The same questions come up time and time again on all the Amiga
magazine forums. One of the most common that appears is "how do I change
a picture format".
So lets have a quick answer. Use an image-processing package!
The Amiga has been blessed with a wide variety of image processing packages
over the years,
too numerous to name. However, I was thinking more of the freeware
and shareware packages. Why don't we support the people who have
always supported the platform?
One of the packages that is still supported is PPT, this can be found
on Aminet or alternatively at www.iki.fi/~jalkanen/PPT.html
(Aminet has been having problems lately).
PPT is now at version 6 and a comprehensive package it is, although
GIF support has been removed due to the continuing situation regarding
copyright.
I installed PPT quite a while ago and although I normally use Image
Studio (which is no longer supported), PPT can use progressive Jpeg's unlike
the aforementioned I.S., a
format which is now in extensive use. Use PPT and the standard disclaimer
applies! i.e. use it at your own risk. This said, I have been using PPT
for quite a while now and haven't suffered unduly from crashes. It can
crash occasionally but generally is stable. Now, PPT itself. It uses virtual
memory ,which is a big help if someone sends you a large .bmp file (why
oh why do "Gates Crates" owners save everything in this format). As it
is an image processing program it does like large amounts of Ram to get
the best speed from it,virtual memory is good, but writing to a disk slows
things down quite a bit. The requirements to run PPT are not excessive
,you can even run it on Wb 2 !!! Anyone still using that? You will
need BGUI library if you don't already have it. Luckily for us ,there is
a link on the Webpage to get it ,just in case.
The program is installed via the usual install file and is totally painless.
No hiccups there. Once installed ,it is a simple matter of double clicking
the icon to load the program .Files can
be loaded via menu or dock. The GUI is customisable and there is a
set of image files for the GUI if you prefer that to simple text buttons.
Configuration of the program is easy as well and
you can lay out whatever you want on startup. All menus are easy to
understand and just in case you hit a sticking point, guide files are provided
in the docs directory .
I action, I found PPT 6 slightly slower than previous versions,
due to the fact that it does more? Even so, it is fast! Compares
favourably with Image Studio.
PPT is modular and has the following iomods...... c-code, bmp, datatypes,
yuvn, psionpic, ilbm, jpeg, png, plain?, ppm, targa and tiff. So
lots of different formats that it can
handle. It handles them transparently ie you don't have to select a
loader for a particular format. Nice and easy and you don't have to be
an expert ! And since there is a datatype
loader ,even if there isn't a loader for your pic, chances are good
that there is a datatype for it.
As for what it does for images,
you can do a lot ! Composite , scale ,rotate, crop are just the tip
of the iceberg really. It can alter the colours , brighten, blur,
contrast, etc etc. It
also has a twirl effect now and the ability to incorporate text onto
your image . The effects are good, easy to use, and generally reliable.....
the text effect is buggy but I'm sure that will
change with another update. All the effects are also quite speedy,
even on my '030. Image loading is fast as well. Previews can be done in
various modes or you can render the picture
to see the final result before saving it out.
PPT has an arexx port as well and there are some scripts provided
with it. Antique is one that springs to mind, allowing you to "age"
your image. There is even an "empty" script
provided which holds only the error return part of an arexx script
so that you can try writing your own. The author is amenable to requests
and there is a mailing list as well, this can be
subscribed to from his site.
Now ,what have I forgotten?
Oh yeah, you might think that since I have said how good and how
many effects ,formats it handled etc, its going to cost a lot to register
for it!
Didn't I say that it was freeware? Must have slipped my mind. This
program is free to download and use. I recommend it highly, if you do use
it , subscribe to the mailing list and
tell the author what you think of it. The guy deserves some feedback
after all the work he has put into this marvellous piece of software, if
only to tell him that it is in use! Even if you only
want to convert bmp pictures or ilbms to jpeg, its a good program to
have on your drive. Its just one more example that shows how different
users of Amiga are to other types of system.