LoadImageNode_LCM

ComfyUI's built-in LoadImage node is a dropdown: pick from images in your input folder. LoadImageNode_LCM throws that out and takes a raw filesystem path as a plain string. That's a downgrade for most uses and a lifesaver for exactly one: the pack's canvas tools, where the path comes from elsewhere at runtime - OutpaintCanvasTool outputs a file path string that you wire straight into this node's image input. A dropdown can't do that; a string can.

Beyond the input type, it's a bog-standard image loader: opens the file, applies exif_transpose (so phone/DSLR photos don't come out rotated sideways), converts to RGB, normalizes to 0–1, and returns a single IMAGE tensor in ComfyUI's B,H,W,C layout.

How it works

The load_image function is short enough to read in full: Image.open(image), ImageOps.exif_transpose(i), convert to RGB, np.array(...) / 255.0, wrap in a tensor with a leading batch dimension. That's it. No thumbnail previews in the node, no filename dropdown, no directory scan. The whole point is that the path can be computed by another node and handed in as a value.

The inputs that matter

Exactly one:

• image - a STRING. A filesystem path to an image, like C:\ComfyUI\input\photo.png or /home/user/ComfyUI/input/photo.png. It does not take a ComfyUI IMAGE tensor, despite the name - the field is a string path, and wiring a tensor into it will just fail.

Output: IMAGE - the loaded tensor, ready for any node that takes one.

How to install it

Part of taabata/LCM_Inpaint-Outpaint_Comfy; one install gets the whole pack:

cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes
git clone https://github.com/taabata/LCM_Inpaint-Outpaint_Comfy
cd LCM_Inpaint-Outpaint_Comfy
pip install -r requirements.txt

Or ComfyUI Manager → "LCM_Inpaint-Outpaint_Comfy" → restart. No models needed for this node.

Common issues

Because the path is free-form, the failure mode is a plain file-not-found at run time, and the node's only diagnostic is printing the path to the console before it crashes. On Windows, the usual escaping traps apply - a path like C:\images\a.png typed into the string field should be fine, but if you're composing it from other nodes, a stray backslash can quietly break it. This pack is Linux-flavored anyway (its author warns about it in the README), so don't expect Windows path handling to be bulletproof.

If you just want to load a file from ComfyUI's input folder with a nice dropdown, use the built-in LoadImage instead. This node is for when the path has to be dynamic - which, in this pack, means the canvas and reference-image flows.