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I can't view a tga screenshot with paint.net.


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I can't veiw my tga screenshots nor edit them with paint.net. When Media Center opens the tga with my default editor (paint.net) nothing appears to open in paint.net besides an empty graphic. The following file is a screenshot that I can't see or edit with paint.net http://www.marvinf.com/images/screen01.tga. I can see this tga with Microsoft Digital Starter Edition 2006 but I can't see it with Windows Picture and Fax Viewer nor edit or see it with paint.net. Trivially, I've managed to extract one of the games dds files to see if I could see one of them with paint.net and I could. Please help me understand what I need to do in order to be able to see and edit these tga's with paint.net. I'm using v 3.31 of paint.net, default settings and install.

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Whatever program has created the image is saving it as a 32-bit TGA, but has encoded every alpha value as zero (which means they are all transparent). You want those values to be inverted, so they equal 255.

Try the plugin called "Invert Alpha": viewtopic.php?f=16&t=24232

The Paint.NET Blog: https://blog.getpaint.net/

Donations are always appreciated! https://www.getpaint.net/donate.html

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Thanks RickBrewster for moving this topic to its appropriate place and answering the way you did. I've installed the plug-in and it made the image viewable/workable inside of paint.net.

I've never thought about how a game renders a screenshot so for me to even consider offering what program produced the tga I can only add that X3 Reunion is the title of the game that I used the Screenshot Key while inside of the game itself. Thanks for the help.

SABROWN100 I appreciate your consideration and conversion of the file as an attempt to help. I was however trying to work with the file in it's exisiting format while also trying to learn what was hindering paint.net from allowing me to view it. With the Alpha Layer/s set to zero it did not occur to me to look for the plugin that RickBrewster introduced me too. Thanks to you too.

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It's possible Paint.NET is mis-interpreting something in the TGA header. I'll file a bug and look into it. In the meantime you have a pretty good workaround at least!

The Paint.NET Blog: https://blog.getpaint.net/

Donations are always appreciated! https://www.getpaint.net/donate.html

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  • 2 weeks later...

From looking at this in the debugger, Paint.NET does appear to be interpreting the file correctly. Looks like the program that is creating the image is at fault here.

For technical reference, the Pixel Depth of the image is 32, and the specified # of alpha bits is 8 (imageDesc & 15 == 8 ). Which means Paint.NET is correct in honoring the alpha channel even though it's all zeros. I'm not sure what Photoshop CS3 is seeing in the file that makes it load it "correctly" (incorrectly :)).

The Paint.NET Blog: https://blog.getpaint.net/

Donations are always appreciated! https://www.getpaint.net/donate.html

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Ok. I don't know either. Did you use Photoshop CS3 to view the image? I used Microsoft Digital Image Starter Edition 2006 to view it "correctly" incorrectly myself. I only asked if you used PS CS3 in case of some misunderstanding that could help you (the guy that obviously has a clue). By the looks of it what you said still remains true none the less. Thanks for the help, sorry I couldn't be of more assitance I'm glad to hear/read that it's not paint.net. Keep up the great work.

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