Python is extremely useful

I am constantly amazed at how useful Python programming has become.  I still think that, as a language, Python is not much easier to learn than any other language and still looks and feels like a student's college project; but, for whatever reason, everyone has gotten on the Python bandwagon. The sheer number of Python packages is stunning -- and there is the real strength of Python.  Whenever I want to do something that is an area I really don't want to do a deep dive - like Image processing - I can find a Python package that will allow me to do what I need to do without becoming an expert in that area. 

Currently, all digital publishing (websites, pdfs, word documents, etc) use RGB mode images. But hard print publishing generally uses CMYK images rather than RGB.  Publishing a small community newspaper, our printer requires images to be in CMYK format.  So, our layout editor has to take each image and convert it to CMYK (using Canva) before building the issue using InDesign.  In order to cut down the manual steps involved, I wanted to convert the images (primarily .png and .jpg) images with RGB mode to .jpg images using CMYK.  While the programmer in me truly wants to learn all about the image formats and write the conversion, it would take me well off the path of just getting the community newspaper out efficiently.

And Python comes to the rescue. The python Pillow package provides all of the functionality I need to convert images from one format to another AND the ability to convert them from using RGB mode to using CMYK mode.

It's a good world!