CompuServe Thread

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