sharp

What is sharp?

The sharp npm package is a high-performance Node.js module for resizing, converting, and manipulating images. It is built around the libvips image processing library, which allows it to handle large images and perform operations quickly and with a low memory footprint.

What are sharp's main functionalities?

Image Resizing

Resizes an image to the specified width and height.

sharp('input.jpg').resize(300, 200).toFile('output.jpg', (err, info) => {});

Format Conversion

Converts an image from one format to another, such as JPEG to PNG.

sharp('input.jpg').toFormat('png').toBuffer().then(data => {});

Image Rotation

Rotates an image by a specified degree.

sharp('input.jpg').rotate(90).toBuffer().then(data => {});

Extracting Image Regions

Extracts a region of the image starting at the left and top offsets and with the specified width and height.

sharp('input.jpg').extract({ left: 100, top: 100, width: 300, height: 200 }).toFile('output.jpg', (err, info) => {});

Image Overlay

Overlays an image on top of another using composition.

sharp('input.jpg').composite([{ input: 'overlay.png', gravity: 'southeast' }]).toFile('output.jpg', (err, info) => {});

Adjusting Image Quality

Adjusts the quality of an image, useful for optimizing the file size.

sharp('input.jpg').jpeg({ quality: 80 }).toBuffer().then(data => {});

Other packages similar to sharp

imagemagick

ImageMagick is a software suite to create, edit, compose, or convert bitmap images. It can read and write images in a variety of formats. It is more comprehensive than sharp but can be slower and more memory-intensive.

jimp

An image processing library for Node written entirely in JavaScript, with zero native dependencies. Jimp is more accessible due to its pure JavaScript nature but generally performs slower than sharp.

gm

GraphicsMagick for node.js, which is an image processing library that is a fork of ImageMagick. It is similar to ImageMagick in functionality and also provides a comprehensive set of image manipulation features but may not be as fast as sharp.

README

sharp

adj

1. clearly defined; distinct: a sharp photographic image.
2. quick, brisk, or spirited.
3. shrewd or astute: a sharp bargainer.
4. (Informal.) very stylish: a sharp dresser; a sharp jacket.

The typical use case for this high speed Node.js module is to convert large JPEG and PNG images to smaller JPEG and PNG images of varying dimensions.

The performance of JPEG resizing is typically 15x-25x faster than ImageMagick and GraphicsMagick, based mainly on the number of CPU cores available.

Under the hood you'll find the blazingly fast libvips image processing library, originally created in 1989 at Birkbeck College and currently maintained by John Cupitt.

Prerequisites

• Node.js v0.8+
• libvips v7.38+

For the sharpest results, please compile libvips from source.

Install

npm install sharp

Usage

var sharp = require("sharp");

resize(input, output, width, height, [options], callback)

Scale and crop to width x height calling callback when complete.

input can either be a filename String or a Buffer. When using a filename libvips will mmap the file for improved performance.

output can either be a filename String or one of sharp.buffer.jpeg or sharp.buffer.png to pass a Buffer containing image data to callback.

width is the Number of pixels wide the resultant image should be.

height is the Number of pixels high the resultant image should be.

options is optional, and can contain one or more of:

• canvas can be one of sharp.canvas.crop, sharp.canvas.embedWhite or sharp.canvas.embedBlack. Defaults to sharp.canvas.crop.
• sharpen when set to true will perform a mild sharpen of the resultant image. This typically reduces performance by 30%.
• progressive when set will use progressive (interlace) scan for the output. This typically reduces performance by 30%.
• sequentialRead is an advanced setting that, when set, switches the libvips access method to VIPS_ACCESS_SEQUENTIAL. This will reduce memory usage and can improve performance on some systems.

callback gets two arguments (err, buffer) where err is an error message, if any, and buffer is the resultant image data when a Buffer is requested.

Examples

sharp.resize("input.jpg", "output.jpg", 300, 200, function(err) {
  if (err) {
    throw err;
  }
  // output.jpg is a 300 pixels wide and 200 pixels high image
  // containing a scaled and cropped version of input.jpg
});

sharp.resize("input.jpg", sharp.buffer.jpeg, 300, 200, {progressive: true}, function(err, buffer) {
  if (err) {
    throw err;
  }
  // buffer contains progressive JPEG image data
});

sharp.resize("input.jpg", sharp.buffer.png, 300, 200, {sharpen: true}, function(err, buffer) {
  if (err) {
    throw err;
  }
  // buffer contains sharpened PNG image data (converted from JPEG)
});

sharp.resize(buffer, "output.jpg", 200, 300, {canvas: sharp.canvas.embedWhite}, function(err) {
  if (err) {
    throw err;
  }
  // output.jpg is a 200 pixels wide and 300 pixels high image containing a scaled version
  // of the image data contained in buffer embedded on a white canvas
});

sharp.resize("input.jpg", sharp.buffer.jpeg, 200, 300, {canvas: sharp.canvas.embedBlack}, function(err, buffer) {
  if (err) {
    throw err;
  }
  // buffer contains JPEG image data of a 200 pixels wide and 300 pixels high image
  // containing a scaled version of input.png embedded on a black canvas
});

Testing

npm test

Performance

Test environment:

• AMD Athlon 4 core 3.3GHz 512KB L2 CPU 1333 DDR3
• libvips 7.37
• libjpeg-turbo8 1.3.0
• libpng 1.6.6
• zlib1g 1.2.7

-file-buffer indicates read from file and write to buffer, -buffer-file indicates read from buffer and write to file etc.

-sharpen, -progressive etc. demonstrate the negative effect of options on performance.

JPEG

• imagemagick x 5.53 ops/sec ±0.62% (31 runs sampled)

• gm-file-file x 4.10 ops/sec ±0.41% (25 runs sampled)

• gm-file-buffer x 4.10 ops/sec ±0.36% (25 runs sampled)

• epeg-file-file x 23.82 ops/sec ±0.18% (60 runs sampled)

• epeg-file-buffer x 23.98 ops/sec ±0.16% (61 runs sampled)

• sharp-buffer-file x 20.76 ops/sec ±0.55% (54 runs sampled)

• sharp-buffer-buffer x 20.90 ops/sec ±0.26% (54 runs sampled)

• sharp-file-file x 91.78 ops/sec ±0.38% (88 runs sampled)

• sharp-file-buffer x 93.05 ops/sec ±0.61% (76 runs sampled)

• sharp-file-buffer-sharpen x 63.09 ops/sec ±5.58% (63 runs sampled)

• sharp-file-buffer-progressive x 61.68 ops/sec ±0.53% (76 runs sampled)

• sharp-file-buffer-sequentialRead x 60.66 ops/sec ±0.38% (75 runs sampled)

PNG

• imagemagick x 4.27 ops/sec ±0.21% (25 runs sampled)

• gm-file-file x 8.33 ops/sec ±0.19% (44 runs sampled)

• gm-file-buffer x 7.45 ops/sec ±0.16% (40 runs sampled)

• sharp-buffer-file x 4.94 ops/sec ±118.46% (26 runs sampled)

• sharp-buffer-buffer x 12.59 ops/sec ±0.55% (64 runs sampled)

• sharp-file-file x 44.06 ops/sec ±6.86% (75 runs sampled)

• sharp-file-buffer x 46.29 ops/sec ±0.38% (76 runs sampled)

• sharp-file-buffer-sharpen x 38.86 ops/sec ±0.22% (65 runs sampled)

• sharp-file-buffer-progressive x 46.35 ops/sec ±0.20% (76 runs sampled)

• sharp-file-buffer-sequentialRead x 29.02 ops/sec ±0.62% (72 runs sampled)

Licence

Copyright 2013, 2014 Lovell Fuller

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.