Resize and Convert Images in an Instant

Sometimes, when working with image files, you need to change their size or format. For these simple tasks, you can use Image Tool, an application that also brings a useful feature in the form of clipboard image copy.

Whether you're a web designer or a home user, you've surely had to convert image files at least once. Since there are a lot of options out there, what could possibly convince you to choose, say, Image Tool?

For starters, this application tries to be a little different than your typical image converter; and it does that by adding functions like clipboard copy and input support for a lot of formats.

The Looks

Image Tool is a simple application, its whole functionality and features being included in a single window. The left and right portions of the window are used to display the source and output image, while the central part allows you to change image and scaling properties.

The upper part of the window allows you to access functions like import and export to clipboard, as well as choosing the output format.

The Works

Simplicity is also the key word when talking about the application's functionality. All you need to do to convert an image is drag it to the source image window. Image Tool supports a lot of image formats, including PSD, TIFF, BMP, and it can even import PDF files.

I can't say the same thing about the output formats, however. I'm somewhat disappointed that the application does not allow you to export to other popular formats, like RAW, PSD, EXIF or PDF, especially since some of these are supported as input. For the time being, you can export only to JPG, TIFF, PNG, GIF and BMP.

Unfortunately, Image Tool doesn't support batch conversion, so you must convert images one at a time.

After using drag and drop to add an image, you will notice that the application will display it in its actual size, or fit it to the viewer. If you don't want to use drag and drop, you can copy an image to clipboard and then paste it into Image Tool using the New From Clipboard option.

This allows you to import any picture from your image editor (Preview, GIMP). You can do that by pressing the Select tool in your editor and selecting a portion of the image (or all of it). After that, you can import it in Image Tool.

I didn't encounter any problems while using this, although you must follow the instructions above in order to use this function successfully, since importing any image from your Mac by using CMD+C won't work.

You can also use drag and drop to import an image. Changing the DPI of an image works like a charm, and you can use values as high as 20,000, if you want. Image Tool provides complete support for this.

The app can also change the width and height of the picture. However, you should know that you can't select any values in those windows, since Image Tool will automatically resize it to keep the image ratio.

For example, I've added an 800x600 image and resized it with a width of 500; the application changed the default height to 375, keeping the proportions of the image intact. It would be nice if the application could provide the user with a way to disable the "Keep aspect ratio" function. This might be useful for anyone that needs to create their own image scale.

If you don't want to insert height and width values manually, you can press the default buttons, which will allow you to minimize (values range from 0.75 to 0.10) or maximize the image (2-4 times). I didn't encounter any problems when using both the manual and automatic resizing options, and the output quality was kept almost intact.

Even when magnifying an 800x600 image 4 times, the output quality almost matched the one of the original (The original image was a JPEG file and the output a PNG).

Image Tool comes with 3 exporting options. After choosing one of the 5 output formats, you can save the image to clipboard, using the Copy to Clipboard option. Unlike importing from clipboard, this feature actually works, and I had no problem pasting the image in my text editor or even my mail.

The application allows you to save the images to any folder on your Mac, while also providing you with the means to save directly to your desktop.

Image Tool is designed to work with files that have an average dimension. Images ranging from 800x600 to 1980x1020 had a small conversion time, between 1 and 3 seconds. However, increasing the scale does increase the time that the application needs for converting.

I even managed to make it unresponsive while increasing the scale of a 3200x2400 image by 4. I tried to do this on an iMac and a Mac Mini, both with a Dual Core processor and 2Gb of RAM. Unfortunately, the application became unresponsive, thus making me realize that it is not suitable for working with high resolution files.

The Good

Image Tool does its job rather quickly: converting from JPG to PNG or BMP was fast, and the image quality almost matched that of the original. The default resize values should meet the needs of most users, and if that's not the case, they can also insert values manually.

The Bad

Although a lot of formats are accepted as input, there are only 5 output variants. The application also tends to become unresponsive when working with high resolution images.

The Truth

If you don't need to work with high resolution images, then I suggest you give Image Tool a try. It may have some issues but, in most cases, the conversion process went flawlessly for images with an average resolution.

Here are some snapshots of the application in action: