ImageForge

1. Overview & Key Features

ImageForge is a powerful, all-local desktop application that combines two highly in-demand tools — a professional batch image editor and a smart duplicate file detector — into a single free application. It is designed for photographers who need to process hundreds of images at once, web designers optimizing assets, content creators managing large media libraries, and anyone who has accumulated years of duplicate files eating up disk space.

ImageForge runs entirely on your local machine. No images are uploaded anywhere. No subscription is required. No internet connection is needed after installation. It is positioned as a free replacement for expensive subscription tools like Adobe Photoshop Batch Actions and duplicate file finders.

Key Features

• Batch Editing: Apply resize, crop, flip, rotate, watermark, filters, and background removal to hundreds of images simultaneously with a live preview panel.
• Format Conversion: Convert between 20+ image formats including JPEG, PNG, WebP, TIFF, BMP, GIF, and ICO with quality control and batch support.
• Smart Duplicate Detection: Finds exact duplicates (hash-based), visually similar images (perceptual hash), and near-identical files across any folder structure. Safely delete duplicates to reclaim GBs of disk space.
• Audio Tools: Basic audio file format conversion and metadata inspection powered by pydub and ffmpeg.
• Live Preview: Every batch operation shows a real-time preview of how the first selected image will look after the operation — before any files are modified.
• Non-Destructive Output: By default, processed images are saved to a new output folder. Original files are never overwritten unless you explicitly choose in-place processing.

2. System Requirements & Installation

Running the Compiled EXE

Launch ImageForge.exe from the dist/ folder or desktop shortcut. A splash screen appears briefly while the application initializes. The main tabbed window opens automatically.

Running from Source

1. Navigate to the ImageForge folder.
2. Install requirements: pip install -r requirements.txt
3. Launch: python main.py

Key dependencies: PyQt6, Pillow, imagehash, pydub. If audio tools are needed, install ffmpeg and add it to your system PATH.

3. Interface Overview

ImageForge has a four-tab layout. The status bar at the bottom of the window shows the current operation status, file counts, and progress messages. The application remembers its window size and position between sessions.

• Batch Editor tab: Three-panel layout — file list (left), operations panel (center), preview panel (right). Most of your image editing workflow happens here.
• Convert tab: Format conversion interface with source/output format selection and quality controls.
• Duplicate Finder tab: Folder scanner with duplicate results table and safe-delete controls.
• Audio tab: Audio file tools panel.

4. Tab 1 — Batch Editor

The Batch Editor is the centerpiece of ImageForge. It lets you apply a sequence of transformations to any number of images in a single operation, previewing results before committing.

Adding Files

• Click + Files to open a file browser. Select one or multiple image files. Hold Shift or Ctrl to select multiple files at once.
• Click + Folder to add all images from a chosen directory. This adds every supported image file in the folder (not recursive — subfolders are not included unless you enable the recursive toggle).
• Click Clear to remove all files from the list and start over.

The file list on the left shows filenames and a small color indicator for each file's status (pending, processing, complete, error).

Selecting Operations

The center operations panel contains multiple operation cards, each with an enable/disable toggle. Enable the operations you want applied, configure their parameters, and the preview panel on the right updates automatically for the first file in your list.

Resize

Resize images to specific pixel dimensions or by percentage. Options:

• Width & Height (pixels): Enter exact target dimensions. The Maintain Aspect Ratio checkbox calculates the other dimension automatically when you enter one value.
• Percentage: Scale all images by a percentage of their original size. 50% halves width and height; 200% doubles them.
• Resample Filter: Choose LANCZOS (highest quality, slowest), BICUBIC (good balance), BILINEAR (fast), or NEAREST (fastest, pixelated for non-photo images). LANCZOS is recommended for downsizing; BICUBIC for upsizing.

Crop

Crop a rectangular region from all images. You can specify crop coordinates in pixels (left, top, right, bottom offsets from the image edges) or choose a preset aspect ratio (1:1 for square, 16:9 for widescreen, 4:3 for classic, etc.) with automatic center cropping.

Rotate & Flip

Rotate all images by 90°, 180°, or 270° clockwise, or by any custom angle (-360° to 360°). Expansion mode fills the new background area with a solid color (configurable) when rotating at non-90° angles to avoid clipping corners. Flip horizontally (mirror) or vertically independently.

Watermark

Overlay a text or image watermark on all processed images.

• Text watermark: Enter your watermark text. Configure font size, color (with opacity/alpha), and position (9 positions: all four corners, all four edge midpoints, and center).
• Image watermark: Select a logo or watermark PNG file. Configure size (as percentage of the image width) and position. Transparency from the watermark PNG is preserved automatically.

Filters

Apply visual filters from the FILTER_NAMES list. Available filters include:

• Grayscale: Converts to black and white.
• Sepia: Warm brown-tone vintage effect.
• Blur / Sharpen / Emboss / Edge Enhance: Standard PIL image filters.
• Auto Contrast: Stretches the histogram to maximize contrast.
• Equalize: Equalizes the image histogram for balanced exposure.
• Brightness / Contrast / Saturation sliders: Manual adjustment of image properties from 0 to 200% (100% = original).

Background Removal

Uses the rembg library (if installed) to remove image backgrounds automatically using AI-based foreground segmentation. The removed background is replaced with transparency (saved as PNG or WebP with alpha channel). This operation is slower than others as it uses a neural network model locally — expect a few seconds per image depending on image size and CPU speed.

Output Settings

Configure the output for all processed images:

• Output Folder: Where to save processed images. Defaults to a subfolder named imageforge_output inside the source folder. Click Browse to choose a different location.
• Output Format: Same as input (preserves original format), or convert all output to JPEG, PNG, WebP, BMP, TIFF, or GIF.
• JPEG Quality (1–95): Quality level for JPEG output. 85 is recommended for a good size/quality balance. Set higher for archival, lower for web optimization.
• Overwrite Existing: If unchecked (default), already-processed files are skipped. If checked, existing output files are overwritten.

Running the Batch

Click Process All to begin. A progress bar and status message show real-time progress (e.g., "Processing 47 / 230 files..."). Processing runs in a background thread — the UI remains responsive while the batch runs. You can switch to other tabs or review the preview while processing continues.

When complete, a summary popup shows total files processed, success count, and any errors. Click Open Output Folder in the summary to view your results immediately.

Click Cancel during processing to stop after the current file completes. Already-processed files are not affected.

5. Tab 2 — Format Converter

The Convert tab provides a streamlined interface focused specifically on format conversion. While the Batch Editor can also convert formats, the Convert tab is simpler and faster for jobs where no other transformations are needed.

Workflow

1. Add source images using the file/folder picker.
2. Select the Output Format from the dropdown.
3. Set quality (JPEG) or compression (PNG) options if applicable.
4. Choose whether to save converted files alongside originals or in a dedicated output folder.
5. Click Convert. A progress indicator tracks completion.

Bulk WebP Conversion

WebP is the modern web image format offering significantly smaller file sizes than JPEG or PNG at equivalent quality. Converting your entire image library to WebP is a common use case: select all images, choose WebP as output format, set quality to 82–85, and convert. Expect 30–60% file size reduction compared to JPEG.

6. Tab 3 — Duplicate Finder

The Duplicate Finder scans one or more folders for duplicate or near-duplicate files and presents them in a grouped results table for review and safe deletion. This is one of ImageForge's most powerful features — it can identify duplicates even when filenames and dates have changed.

Setting Up a Scan

1. Click Add Folder to add one or more folders to the scan. The scanner searches all subfolders within each added folder automatically.
2. Configure the detection sensitivity using the Similarity Mode toggle:
   • Exact Match: Uses SHA-256 file hashing. Only files with byte-for-byte identical content are flagged. Zero false positives. Fastest mode.
   • Visual Similarity: Uses perceptual hashing (pHash). Identifies images that look visually identical even if they have different resolutions, slight compression differences, or minor edits. This mode catches duplicates that exact matching misses.
   • Near Duplicate (Loose): Uses a higher tolerance threshold for visual similarity. Catches images that are similar but not identical — useful for finding multiple slightly different exports of the same photograph.
3. Click Start Scan. A progress indicator shows scanning progress across your folder tree. Large libraries with thousands of files may take a minute or more in visual similarity mode.

Reviewing Results

Scan results are presented as groups. Each group contains all files identified as duplicates of one another. For each group, ImageForge suggests which file to keep (typically the highest-resolution or oldest file) and marks the rest for deletion.

• Click any file in the results to see a full-size preview thumbnail.
• The Keep / Delete selection for each file can be overridden — click any file's row and toggle its keep/delete status.
• Use Select All Duplicates to mark all non-primary files for deletion, or Deselect All to reset all selections.
• The total recoverable space (sum of all marked-for-deletion file sizes) is displayed prominently above the results table.

Deleting Duplicates

Click Delete Selected. ImageForge sends all marked files to the system Recycle Bin (using the send2trash library) rather than permanently deleting them. This gives you a safety net — if you accidentally delete a file you wanted to keep, you can restore it from the Recycle Bin.

7. Tab 4 — Audio Tools

The Audio tab provides basic audio file utilities powered by pydub (which uses ffmpeg as a backend). This tab is a supplementary feature for users who work with mixed media libraries containing both images and audio files.

Prerequisites

Audio tools require ffmpeg to be installed and available in your system PATH. If ffmpeg is not found, the tab displays a banner explaining how to install it, but the rest of the application continues working normally.

Available Audio Operations

• Format Conversion: Convert audio files between MP3, WAV, OGG, FLAC, AAC, and M4A formats.
• Metadata Inspection: View embedded metadata (title, artist, album, duration, bitrate, sample rate) for any loaded audio file.
• Volume Normalization: Normalize audio to a target loudness level (in dBFS) for consistent volume across a batch of files.
• Trim: Remove silence from the start and/or end of audio files.

8. Batch Operations Reference

9. Format Support Reference

10. Troubleshooting

Application takes a long time to start

The splash screen displays while PyQt6 and Pillow initialize. On first launch, Pillow may compile some components. Subsequent launches are faster. If startup takes over 30 seconds, check that your antivirus is not scanning the EXE's bundled libraries on every launch — add the application folder to antivirus exclusions.

Preview panel stays blank

Ensure at least one valid image file is in the file list before the preview renders. The preview shows the first file in the list. If the first file is corrupted or an unsupported format, it will show blank — select a different file as the preview source by clicking it in the file list.

Background removal produces poor results

The rembg AI model works best on images with clear subject-background contrast. Complex backgrounds, images with thin transparent elements (hair, glass, fur), or very low-resolution images may produce imperfect masks. Use a photo editing tool for post-processing fine-tuning if needed.

Duplicate scan finds no results despite known duplicates

If using Exact Match mode, files that have been re-saved (even at the same quality settings) may have different checksums. Switch to Visual Similarity mode. Also ensure the folder added to the scan actually contains the duplicate files — the scan does not traverse symlinks.

Audio tab shows "ffmpeg not found"

Download ffmpeg from ffmpeg.org and extract it. Add the bin/ folder path to your Windows PATH environment variable. Restart the application. The audio tab will automatically detect ffmpeg on next launch.

ImageForge User Manual — DennTech — v1.0 — May 2026