Quicksilver Screencast: Image Manipulation
UPDATE: Sorry, screencast URL is fixed now.
I’ve been stockpiling ideas of the gems I’d still like to show you in Quicksilver, and among them is the Image Manipulation plugin. However, a quick search shows that I [sort of] covered it about a year ago. I say sort of, because it was just the dawn of this Quicksilver screencast idea and it was poorly executed at best. So today I’ll actually show you the finer points of this useful plugin.

Quicksilver You Manipulative Little…
5mins/19mb
As a quick reference, I’m providing the Image Manipulation info examples (which are shown in the screencast) here, for quick copy/paste if you so choose to use it that way for learning purposes. Enjoy.
“fit 640×480 as jpg high progressive” – creates an image that will fit within a 640×480 rectangle
“50% as interlaced png” – creates a png with dimensions half of the original”
“x72 as gif” – makes a gif 72 pixels tall, with width to maintain the proportions
Oh, and something I failed to demonstrate in the screencast, is that you can load several images into Quicksilver at once and it will scale all of them with one command. This can be a HUGE time saver!
If you’re wondering about the CMD ESC Trigger for loading selected items into Quicksilver, check out the quick screencast setup demo here.





Jamie J. on March 28th, 2007 at 10:33 am
Error 404 – Not Found
David on March 28th, 2007 at 11:20 am
Yes, I also received the 404 error, I am interested to see this in action though.
Nick Santilli on March 28th, 2007 at 11:43 am
sorry guys – I screwed up the name of the file I uploaded. it’s working now.
DR on March 28th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
Yes, it’s working and as always, very nice to see this ability of Quicksilver detailed! Thanks. Now can you walk me through setting up that handy trigger? How do I set up a trigger to have currently selected item opened in quicksilver?
DR on March 28th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
Never mind….found it on your In-n-Out Lesson! Thanks again.
Nick Santilli on March 28th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
ok, well to stem the further questions, I just did a REALLY QUICK screencast of the trigger setup. There’s no audio because I’m at work, but it should convey the necessary steps.
I’ll post it in a few minutes.
Bart on March 28th, 2007 at 1:05 pm
Awesome, thanks!!
Pablo A on March 28th, 2007 at 9:56 pm
I’d like to know how do you configure your Quicksilver “bezel” to appear like a square, ’cause I didn’t find that option in my QS preferences. By the way, keep doing these screencasts, they’re awsome.
Jono on March 28th, 2007 at 11:36 pm
I knew about the image manipulation actions (saw your older screencast) but never tried them. I’ve just tried them & realised this is something I would use often & will be really quick & handy for me, thanks :)
seth on March 29th, 2007 at 8:17 am
nick, that awesome tip about the multiple file dimension scaling is awesome! i don’t have to open up photoshop anymore and setup a batch to automate the process of doing exactly what quicksilver can already do. everyday, i’m loving quicksilver more and more.
Peter on March 30th, 2007 at 8:04 am
Pablo: He’s using the cube interface instead of the bezel. You can find it in the plugins.
Colin on June 9th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
If any of you were wondering, you can load multiple images by selecting the image you want in the first pane and then pressing the comma [,] key then continuing on to find another picture. This actually works with anything, it’ll show you the queue right below the first pane.
Simple yet amazing. Blacktree has thought of everything.
Arthur Milholland on June 15th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
I have QS Beta51 (3800) but I don’t see the Image Manipulation plug-in (text manipulation – yes, but no image manipulation). Is there a way to download it?
Thanks,
Art
Wayne Kochman on June 27th, 2007 at 11:26 am
Question for Nick:
Where did you acquire the “Wood Grain” HD icon in all your Quicksilver movies?
erin haldrup on June 27th, 2007 at 10:15 pm
Art, I had that same problem — if you search “image manipulation” it will come up and you can download it. Now I have a problem though- how do you set the custom commands?
Derek on January 25th, 2008 at 11:49 am
if you are interested in image manipulation using PHP and GD, check out http://www.vividtext.com – thanks!
Samvel on February 18th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
When I type: “300 as gif” Quicksilver scales input image to make 300px height and proportional width. But according to documentations “300 as gif” should creater image of 300px width and proportional height (opposite to actual action). What is wrong?
chris on July 8th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
i don’t have image manipulation module under my Plug-ins. how can download and install it?
raf on November 7th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
can’t believe i hadn’t tried this yet! great roundup on all the quicksilver tips, really liking your work :)
Jeff Krieger on December 19th, 2008 at 9:30 am
thx for the tutorial. i can’t seem to get the “current item selected (activation)” trigger to work. i’ve tried assigning it a number of different keystrokes. any clue? thx!