Between Lines — IMAGE→SRT (photos that sing)
I’ve added another new sister-tool to Between Lines: Image → SRT.
Upload a still image, and it writes a subtitle file whose timings and “words” are derived from the picture. Feed that SRT into Between Lines and you get a playable score.
Below: a short render of Beksiński’s 1973 “Night Creeper” using my “Ritual Dread” settings, plus the, SRT output, mosaic preview and the app screenshot.
Grid the image into rows × columns (like a page: left→right, top→bottom).
Average each cell to a single shade/colour.
grayscale: darker = lower pitch / longer sustain; light = higher; pure white can be treated as silence (invert for the opposite).
colour (hue) mode: hue picks pitch region, brightness can gate silence.
Timing: each cell = a fixed duration (e.g., 0.12 s). Optional row gap adds breath between lines—very phrase-like.
The tool writes two things:
an .srt file (the “score”), and
a mosaic preview PNG showing the exact grid the music came from (optionally with grid lines / silent cells marked).
Then open the SRT in /Between Lines/ and choose scale, stereo width, chord pad, reverb, etc., to match the image’s mood.
Pipeline: Image → SRT → /Between Lines/ → WAV (+ Mosaic)
SRT is the project’s “limbo layer.” Everything—speech, music, images—passes through it. Timing + minimal text become a neutral score that can be re-interpreted: seen (spectrograms), heard (sonification), or re-written. It’s the gap where meaning suspends… and forms.
Case study — Night Creeper
I ran the painting through Image→SRT (70×40 grid, 0.12 s/cell, hue with white→silence) and sonified it with a slow, heavy preset:
Articulation: 0.95 (legato)
Floor (drone): 0.05 @ 50–85 Hz
Reverb: 0.22 • Saturation: 1.03
Result: a crawling, heat-haze drone that fits the sodium-orange, rusted dread of the piece.
Rows / Columns — resolution of the “reading.”
Seconds per cell + Row gap — pace and phrasing.
Silence threshold (+ invert) — which parts of the image become rests.
Mapping — grayscale or hue.
Word-length range — acts like sustain inside /Between Lines/.
In /Between Lines/ — scale (chromatic, phrygian, aeolian, dorian, lydian…), stereo width, caption-chord pad, smoothing, reverb, saturation.
All the tools are converging into a single space: Between Lines Studio — a desktop (or web) app where SRT is the spine, and you can go:
Audio → SRT (beats/bars/onsets)
Image → SRT (grid reading)
Text → SRT (write your own score)
then SRT → Music / Spectrogram / Image mosaic, and (for me) onward into signal // noise.
Upload a photo. Get a composition.
