Legacy ImageMagick Discussions Archive

I am using ImageMagick 6.4.0 06/07/08 Q16 on an OpenSuse Linux system. I split a multi-page TIFF file using:
convert multipagetiff.tif -define quantum:polarity=min-is-white test2a_%d.tif
The single-page TIFFs are fine at this point. (I use the quantum:polarity to ensure the image shows up properly in the Windows picture viewer).

I then issue the following command to put a date watermark on the image:
convert test2a_0.tif -pointsize 60 -fill black -gravity northwest -annotate 270x270+40+480 "MM\DD\YYYY" test2b_0.tif
The input image was 22K and it explodes to 810K! I notice that the channel depth switches from 1-bit to 16/8-bit and it now has an alpha channel. I have tried the -alpha deactivate and tried various compression options, which either does not reduce the size, or creates an unreadable image. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated!

Try combinations of the blue highlighted commands. I am assuming your tif file was all b/w (bilevel). The anti-aliasing of text probably causes the increase in depth (to grayscale) and any text operation such as label: caption: -draw and -annotate seem to add an alpha channel. The -depth 2 and -type bilevel may be redundant.

convert test2a_0.tif -pointsize 60 -fill black -gravity northwest +antialias -annotate 270x270+40+480 "MM\DD\YYYY" -alpha off -depth 2 -type bilevel test2b_0.tif

If that does not work, post a link to one of your tiff frames.

I used the +antialias -alpha off -type bilevel options and it worked perfectly! Thank you very much for the information!