Graphics-KungFoo with ImageMagick & Co.

Most FOSS users probably have heard about ImageMagick. But have you ever used it? And if so, have you tapped its full potential? Or have you limited yourself to a simple convert or display command only?

This talk will demonstrate with a few examples, what the various ImageMagick commandline utilities are capable of:

• convert
• display
• identify
• compare
• mogrify
• composite
• conjure
• animate
• import
• montage
• stream

The talk will use (almost) no slides. Instead it will demonstrate and execute commands, show the results on screen for all to see and explain the various parameters used.

Software developers, other contributors to free projects, documentation writers or bloggers sometimes would like to utilise photos, screenshots or other graphics files to make a point. But to make the point well, sometimes a post-processing of the illustration is desired. Often this is only a tiny little bit of modification:

• Draw a black frame around the picture?
• Expand the graphic with a white margin?
• Super-impose a semi-transparent caption onto the screenshot?
• Crop the illustration at each border, but by different margins?
• Concatenate two (or more) photos horizontally or vertically?
• Create an animated GIF (or animated PNG) from several stills?
• Expand or compress a drawing along one axis?
• Distort or skew a portrait in one way or another?
• Change colors? Scale the dimensions? Convert file format? Visualize differences?

A lot can be achieved with the ImageMagick commandline tools.

In preparing his talk the speaker will gladly accept example files alongside a desired job description from his potential audience and then show the found solution on stage.