The final documentation for PhotoGIF Lite™ is not yet available, even though the software is complete. This is a very basic guide to installing and using PhotoGIF Lite™ that does not claim to be complete. However, PhotoGIF Lite™ is an intuitive and easy to use tool for Web graphics, so it should take you no time at all to get up to full speed with this powerful tool.
1: Installation
Simply drag PhotoGIF Lite™ into your Photoshop Plug-ins folder. PhotoGIF Lite™ will be available the next time you launch your image editor. It does not matter what sub-folder you place PhotoGIF Lite™ into within the Plug-ins folder, but the typical place for file formats Plug-ins like PhotoGIF Lite™ in Photoshop is the File Formats folder within the Plug-ins folder.
PhotoGIF Lite™ is a file format plug-in and will appear in the formats menu in open and save dialogs in Photoshop as an available file format choice.
You should remove the Compuserve GIF plug-in from your Plug-ins folder and back it up in a secure place to avoid a conflict opening GIF files in Photoshop. If you do not remove the Compuserve GIF plug-in, Photoshop will use it, and not PhotoGIF Lite, as the default means of opening GIF files. There is no need to continue using the Compuserve GIF plug-in with PhotoGIF Lite™ installed.
2: General usage
For all practical purposes PhotoGIF Lite™ works in the same manner as Photoshop's Compuserve GIF plug-in and all other file format plug-ins. To save a file using PhotoGIF Lite™ you would do File->Save as... and then select PhotoGIF Lite™ as the file format for saving. Note that files can only be saved from Indexed, Greyscale, and Bitmapped modes in Photoshop using PhotoGIF Lite. This behavior is identical to the Compuserve GIF plug-in.
Files opened using PhotoGIF Lite™ will be saved using PhotoGIF Lite™ by Command - S save actions by default, but note that unless you have removed the standard Compuserve GIF plug-in from Photoshop's Plug-ins folder simply double clicking on a GIF file in the finder will cause it to be opened with the Compuserve GIF plug-in and not PhotoGIF Lite. With both plug-ins installed you would have to use File->Open and select PhotoGIF Lite specifically from the format menu for Photoshop to use it to open a GIF file.
3: Answers and help
Questions about PhotoGIF Filter™ and other BoxTop Software, Inc. tools should be addressed to: info@boxtopsoft.com
BoxTop Software, Inc.
101 N. Lafeyette Street
Starkville, MS 39759
(v) 1-601-324-1800
(f) 1-601-324-7353
http://www.boxtopsoft.com
ftp://www.boxtopsoft.com
info@boxtopsoft.com
PhotoGIF Lite™ is Copyright 1997 - 1998 BoxTop Software Inc. All rights reserved. PhotoGIF™ and PhotoGIF Lite™ are Trade Marks of BoxTop Software Inc., which may be registered in certain jurisdictions. All other trademarks are recognized as the properties of their respective holders.
Document published: 1/30/98
Copyright 1998 BoxTop Software, Inc. All Rights Reserved.