Convert PNG to GIF via Command Line

Nov06
2009

Written by devnet

Hello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic.

I installed a bare bones Arch Linux system today and took a screenshot. With no graphics utilities installed, I needed a way to convert a PNG to a GIF for a Simple Machines forum template thumbnail. I figured I’d use a command line utility to help me and ImageMagick is installed by default on most distributions. A quick read through the ImageMagick manpage and I found the convert command and thought I’d share it with everyone. Use convert in the following fashion: convert [input-options] input-file [output-options] output-file

convert SMFPress.png -channel Alpha -threshold 80% -resize 120x120 thumbnail.gif

This did a quick, same-size conversion with little loss for me to display the thumbnail online. For more information on the options I used and other options that I didn’t use, take a peek at the ImageMagick Online Help Page for convert.

This content is published under the Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Posted in Featured, Tips - Tagged cli, linux, shell, Tips, tips and tricks

doug

I love convert. Very handy for changing file types, but I’ve gotten a lot of use out of it for batch resize jobs.

http://linux-blog.org devnet

It’s funny…when you use KDE and Gnome a lot you forget about many of these command line options that are just VERY powerful and quick. I had totally forgotten about convert and you’re 100% right…it’s handy in batch jobs as well Very handy for script writing

http://fosslib.tsakf.net tsakf

A very interesting article that has been added to my library.
http://fosslib.tsakf.net/record/279

http://linux-blog.org devnet

Thanks for the add! You might try looking around a bit here under the tips tag ( http://linux-blog.org/tag/tips/ ) and the tips and tricks tag ( http://linux-blog.org/tag/tips-and-tricks/ ). There is plenty of info here specifically for helping out linux users

http://fosslib.tsakf.net tsakf

Thanks for the sections info!
http://www.wegif.com/ weGIF

a very informative article and i really wanted to learn more from you….. well i am aslo in this obviously, and i usually do this on http://www.wegif.com/
Gif Photo Animation
http://web2linux.com Web2Linux.com

Nice article.. Thanks for sharing this with us
http://pramonotunggul.com Pramono

Nice info, thanks for sharing.
Can it be used to convert other kind of image extension, maybe “.xwd” just say it to “.jpg”?

regards,

PramonoTunggul.com
.-= Pramono´s last blog ..Installing wordpress. =-.
http://wesleybailey.com wes

I’ve always used mogrify -format jpg tux.png or mogrify -resize tux.jpg 120×120, also from the
ImageMagick package. This saves an extra step, thanks for pointing out this command.
http://arvinlinux.blogspot.com/ Linux tips

Its nice, this is Very use full for changing file types, more over I will get a lot of use out of it for batch resize jobs…

Convert PNG to GIF via Command Line

Sponsors