We’ve mentioned previously how wonderful the new Automator is and have decided that to feature a weekly workflow that may make some of your tasks easier.
The Automator Tip of the Week is Picture File Conversion.
It is amazing the number of different picture file formats for the modern computer. Many people use jpegs but at the same time tiffs are still common amongst Mac users.
Additionally, web picture formats include gif, png, and many others. But amongst all these different file formats you may find yourself in need of a way to quickly convert pictures from one format to another. Opening each picture and saving it as a different format can be very time consuming. Unless, of course, you setup an automator task to do the work for you.
Change Picture File Type With Automator
The following Automator steps will help you batch convert the file extension of your pictures. For a point of reference I’ll reference this as if you were changing png images to jpeg:
- Find Finder Items - Do a search to select all the .png images you want to transfer to jpeg
- Get Selected Finder Items
- Copy Finder Items - This will make sure you keep an original copy of all your .png images should anything go wrong.
- Change Type of Images - select the image type you’d like to change to.
Run this automator process and you’ll be set with a backup copy of your images and the new images in your desired file format. The process that use to take you forever was completed in seconds.
If you need any help with an Automator process please let us know by leaving a comment.
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April 14, 2008
Ooohh… interesting..
April 26, 2008
What about renaming it before or after you change the format? It seems to work when running the automator but not as a contextual menu…
April 26, 2008
ubrgeek - Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems like you’re trying to add this as a plugin for Finder, so you can run it on from command+click (right click), more, automator, and then the script above?
If so, you should remove the first step and save it as an Plugin for Finder. Then, anytime you select an image in finder that you’d like to convert, you can command+click (right click), then click More, Automator, and then whatever you’ve named the workflow above.
I’ve tested this on my system and it works great. It took a second to start the plugin but once that was finished them images converted quickly.
Let me know if you have other questions
- Dan
April 29, 2008
Thanks Dan (not like you haven’t heard this one before, but I love that I’m getting “automator” help from someone named Dan :)) It works well, unless the image is on the desktop to start with, in which case it duplicates the file twice. Any thoughts?
April 29, 2008
If you remove the step that Copies the image to the Desktop that will solve your desktop problem.