Load Image From Folder (Pipe)

Load Image From Folder (Pipe) is the pipe-flavored twin of the plain folder stepper. Same folder, same index modes, same one-image-at-a-time behavior - but instead of two loose image and mask outputs, it packs everything into a single PIPE output. That one change makes it the right choice when the rest of your workflow is built on Eclipse's pipe ecosystem: the image, its mask, its dimensions, file identity, and (optionally) its generation metadata all travel down one wire, and downstream pipe-aware nodes unpack what they need.

What's the same, what's different

The folder controls carry over almost exactly: folder_path (multiple folders, one per line), include_subfolders (default on), index with the same four special modes (-1 Random, -2 Increment, -3 Decrement, -4 Shuffle no-repeat), sort_by/sort_order, stop_at_end, refresh_list, and the seed_input that freezes selection while you tweak other settings. Same stepper, same rules.

Two differences matter:

• extract_metadata (default off) - when enabled, the loader parses generation metadata from the image file and folds it into the pipe. The tooltip is honest: it's slower. Files with embedded metadata - the PNGs ComfyUI and A1111 write - carry their prompts, seeds, and settings as text chunks, and this node's extract_image_metadata reads them into pipe fields. Enable it when you want a workflow to read what produced a batch of images; leave it off for raw speed. This is the metadata feature the pipe ecosystem is built around - the whole "workflow lives in the image" convention.
• Single pipe output - the image, mask, and every metadata field ride together. Extract them with the pack's pipe-out or IO nodes when you need individual sockets.

Inputs and output

• folder_path, include_subfolders, index, sort_by, sort_order, stop_at_end, extract_metadata, refresh_list - plus optional seed_input.
• pipe (output) - the one thing that comes out. Wire it to a Context, a pipe-out extractor, or a sampler settings consumer.

It's an output node, so it terminates a branch - same as the non-pipe version.

Where it fits

Pick this over the plain version when you're already working in pipes - feeding a Context (Image) node, a pipe-based sampler, or a save pipeline that expects a full context rather than bare wires. If you just need "next image in the folder, please," the plain Load Image From Folder is lighter. If you want that image plus its embedded generation data arriving in one clean structure, this is the node.

Install

Part of ComfyUI_Eclipse:

cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes
git clone https://github.com/r-vage/ComfyUI_Eclipse

Or install ComfyUI_Eclipse from ComfyUI Manager and restart. Standard pack dependencies, no extra models. One caveat from the wider metadata picture: generation metadata only survives if the source files weren't re-encoded by a host or editor - a PNG that went through Reddit or a screenshot has nothing to extract, and you'll just get empty fields.