Using Hadoop for File Conversion

[davydany]

Hi all,
I'm very new to Hadoop and I am using the Pro Hadoop book to learn. I'm doing a project for class, where we are required to learn and use Hadoop. We are supposed to use Hadoop for converting large amounts of photos into 3 different sizes (one is a thumbnail, next is optimized for mobile devices and the other is stretched to fit a large screen [image quality is not our priority here]).

I heard that NYTimes used Hadoop to convert 4TB of TIFFs into PDFs. Now, my real question is this: Can I use hadoop for file conversion?

Thanks!