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- PNG.txt for Tux Paint
-
- Tux Paint - A simple drawing program for children.
-
- Copyright 2002 by Bill Kendrick
- bill@newbreedsoftware.com
- http://www.newbreedsoftware.com/tuxpaint/
-
- June 27, 2002 - November 7, 2002
-
-
- About PNGs
- ----------
- PNG is the Portable Network Graphic format. It is an open standard,
- not burdened by patents (like GIFs). It is a highly compressed format
- (though not "lossy" like JPEGs - lossiness allows files to be much
- smaller, but introduces 'mistakes' in the image when saved), and
- supports 24-bit color (16.7 million colors) as well as a full
- "alpha channel" - that is, each pixel can have a varying degree of
- transparency.
-
- For more information, visit: http://www.libpng.org/
-
- These features (openness, losslessness, compression, transparency/alpha)
- make it the best choice for Tux Paint. (Tux Paint's support for the PNG
- format comes from the Open Source SDL_Image library, which in turn gets
- it from the libPNG library.)
-
- Support for many colors allows photo-quality "rubber stamp" images to
- be used in Tux Paint, and alpha transparency allows for high-quality
- "paint brushes."
-
-
- How To Make PNGs
- ----------------
- The following is a very _brief_ list of ways to create PNGs or
- convert existing images into PNGs.
-
-
- Linux/Unix Users
- ----------------
- The GIMP
- --------
- The best tool with which to create PNG images for use in Tux Paint is
- the GNU Image Manipulation Program ("The GIMP"), a high-quality
- Open Source interactive drawing and photo editing program.
-
- It's probably already installed on your Linux system. If not, it's
- almost definitely available on the install CD or from your
- distribution's download site. Otherwise:
-
- http://www.gimp.org/
-
-
- Krita
- -----
- Krita is a painting and image editing application for KOffice.
-
- http://koffice.kde.org/krita/
-
-
- NetPBM
- ------
- The Portable Bitmap tools (collectively known as "NetPBM") is a
- collection of Open Source command-line tools which convert to and from
- various formats, including GIF, TIFF, BMP, PNG, and many more.
-
- NOTE: The NetPBM formats (Portable Bitmap: PBM,
- Portable Greymap: PGM, Portable Pixmap: PPM, and the catch-all
- Portable Any Map: PNM) do not support alpha, so any transparency
- information (e.g. from within a GIF) will be lost! Use The GIMP!
-
- It's probably already installed on your Linux system. If not, it's
- almost definitely available on the install CD or from your
- distribution's download site. Otherwise:
-
- http://netpbm.sourceforge.net/
-
-
- cjpeg/djpeg
- -----------
- The "cjpeg" and "djpeg" command-line programs convert between
- the NetPBM Portable Any Map (PNM) format and JPEGs.
-
- It's probably already installed on your Linux system.
- (Under Debian, this is available in the package "libjpeg-progs".)
- If not, it's almost definitely available on the install CD or from
- your distribution's download site. Otherwise:
-
- ftp://ftp.uu.net/graphics/jpeg/
-
-
- Windows Users
- -------------
- The Gimp
- http://www.gimp.org/~tml/gimp/win32/
-
- Canvas (Deneba)
- http://www.deneba.com/products/canvas8/default2.html
-
- CorelDRAW (Corel)
- http://www.corel.com/
-
- Fireworks (Macromedia)
- http://macromedia.com/software/fireworks/
-
- Illustrator (Adobe)
- http://www.adobe.com/products/illustrator/main.html
-
- Paint Shop Pro (Jasc)
- http://www.jasc.com/products/psp/
-
- Photoshop (Adobe)
- http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/main.html
-
-
- Macintosh Users
- ---------------
- Canvas (Deneba)
- http://www.deneba.com/products/canvas8/default2.html
-
- CorelDRAW (Corel)
- http://www.corel.com/
-
- Fireworks (Macromedia)
- http://macromedia.com/software/fireworks/
-
- GraphicConverter (Lemke Software)
- http://www.lemkesoft.de/us_gcabout.html
-
- Illustrator (Adobe)
- http://www.adobe.com/products/illustrator/main.html
-
- Photoshop (Adobe)
- http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/main.html
-
-
- More Info.
- ----------
- The libPNG website lists image editors and image converts that
- support the PNG format:
-
- http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/pngaped.html
- http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/pngapcv.html
-
-