Imagemagick / Ghostscript: converting a pdf into a jpg

[Jonne]

Hi,
I'm trying to write a shellscript that converts pdf-s into jpg's, but the jpg's i get as a result are pixelated. Is there a way to make sure I get jpg's with a decent quality? The source pdf's are A3-sized, and the jpg's I get are about 1035x1474, while I need them to be almost double that size to make sure the text is readable.

this is the command I use:

convert 1.pdf -profile EuroscaleUncoated.icc -profile /usr/share/color/icc/sRGB.icm 1.jpg

these are the versions I'm using:
Imagemagick 6.2.4
Ghostscript 8.15.4
the OS is Ubuntu Feisty

Is there a way to improve quality with a switch or something?

[WW]

When converting to jpg, you can use the -quality option. The "best" quality would be -quality 100.

[Jonne]

-Quality changes the quality of the jpg compression, after rasterizing. The problem is that I want jpegs of a bigger resolution, and ghostscript/imagemagick won't allow me (even with -density and other options i tried)

[lazka]

try "-density 200x200"

edit: ok i didnt read you last post.. density is working fine here, tough.

[Jonne]

Thanks for trying anyway This thread has had no comments for weeks, and I still haven't found an adequate solution. Anyway, i've tried again, and it still desn't work. I think there's something wrong with how imagemagick interfaces with Ghostscript.

If I import the pdf in the gimp (I believe the gimp also uses gs internally for pdf conversion), I can set the resolution to whatever I want, and it works. The colours are all wrong, though, because I can't use a colour profile to convert the colours as they should.

I want to do it through the command line, because it will be part of a script that converts a bunch of pdf's into jpg's automatically.

i want to replace an existing program that runs only on Windows, and uses Photoshop for the conversion, because I don't want to:
1, depend on Photoshop & Windows
2, have photoshop take all the resources and screen estate while it's running


edit: I tried with Krita, and Krita gets both the colours right, and the resolution. Is there a way I could use Krita for this, without having it spawn its gui?

[duff]

Thanks for trying anyway This thread has had no comments for weeks, and I still haven't found an adequate solution. Anyway, i've tried again, and it still desn't work. I think there's something wrong with how imagemagick interfaces with Ghostscript.

Have you tried their mailing list?
http://www.imagemagick.org/mailman/l...o/magick-users

[WW]

You can change the size of the output file with the -geometry option, e.g. -geometry 1600x1600 will ensure that the largest dimension is 1600 pixels (it will preserve the aspect ratio). I don't know if this will get you what you want, but it's worth a try. I tried it with a PDF file that contains just some text and equations, and it looked OK, but not great.

EDIT...
If I combine -geometry, -density, and -quality, it looks better. For example,

$ convert -geometry 1600x1600 -density 200x200 -quality 100 file.pdf file.jpg

Then file.jpg looks pretty good to me.

[Jonne]

I think I found it, thanks to WW. Apparently it depends on the syntax you use. If you add the switches before giving the filename of the pdf, it will not ignore -density and such. If you give the filename first (like in the example I posted), Imagemagick will first rasterize the pdf, and only apply the switches afterward, thus giving degraded quality. to recap:
bad:
convert file.pdf -density 200x200 file.jpg

good:
convert -density 200x200 file.pdf file.jpg

thanks guys

[itaylor]

Wow, I just wasted 45 minutes trying to convert a PDF to JPG using every imagemagick option I could find. The default resolution looked horrible. I finally found this post and the problem is solved. Thanks! I'm sure the information is there on the imagemagick website somewhere, but it sure isn't obvious.

[ridgeland]

Thanks WW
I used your command line.
Worked fine for me. I converted a one page pdf to a jpg.
I googled "Ubuntu pdf to jpg" and found this quick solution.

When I opened this jpg in the GIMP I saw that the GIMP can import pdf and then save as a jpg. Both ways worked. CLI or GUI.