Color not being saved properly

This is the place for questions on using Impict, Help & Manual's integrated screenshot editor and enhancer.

Moderators: Alexander Halser, Tim Green

Post Reply
User avatar
Dean Whitlock
Posts: 577
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2005 5:59 pm
Location: Thetford Center, Vermont USA
Contact:

Color not being saved properly

Unread post by Dean Whitlock »

I have captured part of a screen using H&M's internal capture tool, free area option. This is GIF format with 256 colors. I edit the image with Impict and add an arrow object pointing at a field on the screen. The arrow is colored red, selected from the standard color palette offered by Impict in the line object dialog. I save as is, overwriting the original GIF. Everything looks fine. When I return to H&M and reload the image, the arrow is no longer red. Instead, it appears to be a dark shade of gray. When I reopen the image in Impict, the arrow is indeed dark gray.

Yesterday I performed the same operation on a different capture, and the color stayed red.

I have tried this a second time with a new screen capture, but the results were the same: no red. Any ideas? :?

Thanks,
Dean
User avatar
Tim Green
Site Admin
Posts: 23155
Joined: Mon Jun 24, 2002 9:11 am
Location: Bruehl, Germany
Contact:

Unread post by Tim Green »

Dean,

This is the limitation of Impict's color reduction function. Depending on the colors it has to reduce to 256 or less it may not work properly because it's not interactive. When it doesn't work you have to use a graphics program with a good interactive color reduction function like Paint Shop Pro (highly recommended, nearly as good as Photoshop and only costs about $75).
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

Private support:
Please do not email or PM me with private support requests -- post to the forum directly.
User avatar
Dean Whitlock
Posts: 577
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2005 5:59 pm
Location: Thetford Center, Vermont USA
Contact:

Unread post by Dean Whitlock »

Hi Tim,

I'm suprised that it worked fine one day but not the next. I captured screens that were virtually identical, from the same application and having the same color scheme. I specified the same capture format (gif, 256 colors). I added arrows of the same color, still chosen in Impict since the previous day. What could have caused Impict to change its color reduction algorithm?

:? Dean
User avatar
Tim Green
Site Admin
Posts: 23155
Joined: Mon Jun 24, 2002 9:11 am
Location: Bruehl, Germany
Contact:

Unread post by Tim Green »

Dean,

Since it's rigidly fixed it only needs a very tiny change to throw it off sometimes. If there's a single color that isn't mapped correctly it can shift others.
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

Private support:
Please do not email or PM me with private support requests -- post to the forum directly.
User avatar
Martin Wynne
Posts: 2656
Joined: Mon May 12, 2003 3:21 pm
Location: West of the Severn, UK

Unread post by Martin Wynne »

Tim Green wrote:When it doesn't work you have to use a graphics program with a good interactive color reduction function like Paint Shop Pro (highly recommended, nearly as good as Photoshop and only costs about $75).
Hi Tim, Dean,

How about $39.95 ?

I have been trying Any Image from Swedish developer FMJ-Software:

http://www.fmjsoft.com/anyimage.html

It will convert just about any image format to any other. More importantly it has superb colour reduction from true-colour BMP screenshots to 256-colour GIFs. The conversion and file size is just as good as PaintShopPro on all the screenshots I have tried and compared. Much better than Impict.

It's designed for batch conversion and can do all your screenshots in one go with just a few clicks. (The trial version will only do one at a time.) There is also an option to use the same 8-bit palette with all the files -- this improves the web page rendering for any users still using 256-colour monitors.

I'm much impressed -- a simple program which does what it says and nothing else.

No connection with FMJ.

Martin.
User avatar
Tim Green
Site Admin
Posts: 23155
Joined: Mon Jun 24, 2002 9:11 am
Location: Bruehl, Germany
Contact:

Unread post by Tim Green »

Martin,
How about $39.95 ?
I have been trying Any Image from Swedish developer FMJ-Software:
That sounded fascinating so I just tried it out. My response is a little more mixed: Provided you only have "regular" screenshots of an XP screen without additional continuous-tone material with a lot of colors it seems to work very well. However, as soon as you introduce more colors into the equation -- for example a screenshot containing a photograph and Windows XP theme buttons and window borders -- it gets more difficult. Then even when you combine dithering and the undithering filter you still get a prominent posterization effect, and this then extends to the window borders and buttons. I can get much better results on the same images using Paint Shop Pro's interactive options.

The problem with Any Image is that you basically only have one color reduction option, with the added option of dithering or not, and no preview. Like Impict, this is fine when it works, and certainly a great help for quickly converting a large number of regular screenshots, but I would still need an interactive solution for more difficult images.
User avatar
Tim Green
Site Admin
Posts: 23155
Joined: Mon Jun 24, 2002 9:11 am
Location: Bruehl, Germany
Contact:

Unread post by Tim Green »

Martin,

PS: You can also achieve much better batch processing results in Paint Shop Pro, also for more complex images. First you just need to record a new script for reducing the colors. This is very simple: Just open an image and start the script recorder. Then select Decrease Color Depth, 256 colors, choose your reduction settings and execute. Then stop recording and save the script. After that you can select the script to be executed in the File - Batch Process window, and it will be applied to every image in the batch as it is converted and saved. You can also create different versions of the script with different options.

I find that Optimized Octree, Error Diffusion and Reduce Color Bleeding works almost perfectly on around 99% of all images.

This provides you the same batch processing capabilties as Any Image with much superior quality. 8)
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

Private support:
Please do not email or PM me with private support requests -- post to the forum directly.
User avatar
Martin Wynne
Posts: 2656
Joined: Mon May 12, 2003 3:21 pm
Location: West of the Severn, UK

Unread post by Martin Wynne »

Tim Green wrote:PS: You can also achieve much better batch processing results in Paint Shop Pro, also for more complex images.
Hi Tim,

Thanks for that. You obviously have a later version of PSP than my PSP 5 which came free originally! PSP 5 doesn't have a script recording function, so the batch options in Any Image to do resampling resizing, change paths and conversions for different file formats, create an HTML index page, etc., looked useful. I will have a look at the latest version of PSP.

None of my screenshots include photographic material, and so far Any Image as converted every one very well, and much better than Impict can manage.

Martin.
Post Reply