---
title: rename and resize commands
subtitle: making mtg card thumbnails
author: david marsh 
date: 2023-11-09 
keywords: [image magic, convert, mtg, magic the gathering] 
img: mtg-atq-60.webp
alt: An Magic The Gathering card
abstract: Here's a few commands I used to make thumbnails for my mtg cards.
---
 
For my [mtg page](list_of_mtg.html), I wanted to add small thumbnails so
I could see at a quick glance which card I was refering too, and also to
make the page a bit more pretty.

![mtg card](mtg-atq-60.webp)

First of all, I grab an image from [scryfall.com](https://scryfall.com).
There are two issues I need to solve:

### change the file name

The files are named `set-99-name.png`, and I want them to be just
`mtg-set-99.png`. Having the card name as part of the image filename
isn't needed and just makes dealing with the text harder as the line
length changes a lot. Adding the `mtg-` part makes tracking these files
much simpler in the large source dir I use to build this website.

Using the [rename](http://plasmasturm.org/code/rename/)
command (installed via the [homebrew
formula](https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/rename)):

*Note: the -n flag is a dry run*

```
rename -n 's/^([a-z]{3}-[0-9]{1,3}).*\.png/mtg-$1.png/' *.png
```

This saves the part I'm interested in and want to keep using the
brackets and throws away the rest. The file has `mtg-` prepended,
and the saved part added using `$1`. Lastly it appends `.png` to the
filename.

For example:

```
$ rename -n 's/^([a-z]{3}-[0-9]{1,3}).*\.png/mtg-$1.png/' *.png
'hml-20-truce.png' would be renamed to 'mtg-hml-20.png'
'hml-22-baki-s-curse.png' would be renamed to 'mtg-hml-22.png'
'hml-41-baron-sengir.png' would be renamed to 'mtg-hml-41.png'
```

### change the image size

This is simple and something I do a lot. As I only want a very small
thumbnail, 75x100 or so is good enough. I use this command to loop over
the files once they've been renamed:

```
for i in mtg-*.png ; do convert $i -trim -resize 75x105\> $i ; done
```