Read Text Overlay

[bestbier]

Hi

I am saving images as PNG with a overlay. Overlays are only text. I need to batch process images to change the overlay - is the a way to read the text from a overlay on a saved PNG or get to the individual elements of the overlay so that I can change them and resave?

Thanks

Nic

[b.ploetzeneder]

Hmmm.. I'm not sure if there is access to the Vision Info, even if I'd like to have it.. 

The image processing person in me would copy the overlays to a white image, merge them and do OCR, but that is my personal approach 🙂

If you have any control over the saving process, use custom keys instead of overlays to store your data. 

Birgit

[bestbier]

Hi

At the moment the overlays are saved by someone else's software and I can't change that.

Custom keys??? Can you explain.

Thanks

Nic

[b.ploetzeneder]

Custom keys are a way to store the data into the header of the image file without being visible.

I will attach a screenshot from yet to be published material on how to use them 🙂

 

[fblerg]

Nice post, b.ploetzeneder! 

I second b.ploetzenender's idea. I would recommend trying OCR to find what letters are overlayed, find their position and then masking them. Or if the letters are a certain color, then trying a color threshold to isolate them, and then mask, and add the overlay that you want. Do you have any sample image that you could post?