Help files and BMP formats

[williamr]

Dear Forum

I have 2 questions:

1. Is there a help file that I can run locally? I know there is web-based help but this is no use if I don't have a current internet connection. I don't mind how *big* the help file is or how big the download is, but I would like there to be one.

2. I have bitmap files (*.BMP) using true color 24bpp and I want to save them in 8bpp format with intelligent palette correction. Windows paint can sort-of do this but it uses a pre-built palette and most of the colors come out horrible. Is there a paint.net facility to do this?

Thanks, Will Rayer

[HITMAN-X-]

1. There was a help file that was installed in Paint.NET but it was taken out to make download of Paint.NET smaller I belive and replaced with the web link one. It would be nice to see an option when installing that asks you if you like Paint.NET to use the internet for it's help file or if you like to download it to your computer.

2. I am unsure about this as I don't use bmp's as there not that good. I use PNG's.

[williamr]

There was a help file in an earlier version but they took it out I spent some time searching this site for a copy of it but I can't find it. Any ideas?

[silverhammermba]

I too would like better bitmap support. MS Paint's support is horrible at best since it seems like it translates colors almost at random.

Yes, PNG is better for full color images but there are some cases where BMP is required.

[usedHONDA]

Here are the online help files:

http://getpaint.net/doc/latest/en/index.html

Also, Paint.NET doesn't have 8-bit BMP support yet, but it may in the future.

[williamr]

I know where the online help files are, what I needed is a downloadable help file so I can continue learning paint.net when I'm offline. Does anyone know where this is?

Also I know the 24bpp to 8bpp BMP conversion in MS Paint is pretty awful (it doesn't do any color matching, it just selects the nearest color from the

default palette). But Paint.net seems even worse since it can't do 24bpp to 8bpp matching at all.

I wanted to use Paint.net instead of MS Paint but I do need these two

[drakaan]

I know where the online help files are, what I needed is a downloadable help file so I can continue learning paint.net when I'm offline. Does anyone know where this is?

Also I know the 24bpp to 8bpp BMP conversion in MS Paint is pretty awful (it doesn't do any color matching, it just selects the nearest color from the

default palette). But Paint.net seems even worse since it can't do 24bpp to 8bpp matching at all.

I wanted to use Paint.net instead of MS Paint but I do need these two

if you save as gif from Paint.NET, does converting from gif to 8bpp BMP in MS Paint work well? gif is an 8-bit indexed format, so it might translate better, depending on the palette.

[williamr]

>I'm a PDN Fan!

I would like to be a PDN fan, but I'm not a fan of an application which has removed the help file, and which has less bmp file functionality than MS Paint! Hopefully the authors will fix both these in the next version...

[Rick Brewster]

Umm, williamr...

The help file was recently moved online and will be staying there. This isn't something that needs to be "fixed". This way all the people who don't use it (almost everyone) don't have to download it. Those people who do use it only have to effectively download the pages they're interested in. And that means I incurr less bandwidth cost. It's a win-win-win.

I haven't spent a lot of time making the BMP support more robust because, honestly, I'd rather encourage people to use more modern formats like PNG. There are very few compelling reasons to use BMP these days.

[williamr]

Thanks for the quick response!

In regard to the help, how can I get help when I'm not online (I want to use Paint.net on a laptop which isn't always connected)?

Also the downsizing of BMPs with intelligent palette creation is really useful for converting Alt+Printscreen screendumps of windows, and going to 256 color format (this reduces the size by 2/3). MS Paint can do this but it doesn't create a palette intelligently, it just uses the 6-sided color cube or something.

Apart from these problems, I find paint.net an ideal half-way point between MS Paint and Paintshop pro and would like to be able to use it.

[Rick Brewster]

Also the downsizing of BMPs with intelligent palette creation is really useful for converting Alt+Printscreen screendumps of windows, and going to 256 color format (this reduces the size by 2/3). MS Paint can do this but it doesn't create a palette intelligently, it just uses the 6-sided color cube or something.

Yes but if you use PNG then it'll be full 24/32-bit, and compressed (losslessly -- not like JPG), and even smaller still. BMP is not useful for screenshots anymore.

[usedHONDA]

I would like to see a downloadable help file in the future because there are times when the internet goes out or you don't have wifi in the area you're in. Just my 2 half-pennies

Also as a note to williamr, PNG is basically the same thing as BMP but with a different file extension, smaller file size, and it supports transparency (alpha values).

[BoltBait]

Also as a note to williamr, PNG is basically the same thing as BMP but with a different file extension...

I nominate this for the "Worst Post of the Year" award.

[The_Lionhearted]

Yup...

[HITMAN-X-]

Well if you could Rick maybe zip up the help file and send it to me and I could put it up on DEXTUT.COM. It not to big is it ? and if it does eat to much bandwidth I will just remove the link for the rest of the month :wink:.

[williamr]

We have to agree to differ on the use of BMP files - they are the native CF_BITMAP format of the Alt-Printscreen copy and paste, they support true colour and transparencies in the new 4bpp format, and they are widely used in documentation projects.

Is BMP palette conversion going to be added to paint.net? Or is it time for me to move along?

[HITMAN-X-]

ture they are the native format for screenshots, but most people don't hit Print Screen and then go looking for it. Most people just go into the editing program and they hit Ctrl + V and then save it as they want.

PNG's are the way to go now as they do better images and are smaller. It one of the reasons PNG are being use more and more in the web. No one wants to wait for an image to load. So why make an image bmp with a size in MB when the same image could look good or even better in png and be in a size of KB ?

If you don't mind me asking, Why must this image be in BMP format ?

If you like I could look for the image converter I used for making textures in levels I made. If can convent bmp's.

[williamr]

> If you don't mind me asking, Why must this image be in BMP format ?

1. I already have many existing images as BMPs, and I don't want to waste time converting them since they meet the existing requirements. They end up getting compressed before distribution so size savings don't matter.

2. I want to automate a screen capture process and save the resulting images, and the native windows format is CF_BITMAP which is a BMP file. So the new images I want to generate are BMPs also.

Basically my experiments with paint.net were so I could avoid having to learn paint shop pro, but I realize now I need to I'm disappointed paint.net doesn't have help and I think they're making a mistake in ignoring earlier formats. Even Microsoft office makes it possible to save spreadsheets and word documents in formats up to 15 years old, and I work in a business environment where this kind of compatibility is important.

[HITMAN-X-]

Paint.NET has help it just that you have to look at whats needed more and what you can and can not do.

Remember Paint.NET uses .NET and most people have moved alway from BMP's. Even Linux is now using PNG's in there OS for Screen Shots. I have always wondered why Paint.NET does not support Animated gif's. So I search google for the code for .NET and found out that .NET can't really do Animated gif's. You have to do coding to work around it. Maybe this is the reason you can't do the bmp format you want.

Who knows maybe someone will do a plugin for it.

[Rick Brewster]

You want to save as 4bpp BMP's? Yeah Paint.NET will never support that. It'll probably do 8-bit with an optimized palette eventually, ala GIF, but never 4-bit.

[williamr]

No, as I said in a previous post BMPs can support true colour and transparencies using a 4 bytes per pixel format. My need is to convert these into 1 byte per pixel form using an optimized palette.

Anyway I've found out the answers in regard to the online help and the BMP conversion. I'll pop back in a few years to see how paint.net is going with these features

[Paint_boy]

I'd suggest using PNG's. From what I remember I saved a bmp with paint and the next time I opened it looked all fuzzy. I may be thinking of a different format or something but I have always loved PNG's. I recently discovered APNG's which is an animated PNG. Look it up in Wiki.

[drakaan]

No, as I said in a previous post BMPs can support true colour and transparencies using a 4 bytes per pixel format. My need is to convert these into 1 byte per pixel form using an optimized palette.

Anyway I've found out the answers in regard to the online help and the BMP conversion. I'll pop back in a few years to see how paint.net is going with these features

I think this conversation would have been simpler if you'd have said "32bit" and "8bit"...who the heck talks about bytes-per-pixel?

BMP's and PNG's both support true color and alpha transparency using 32bits (4 bytes) per pixel. RGBA is a pretty standard idea in digital imaging.

Rick said (right before you said "No, as I said...") that PdN would probably support 8-bit (1 byte) optimized palettes someday "ala GIF".

That said, most of us here would just use something else to do the conversion in the unlikely event that we needed an 8bpp BMP...most of us are saving final images as PNG, and PdN is not primarily a file format converter.