PNG file

suggest a way to improve Neat Image
oldslr
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Nov 10, 2003 5:05 pm

PNG file

Post by oldslr »

I use Digital Image Pro from Microsoft for editing. The programme uses PNG as the standard file type and TIFF with 32 bit depth for TIF files. Would there be any chance that NI would support these in future?

GREAT PROGRAMME!!
oldslr
NITeam
Posts: 3173
Joined: Sat Feb 01, 2003 4:43 pm
Contact:

Post by NITeam »

Thank you for the suggestion.

There are two sides to this issue.

On one hand, having support for another (PNG is good I admit) file format could be useful.

On the other hand, Neat Image utilized and preserves EXIF information in the images it processes. With PNG, this would not be possible.

So, there is a chance of adding PNG and probably 32 bit TIFFs but there would be some shortcomings with these as well.

Vlad
rogernordin
Posts: 19
Joined: Sun Dec 07, 2003 10:05 pm
Location: Molkom, Sweden
Contact:

JPEG2000 might be another option?

Post by rogernordin »

Hi,
forgive me if I intrude in this thread, but...
What about JPEG2000 support, would that be another option?

I get 12 bits per colour channel from my Canon digital camera, but JPEGs truncates them to 8 bits. I'd love to be able to store the images in a 16 bit format, but TIFFs are just too bulky.

Regards,
/Roger
NITeam
Posts: 3173
Joined: Sat Feb 01, 2003 4:43 pm
Contact:

Re: JPEG2000 might be another option?

Post by NITeam »

rogernordin wrote:I get 12 bits per colour channel from my Canon digital camera, but JPEGs truncates them to 8 bits.
Roger, are you suggesting that using JPEG2000 can enable saving those 12 bits per channel without truncacting them to 8 bits?

If this is possible, when the image is going to be saved in JPEG2000 format? - In which part of the workflow? Will the camera save it?

Vlad
rogernordin
Posts: 19
Joined: Sun Dec 07, 2003 10:05 pm
Location: Molkom, Sweden
Contact:

JPEG2000 and 16-bits support

Post by rogernordin »

Yes, JPEG2000 supports 16-bit color depth as opposed to JPEG.

My workflow would be going from RAW (which allows me to extract the 12-bit data) then go through a RAW converter (I would use Breezebrowser, but the Canon converter software supplied with the camera would work also) to 16-bit TIF, then run the TIF files through NeatImage saving as JPEG2000 16-bit. That way I would have files that are reasonably sized yet preserving more color detail than what the 8-bit JPEG output offers.

Regards,
/Roger
NITeam
Posts: 3173
Joined: Sat Feb 01, 2003 4:43 pm
Contact:

Post by NITeam »

So you do not postprocess your images after Neat Image? And you only use the standalone version of Neat Image, right?

In principle, using JPEG2000 could be useful given its features. The only problem so far seems to be availability of good ready-for-use libraries that would enable us utilize this format.

Vlad
rogernordin
Posts: 19
Joined: Sun Dec 07, 2003 10:05 pm
Location: Molkom, Sweden
Contact:

JPEG2000

Post by rogernordin »

I prefer using the automated batch mode of NeatImage, and typically I don't do much post-processing afterwards. NeatImage already does sharpening.

In odd occations I will need to tweak an image further (and JPEG2000 is fine for further postprocessing too, it even offers lossless compression if desired), but in my normal workflow which accounts for 90% of the digital photos I take, having to use an additional program after NeatImage just adds an additional step with little advantage.

This may be a good starting point to find JPEG2000 libraries:
http://datacompression.info/JPEG2000.shtml

Regards,
/Roger
rogernordin
Posts: 19
Joined: Sun Dec 07, 2003 10:05 pm
Location: Molkom, Sweden
Contact:

More JPEG2000 links

Post by rogernordin »

Hi,
Here's an additional promising link:
http://www.ece.uvic.ca/~mdadams/jasper/#info'

Good luck!
Regards,
/Roger
NITeam
Posts: 3173
Joined: Sat Feb 01, 2003 4:43 pm
Contact:

Post by NITeam »

Thank you, Roger!

Vlad
Dioxaz
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Feb 03, 2004 1:28 pm

Post by Dioxaz »

NITeam wrote:On the other hand, Neat Image utilized and preserves EXIF information in the images it processes. With PNG, this would not be possible.
Back to the PNG issue, it just depends what is featured into EXIF data (I don't really know what EXIF data usually store -- and I never saw a BMP storing EXIF data :P).
PNG format isn't designed to store EXIF data, but on the contrary can preserve informations such as physical resolution (in dpi) of the image, its tiltle, its author, its comments, its software creation, the date of its last modification and more.
All that via -- respectively -- the pHYs, tEXtTitle, tEXtAuthor, tEXtComments, tEXtSoftware and tIME data chunks into the file (we can also store Copyright data, etc).
PNG can also store info relevant to sRGB color space (sRGB chunk), iCCP profiles (iCCP chunk, only sRGB color space are accepted) and gamma correction (gAMA chunk).

So there's a way to preserve most useful infos I think ;).

PNG also supports alpha transparency, 48-bit color depth (16bps) in RGB and 16-bit greyscale as well, and is completely lossless.

More infos about PNG format here: http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/
More infos about PNG features can also be found in this book (PNG: The Definitive Guide, written by Greg Roelofs): http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/book/

Implementing PNG into that software would be another reason to encourage me in trying it :P. (I consider this would be better than saving a BMP that one must convert then, each time :P -- PNG is my usual working format and for more and more people).
andewid
Posts: 62
Joined: Sat May 01, 2004 8:21 pm

Post by andewid »

I wonder if EXIF relevant info could be saved in the comment chunk? At least it would allow for some more info than BMP. ;)

edit: it seem as the tEXt chunk can store how much as we want it to. Probably a complete copy of the EXIF and IPTC from jpegs

http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/book/chapter11.html PNG Options and Extentions
taob
Posts: 119
Joined: Sat Feb 08, 2003 2:12 pm
Location: Toronto, ON
Contact:

Post by taob »

Unfortunately, there is no currently accepted standard to store EXIF-like metadata in PNG. But as you say, one could define new keywords to be used in a tEXt chunk, and simply store common EXIF data as key-value pairs. The trick would be to get those keywords officially recognized by the standards body to encourage interoperability. Perhaps NeatImage can lead the way here! :)
NeatImage Pro Plus 5.0 + dual Opteron 244 + Windows XP SP2 + FreeBSD 5.2
skylen
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed May 25, 2005 4:18 pm
Contact:

Please *do* add PNG support!

Post by skylen »

Even without EXIF support (my workflow currently doesn't result in EXIF stored in my TIFF files anyway), PNG support would be a great feature. It takes a lot of time to convert all my Neat Image-created uncompressed TIFF files into PNGs, otherwise I have tons of hard drive space wasted.

I read that Neat Image 5.0 supports ZIP-compressed TIFFs? Can it write them as well as reading them? I'll have to try that and see if it works for me. I'm not sure if ZIP-compression is supported by the tools I use though (Gimp, ImageMagick).

In addition, there has been some effort to create a standard for embedding EXIF into PNG files. The project hasn't released any code, but they seem to have a good solution for converting and storing the EXIF data to and from the PNG-stored format. I've considered implementing it myself on several occasions for software I've been working on.
NITeam
Posts: 3173
Joined: Sat Feb 01, 2003 4:43 pm
Contact:

Post by NITeam »

Neat Image currently only reads compressed TIFFs but doesn't write. It may be changed in the future but the thing about this as well as PNG support is that compression doesn't really help much with true color images. In some cases (especially with LZW), compressed files can be even larger than uncompessed ones. I saw this many times myself.

Compressing output takes time as well. In most cases, NI is used in the middle of a workflow so it is not required to produce the smallest output anyway, since it is not final output. Therefore compressing TIFFs would take time but would not be practically very useful. This is of course not so in case of PNG support, because your workflow may require input and output in PNG. We may add PNG support later, it shouldn't be difficult (but again, it is less useful than TIFF, due to lack of standardized EXIF support).

Anyway, thank you very much for your input. We remember about PNG.

Vlad
janarne
Posts: 27
Joined: Sun Aug 02, 2009 10:15 pm
Location: Saronida, Greece

Post by janarne »

I would say, i also like to see png support for neat.
i use png as my standart fileformat for lossless images a lot.
It has the best lossless and native compression algorythm i.e.
greets from greece
Post Reply