montage(1)
NAME
montage - creates a composite image by combining several
separate images
SYNOPSIS
montage [ options ...] file [ [ options ...] file ...]
output_file
DESCRIPTION
montage creates a composite image by combining several
separate images. The images are tiled on the composite
image with the name of the image optionally appearing just
below the individual tile.
The composite image is constructed in the following man-
ner. First, each image specified on the command line,
except for the last, is scaled to fit the maximum tile
size. The maximum tile size by default is 120x120. It
can be modified with the -geometry command line argument
or X resource. See OPTIONS for more information on com-
mand line arguments. See X(1) for more information on X
resources. Note that the maximum tile size need not be a
square. To respect the aspect ratio of each image append
~ to the geometry specification.
Next the composite image is initialized with the color
specified by the -background command line argument or X
resource. The width and height of the composite image is
determined by the title specified, the maximum tile size,
the number of tiles per row, the tile border width and
height, the image border width, and the label height. The
number of tiles per row specifies how many images are to
appear in each row of the composite image. The default is
to have 5 tiles in each row and 4 tiles in each column of
the composite. A specific value is specified with -tile.
The tile border width and height, and the image border
width defaults to the value of the X resource -border-
width. It can be changed with the -borderwidth or -geome-
try command line argument or X resource. The label height
is determined by the font you specify with the -font com-
mand line argument or X resource. If you do not specify a
font, a font is chosen that allows the name of the image
to fit the maximum width of a tiled area. The label col-
ors is determined by the -background and -foreground com-
mand line argument or X resource. Note, that if the back-
ground and foreground colors are the same, labels will not
appear.
Initially, the composite image title is placed at the top
if one is specified (refer to -foreground X resource).
Next, each image is set onto the composite image, sur-
rounded by its border color, with its name centered just
below it. The individual images are left-justified within
the width of the tiled area. The order of the images is
the same as they appear on the command line unless the
images have a scene keyword. If a scene number is speci-
fied in each image, then the images are tiled onto the
composite in the order of their scene number. Finally,
the last argument on the command line is the name assigned
to the composite image. By default, the image is written
in the MIFF format and can be viewed or printed with dis-
play(1).
Note, that if the number of tiles exceeds the default num-
ber of 20 (5 per row, 4 per column), more than one compos-
ite image is created. To ensure a single image is pro-
duced, use -tile to increase the number of tiles to meet
or exceed the number of input images.
Finally, Finally, to create one or more empty spaces in
the sequence of tiles, use the NULL image format.
EXAMPLES
To create a montage of a cockatoo, a parrot, and a hum-
mingbird and write it to a file called birds, use:
montage cockatoo.miff parrot.miff hummingbird.miff birds.miff
To tile several bird images so that they are at most 256
pixels in width and 192 pixels in height, surrounded by a
red border, and separated by 10 pixels of background
color, use:
montage -geometry 256x192+10+10 -bordercolor red birds.* montage.miff
To create an unlabeled parrot image, 640 by 480 pixels,
and surrounded by a border of black, use:
montage -geometry 640x480 -bordercolor black -label "" parrot.miff bird.miff
To create an image of an eagle with a textured background,
use:
montage -texture bumps.jpg eagle.jpg eagle.png
To join several GIF images together without any extraneous
graphics (e.g. no label, no shadowing, no surrounding tile
frame), use:
montage +frame +shadow +label -geometry 50x50+0+0 -tile 5x1 *.gif joined.gif
OPTIONS
-adjoin
join images into a single multi-image file.
-colors value
preferred number of colors in the image.
The actual number of colors in the image may be
less than your request, but never more. Note, this
is a color reduction option. Images with less
unique colors than specified with this option will
have any duplicate or unused colors removed. Refer
to quantize(9) for more details.
Note, options -dither, -colorspace, and -treedepth
affect the color reduction algorithm.
-colorspace value
the type of colorspace: GRAY, OHTA, RGB, Transpar-
ent, XYZ, YCbCr, YIQ, YPbPr, YUV, or CMYK.
Color reduction, by default, takes place in the RGB
color space. Empirical evidence suggests that dis-
tances in color spaces such as YUV or YIQ corre-
spond to perceptual color differences more closely
than do distances in RGB space. These color spaces
may give better results when color reducing an
image. Refer to quantize(9) for more details.
The Transparent color space behaves uniquely in
that it preserves the matte channel of the image if
it exists.
The -colors or -monochrome option is required for
this option to take effect.
-comment string
annotate an image with a comment.
By default, each image is commented with its file
name. Use this option to assign a specific comment
to the image. Optionally you can include the image
filename, type, width, height, or scene number by
embedding special format characters. Embed %f for
filename, %d for directory, %e for filename exten-
tion, %t for top of filename, %m for magick, %w for
width, %h for height, %s for scene number, %b for
file size, or \n for newline. For example,
-comment "%m:%f %wx%h"
produces an image comment of MIFF:bird.miff 512x480
for an image titled bird.miff and whose width is
512 and height is 480.
If the first character of string is @, the image
comment is read from a file titled by the remaining
characters in the string.
-compose operator
the type of image composition.
By default, each of the composite image pixels are
replaced by the corresponding image tile pixel. You
can choose an alternate composite operation:
Over
In
Out
Atop
Xor
Plus
Minus
Add
Subtract
Difference
Bumpmap
Replace
ReplaceRed
ReplaceGreen
ReplaceBlue
ReplaceMatte
The operations behaves as follows:
Over The result will be the union of the two image
shapes, with composite image obscuring image in the
region of overlap.
In The result is simply composite image cut by the
shape of composite image window. None of the image
data of image will be in the result.
Out The resulting image is composite image with the
shape of image cut out.
Atop The result is the same shape as image image, with
composite image obscuring image where the image
shapes overlap. Note this differs from over
because the portion of composite image outside
image's shape does not appear in the result.
Xor The result is the image data from both composite
image and image that is outside the overlap region.
The overlap region will be blank.
Plus The result is just the sum of the image data. Out-
put values are cropped to 255 (no overflow). This
operation is independent of the matte channels.
Minus The result of composite image - image, with under-
flow cropped to zero. The matte channel is ignored
(set to 255, full coverage).
Add The result of composite image + image, with
overflow wrapping around (mod 256).
Subtract
The result of composite image - image, with under-
flow wrapping around (mod 256). The add and sub-
tract operators can be used to perform reversible
transformations.
Difference
The result of abs(composite image - image). This
is useful for comparing two very similar images.
Bumpmap
The result of image shaded by composite image.
Replace
The resulting image is image replaced with compos-
ite image. Here the matte information is ignored.
ReplaceRed
The resulting image is the red layer in image
replaced with the red layer in composite image.
The other layers are copied untouched.
ReplaceGreen
The resulting image is the green layer in image
replaced with the green layer in composite image.
The other layers are copied untouched.
ReplaceBlue
The resulting image is the blue layer in image
replaced with the blue layer in composite image.
The other layers are copied untouched.
ReplaceMatte
The resulting image is the matte layer in image
replaced with the matte layer in composite image.
The other layers are copied untouched.
The image compositor requires a matte, or alpha
channel in the image for some operations. This
extra channel usually defines a mask which repre-
sents a sort of a cookie-cutter for the image.
This is the case when matte is 255 (full coverage)
for pixels inside the shape, zero outside, and
between zero and 255 on the boundary. If image
does not have a matte channel, it is initialized
with 0 for any pixel matching in color to pixel
location (0,0), otherwise 255 (to work properly
borderwidth must be 0).
-compress type
the type of image compression: None, JPEG, LZW,
RunlengthEncoded, or Zip.
Specify +compress to store the binary image in an
uncompressed format. The default is the compres-
sion type of the specified image file.
-crop <width>{%}x<height>{%}{+-}<x offset>{+-}<y offset>
preferred size and location of the cropped image.
See X(1) for details about the geometry specifica-
tion.
To specify a percentage width or height instead,
append %. For example to crop the image by ten
percent on all sides of the image, use -crop 10%.
Use cropping to tile only a particular area of an
image. Use -crop 0x0 to remove edges that are the
background color.
The equivalent X resource for this option is crop-
Geometry (class CropGeometry). See X RESOURCES for
details.
-density <width>x<height>
vertical and horizontal resolution in pixels of the
image.
This option specifies an image density when decod-
ing a Postscript or Portable Document page. The
default is 72 pixels per inch in the horizontal and
vertical direction. This option is used in concert
with -page.
-display host:display[.screen]
specifies the X server to contact; see X(1).
Specify +display if an X server is not available.
The label font is obtained from the X server. If
none is available, the composite image will not
have labels. Since the X server is necessary to
read X resources, all options must be set via the
command line when +display is specified.
-dispose method
GIF disposal method.
Here are the valid methods:
0 No disposal specified.
1 Do not dispose.
2 Restore to background color.
3 Restore to previous.
-dither
apply Floyd/Steinberg error diffusion to the image.
The basic strategy of dithering is to trade inten-
sity resolution for spatial resolution by averaging
the intensities of several neighboring pixels.
Images which suffer from severe contouring when
reducing colors can be improved with this option.
The -colors or -monochrome option is required for
this option to take effect.
-draw string
annotate an image with one or more graphic primi-
tives.
Use this option to annotate an image with one or
more graphic primitives. The primitives include
rectangle
circle
polygon
color
matte
text
image
Rectangle, color, matte, text, and image require an
upper left and lower right coordinate. Circle
requires the center coordinate and a coordinate on
the outer edge. Finally, polygon requires three or
more coordinates defining its boundaries. Coordi-
nates are integers separated by an optional comma.
For example, to define a circle centered at 100,100
that extends to 150,150 use:
-draw 'circle 100,100 150,150'
Use color to change the color of a pixel. Follow
the pixel coordinate with a method:
point
replace
floodfill
reset
Consider the target pixel as that specified by your
coordinate. The point method recolors the target
pixel. The replace method recolors any pixel that
matches the color of the target pixel. Floodfill
recolors any pixel that matches the color of the
target pixel and is a neighbor. Finally, reset
recolors all pixels.
Use matte to the change the pixel matte value to
transparent. Follow the pixel coordinate with a
method (see the color primitive for a description
of methods). The point method changes the matte
value of the target pixel. The replace method
changes the matte value of any pixel that matches
the color of the target pixel. Floodfill changes
the matte value of any pixel that matches the color
of the target pixel and is a neighbor. Finally
reset changes the matte value of all pixels.
Use text to annotate an image with text. Follow
the text coordinates with a string. If the string
has embedded spaces, enclose it in double quotes.
Optionally you can include the image filename,
type, width, height, or scene number by embedding
special format characters. Embed %f for filename,
%d for directory, %e for filename extention, %t for
top of filename, %m for magick, %w for width, %h
for height, %s for scene number, %b for file size,
or \n for newline. For example,
-draw 'text 100,100 "%m:%f %wx%h"'
annotates the image with MIFF:bird.miff 512x480 for
an image titled bird.miff and whose width is 512
and height is 480.
If the first character of the string is @, the text
is read from a file titled by the remaining charac-
ters in the string.
Use image to composite an image with another image.
Follow the image coordinates with the filename of
an image.
If the first character of string is @, the text is
read from a file titled by the remaining characters
in the string.
You can set the primitive color, font color, and
font bounding box color with -pen, -font, and -box
respectively. Options are processed in command
line order so be sure to use -pen before the -draw
option.
-font name
use this font when annotating the image with text.
If the font is a fully qualified X server font
name, the font is obtained from an X server (e.g.
-*-helvetica-medium-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-*).
To use a TrueType font, precede the TrueType file-
name with a @ e.g. @times.ttf. Otherwise, spec-
ify a Postscript font (e.g. helvetica).
-frame surround the image with an ornamental border.
The color of the border is specified with the -mat-
tecolor command line option. If no frame is
desired, use +frame.
-gamma value
level of gamma correction.
The same color image displayed on two different
workstations may look different due to differences
in the display monitor. Use gamma correction to
adjust for this color difference. Reasonable val-
ues extend from 0.8 to 2.3.
You can apply separate gamma values to the red,
green, and blue channels of the image with a gamma
value list delineated with slashes (i.e.
1.7/2.3/1.2).
Use +gamma to set the image gamma level without
actually adjusting the image pixels. This option
is useful if the image is of a known gamma but not
set as an image attribute (e.g. PNG images).
-geometry <width>x<height>+<border width>+<border
height>{!}{<}{>}
preferred tile and border size of each tile of the
composite image.
By default, the width and height are maximum val-
ues. That is, the image is expanded or contracted
to fit the width and height value while maintaining
the aspect ratio of the image. Append an exclama-
tion point to the geometry to force the image size
to exactly the size you specify. For example, if
you specify 640x480! the image width is set to 640
pixels and height to 480. If only one factor is
specified, both the width and height assume the
value.
Use >> to change the dimensions of the image only if
its size exceeds the geometry specification. <<
resizes the image only if its dimensions is less
than the geometry specification. For example, if
you specify 640x480>> and the image size is 512x512,
the image size does not change. However, if the
image is 1024x1024, it is resized to 640x480.
Each image is surrounded by a border whose size in
pixels is specified as <border width> and <border
height> and whose color is the background color.
By default, the tile size is 256x256 and there is
no border.
The equivalent X resource for this option is
imageGeometry (class ImageGeometry). See X
RESOURCES for details.
-gravity direction
direction image gravitates to within a tile. See
X(1) for details about the gravity specification.
A tile of the composite image is a fixed width and
height. However, the image within the tile may not
fill it completely (see -geometry). The direction
you choose specifies where to position the image
within the tile. For example Center gravity forces
the image to be centered within the tile. By
default, the image gravity is Center.
-interlace type
the type of interlacing scheme: None, Line, Plane,
or Partition. The default is None.
This option is used to specify the type of inter-
lacing scheme for raw image formats such as RGB or
YUV. No means do not interlace (RGBRGBRGBRGBRG-
BRGB...), Line uses scanline interlacing
(RRR...GGG...BBB...RRR...GGG...BBB...), and Plane
uses plane interlacing
(RRRRRR...GGGGGG...BBBBBB...). Partition is like
plane except the different planes are saved to
individual files (e.g. image.R, image.G, and
image.B).
Use Line, or Plane to create an interlaced GIF or
progressive JPEG image.
-label name
assign a label to an image.
By default, each image is labeled with its file
name. Use this option to assign a specific label
to the image. Optionally you can include the image
filename, type, width, height, or scene number in
the label by embedding special format characters.
Embed %f for filename, %d for directory, %e for
filename extention, %t for top of filename, %m for
magick, %w for width, %h for height, %s for scene
number, %b for file size, or \n for newline. For
example,
-label "%m:%f %wx%h"
produces an image label of MIFF:bird.miff 512x480
for an image titled bird.miff and whose width is
512 and height is 480.
If the first character of string is @, the image
label is read from a file titled by the remaining
characters in the string.
-matte store matte channel if the image has one.
-mode type
the type of montage: Frame, Unframe, Concatentate.
The default is Unframe.
This option is for convenience. You can obtain the
desired result by setting individual options (e.g.
Unframe is equivalent to +frame +shadow +border-
width).
-monochrome
transform the image to black and white.
-page <width>{%}x<height>{%}{+-}<x offset>{+-}<y off-
set>{!}{<}{>}
preferred size and location of an image canvas.
Use this option to specify the dimensions of the
Postscript page in dots per inch or a TEXT page in
pixels. The choices for a Postscript page are:
Letter 612x 792
Tabloid 792x1224
Ledger 1224x 792
Legal 612x1008
Statement 396x 612
Executive 540x 720
A3 842x1190
A4 595x 842
A5 420x 595
B4 729x1032
B5 516x 729
Folio 612x 936
Quarto 610x 780
10x14 720x1008
For convenience you can specify the page size by
media (e.g. A4, Ledger, etc.). Otherwise, -page
behaves much like -geometry (e.g. -page let-
ter+43+43>).
To position a GIF image, use -page {+-}<x off-
set>{+-}<y offset> (e.g. -page +100+200). For a
Postscript page, the image is sized as in -geometry
and positioned relative to the lower left hand cor-
ner of the page by {+-}<x offset>{+-}<y offset>.
The default is to center the image within the page.
If the image size exceeds the Postscript page, it
is reduced to fit the page.
The default page dimensions for a TEXT image is
612x792.
This option is used in concert with -density.
-pen color
set the color of the font.
See X(1) for details about the color specification.
-pointsize value
pointsize of the Postscript font.
-quality value
JPEG/MIFF/PNG compression level.
For the JPEG image format, quality is 0 (worst) to
100 (best). The default quality is 75.
Quality for the MIFF and PNG image format sets the
amount of image compression (quality / 10) and fil-
ter-type (quality % 10). Compression quality val-
ues range from 0 (worst) to 100 (best). If filter-
type is 4 or less, the specified filter-type is
used for all scanlines:
0: none
1: sub
2: up
3: average
4: Paeth
If filter-type is 5, adaptive filtering is used
when quality is greater than 50 and the image does
not have a color map, otherwise no filtering is
used.
If filter-type is 6 or more, adaptive filtering
with minimum-sum-of-absolute-values is used.
The default is quality is 75. Which means nearly
the best compression with adaptive filtering.
For further information, see the PNG specification
(RFC 2083), <http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/TR>.
-rotate degrees{<}{>}
apply Paeth image rotation to the image.
Use >> to rotate the image only if its width exceeds
the height. << rotates the image only if its width
is less than the height. For example, if you spec-
ify -90>> and the image size is 480x640, the image
is not rotated by the specified angle. However, if
the image is 640x480, it is rotated by -90 degrees.
Empty triangles left over from rotating the image
are filled with the color defined as bordercolor
(class borderColor).
-scene value
image scene number.
-shadow
add a shadow beneath a tile to simulate depth.
-size <width>{%}x<height>{%}{+offset}{!}
width and height of the image.
Use this option to specify the width and height of
raw images whose dimensions are unknown such as
GRAY, RGB, or CMYK. In addition to width and
height, use -size to skip any header information in
the image or tell the number of colors in a MAP
image file, (e.g. -size 640x512+256).
-texture filename
name of texture to tile onto the image background.
-tile <width>x<height>
specifies how many tiles are to appear in each row
and column of the composite image.
Specify the number of tiles per row with width and
tiles per column with height. For example if you
want 1 tile in each row and a maximum of 10 tiles
in the composite image, use -tile 1x10. The
default is to have 5 tiles in each row and 4 tiles
in each column of the composite.
-transparency color
make this color transparent within the image.
-treedepth value
Normally, this integer value is zero or one. A
zero or one tells montage to choose a optimal tree
depth for the color reduction algorithm.
An optimal depth generally allows the best repre-
sentation of the source image with the fastest com-
putational speed and the least amount of memory.
However, the default depth is inappropriate for
some images. To assure the best representation,
try values between 2 and 8 for this parameter.
Refer to quantize(9) for more details.
The -colors or -monochrome option is required for
this option to take effect.
-verbose
print detailed information about the image.
This information is printed: image scene number;
image name; image size; the image class (Direct-
Class or PseudoClass); the total number of unique
colors; and the number of seconds to read and
write the image.
In addition to those listed above, you can specify these
standard X resources as command line options: -back-
ground, -bordercolor, -borderwidth, -font, -foreground,
-mattecolor, or -title. See X RESOURCES for details.
Options are processed in command line order. Any option
you specify on the command line remains in effect until it
is explicitly changed by specifying the option again with
a different effect. For example, to montage two images,
the first with 32 colors and the second with only 16 col-
ors, use:
montage -colors 32 cockatoo.1 -colors 16 cockatoo.2
cockatoo.miff
By default, the image format is determined by its magic
number. To specify a particular image format, precede the
filename with an image format name and a colon (i.e.
ps:image) or specify the image type as the filename suffix
(i.e. image.ps). See convert(1) for a list of valid image
formats.
When you specify X as your image type, the filename has
special meaning. It specifies an X window by id, name, or
root. If no filename is specified, the window is selected
by clicking the mouse in the desired window.
Specify input_file as - for standard input, output_file as
- for standard output. If input_file has the extension .Z
or .gz, the file is uncompressed with uncompress or gunzip
respectively. If output_file has the extension .Z or .gz,
the file size is compressed using with compress or gzip
respectively. Finally, precede the image file name with |
to pipe to or from a system command.
Use an optional index enclosed in brackets after a file
name to specify a desired subimage of a multi-resolution
image format like Photo CD (e.g. img0001.pcd[4]) or a
range for MPEG images (e.g. video.mpg[50-75]). A subimage
specification can be disjoint (e.g. image.tiff[2,7,4]).
For raw images, specify a subimage with a geometry (e.g.
-size 640x512 image.rgb[320x256+50+50]).
Single images are written with the filename you specify.
However, multi-part images (e.g. a multi-page Postscript
document with +adjoin specified) are written with the
filename followed by a period (.) and the scene number.
You can change this behavior by embedding a printf format
specification in the file name. For example,
image%02d.miff
montages files image00.miff, image01.miff, etc.
Note, a composite MIFF image displayed to an X server with
display behaves differently than other images. You can
think of the composite as a visual image directory.
Choose a particular tile of the composite and press a but-
ton to display it. See display(1) and miff(5) for
details.
X RESOURCES
montage options can appear on the command line or in your
X resource file. Options on the command line supersede
values specified in your X resource file. See X(1) for
more information on X resources.
All montage options have a corresponding X resource. In
addition, montage uses the following X resources:
background (class Background)
Specifies the preferred color to use for the com-
posite image background. The default is #ccc.
borderColor (class BorderColor)
Specifies the preferred color to use for the com-
posite image border. The default is #ccc.
borderWidth (class BorderWidth)
Specifies the width in pixels of the composite
image border. The default is 2.
font (class Font)
Specifies the name of the preferred font to use
when displaying text within the composite image.
The default is 9x15, fixed, or 5x8 determined by
the composite image size.
foreground (class Foreground)
Specifies the preferred color to use for text
within the composite image. The default is black.
matteColor (class MatteColor)
Specify the color of an image frame. A 3D effect
is achieved by using highlight and shadow colors
derived from this color. The default value is
#ccc.
title (class Title)
This resource specifies the title to be placed at
the top of the composite image. The default is not
to place a title at the top of the composite image.
ENVIRONMENT
display
To get the default host, display number, and
screen.
SEE ALSO
display(1) animate(1) import(1) mogrify(1) convert(1)
combine(1) xtp(1)
COPYRIGHT
Copyright 1998 E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any per-
son obtaining a copy of this software and associated docu-
mentation files ("ImageMagick"), to deal in ImageMagick
without restriction, including without limitation the
rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute,
sublicense, and/or sell copies of ImageMagick, and to per-
mit persons to whom the ImageMagick is furnished to do so,
subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice
shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of
ImageMagick.
The software is provided "as is", without warranty of any
kind, express or implied, including but not limited to the
warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular
purpose and noninfringement. In no event shall E. I. du
Pont de Nemours and Company be liable for any claim, dam-
ages or other liability, whether in an action of contract,
tort or otherwise, arising from, out of or in connection
with ImageMagick or the use or other dealings in ImageMag-
ick.
Except as contained in this notice, the name of the E. I.
du Pont de Nemours and Company shall not be used in adver-
tising or otherwise to promote the sale, use or other
dealings in ImageMagick without prior written authoriza-
tion from the E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The MIT X Consortium for making network transparent graph-
ics a reality.
Michael Halle, Spatial Imaging Group at MIT, for the ini-
tial implementation of Alan Paeth's image rotation algo-
rithm.
David Pensak, E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, for
providing a computing environment that made this program
possible.
Paul Raveling, USC Information Sciences Institute, for the
original idea of using space subdivision for the color
reduction algorithm.
AUTHORS
John Cristy, E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company Incorpo-
rated