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Written by Tim Herzog
Produced by Two Bits Worth
778 Hague Avenue
Saint Paul, MN 55104
(612) 227-2920
Email: shareware@2bitsworth.com
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An application for viewing and copying graphics files quickly and easily.
NOTE: Some FreeHand users have complained that PICTuresque doesnﾕt work as well with FreeHand files as with Illustrator files, and that it runs out of memory more quickly. I have not found this to be the case, and in the FreeHand files that people have sent me and that I have generated myself, I have found no problems. If you are experiencing out of memory problems, try the workarounds explained below for low memory situations, or increase the programﾕs memory allocation in the Get Info window (click the programﾕs icon, and choose Get Info from the File menu). Otherwise, feel free to send me a file that is giving you problems (use the address above), and I can take a look.
Operation:
When you double-click the PICTuresque icon, the program starts up and asks you for a file to open. PICTuresque can open, display and copy to the clipboard, PICT, EPS, TIFF and MacPaint files. You can also drag any of these files on to the PICTuresque icon and PICTuresque will open the file in a new window.
PICTuresque is pretty straight-forward; it simply opens graphic files and lets you see them on screen. With the 2.0 release, you can have more than one graphic open at a time. Each graphicﾕs window has a little status bar across the bottom giving information about the graphic. The big whiz-bang feature is that any graphic PICTuresque can open, it can also convert to PICT format. If youﾕre using a program that only accepts PICT files (and not TIFF or EPS), this can be a big help. You convert a graphic to PICT format using either the Copy command (copy it to the clipboard) or the Save As command (save it as a PICT file or resource).
A caveat to non-PostScript printer users: PICTuresque converts EPS files by ﾒembeddingﾓ the PostScript part of the file within the converted PICT. If you are printing to a PostScript printer, the PostScript code is used to print the graphic (even if the program doing the printing does not recognize EPS files), but if you are printing to a non-PostScript printer, the ﾒpreviewﾓ will be used and youﾕll get a 72-dpi bitmap, even if your printer uses a higher resolution. Bottom line is, the PostScript ﾒmagicﾓ only happens when you print to a PostScript printer: PICTuresque does not ﾒrasterﾓ the PostScript code for you as some might expect.
By the way, all the menu items and dialog box items have Balloon Help, in case you have any questions about a feature.
Here is a description of the menu commands:
Open: Opens and displays a graphic file.
Save: Saves the current file as a PICT file or as a PICT resource in a file (ResEdit users will be familiar with PICT resources). If you click ﾔPICT Resource File,ﾕ enter the ID number of the PICT resource. If you select 'Merge With File,' PICTuresque will add a PICT resource to an existing file instead of overwriting it (the file must exist to use this option).
Close: closes the current window.
View at 100%/Fit in Window: You can choose to view the file at 100% or using a percentage at which it will fit in the window.
Frame Picture: If you choose this option, PICTuresque draws a dotted line around the picture. Note that the 'bounding boxes' for some graphics are not the same as you would think (notably, Illustrator files), so this option is useful for telling the 'actual' dimensions of a picture.
Conversion Options: this submenu lets you set options for how different graphic formats are converted to PICT:
PICT Files:
ﾒConvert to Black & White Bitmapﾓ will convert your PICT to a black and white bitmapped PICT. This is quite useful if youﾕre working with screen shots taken on a color screen. Most screen capture programs make a color PICT file from a color monitor. These are much larger than the black and white equivalent and print MUCH slower. If you really want a black and white screen shot, click this option before copying.
EPS Files:
ﾒInclude Onscreen Previewﾓ means that PICTuresque includes the PICT preview that is normally part of EPS files. You normally want this checked, but if you turn it off, you can save a lot of memory, epecially if the EPS file is large in area. If you turn this off, PICTuresque will include a much smaller, generic preview.
ﾒConvert to Bitmapﾓ means that PICTuresque will convert the PICT preview portion to a bitmap. Most drawing programs already provide a bitmap preview, so this normally isnﾕt necessary. Some programs, like Finale, sometimes create non-bitmap previews, which can lead to strange printing.
ﾒBlack and Whiteﾓ means that PICTuresque converts the PICT preview to a black and white bitmap. Of course, youﾕll lose the color information, but you will save a lot of memory. Color information will still be available for PostScript printing, since that is part of the EPS PostScript code.
ﾒInclude PostScript Codeﾓ means that PICTuresque will include the PostScript code when it converts an EPS file to a PICT. This is normally what you want, since you want to get as high a resolution printout as possible. If this option is off, you will just get bitmap printing, like MacPaint. This feature is useful if you just want to ﾔrip the previewﾕ out of an EPS file, for instance, if you were just using it as part of a screenshot.
ﾒRemove 'showpage'sﾓ is used for 'patching' certain EPS files that do unorthodox things in their PostScript code (most notably, Illustrator 3.0, but there may be others). The PostScript 'showpage' command is used to print an imaged page. As you may guess, putting one of these in an EPS graphic can cause havoc, but some programs do it anyway. Turning the "remove 'showpage's" option on means that PICTuresque tries to remove the erroneous 'showpage' commands without disturbing the rest of the PostScript code. If when you copy a graphic into another program, you get multiple pages out of your printer, turn this option on and copy the file again. It will take a bit longer to copy, but it consumes no extra memory.
TIFF Files:
ﾒDownsample to __ dpiﾓ lets you reduce the resolution of a TIFF as it is converted to a PICT, thus reducing the amount of memory the PICT consumes. You had best use this feature if youﾕre trying to convert, say, a 3-inch square 800-dpi TIFF; most programs simply donﾕt have the memory to handle this. If the TIFF is already at or below the resolution you enter, PICTuresque will simply leave the resolution as is.
By the way, these settings are saved between uses of PICTuresque.
Copy: converts the file to a PICT and copies it to the clipboard.
