And the Winner Is …
Following up on my cry for help earlier this week, I want to give a big digital pat on the back to Jeroen Sangers from across the Atlantic for his recommendation.
I received a few good suggestions for converting a batch of image files to gif format, including a few applications I’d not heard of before. Here are some of the suggestions:
- ImageMagick: A couple of people recommended this one, a command line tool.
- GraphicConvertor: Another suggestion for a Mac specific tool.
- Shell script: Ian Beck of Beckism recommended using Automator to convert all the images to png format and then use the “Run Shell Script” Automator action to run the script linked to here.
- Quicksilver: And the winner, good ol’ Quicksilver. Jeroen recommended using it and informed me how he used it to do similar work.
When I was trying to solve the problem myself, I had looked through Quicksilver’s available plugins and did not see anything applicable. I’m going to blame old age for completely missing the aptly named “Image Manipulation Actions” plugin, as seen here:
After installing that plugin, Quicksilver does the job perfectly. And it works the best because of it’s simplicity. I can scale a bunch of images and convert the format all in one simple step. And if I need to convert them back, or to a third format, it’s the same simple step once again. Quicksilver actually leaves the originals alone and creates a copy in the same location.
Here is the workflow: 1) Select the images you want to modify 2) Use a Quicksilver trigger to pass Selected items to the QS Command window 3) Type Scale to bring up the Scale Image action and 4) Tab to the third window and specify your size and format.
Here are some screens to illustrate:
One question I have is this—the plugin has a Preview icon beside it, and since Preview is unable to batch convert files to gif format, how is Quicksilver able to get it done?
At any rate, this is a great solution to a simple problem. Thanks to everyone who passed on suggestions—much appreciated.
