Palette Manipulation
Black Belt Systems is pleased to announce that WinImages 3.1 is now
shipping.
Windows users have been heard to express (justified) concern that
under Windows and Windows NT, no application provides the ability to
extensively manipulate, control and utilize color palette
information.
Our WinImages 3.1 product is intended to address those concerns.
General Information:
The 3.1 release of our image manipulation software adds features
designed specifically to address the needs of those who are in need
of comprehensive palette manipulation tools for single files, or
batches of files. The user interface is easy to deal with, yet both
sophisticated and powerful, which makes these capabilities readily
available to a wide range of users.
Particular areas where these new features can find constant use are
in custom multimedia titles and standalone animation productions such
as FLC and AVI files. WinImages 3.1 is designed to provided the
definitive "killer" set of palette manipulation tools available for
Microsoft Windows and Windows NT (for all CPU targets – Intel, MIPS,
Alpha and PowerPC).
Some Specifics:
WinImages 3.1 adds the ability to expertly evaluate the colorspace of
one or more images, and then select an optimum palette which is
suitable for use with the image(s) in question. The method used for
color selection is painstakingly accurate and handles both
wide-spectrum images and images with closely-spaced ranges of colors,
or both types of information in the same image or images. Two levels
of precision (18-bit and 24-bit) are available to the user in
single/group image colorspace evaluation. Images may be of mixed
types, color depths and spatial resolutions without any restriction.
Any number of colors may be involved in color selection, and they may
be located anywhere in a palette. There is no requirement that single
colors or ranges of colors be located adjacent to each other. This
specifically addresses the need to keep static colors such as the
windows palette the same, while adjusting other colors as required.
Multiple color sets controlled independently in a single palette are
easily managed.
Any color, or set of colors, in the palette may be locked at a preset
value and used as is, locked out (unused in the final image) or be
chosen as part of the color selection process and then used via an
intuitive per-color interface. Once a locking definition for a
palette has been created, it may be saved and reloaded for later use,
something that is very useful for known targets such as the Windows
environment or multiple concurrent sequences using different areas in
a palette in a game or multimedia presentation. Locking definitions
are completely independent of the palettes themselves.
WinImages' general palette facilities provide color selection in the
RGB, CMY, CMYK, HSV, HSL or YIQ spaces. The palette's ability to
maintain a named color list also adds to the ease with which colors
are manipulated. The color list can even hot-locate the nearest
named match to your current color even as you adjust the color wheel
and other palette controls. You can sort and spread ranges of colors
by hue or luma, load and save them independently of each other,
mirror ranges, and more.
WinImages' palette tools can load palettes sourced from Photoshop,
PalEdit and other popular applications, allowing currently existing
work to be utilized within WinImages 3.1.
As well as offering these new palette capabilities, it is important to
note that WinImages is one of the most powerful image manipulation
and special effects applications available on any platform, and it is
also useful to point out that the product remains priced in the
"cookie jar" range.
We hope this information proves useful to you and thank you for your time.
Ben Williams
for Black Belt Systems