"This article shows how to perform image manipulation using command-line tools. I do this job quite often, since I've picked up a some digital cameras and now manage a library of several thousand happy snaps. For Web developers and administrators who frequently have to batch-process large numbers of images, command line tools are an especially attractive option, because the developer can incorporate them into scripts. But even if you only want to perform a manipulation once or twice, a command-line alternative can save time.
"The command line tools discussed in this article are part of the excellent ImageMagick suite, which ships with Red Hat Linux and is freely available online. ImageMagick can also be accessed via C, C++, Perl, Python, Java, and several other languages, which Linux programmers will appreciate.
"Note that there are many ways to do the things discussed in this article. I discuss the methods I use and that work for me. That doesn't mean the other tools out there are broken; it just means that I'm happy with what I am using now.
"This article takes the form of discussing specific problems as examples, but the concepts should be applicable to other problem spaces as well..."
