What command can I type in my BASH shell to convert a given icon in png format into the icns image format required by Apple .app directories?

sips, or “scriptable image processing system” is a command-line tool shipping by default with macOS which allows basic image manipulation (think ImageMagick but not as powerful). I found something odd on it’s man page: --man Generate man pages It’s not clear at all why this tool would benefit from a way to generate man pages, nor how the feature works. What does it do and how does one use it?

The command sips -z 2000 image.jpg will resize the biggest side of an image to 2000 if it is greater than 2000, while preserving the original aspect ratio. Is there a similar command that will resize the smallest side of an image to 2000 if it is greater than 2000, while preserving the original aspect ratio? The rationale behind this request is that if I try to downsize the greatest side of an image to 2000, it will greatly affect the resolution of panoramas and other long/wide images.

I wrote a script that convert a icns file to png and then encode the png with base64. I could do it in 2 steps: - sips -s format png test.icns -o test.png - base64 -w0 test.png But since test.png is just an intermediary file, I'd like to pipe the output of the 1st command directly to base64, how do I do that? Note that sips doesn't seem to support /dev/stdout as the argument of -o.

The terminal command sips -s format pict /path/to/image.ext --out /path/to/output.pic ouputs Error: Unsupported output format com.apple.pict even though if you do man sips and go down to format, there is written that it supports jpeg | tiff | png | gif | jp2 | pict | bmp | qtif | psd | sgi | tga. Is this normal and can you fix it anyway?

Using SIPS, I can proportionally resize an image using sips -Z 256 to reduce the width and height of my image to a size no larger than 256px. Over a padded background fill, this produces a result similar to a CSS background-size: contain resize. However, what I'd like to get is a crop of 256x256, similar to a CSS background-size: cover resize, where the width and height are proportionally reduced to a canvas no smaller than 256px. sips -Z 256 "$file" --cropToHeightWidth 256 256 is close to what I'm after, but the Z flag is leaving one side too small. How would I achieve this result, instead? It would be nice if I could apply something like cv2 to get a background:cover style proportional scale with a crop position which defaults to a center-crop, but adjusts the position to prevent faces from being cropped out of the image.

How to create a PDF document from a batch of images ? === Belowis what I tried before posting this question: The **ImageMagick** way, but the PDF document generated is too big: convert *.ppm book.pdf The **Preview** tool way, the created document is much smaller but it creates margins. The **sips** way, not working for some reason: sips -s format pdf *.ppm --out 'book.pdf' 1>/dev/null 2>&1 There also **img2pdf** which looks good but I couldn't install it on mac (it's not in brew's list of packages).

I need to shrink [PNG](http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/book/chapter08.html) files like the ones generated as the default macOS screenshot. [SIPS](https://developer.apple.com/legacy/library/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man1/sips.1.html) was my first stop since it's faster than any other solution but I haven't quite been able to find the right command. This is my starting point to reformat to PNG: /usr/bin/sips -s format png "$f" --out "${f%.*}.png" Which options are needed? --setProperty bitsPerSample Bits/sample looks promising but I'm not sure what to enter here.
Does 32 mean 32 colors in this context, for example? Can I use SIPS to quickly reduce the number of colors to shrink file size?

I've successfully changed icons using the procedure described in an another question: Changing or setting a file or folder icon programmatically. Either my sips (or Finder) got broken afterwards or I just zoomed in for the first time (it seems the icon is sharp from ≈100x100 downwards), but, anyway, the icon that sips -i image.png creates is blurry/pixelated: What I did before the blurrification: $ cp FIN-2.png FIN-3.png $ sips -i FIN-3.png So FIN-2 and FIN-3 are the same. FIN-2 is a 512x512 PNG-file **Furthermore:** using sips breaks *all* further attempts when trying to set a custom icon even with *any GUI method* and with *any file* in *any folder*. Only cure is to delete ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.finder/ and restart Finder. Then changing icon via GUI (drag&drop, copy&paste) works normally with any file. --- Two main questions—and answering to either one probably solves the problem close enough for me: 2. **How can I set an image as an icon programmatically without using sips -i (= sips --addIcon) in the process?** (again, refer to the other question for more comprehensive info) - Shell (bash) or AppleScript is preferred - I could convert the PNG to e.g. ICNS if needed. 1. Is sips broken? Why/How? Can it be fixed; how? (Or is it the Finder? Or something else?)

I am creating this service for Finder that will receive image files and pass to a shell command. The idea is this: 1. I select image files on finder. 2. I right click and choose the service I am creating 3. the service receives the files and passes to sips, so it will scale the images to a given size. this is how I created it. sips would run on terminal if I type sips -z 750 1334 *.png (or any other extension, including *.*) I am hoping that $* would pass a list of arguments to sips, but this is not working. How do I do that?

I'm trying to add padding to the top of an image using the command line. I've found the sips command and I've tried sips --padToHeightWidth 1300 1920 image.png on an image which is 1920 x 1080. However this adds 50px of padding to the top and bottom. Is it possible to just add 100px of padding to the top? Is there another tool I should/could be using to do this?

I'm trying to resize new image files in a folder using a folder action so the files that were already resized to 300x250 don't get resized again. The thing is I'm having issues getting the resizing to happen at all.. Here is my current Automator Workflow: It works when I test it by adding "Get Selected Finder Items" but when I close automator and I add new files to the folder nothing happens. I'm using Hazel to move jpgs to the folder, but nothing is happening to the files after they are moved into the folder to be resized

I'm currently using sips --resampleHeightWidth 250 300 "S1" to resize new images in a folder but I think that it might be resizing images that were already resized.. Is there anyway to know this for sure? If not what do I add so I can only resize images taht are 315x300?