Format: ACBM (Amiga Contiguous BitMap)
Loads: Yes
Saves: No
Autodetect: Yes
The ACBM format is a very old Amiga graphics format, first used with the Amiga Graphicraft paint program (published by Commodore). It became popular for use with Amiga Basic, which had routines to load ACBM format files.Save is not supported as IFF has totally replaced it for modern use.
Format: Grabs an Amiga screen display
Loads: Yes
Saves: No
Autodetect: N/A
A requester opens offering you the choice of Left Mouse button or Joystick Fire button to activate. If you use the left mouse button option click on the gadget quickly and carefully otherwise it will immediately grab the Photogenics screen!
Arrange your screens with the Amiga screen you want to grab at the front and top of your display (all other screens should be hidden behind it). Then press the button (left mouse or joystick) that you selected. The screen will be loaded into Photogenics as a new buffer. This can be used as a simple way of transferring images from another graphics program, for example Deluxe Paint IV (remember to press F10 in Deluxe Paint to hide the menus and toolbar)
Unlike other screen grabbers this should work fine with any screen mode (up to 256 colours, HAM or HAM-8), including third-party display cards (Picasso II, Retina, Rainbow III, etc).
AmigaScreen now also supports all RTG screen modes (inc >8-bit colour depths) thanks to the Photogenics Companion Project!.
Format: IFF Anim-5 Animations.
Loads: Yes
Saves: Yes
Autodetect: Yes
Photogenics can load any frame from an IFF Anim-5 format animation. On selecting an IFF-ANIM file, Photogenics first counts the number of frames in the anim, and lets you select one of those frames. Because IFF Anim frames are stored as sequences of differences from the previous frames, loading later frames in an anim can be a slow progress (although if you load frame 1, then frame 2, then frame 3, and so on, it will remember the past frames and will work much faster).
Saving animations is a much more complex process, and is usually best left for an ARexx script to deal with. However, if you want to create animations manually you should follow these steps:
1. Create the frame that you want to use as the first frame in your animation. Remember that every frame in your animation must be the same size, so now is the time to choose what size you want the animation to be. The larger the animation frame size the slower it will usually play back.
2. Select the ANIM saver and save the frame. A file request will open, select a new filename for your animation and click on OK.
3. Another requester will open giving you options for the animation. These options allow you to choose the animation depth (2 colour, 4 colour, 8 colour, 16 colour, 32 colour, 64 colour, 128 colour, 256 colour, HAM6 or HAM8), the type of palette to create - which can be a greyscale palette, a calculated palette (where the image is examined and the best colours chosen), the current image palette (if the image you created had a palette originally, or if you created one for the image in the colours window) - you can also choose whether you want the border to be made black (in which case colour zero of your palette is always set to black), and what type of dithering method you want to use to increase the quality of your rendered image (Animations are best usually done with an ordered dither type, the Large Ordered Light dither is ideal for most 256 colour and HAM8 images. For lower number of colours it is sometimes better to go for a stronger variety of the ordered dither).
4. When you select OK the animation file is created and the first frame is written. Writing ANIM files is a complex process, you have to write at least two frames and specifically tell Photogenics that the animation has finished before your animation is ready to use. If you now edit something on your original image, using the warper for example to alter a small area, and save the image again as an animation.
5. You will notice this time that you've not been asked for a filename. Once you start an Animation save it assumes that any further animation saves will be added to the same animation file, unless you specifically tell it to stop.
6. The requester shows the palette mode again. Usually you'll want to keep the same palette as the first frame of the animation, but many animation viewers now support having seperate palettes for each animation frame, and that can improve the animation quality (although making the file larger and therfore slower). Change the palette mode if you wish to have a different colour palette for this particular frame, otherwise leave it on 'Same palette as previous frame'. Force borders tro black does as previously described, again do not change this from the previous setting if you do not wish to write out a new palette for this frame. You can change the dither mode, but it almost always best to leave the dither mode constant throughout the animation, or the deltas (differences) between frames will be bigger than necessary and your animation will slow down.
7. At this point you can do one of three things. You can click on the OK button and a new frame is added to the animation, or you can click on ABORT to cancel the animation (and lose all you've written to it so far), or, if you want to finish the animation, Select the 'Finalise Anim' option and when you save the frame it will also fix the file so it is a fully-working ANIM file that you can play outside of Photogenics or load into any other program that deals with ANIM files. Some viewers expect ANIM files to 'loop' (that is, have the last two frames duplicate the first two frames), and if you want to write a looping animation select Loop, although most viewers and programs do not require LOOP nowdays.
8. That's it! You can now go and play the animation you've just created (try using BigAnim, provided on the CD) or carry on and create another one.
Format: Ascii Text.
Loads: No
Saves: Yes
Autodetect: N/A
Saves an image as a picture made up of text characters (as if it had been `typed' on a typewriter. Although almost totally useless, this loader is quite fun and can be used to create interesting ASCII art to use on BBS (Bulletin Board Systems) or in Desk-Top Publishing.