Photon

A fast image format converter with interactive terminal UI and CLI mode.

Features

• Interactive TUI with file browser and quality slider
• CLI mode for scripting and automation
• Supports 8 formats: PNG, JPEG, GIF, WebP, BMP, TIFF, AVIF, HEIC

Installation

Pre-built binaries

Download from Releases.

macOS (Apple Silicon)

curl -L https://github.com/musem23/photon/releases/latest/download/photon-macos-arm64 -o photon
chmod +x photon
sudo mv photon /usr/local/bin/

macOS (Intel)

curl -L https://github.com/musem23/photon/releases/latest/download/photon-macos-amd64 -o photon
chmod +x photon
sudo mv photon /usr/local/bin/

Linux

curl -L https://github.com/musem23/photon/releases/latest/download/photon-linux-amd64 -o photon
chmod +x photon
sudo mv photon /usr/local/bin/

Windows

Download photon-windows-amd64.exe from Releases and add to PATH.

Build from source

Requires Go 1.24+ and libheif.

# macOS
brew install libheif

# Linux
sudo apt install libheif-dev

# Build
git clone https://github.com/musem23/photon.git
cd photon
CGO_ENABLED=1 go build -o photon ./cmd/photon

Usage

Interactive mode

photon

Navigate with arrow keys, adjust quality with ←/→, press Enter to convert.

Single file conversion:

Key	Action
↑/↓	Navigate files
←/→	Adjust quality
Enter	Select/Convert
Tab	Show hidden files
q	Quit

Batch conversion:

Key	Action
Space	Toggle file selection
a	Select all images
n	Deselect all
c	Continue with selection

Batch mode creates a new folder in ~/Downloads/photon/ (e.g., batch_jpg_2024-01-15_14-30-00) containing all converted images.

CLI mode

# Single file
photon convert input.heic output.jpg
photon convert photo.png photo.webp -q 85

# Batch convert
photon batch ./photos --from heic --to jpg
photon batch ./images --from png --to avif -q 80

Supported formats

Format	Read	Write	Notes
PNG	Yes	Yes	Lossless with alpha
JPEG	Yes	Yes	Quality 1-100
GIF	Yes	Yes	256 colors
WebP	Yes	*	Modern format
BMP	Yes	Yes	Uncompressed
TIFF	Yes	Yes	Professional
AVIF	*	*	Best compression
HEIC	*	No	Apple format

* Pre-built binaries: WebP read-only, no HEIC/AVIF. Build from source with CGO for full support.

Configuration

Preferences saved to ~/.config/photon/config.json:

• default_quality: Output quality (default: 95)
• default_format: Preferred format (default: webp)
• show_hidden_files: Show dotfiles (default: false)

License

MIT