2 Feature Requests: Extension Completion + more JPEG options

[neenee]

Hi everyone.

I went from The Gimp to Paint.NET and there are two things I find myself

wishing they would be part of Paint.NET too, purely because I would like to

completely replace The Gimp with Paint.NET, without longingly looking back

at The Gimp.

1) The auto-completion of file-names by their extension.

The Gimp auto-adds .png for instance, when you choose Portable Network

Graphics. At present, Paint.NET adds no extension at all, you have to add that

for yourself, or you'll have a file Windows won't recognise.

There's probably a reason for this, but I myself can't think of what that might

be. Perhaps some textures for games, though being say.. gif, need a different

extension for the engine to see them. But that might be far-fetched.

2) More options for JPEG-quality.

In The Gimp, you have quite a few JPEG options, such as for quality and sub-

sampling, floating-point and more. Now, these options allow me to save a

JPEG without for instance the red "bleeding" as it does in many other programs,

including Paint.NET.

I would like to be able to reproduce saving high-qualuty, but low-filesize

JPEGS like I can in The Gimp. Though PNG is an option, the file-size of PNG

is much larger and even though most have broad-band, I prefer not to sub-

ject anyone to a longer wait than necessary when I want to show them a

picture of something.

I hope I have posted this in the right section, I did search before I posted,

so that this post should not be a repetition or duplicate of another.

Have a nice evening

*update* Here's a link to a screenshot of the The Gimp JPEG Options Dialog:

http://docs.gimp.org/images/using/jpeg-save-dialog.png

[Myrddin]

Hello neenee.

I can answer your first suggestion with ease, the second however requires input from others - I am not the developer nor someone with the memory to recall Rick's (said developer) views on this.

1) It does. When you select .png, or any other file type for that matter, from the drop down then Paint.NET saves it as that format, no need to amend anything yourself. There have been concerns raised when entering in your own extension as PDN overwrites that with the file type in the drop down, then Windows Explorer can't read it. For example, the Paint.NET file type is selected (*.pdn) but you type in file name.png, Paint.NET will save it as a .pdn but it will save it with a .png extension, ultimately rendering the file useless. This is something that has been discussed somewhere in the Bugs & Troubleshooting section but I don't remember the outcome whether this is going to be fixed.

Does this help?

EDIT: dopr > drop.

[Rick Brewster]

Advanced configuration is neat, sure, but does anyone even understand what all those options mean? I'd rather keep a simple 0-100 slider that maybe under the hood figures out the more advanced settings to use. That's one key difference in the philosphy behind Paint.NET vs. the GIMP. (Why the heck do they have a "preview in image window" checkbox? why not just show a preview?!)

[neenee]

Thank you both for your prompt replies.

Myrddin - Your reply helps me in the sense that I now am beginning

to understand why this feature was not implemented

Rick Brewster - You got me there. Though I do not understand what

each setting does, I *do* know that the combination of Subsampling

1x1x1x1 and DCT Method: Floating Point gives me a high quality jpeg.

No messed up red colour for instance and not too visible artefacts

(though the quality setting of 90 helps too).

I will give an example, which will illustrate my point:

1) original (cropped from BMP screenshot)

2) saved in The Gimp with the aforementioned settings

3) saved in Paint.NET with JPEG quality set to 100

I do not wish to discuss design philosophy, I just wish to express my

desire to save JPEG files with a higher quality than Paint.NET currently

can. If there is a way to make Paint.NET default to settings which

produce a JPEG of the quality I'm used to with The GIMP, I have no

need to see nor have the ability to modify any setting, advanced or

otherwise.

[MattBlackLamb]

Neenee, I can't see any difference between the pictures you've posted, there are a couple of reasons why:

1) There isn't any difference, or

2) The images aren't of a high enough resolution for it to be obvious.

If you have links to any higher res images that would make it easier to tell if there's any difference but as it stands the images all look the same to me.

[Fisherman's Friend]

Advanced configuration is neat, sure, but does anyone even understand what all those options mean? I'd rather keep a simple 0-100 slider that maybe under the hood figures out the more advanced settings to use. That's one key difference in the philosphy behind Paint.NET vs. the GIMP. (Why the heck do they have a "preview in image window" checkbox? why not just show a preview?!)

I think the PDN jpeg interface is fine and what you say regarding the preview checkbox is correct. Perhaps you should mind providing an "advanced" button, so the users can select themselves if they want a simple and easy to understand interface or more and better options. A program like PDN should provide more options than just one 0-100 slider for jpeg which is so widely used and has so much possible options. In fact, GIMP allows to save improved jpegs smaller in size and better in quality.

Today as PDN has made so impressive steps since the first public builds, an update to the jpeg interface is recommended. The GIF-interface provides already quite some options, I don't get why the one of jpeg should not.

But maybe someone would be interested in making an "advanced jpeg" file type plugin providing the things asked?

[neenee]

MattBlackLamb - Thanks for your input. I have created an image

with a dark background and red text to show my main problem,

hopefully with a bit more clarity.

1) original (PNG)

2) saved in The Gimp with the aforementioned settings

3) saved in Paint.NET with JPEG quality set to 100

[MattBlackLamb]

Neenee, I can replicate this in Paint.NET, but my experiences aren't as extreme as your's. This is possibly because I used a lighter background colour, or used a different font. The background colour I used was #B3B3B3, the font colour I used was #FF0000 & the font I used was Impact.

There is a balance that Rick is trying to create here. On one side of the scales is the people that want to do simple stuff (crop, sepia / black & white). On the other side, there are people who want to do more advanced photo manipulation & know more about the technical side of things. What Rick is trying to do is make it easy for the average PC user to be able to do simple stuff easily & without a lot of hassle. If the jpeg save dialog were made for more technically minded users, the ease of use factor would be lost on people that don't understand it. As jpeg is probably the most widely used image format & therefore the one that people are more likely to save their images as.

[neenee]

Matt, as I stated:

I do not wish to discuss design philosophy, I just wish to express my

desire to save JPEG files with a higher quality than Paint.NET currently

can. If there is a way to make Paint.NET default to settings which

produce a JPEG of the quality I'm used to with The GIMP, I have no

need to see nor have the ability to modify any setting, advanced or

otherwise.

In short: As long as Paint.NET can create what I see as high quality and usable

JPEGs, I do not need any settings other than the ones already included.

As for the colours and font used, I didn't choose the colours specifically to

create a most visible result as possible, I just picked 'some red colour' and

'some dark colour', because I knew that red + dark would result in what you

see.

I am not out to 'bash' or 'flame' Paint.NET, I just wanted to request something

I felt was missing, though perhaps I should have asked for 'better quality JPEGs'

instead of 'more settings or JPEGs'.

And, if the developers don't see this as a priority or don't have the time to

change the way JPEGs are implemented in Paint.NET, feel free to say so as well.

Perhaps the majority of users don't mind or see the 'problem' I'm having and

then I'd rather just hear that it won't be changed in the near future rather than

trying to convince people without getting much headway.

Thanks again for your replies

[MattBlackLamb]

Ok mate, I understand.

[neenee]

I hope something can be done about the way JPEGs are saved

in Paint.net.

Though I understand completely if it's not a priority, some changes

in the foreseeable future would be very welcome.

And if this is something the devs will not look into, I hope that

they can provide a suggestion as to what can be done by others.

Thanks for any further replies

[neenee]

Is there anyone who might have a suggestion about what

to do to increase the quality of JPEGs saved with Paint.net?

[Rick Brewster]

Yeah, use PNG instead I'm not sure if the GDI+ codec allows those settings which allow higher quality (I haven't looked at that part of the code in quite a while)

[neenee]

Hm. But PNG is not as.. portable as a Jpeg.

At the moment it's my only option to save some files without sacrificing

too much quality, but I'd really like to be able to use JPEGs, as the file-

size is often but a fraction of PNG.

[Crazy Man Dan]

Hm. But PNG is not as.. portable as a Jpeg.

Heh. Ironic that you should say that, as PNG = Portable Network Graphics. :wink:

For saving full-quality images to be stored on my hard drive for later use, I tend to use PNG. PNG is lossless and whatnot, meaning that when I use the image later in a composition of some sort, I'll have the highest quality source image possible. However, when I'm saving a file for use (such as a wallpaper), Windows is far more happy with JPGs. I too have noticed JPG color smearing even on the highest quality setting.

I am also a GIMP user, and I always use 1 x 1 x 1 when saving for use on my local machine. When saving an image for the web, it's a juggling act between the quality slider and the sampling method to get the best looking file at the lowest possible image size. I love the flexibility afforded by The GIMPs bevy of options, and I too wouldn't mind seeing a few more in PDN. (Whether or not GDI+ can even offer them is still up in the air, though.)

Since it sounds like you still have The GIMP on your computer (and will until PDN has comparable JPG saving quality), I guess for now the options would be either to do the graphic creation in The GIMP and save from there, or do the graphic creation in PDN, save to PNG, and open the PNG in The GIMP, saving it thence with the quality options with which you're familiar.

[usedHONDA]

This further shows that there should be two versions or modes for Paint.NET-- basic and advanced. On one side, you get a user interface easy to look at and edit for new users, and on the other, an option-packed editor for more professional users, yet still easier to look at than LIMP.* But of course, I'll have bring this up again when Paint.NET v4.0 Alpha comes out because 3.0 is still too easy to use :wink:

*not a typo, just a bad joke

[neenee]

I know, I was referring to that by mentioning portable

I'm glad you appreciated it.

As for you usedHONDA, I do not want something separate at all.

If I wanted to use something with more options and control,

I'd still be using The GIMP as my main graphics program afterall.

I'd rather have something easy than something which is difficult

just for the sake of offering users options they may never use,

beyond the initial finding which setting works best for them.