Table of Contents
Following is the table containing some of the main supported graphics
files features. The following abbreviations
are used in it:
for formats names:
Format | multi | interl | com | units | transp | dump | codec | bw | bw8 | gray8 | rgb4 | rgb8 | rgb24 | rgb32 |
GIF * | ![]() |
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lzw | ![]() |
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TIFF * | ![]() |
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many * | ![]() |
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JPEG | ![]() |
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jfif jpeg | ![]() |
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PCX | ![]() |
rle | ![]() |
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RAS | ![]() |
rle | ![]() |
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SGI | ![]() |
rle | ![]() |
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PBM | ![]() |
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BMP | ![]() |
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rle4, rle8 | ![]() |
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TGA | ![]() |
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rle | ![]() |
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XPM | ![]() |
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XWD | ![]() |
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PNG | ![]() |
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lz77 | |||||||||
PSD | ![]() |
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rle | ![]() |
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Notes:
a) Some features are not supported with the format itself (according to its specification), some - by rXconvert.
b) GIF animation is supported. For output only GIF89a is generated.
c) TIFF supported codecs:
rle
CCITT Group 3 1D modified Huffman RLE
g3
CCITT Group 3 fax encoding
g4
CCITT Group 4 fax encoding
lzw
TIFF Lempel-Ziv & Welch
jpeg JPEG
DCT compression (according to post 6.0 version TN#2)
next
NeXT 2-bit rle
rlew
#1 with word alignment
packbits Macintosh rle
thunder ThunderScan rle
lz77
Deflate
Specifying geometry transformations you can scale, resize, redimension,
crop, rotate, flip, [de]skew using physical or abstract units.
Specifying convolution filters you can smooth or sharpen your image,
remove video capture horizontal artifacts,...
You can also set a border for your output image.
Currently disk files, clipboard and TWAIN scanners are used for raster
image source and disk files and clipboard for destination.
Coming soon are some planned features;
part of them are being tested right away, and other depend on your
feedback.
Text formatting: all controls' names are italicized, bold, and dark red; samples are just italicized. Popup menus items are italicized, bold, and dark yellow.
The page has the following controls
Multipictures input should
be normally set (pressed) unless you wish to create output animation GIF
or just store a lot of images in one TIFF. That will slow down the input
list creating process when a lot of GIF or/and TIFF files are involved
as input. From the other hand - you are able to choose definite single
pictures from multipictures input files and get their Info or Preview.
In the input list you'll see entries with number of picture info, e.g.
beauty.gif; (12/150) - picture #12 out of 150 total in this gif-file.
No multiple pictures per output file would be then generated even for
graphics formats supporting that feature.
The "ON" (pressed) state of the control is recommended as default.
Multipictures output
should be set if you wish to create output animation GIF or
store multiple images per output file. Note that in that case you'll see
no multipictures input information even if one of the input files contain
more than one picture per file. Nevertheless all input images will be treated
separately while converting input to output.
When an output format doesn't support multiple images per file - output
files' names will be generated automatically by appending a suffix corresponding
to the number of input picture, e.g. beauty_3.jpg
So you may have one file name in the output list (e.g. beauty.jpg)
but actually after converting a multipictures input file (e.g. beauty.gif
containing say 3 pictures) - you'll have several files on disk if the output
format doesn't support multiple images per file (in our case - beauty_001.jpg,
beauty_002.jpg, beauty_003.jpg). Generated file name suffix
depends on Template Delimiter
check box and number of Digits
that you set at the same "General" property page of Options property sheet
(see below).
This feature is subject to change to avoid situations when you press
the "Postview" button
and get nothing.
Clear input on success control button should be pushed if you'd like to clear input images list each time your conversion finishes successfully. Note that it will automatically result to output list cleaning as well.
Clear output on success feature
may be useful when you are going to produce a set of different formats
out of the same input list of images. Do not switch it "ON" if you
are going to experiment with colour, geometry and other transformations.
In the latter case
you'd possibly like to switch off both of Clear..
features and switch Postview "ON" to immediately watch the resulting
picture.
Replace input files on success may be used when you are short of disk space and have hundreds of files to be converted at a time. This situation is quite possible when you have a lot of uncompressed (dump) screen captures in BMP (DIB) format and have no spare place to convert all that stuff to. The converter would remove then the input file after all of the images it contains are successfully converted to output. When this option is "ON" - the input and output lists are cleared automatically, besides, the "ON" state is signaled with a red rectangle around "-" button. Be careful - the "minus" button clicking results to files removal!
Remove input files on
success may be used when you have enough place for output, but wish
all the input files be removed in one step (unlike one by one replacing
in previous case) after successful conversion. When this option is
"ON" - the input and output lists are cleared automatically. besides, the
"ON" state is signaled with a yellow rectangle around "-" (minus)
button.
This feature may be set "ON" using popup menu (click right mouse button
while mouse cursor is within the input list rectangle, then go to Removing-->Images
from list and source). Be careful
- the "minus" button clicking results to files removal!
Interlace output if possible button should be set to checked state when you plan to place you images in the WWW. People having slow lines would have then the possibility to view your image before it's completely loaded into their browser's frame and make a decision if they want to wait for it. Alas, a lot of web-masters ignore the existence of slow lines and neglect the feature.
Auto list out switch may be of some use if your destination and output format are always the same. It will speed the process a bit up.
I wish speed feature concerns only black&white and gray scale images that are to be scaled down. The "ON" state tells the converter to just skip image scanlines (vertical scaling) and pixels (horizontal scaling) when scaling it down. It results to speed increase. You should set the check "ON" unless you are scaling down some plots or drawings with thin (one pixel thick) lines.
I wish quality feature concerns only black&white and gray scale images that are to be scaled down. The "ON" state tells the converter to average the image scanlines (vertical scaling) and pixels (horizontal scaling) while scaling it down. That results in details preserving for b&w plots, for instance, and better gray scale images quality.
Overlay opaque / Overlay transparent switches are used to tell the converter to overlay all input images onto one output. The sequence of placing them is defined with their sequence in the input list. The overlay mode may be changed for selected output items in Settings->Other. It's important to define overlay output mode prior to creating the output list, because the latter would perform some specific (for overlay) operations, like calculating the resulting image dimensions considering geometry transformations, or defining the resulting colour scheme and possibility to perform the overlaying onto the ordered output color space. If the input images are incompatible for overlay - a warning message is displayed, and you should change the output format. That may happen when you are trying to overlay paletted images (having, very naturally, different palettes) and to produce a paletted output. Just change you output then to rgb24 or rgb32.
Monitor INPUT switches ON/OFF the special converter mode "Monitoring". The "ON" state sets some flags and disables some controls as is needed for that special mode.
Monitor subdirs switches ON/OFF subdirectories recursive scanning while monitoring a specified folder.
Comments edit field is for those who wish once and forever set the text string that would appear in all the output files the converter produces, e.g. The image was prepared by Sam Cool, sam@cool.guy.gov. Though it's possible to enter different comment line for every new output file using the Settings->Format.
Temp Dir edit field is for entering the temporary location to be used for Clipboard and TWAIN sources handling.
Template Delimiter check box when set serves as a flag to insert the underscore symbol between the generated output file name and the numeric suffix that follows. The range of Digits value that you may enter is within [1..7].
Standard out dialog switch is used to choose the standard Windows "Save As" as a dialog for defining the type and place for resulting images.
Native out dialog switch is used to choose a native [tree] dialog to define the type and place for resulting images.
Apply out templates switch is valid for native dialogue only. If set (pressed) - causes the tree control to include only the files of the type selected in the native dialogue, else - all files (except hidden ones) aer included.
Show out icons switch is also valid for native dialogue only. Its pressed - causes the tree control to extract icons for all files that are included into the tree view control, else - a standard (empty) icon is used instead. When the switch is reset - the tree appears with no visible delay even for directories containing a lot of files (like c:\windows).
This page contains only format specific features settings. Features like Interlacing, comments, multiple pictures per file, etc. are set elsewhere.
JPEG
Size - Quality balance slide
control for JPEG (with JPEG Q value displayed in digital form)
is used to set the balance between quality of an output image and its size
you wish to gain. The default value for Q equal to 75 is generally used,
which leads to significant compression ratio with good quality preserving.
Deliberately the Q range was set to [20-95].
Discrete Cosine Transform algorithm may be chosen using the following
radio buttons controls:
Slow but accurate integer DCT algorithm
Faster, less accurate integer DCT method
Floating-point: accurate DCT, fast on fast
HW - this one is set as default.
Entropy Optimization in most cases may be left unchecked.
TIFF
Strip size edit control is
used to define TIFF strip size. It may be a very useful feature if you
are going to produce TIFF files for applications that feel bad dealing
with strip sizes more than XXX bytes.
Mbytes, Kbytes, bytes push-like
radio buttons are just additional convenience for strip size specifying.
PBM, PGM, PPM
ASCII radio button sets plain ASCII representation for Jef Poskanzer's format output.
Binary radio button sets binary (much more compact in comparison to ASCII) format output data representation.
GIF89a
Transp. check box defines
whether transparency index should be set for an output gif-file. Note that
you may define the background transparency reference point using Preview
popup menu item BG reference point.
Note, that if you want to create an output GIF-image with transparent
background specified - you should use Preview and
in Settings->Other define and apply
background colour to selected output gif-files. The input file should be
also GIF.
Delay(.01s) edit box is for
setting the default GIF animation delay time in hundredth of a second.
That is if you create some GIF animation file this value would be "assigned"
to each GIF "frame", unless you change it for selected ones using Settings->OtherGIF
delay(.01s).
Animation is set automatically when you create a 'Multipictures output'
gif file (press 'Multipictures output' button in Options->General).
Don't forget to specify some output name while choosing the output path,
else you'll have as many output images as there are in the input list.
You can press this
button as many times as you need to append different files from different
locations to the input list. Note that the last source path and file type
are preserved till the next dialogue opening.
Use mouse left button with Shift and Ctrl keyboard keys to make an
extended selection in the input list.
If you need the DIB contents of Windows clipboard to be included into your input images list - you should use popup menu Input from...>Clipboard. A temporary Windows BMP file is created in the directory, that you have specified using Options->General (Temp Dir), and the input list is automatically appended with this item. It has the name like Clipxxx.bmp set, where xxx is the number of files you've already extracted from clipboard up to this time. The same is true when you choose Input from...>Scanner popup menu item, with the single difference of temporary file name - it will be Scanxxx.bmp. Besides, you'll have to choose your data source, where the converter is to acquire images from each time you press the "plus" button.
The "minus" button
serves to remove selected items from the list. Be careful if there's a
yellow or red rectangle displayed around it: that denotes corresponding
files removal on pressing the button. This files-removing feature may be
switched on/off in Options->General.
(Replace input files and Remove
input files) or setting/resetting check-marks in the popup
submenu Removing.
In the process of adding new items to the list converter gathers all
the information that might be needed for conversion into other output format.
You may view it in two ways: either by invoking the "Input
Info" dialogue window by pressing
button or choosing the popup menu item "Info", or highlighting (selecting)
an input list item and holding left mouse button pressed. In the latter
case brief info may be viewed in the status control (at the main dialogue
bottom) in the following format:
width x height in pixels (picture #/out of total number) [format/format
version] interlaced flag [colour scheme/bits per pixel/color channels number/number
of palette entries] [codec/compression ratio] [file size in kbytes/bytes].
The predestination of another button -
is simple: just to invert the input list selection. The same effect has
the popup menu selection named Invert.
Still another button for list selection manipulations -
serves to clear any selection (as in calculator). The same effect has the
popup menu selection named Clear.
The
button denotes screen display and pressing it invokes Preview.
When Preview is on the screen - another button becomes enabled - histogram
button
. These
buttons are enabled only for single input list item selection. The same
may be done with popup menu choice Preview
and Histogram. You may use Preview
to cast away unnecessary images from the list (or/and from disk) before
converting them.
The following buttons and corresponding popup menu items act as triggers
switching dialogues on/off:
.
With the help of these buttons
(or appropriate popup menu commands) you are supposed to be able to create
any input images list.
There are some accelerators keys that have the
same effect as these buttons.
And there's another way to append the list: the converter accepts
"dragged and dropped files", and even directories. In the latter case
you'll be prompted to confirm your wish to add all the graphics files
(certainly, from the list of supported formats) from this and all
recursively located directories.
Display RGB check - switches
on/off RGB value tooltip display;
Display Coordinates check
- switches on/off x,y cursor coordinate display (may be used together
with crop choice);
Histogram colour mask -
switches colour mask on/off. If histogram is on the screen - it's possible
to view red, green and blue channels separately by selecting it with histogram
popup menu. If histogram is not active - switching this menu item check
results to luminance image display;
Crop rectangle - switches
cropping rectangle on: pressing left mouse button, dragging it and then
releasing lets you choose a rectangle to be cropped. It should be used
together with Settings->Geometry.
BG reference point menu
item choosing lets you specify background colour reference point
to be used for the output (when Settings->Other
property page is active that would choose stamps background colour).
FG reference point menu
item choosing lets you specify foreground colour reference point
to be used for the output (when Settings->Other
property page is active that would choose colour for labels and border).
Note, that when you are fitting some output settings performing step-by-step
test conversions and "postviewing" the results, you may want to speed the
testing up by clearing the input selection (just press
button) and thus redrawing only output.
There are some accelerators keys that you may
use to speed your work up.
If you need input image to be put to Windows clipboard - choose Output to...->Clipboard popup menu item.
If a single file path or name is to be changed
after it has been included into the output list - select Edit
popup menu item. The menu item becomes enabled for single-file selections
in the output list. The dialogue that appears on the screen enables you
to edit the output advancing up and down the list with the help of these
buttons: .
Any change will take effect if you press Apply
to selected button, unless you set
the checkbox right next to "up/down"
buttons. The box when checked makes "up/down" buttons to send "apply"
message before progressing any further.
Cancel button or Esc key exits the
dialogue.
As soon as there's at least one output item in the list - Settings button becomes enabled and you may specify a number of settings to be applied to the output extended selection.
The very same buttons as those at the input list bottom can be seen
at the bottom of the output list, but there's a difference in their purposes
for two of them:
the "plus" button
, as was mentioned above, each time rebuilds the output list, but not appends
to it;
the "minus" button
clears the whole output list, but not the selection only as for input.
Next two buttons
have exactly the same function as they have for the
input list.
If you press the "info" button
(or select Info popup menu item)
having single item selected in the output list before conversion
- you'll normally invoke the "Output Info" dialogue with "File open error"
string for the output file name If you do it after conversion -
you'll get valid information on the output image (file).
The same is true for "Postview" button
(and Postview popup menu item).
Like for the input - the "Histogram" button
for the output becomes enabled only after the "Postview" dialogue is active.
The following buttons and corresponding popup menu items act as triggers
switching dialogues on/off:
.
There are some accelerators keys that you may
use to speed your work up.
This property page lets you choose or change output format, codec, colour
space (scheme), units for selected items. All possible variants along
with features supported are listed above.
Use "Auto" feature for these settings unless you really need to change
something. "Auto" checks the input image parameters and makes the
best fit for the output, having considered the output format supported
features.
For example, you may be not aware of the units, supported by the output
format according to its specification; or codec, etc.
Note that combo boxes contain different lists for different graphics
formats, to help you avoid some feature setting choice, which is not supported
either by the converter or is not defied in format specification.
You may enter Comments or order Interlaced output at this property page. And don't you forget to click on Apply to Selected.
This property page is for geometry transformation setting. Some controls have a checkbox nearby. When a box is checked and you press the Apply to Selected button - a corresponding setting is applied to the output list selection, if not - then the setting is ignored. Some controls are mutually dependent, so they become enabled or disabled when you set checks.
Scale X,Y edit controls are used to define the scaling factor. Preserve aspect ratio check affects the input.
Size W,H edit controls
are for specifying new image sizes (Width and Height). If there's a single
item selection in the output list - the controls are defaulted with
corresponding values. Preserve aspect
ratio check and Units
combo box selection affect the input. Using the Units
combo box you can enter the sizes in physical units, but note that the
possibility to do it in all possible units - is just for your convenience.
To set definite output physical unit - you should select it in Settings->Format.
In case of multiple ouput list selections there's a special possibility
to specify either a single dimension (X or Y) or both, which you usually
have for creating thumbnails. If you specify
1) X=A and Y=0 - that means that all the images are to be scaled
with a factor that yields output width=A;
2) X=0 and Y=B - that means that all the images are to be scaled
with a factor that yields output height=B;
3) X=A and Y=B - that means that all the images are to be scaled
with appropriate factor:
a) min(scaleX,scaleY) if you answer "Yes" to "...fit within"
(after "Apply to selected" pressed);
b) max(scaleX,scaleY) if you answer "No" to "...fit within"
(after "Apply to selected" pressed);
I dare say that the case 3a is what you really might need producing
thumbnails from input images with different sizes and when all of the resulting
images are to fit within some bounding rectangle AxB (say 128x128 pixels).
Page W,H edit controls - are for output page size specifying. They may (and should) be used together with Offset X,Y specifying to get a definite image layout. Also the RBG BG button and controls become enabled for you to define the margins fill colour.
Offset X,Y edit controls
define the image offset. It's possible to just enter offsets here and leave
alone Page W,H controls if you
need some space added at the top or bottom of the image or at the top and
left, top and right, etc.
Try zero and negative values to get all combinations. Use
RGB BG button and edit controls to specify background
color for resulting empty spaces filling.
Crop X1,Y1 edit controls
- are for the upper left crop rectangle coordinates specification (in pixels)
and
Crop X2,Y2 - are for the
lower right. The best way is to use them simultaneously with Preview
with crop rectangle switched on. Note that croppinng is allowed for
multiple ouput list selection. But this should be used when you are sure
that the specified cropping rectangle would fit all of the images sizes.
The situation when you have a lot of grabbed video or scanned pictures
with the same dimensions is just the case for it.
Res X,Y edit controls let you enter desired output resolution. When Reset to Defaults button is pressed they are initialized with current screen resolution values. No use setting Size W,H in physical units when resolution is undefined.
Skew X,Y edit controls -
are for specifying the skew angles in the range [-45.0...+45.0] (in degrees)
along X and Y axes.
The following color schemes are currently supported: gray8, rgb8, rgb24,
rgb32.
It's recommended for use when small angle rotations are needed: skew
is much faster and more precise. Another case when you might need it -
to produce minimum image distortion when rotating by arbitrary angles.
For that - specify the same skew angle for both axes. That results to image
increase by 1/cos(angle) factor, but minimizes distortions.
Use RGB BG button and edit
controls to specify background color for resulting empty spaces filling.
Use Clip check box to preserve
initial image dimensions.
Rotate combo box lets you select rotation angle from the set of 90 degrees multiples (0,90,180,270) or enter any arbitrary value. For the latter case - use RGB BG button and edit controls to specify background color for resulting empty spaces filling and set Clip check box if initial image dimensions are to be preserved.
Flip combo box lets you select image flipping from the following predefined list : None, Horizontal, Vertical, Both.
Units combo box lets you select a physical unit from the following list of units supported with the converter: abstract (pixels for raster images), cm, inch, m, mm, point, twip (1/72 inch), point (1/20 point).
Page combo box is for selecting one of predefined standard output page sizes: from A4 to A0, D and E.
Landscape radio button check tells the converter to swap width and height of the standard Page size selected.
Portrait radio button (default) check sets the larger page dimension for image height.
Preserve aspect ratio check box affects sizes and scale and results to recalculating one of dimensions when the other is changed.
Clip check box when marked - tells the converter to preserve the output image dimensions for operations that may change them automatically (rotation by an arbitrary angle, skewing).
RGB BG button invokes Windows standard colour choice dialogue. You may enter the RGB value manually in the edit control in the following format : r, g, b. This colour is used to fill empty space that may appear as the result of arbitrary angle rotation, skew, or when image offsets are specified.
Reset to Defaults button pressing resets all values and initializes resolution edit controls with current screen resolution in dpi (dots per inch).
Apply to Selected button applies the values having check box set to the output selection list.
Filter property page contains output image postprocessing settings switches.
Filters group.
Filters combo box lets you choose one of predefined convolution filters:
Invert check box check forces the converter to invert the image (produce a "negative").
Dither radio buttons let you choose dithering algorithm. The default method (Uniform quantization with Floyd-Steinberg) is the fastest one, when reducing the number of colors from "true" to 256-entries palette. When you are converting to BW output that would be printed out - use Ordered dithering and select dither Matrix size. The matrix size may vary from 1x1 (with predefined luminance threshold equal to 127 resulting to emulation of two output shades of gray) to 16x16 (emulation of 16 shades of gray). Note that Postview may produce artifacts not present in the resulting image. That's just the scaling-down effect, when skipping scanlines (outputting every n-th).
Effects group contains currently several effects useful for creating backgrounds from images (see Table II below).
Apply to Selected button
assigns the settings to selected items.
Filter/Effect | bw | bw8 | gray8 | rgb4 | rgb8 | rgb24 | rgb32 |
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Filters | ![]() |
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Emboss | ![]() |
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Dissolve | ![]() |
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Noise | ![]() |
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Oil Paint | ![]() |
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Pixelate | ![]() |
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Spread | ![]() |
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Edge | ![]() |
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Notes: if some effect or filter is not present in the table - that means it supports all of the color schemes above (like "Invert").
Border check box enables the border width setting for selected output images.
Width (pixels) edit control is for specifying the border width in pixels. Note that the image dimensions stay unchanged: the border drawing goes inward.
RGB FG button invokes Windows standard colour choice dialogue. You may enter the RGB value manually in the edit control in the following format : r, g, b.(e.g. 128 196 255) This colour is used to draw borders. Note that for paletted output you should enter just one number indicating the palette index to be used to draw the border!
Note: Border, Width (pixels) and RGB FG controls go in double set for double border drawing. If you need just one - don't set the second check box. Both (inner and outer borders go inward, the second overlapping the first. For outward going one - use Geometry->Page W,H + RGB BG). So specifying widths for borders be sure to make inner width larger than the outer one!
RGB BG button invokes Windows standard colour choice dialogue. You may enter the RGB value manually in the edit control in the following format : r, g, b.(e.g. 128 196 255) This colour defines transparent background color for overlays.
Overlay transparent / Overlay opaque radio buttons let you choose overlay mode for output selections. They are enabled when either transparent or opaque mode is set in Options->General. On this property page you may change them as you wish. Remember that input images sequence is important when overlaying them onto a single output image.
Label check box enables the specified (in edit control) text label be placed atop of each of the selected output image. Note that label overlaying is the last operation that is performed on the ouput image file before closing.
Font... button invokes the standard True Type font choice dialogue. Note that you may choose any possible font size and color, but it would be adjusted to the output image color scheme and sizes.
Label X,Y edit controls are just the relative coordinates of the text box upper left corner.
RGB FG button for labels invokes Windows standard colour choice dialogue. You may enter the RGB value manually in the edit control in the following format : r, g, b.(e.g. 128 196 255). This colour is used to draw letters. For paletted output you should use Preview to choose foreground and background colours (clicking the right mouse button to invoke the popup menu where you should choose BG or FG reference point).
Opaque/Transp. check for labels switches on/off opaque/transparent text overlaying mode. Default state is transparent mode for which you may enter the percent (only rgb24 and rgb32 colour schemes are supported).
Stamp check box enables the specified (in edit control) graphics file be placed atop of each of the selected output image. Note that stamp overlaying is performed just before label is.
File... button invokes the standard OpenFile dialogue. Note that the stamp file itself may have any of the supported formats and color schemes (see Table I).
Stamp X,Y edit controls are just the relative coordinates of the stamp image upper left corner.
RGB BG button for stamps invokes Windows standard colour choice dialogue. You may enter the RGB value manually in the edit control in the following format : r, g, b.(e.g. 128 196 255). This colour is used to define whether a pixel belongs to background and if it should be overlaid in transparent mode. You may use Preview to choose background colour (clicking the right mouse button to invoke the popup menu where you should choose BG reference point), including your stamp file into the Input list (but don't forget to delete it from there before converting).
Opaque/Transp. check for labels switches on/off opaque/transparent stamp overlaying mode. Default state is opaque mode. You may enter the percent of transparency for stamps as well (only rgb24 and rgb32 colour schemes are supported).
Note: the current label and stamp implementation is targeted to simple
cases of batch labels and stamps placing, i.e. you are not allowed to specify
different labels and stamps for different output selections.
Overlay | bw | bw8 | gray8 | rgb4 | rgb8 | rgb24 | rgb32 |
Stamp | ![]() |
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Label | ![]() |
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GIF Delay(.01s) check and edit boxes are for specifying a time delay equal to the number of hundredths of a second that must elapse after a GIF "frame" has been displayed. It is applicable for selections, so you may vary it getting th effect you wish. Thus you may create GIF-animated banners of your own along with simple gif-animation. The default value is set in Options->Formats.
Apply to Selected button
assigns the settings to selected items.
When input and output lists are ready - you may press the Convert
button. When mouse cursor is focused on the button (before clicking
on it) - tooltip shows how many images are going to be converted. Conversion
progress dialogue will appear on the screen (after the button click)
showing the percentage of current item processing and that of the total.
Two buttons may be pressed: Stop
or Cancel
- the first completes the current conversion and then terminates, the latter
- terminates the process right away. Thus the consequences of the action
are up to you. The current input and output are displayed at the top of
the dialogue window, and the total percentage - as the window capture,
so you could watch it in minimized window state.
When thread finished - an "All in all" time spent is displayed in the
status bar at the bottom of main dialog. The time being shown is the time
span between the moment you click the Convert
button and the moment the progress dialog is closed. So it shows the overall
time you've spent for the operation.
This feature is automatically switched on after the conversion process
has been terminated, unless you'd set the option of clearing the output
list "ON". It uses the same dialogue window as the Preview and has exactly
the same popup menu, described above. Postview is
invoked by pressing the button
at the bottom of the output list or by just pressing v or V when
the mouse focus is in the OUTPUT box and some item selected.
When Preview or Postview
dialogue window is on the screen - the "Histogram" button
becomes enabled letting you view an image histogram.
You may just press h or H to view the histogram.
By default, the luminance
histogram is displayed. Luminance or colour channels (from 0 to 255) -
are along the X-axis, while relative input in % - is along Y-axis.
Press the right mouse button while the mouse cursor is within the histogram
dialogue window to invoke popup menu.
It has the following items:
Display Channel check when
ON - results to displaying the intensity channel No;
Red, Blue,
Green
checks - set colour mask and display the corresponding colour component
histogram;
Luminance check - makes
the image in gray scale be displayed.
If you set the check Histogram colour mask
using the popup menu for Preview
- you'll watch the selected colour component of the image.
The relative colour component integral percentage is displayed as caption
on the window frame.
Presently the histogram feature has only illustrative or informative
goal, but it's planned to be used for equalization and other colour correcting
procedures.
Input and Output Images and Files Info
The first nice possibility to view images info - is to press and hold
left mouse button while the cursor is located on some item in the input
list as was described above.
Another way - is to press the "info" button
or select Info popup menu item or
press i or I.
Both act as triggers, switching On/Off the "Info" dialogue. The description
of what you see there follows.
Image group contains the image No out of Total (e.g. (12/150) and file name e.g. beauty.gif).
Format group contains the
format Name and Version
items. Both brief and full format names are displayed as well as the format
originator, e.g.
Name : JPEG (JPEG File Interchange Format)
Version: JFIF v1.01 (C-Cube Microsystems)
Codec group contains the
used codec Name, both brief
and full, Compression ratio
and Interlaced flag, e.g.
Name: JPEG (JFIF JPEG)
Compression ratio: 18.640
Interlaced :
(checked)
Color space group contains
the following information: colour space Name,
both brief and full, Bits per pixel,
colour Channels, Palette
entries number, e.g.
Name: rgb24 (True colors (8bpc)) //
8 bits per channel;
Bits per pixel : 24
// totally
Channels : 3
// sometimes called "colour planes" or "colour components"
Palette entries: 0
// no palette for "true colors"
Dimensions group contains
information on image sizes and resolutions: in Pixels:
Width Height (always displayed), the same in physical
units and Resolution X Y (displayed
only in case the resolution information is present in a graphics file),
e.g.
Pixels: Width 1427 Height 500
inches: Width 4.76 Height 1.67
Resolution: X 300.0 Y 300.0
Comments field contains comments supplied with the graphics file you are examining. You may scroll the line horizontally up to its maximum limit of 1024 symbols.
Image group contains the same information as for Image property page.
The rest of the page resembles (and it was done on purpose) the standard Windows property page:
Type: shows the file type,
e.g.
Type : 2D raster graphics file.
Location: contains the full
file path, e.g.
Location: D:\rx\grSamples\jpg
Size: displays the file size
in kilobytes and bytes, e.g.
Size : 69 kbytes (70965 bytes)
MS-DOS name: contains MS
DOS short file name, e.g.
MS DOS name: GIWAL~1.JPG
Created: contains the file
creation date/time stamp, e.g.
Created : Fri Sep 18 03:29:16 1988
Modified: contains the file
last modifications date/time stamp, e.g.
Modified: Fri Sep 18 08:22:10 1988
Accessed: contains the file
last access date/time stamp, e.g.
Accessed: Tue Sep 22 00:00:00 1998
Attributes: contains Read-only,
Archive,
Hidden,
System checkboxes set or empty.
Monitoring is a feature that enables you monitor folders (mainly), i.e. to
watch for any changes in a specified INPUT directory (optionally - recursively)
and to produce "on the fly" conversion to a specified OUTPUT directory
and into a specified graphics format. All done in "background"
mode by a thread with the lowest priority - not to bother your main current work
(supposed scanning, capturing, or other graphics tasks). Monitoring is set
ON/OFF in Options->General (see there Monitor
INPUT and Monitor subdirs).
When you set it ON - you would see the enabled button Monitor.
Note that the small buttons also
become available - they are for specifying the INPUT folder to be
monitored and the OUTPUT folder and format (to convert to and into). The
INPUT and OUTPUT may be specified manually in edit controls (just under the
input and output boxes titles on the top). In the latter case you should specify
the input and output as follows:
INPUT: <full path>, e.g. c:\temp\scans ,OUTPUT: <full
path>\*.<ext>, e.g. d:\temp\out\*.jpg
Monitor would convert all formats it supports currently - so the input
template for extensions would be always *.*.
To stop (or just pause) the monitor - press the Stop
button. It would also reset the statistics displayed in the
status bar: the total number of input files converted to output path/format and
the total time it has taken.
Warning. Images converted "on the fly" are always replaced with converted ones. The monitored folder should be initially empty or at least contain no files you wouldn't like to convert. All non-graphics files in the monitored folder would slow down the conversion process as they would be always opened in format auto-detection procedure. All of the above is especially true when recursive subdirectories are scanned.
In monitor mode you may still (as in "normal" one) drop files
dragged from wherever into the INPUT box, but they would automatically be
converted to output/format and replaced with converted ones.
You might as well wish to just copy files from somewhere to the monitored
directory - it would also work ok, though the feature is primarily supposed to
be used as a background graphics files handler while scanning or capturing
images (some scanner manufacturers (even HP) use software that produces graphics
files with errors when you set compression "On"; while capture devices
software normally wouldn't perform any compression for speed reasons and produce
large BMP files).
You may use the following accelerator keys to speed up your work. Note that a
key effects the INPUT or OUTPUT depending on mouse focus.
key => button with the same effect:
+ or Ins (plus or insert ~ add) =>
;
- or Del (minus or delete ~ remove selection)=> ;
* (asterisk ~ invert selection)=>
;
c (or C ~ clear selection) =>;
m (or M ~ monitor) =>;
i (or I ~ info) =>;
v (or V ~ view) =>;
h (or H ~ histogram) =>.
The rest keys are as follows:
Alt - O => Options;
Alt - A => About;
Alt - H => Help;
Alt - C => Convert;
Alt - M => [start] Monitor;
Alt - P => Stop [monitor];
Alt - X => Exit;
Just the list of "TO DO"s: