Split tiff and stamp string (GDI+ or DX)

[Benny]

I first of all need to know if the change from .NET 2.0 GDI+ to DirectX would
benefit me in my situation. I need to transform multi-page tiffs to stamped
single- or multi-page tiffs. I have come very close to doing this with GDI+
but it was suggested that it may be beneficial to use the actual graphics
card using DirectX to process the images instead. The amount of pages in
each batch would be anywhere from 500 to 500,000+. This is a rather time
intensive process so the faster it can go the better (as always). If this
would be a smart move any suggestions for references would be excellent. I
am proficcient in C# but C++ I can manipulate and get the hang of. Any help
is *greatly* appreciated.

[the.duckman]

I wouldn't stuff around with dx if your almost finished on your current
approach.

Is it the file access speed or image processing speed that is slowing
down your application.
DirectX wont help you if your reading one image frame at a time from
the harddisk....

My sugestion would be to complete the application in the most expedient
means possible. Then analyse where your are spending most of your
processing time. Then go back and optimise that.

I would imagine that if your stamping consits purly of overlaying an
image onto your tiff then 90% of your time is saving and loading the
image and 10% is the stamping.

However If you are alpha bending in 30 layers of stamps arbitarily
transformed adding some form of Steganography and then adding boarders
and filtering for good effect... Then maybe another API other then
GDI+ would be faster.

-dm