  • Added a Color Posterize node.
  • Added a new Pixel Depth token for the file name.
  • Changes and Fixes:
  • The shell script node now shows the output from the scripts in a new little console window. The new JavaScript node also uses this.
  • Did a bunch of background work which will make Retrobatch run more efficiently when preprocessing.
  • Minor fixes to the Raw Import node.
  • Minor optimizations.
  • Fixed a crasher when running non-executable shell scripts.
  • Fixed a crasher when using trim to edges on images with a gray color profile.
  • Fixed a problem where you couldn't paste into token fields (such as the File name: field in the write node).
  • Fixed a crasher with the Shell Script node.
  • Fixed a crasher when using certain classification models.
  • Fixed a problem where you could choose a file from the Write node as an output directory. That's not going to work in practice and probably cause a crash.
  • Fixed a problem with certain PDFs, when creating an image out of the first page.
  • Tweaking of the Scripting Dictionary, so you can call "execute" with a path to a workflow.
  • If you run a PDF through a Color Profile node before passing it to a Layer & Page Splitter node, the page bitmaps created from it will now pick up on the previously set profile. This way you can have all pages written out as CMYK if you'd like, without an expensive and lossy conversion after the split.

New in Retrobatch 1.1 Build 571 Preview (Sep 3, 2018)

  • New:
  • Automator support. You can now create an Automator action which runs a workflow, passing in image paths to the workflow to run. You can even make a droplet from your Automator action.
  • New Instant Alpha node which removes pixels from your image based on a sampling location like the corners or center of your image.
  • New Auto Enhance node, which does some black magic to make your photos look better.
  • New preference for manual connections (control-drag to make connections between nodes).
  • New JavaScript node where you can sort out images, print out information on images, or apply Core Image filters. Visit the JavaScript documentation for more information.
  • New Dither node with Atkinson, Classic Mac, Floyd Steinberg, Gaussian Blue, and Ordered Reproducible algorithms.
  • New "Only scale smaller" option for the Scale node, which will only resize your images to a smaller dimension if the option is enabled.
  • The "Set Specific Metadata" node now allows you to use tokens for setting various values. For instance if you wanted to have the copyright notice set to the current year, you would add "Copyright (:date token here:)". Or if you wanted to pipe the image through a classification node before the metadata node, you could add the "Top Classification" node to the keywords field.
  • New "PDF Image Extractor" node. This doesn't turn PDF pages into bitmaps, rather it pulls out bitmaps from PDF files and writes them out either as JEPG or PNG files. A PDF page can have multiple images in it, each at different resolutions. This node grabs the raw data for it, and pulls it out.
  • You can now call Retrobatch from the command line, with arguments for a workflow, output folder, and images / folder to process: Retrobatch.app/Contents/MacOS/Retrobatch --workflow path/to/workflow.retrobatch --output ~/Desktop/foo/ /path/to/files.jpeg /or/folders/
  • Added GIF as a writable format in the write node.
  • The Raw Import node now has an option to adjust the tint of your image.
  • Added a Color Posterize node.
  • Added a new Pixel Depth token for the file name.
  • Changes and Fixes:
  • The shell script node now shows the output from the scripts in a new little console window. The new JavaScript node also uses this.
  • Did a bunch of background work which will make Retrobatch run more efficiently when preprocessing.
  • Minor fixes to the Raw Import node.
  • Minor optimizations.
  • Fixed a crasher when running non-executable shell scripts.
  • Fixed a crasher when using trim to edges on images with a gray color profile.
  • Fixed a problem where you couldn't paste into token fields (such as the File name: field in the write node).
  • Fixed a crasher with the Shell Script node.
  • Fixed a crasher when using certain classification models.
  • Fixed a problem where you could choose a file from the Write node as an output directory. That's not going to work in practice and probably cause a crash.
  • Fixed a problem with certain PDFs, when creating an image out of the first page.
  • Tweaking of the Scripting Dictionary, so you can call "execute" with a path to a workflow.
  • If you run a PDF through a Color Profile node before passing it to a Layer & Page Splitter node, the page bitmaps created from it will now pick up on the previously set profile. This way you can have all pages written out as CMYK if you'd like, without an expensive and lossy conversion after the split.

New in Retrobatch 1.0.2 (Aug 19, 2018)

  • Fixed some bad juju between the PSD Maker and the Write Node when the Convert To was set to PSD.
  • Retrobatch's AppleScript node now recognizes compiled OSA ".scpt" files in addition to .applescript files.
  • Fixed a problem where "Reveal in Finder" wouldn't work on an image after it had passed through the ImageAlpha node.
  • When the read folder is set to be recursvie, it will now make sure the images are written out in the original folder structure that they were read as. If you were using the "Source Folder" token in the write node, you might need to remove it for things to work as they did previously.
  • Retrobatch will now try and recreate write folders if they've been deleted while Retrobatch wasn't running (this will require a re-save of your Retrobatch documents with version 1.0.2).
  • Fixed an issue with Pro upgrade registrations not working correctly.
  • Added a warning when the tokens used in the File name field for the write node come up empty (for instance, if you had a Capture Date token in the file name, but there was no date for the image, so the filename would be blank).
  • Throttling the thumbnail loading background thread a bit, since it turns out some of you have folders full of 100 megapixel images and that tends to kill your computer if you try and load thumbnails for 16 of those images at once.
  • Added new Edit ▸ Select Next Node & Select Previous Node menu items, which helps with Accessibility as well as everyone in general.
  • Added support for Voice Over.
  • Fixed a problem where older macs without Metal support might not see the image preview.
  • Fixed a problem where images with indexed color profiles couldn't be resized.

New in Retrobatch 1.0.1 (Aug 19, 2018)

  • Fixed a couple of memory leaks.
  • Fixed a problem where empty file name tokens in the write node could cause Retrobatch to crash.
  • Retrobatch now accepts upgrade registration numbers from regular to Pro.