ChipZ

Thank you for the reminder. Irfanview is a great program, but it doesn't give you the ability to do (some) simple editing tasks like what I'm after (select area, remove black/fill with white). The save and convert portion works fine, and I suppose I could use two apps instead of one, it just slows the process down.

Thanks for the response, @Rick Brewster. I realize you may not know (or care to know), but any chance you can recommend an image editor other than a high priced one that can do what I'm after? Again, my needs are very very simple: Edit 1-bit images to remove inking artifacts and stamps, save the file in 1-bit mode.

I'm having a problem with paint.net and I'm not seeing any way to solve it. I am outputting TIF images (single page) in 1-bit using CCITT T.6 compression from another program. Occasionally, I will need to bring them into paint.net for some hand clean-up work. When I edit them and then save the image, it is not maintaining 1-bit mode and using LZW compression. This becomes a problem when I compile these images into a PDF because Chrome and other browser render these saved images poorly. Here's a comparison of two files--the first has been edited and saved by paint.net while the second has not. How can I make the program save the resulting image in the same bit depth (and, optionally, compression) as the source image? The only editing I'm doing is filling a selection with white (to remove inking artifacts). Any help is greatly appreciated here. EDIT: I have found and applied the LowColor plug-in from here (https://forums.getpaint.net/topic/15317-low-color-filetype-bmp-gif-png-tiff-20091204/) but this seems to require a manual process to "save as" a new type. All I'm looking to do is make edits to the file in situ with the source colorspace and compression. Since I have hundreds to process at a given time, I simply want to select an area, fill with white, press save and move on.

Perfect, thank you very much. I knew it was stupidly simple.

I apologize for such a simple question, and the problem is since I'm not a photo person I'm not entirely sure of the correct vocabulary to use. I have a very simple need that I'm not seeing how to address. I'm certain it's stupid and I'm overlooking something obvious. I have scans of some old music scores I need to remove some artifacts from. These are scanned in 1-bit mode (monochrome/black-and-white). For example, I would like to remove some over inking artifacts such as When I select the area in question and delete it, it removes even the white background. I just want to have a plain white background and remove the black inking. Again, I don't know the proper terminology for this, and I apologize. Can I get a quick point in the right direction here, please?