Sharp Image Tools

A VS Code and Cursor extension that adds image conversion and editing to the Explorer context menu. Right-click any supported image file to convert it to another format or apply edits (rotate, flip, trim, etc.) using the sharp library.

Author: Ben Houston | GitHub

Installation

VS Code: Install from the Visual Studio Code Marketplace (when published) or install from VSIX.
Cursor: Install from Open VSX (when published) or install from VSIX.

To install from VSIX: run npm run package, then use Extensions: Install from VSIX... and select the generated .vsix file.

npm run package produces a single ~40 MB VSIX with native binaries for all major platforms — Windows x64, macOS arm64/x64, and Linux x64/arm64. It works out of the box on any of those platforms without recompilation.

Usage

Right-click an image file in the Explorer. Two submenus appear:

Multi-select

You can select multiple files in the Explorer and right-click to run Convert or Edit on all of them. Only image files in the selection are processed; non-image files are skipped silently (no notification). For Convert Image with multiple selection, all target formats are shown regardless of each file’s current format, so you can e.g. select a mix of PNG and WebP and convert all to JPEG in one action. No success toasts are shown when the operation completes; a progress indicator appears when processing two or more images.

Convert Image

Convert the image to another format. With a single file, the current format is excluded from the list. Supported target formats:

JPEG, PNG, WebP, GIF, AVIF, TIFF, HEIF, JP2

Edit Image

Rotate 90° CW / Rotate 90° CCW — Rotate by 90 degrees
Flip — Mirror vertically
Flop — Mirror horizontally
Trim — Remove "boring" edges (same-colored borders)
Greyscale — Convert to greyscale
Negate — Produce the negative of the image

Supported Input Formats

.jpg, .jpeg, .png, .webp, .gif, .avif, .tiff, .tif, .svg, .heic, .heif, .jp2

Configuration

Setting	Type	Default	Description
`sharpImageTools.conversionQuality`	number	95	Quality for JPEG, WebP, AVIF, etc. (0–100)
`sharpImageTools.leaveOriginalWhenChangingFormat`	boolean	false	When converting, leave the original file and write to a new file (same name, target extension)
`sharpImageTools.leaveOriginalWhenEditing`	boolean	false	When editing, leave the original and write to a new file with the editing suffix
`sharpImageTools.editingSuffix`	string	"-edit"	Suffix used when leaving original on edit. Multiple edits stack: `photo.jpg` → `photo-edit.jpg` → `photo-edit-edit.jpg`

Replace vs Save-As Behavior

By default, the extension replaces the existing file (overwrites for edits; converts and deletes the original for format changes). This assumes you use version control (e.g. git) to recover if needed.

Enable Leave original when changing format or Leave original when editing to write to new files instead.

License

MIT