Castle Paradox

[Uncommon]

I think we need PNG support for game/review screenshots. Seriously, compare these three screens (shameless plugs) in their different formats.



This is the JPEG, the one I uploaded. It looks fuzzy, and generally not good. When displaying pixelations (which most OHR screens will be), JPEG will, for the most part, ruin the picture.



This is a GIF. It's smaller in size than the JPEG, but seriously. Look at Feather's outline, and tell me why GIF's are good for OHR (aside from animations, of course).

Now, these are the two filetypes that CP does support. Take a look at the PNG, now...



Look at the quality. It's almost like a Bitmap, perfect for pixelations. And the size is considerably smaller, at about a tenth of the size of the JPEG, and almost half the size of the GIF. Now, why don't we support files like this?

I'm not saying that we shouldn't support JPEG or GIF, since those are the internet standard, I'm just asking why we don't support PNG when it is obviously the better of the three.
DISCUSS.

[Shadowiii]

I hate PNG. Gif is easy to manipulate color-wise if you have a good editor (photoshop's "Save for Web" works well). I personally dont' like gif because I accidently set it to open with Quicktime, so it takes a few seconds longer then any other image. I also like gifs because they are smaller.

JPGS suck and should be banned, along with BMPs.
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But enough talk, have at you!

[Aethereal]

Each image format has its own pros and cons and the format you use is dependant upon the image itself. For example, .JPG really sucks for a small pixel-art OHR screenshot, but it's a good format for a very detailed, high quality picture, like some kind of large project that you'd do in Photoshop. .GIF isn't good for these kinds of pictures because of the limited colors allowed in a .GIF. .PNG isn't good for editing but it is good for displaying, and it is smaller than a bitmap, so I suppose we could add it. The only problem is there might be some compatibility issues with people using non-IE browsers (.PNG shows up in Opera for sure (I use Opera) and I think it shows up in Mozilla as well), but I guess we could do it and if we get complaints take it out. I'll talk to IM about it.
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[RPGCreations]

I've talked to IM about it plenty of times. He seems to not want to take the time to simply change the filter.

Oh, and any browser can display PNGs.

Three, Shadowiii..

on a GIF file, CTRL-RIGHTCLICK on it, Open With, select your favorite program, check "Always open with this program", done
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[Cube]

Whatever editor you used to save that GIF isn't very good. You can tell because it mixed two shades of blue in the sky to make it look like it's slightly darker than what it really is. Paintshop pro and Photoshop will make GIF images perfectly, so try looking into that, heh.

Also, it should be noted that the OHR only has 256 colors in it's palette, and that GIFs can only hold 256 colors. The OHR Palette cannot have any more or any less. Therefore, the color quality of GIFs can NEVER decrease unless you say so otherwise when used with OHR screens. If you need proof of this for some reason take a look at the palette package that's on Hamster Republic. It's saved as a gif. Every color can be contained in a gif .

In the end, GIFs are probably best. Just save them at the highest quality (The size won't really differ that much. Nobody cares about an extra 2kb or so).

Just for the heck of it, here's a GIF made from the PNG. No quality difference at all. And no I did not just rename the extension:



If you still want PNG support though, I can probably add it. I don't see the harm in allowing it.

[RPGCreations]

[The Drizzle]

Gifs are fine. 256 color max. 256 colors in the editor. And IE has trouble with png files from time to time from what i hear. Though I agree, whatever editor you're using to make your gifs must SUCK. Most editors will use the 256 colors in the picture to make the gif's pallete. Get photoshop or die!
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My name is...
The shake-zula, the mic rulah, the old schoola, you wanna trip? I'll bring it to yah...

[Bobby Blade]

[Uncommon]

Well, I just remebered what's wrong with her outline. I converted that in Paintshop Pro 3 (the only one I have), and it's really wony about the transparency color. About the only other program I have that converts to GIF is Miscrosoft Photo Editor, and I'm not exactly sure how well that does...

[RPGCreations]

[Bob the Hamster]

PNG is my favorite image format. Once upon a time I read the specification for it, and fell in love. It is a very well designed format. The only reason the OHRRPGCE use BMP instead of PNG is becase BMP files are brain-dead-simple, and PNG files require complex compression support that I would truly hate to try to implement correctly in real-mode-DOS.

As for color-quality, I have this to say: Yes, Jpeg files will mess with your screen shots. However, both GIF and PNG have no limitations of any kind that should affect your 256 color OHRRPGCE screen shots in any way. If your screen shots, when saved as GIF look wrong, your graphics program has broken GIF support. If your PNG screen shots, when saved as PNG look wrong, your graphics program has broken PNG support. End of story. Blame the graphics program, not the image format.

As for browser support, support for non-transparent PNG images is *perfect* in all major browsers. You will have to search far and wide to find a web browser that cannot correctly display non-transparent PNGs. Internet explorer does not support alpha-transparent PNGs, nor does it support smooth progressive-loading of PNGs, but neither of these is a big deal for screen shots, which have no transparency, alpha or otherwise, and which are small enough that progressive loading isn't important.

As for true-color, yes, with some very clever hacks, you can trick a GIF into displaying more than 256 colors. This is basicly done by making an animated GIF with zero-delay between each frame, that paints a succession of frames over different parts of the image which each use a different 256 color palette. PNG on the other hand, supports true color natively with no hacks, and does a darn good job of it.

As for patent issues, the one most obnoxious patent has already expired (the U.S. Unisys patent) but the IBM patent still exists in the U.S. and there are still some applicable patents in other parts of the world. PNG was designed to be patent-free in the first place.

In conclusion, PNG rocks. :)

[edit, yes, how many times can I mis-spell "screen shot" as "scren shot" in one post? Current count: 3]