Convert PSD to PNG via Node.js

Automating and manipulating media is a fascination of mine, partly because I don’t understand the magic behind it and partly because the idea of turning one thing into another is fun and useful.  That latest media tool that has piqued my interest is a JavaScript tool called psd.js.

psd.js is a project that allows you to read PSD files, including:

• Document structure and size
• Layer/folder size + positioning, names, visibility, and opacity
• Font data (via psd-enginedata)
  • Text area contents
  • Font names, sizes, and colors
• Color mode and bit-depth
• Vector mask data
• Flattened image data
• Layer comps

What the media converter and JavaScript lover in me found most awesome was one basic feature: converting a PSD to PNG with JavaScript!

var PSD = require('psd');
 
PSD.open('homepage.psd').then(function (psd) {
  return psd.image.saveAsPng('homepage.png');
}).then(function () {
  console.log('Finished!');
});

That’s a nice, tidy API there and I love that it doesn’t require anything other than JavaScript (many other Node.js image libraries require ImageMagick on the machine).