Windows freeware to lock in a 3: or 4:3 aspect ratio for cropping

In message , JJ
writes:
[]
I find it difficult to believe that no software in the future will be able
to read older image formats - no matter how hard the software developers try
to.

Just for interest: sometime in the last few years, I emailed an image
(down, boy, whoever it was who ranted against email attachments - this
would have been well under 100 KB!) to someone who was unable to view
it; I think it was in .pcx format (which was what the old scanner I'd
used produced). So formats _do_ fall out of fashion.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

If, after hearing my songs, just one human being is inspired to say something
nasty to a friend, or perhaps to strike a loved one, it will all have been
worth the while. - Liner notes, "Songs & More Songs By Tom Lehrer", Rhino
Records, 1997.

In article , Mayayana
wrote:


| recently mounted my monitor on a drawer slide because
| I was leaning forward so much it was hurting my neck.
| now I just sit down and pull the monitor toward me...
| So I can't lean forward. Though I'm not sure what
| the radiation from that close display might be doing to
| my eyes.
|
| CRT or LCD?

LCD.

then there's no radiation.

be sure it's using dvi/hdmi/displayport for the best quality.

if it's vga, it will not be as sharp.

Like TVs, they have threaded holes on the
back to accomodate mounting hardware.

some do, but not all.

In article , JJ
wrote:


nope. a bmp is a representation of an image.

Nope. BMP is a container of an image.

i.e. a representation.

It's what all other formats decompress
to.

false.

For you who uses Mac OS, that would be true - including *nix OSes. But not
for Windows and IBM OS/2.

it's false regardless of operating system.

there
is also the issue that a given raw format might not be readable at some
point in the future, whereas jpeg always will be.

I find it difficult to believe that no software in the future will be able
to read older image formats - no matter how hard the software developers try
to.

some formats are proprietary and there is no guarantee that they will
be readable in the future. when the apps that can read/write them cease
to work, you're ****ed.

In article , JJ
wrote:

This is designed to be simple, quick cropping and
resizing, while retaining the best possible image
quality when desired. (Crop a JPG and you'll
lose some quality,

not when it's a lossless or non-destructive crop.

That's true for lossless. But the cropping itself is always destructive.

no it isn't.

You misunderstood.

nope.

If you crop an image to keep only the left side, the
right ride of the image will be gone. Meaning that the crop function itself
removes data. Whether there's an undo or redo functionality or not, that an
entire different function.

undo/redo can only be done *if* the crop is non-destructive.

with a destructive crop, there is no undo. those pixels are *gone*.
forever.

bmp is obsolete.

In a Mac OS, BMP isn't even the native image container. So, I would be
obvious that most, if not all of Mac softwares don't use BMP.

macs can read bmp, but given that the format is obsolete, it's
exceptionally rare that anyone would need to do that, on any platform
(even windows).

In Windows however, not so. BMP is the native image format in that OS. i.e.
used by the graphic kernel.

bmp is a file format.

In article , J. P. Gilliver (John)
wrote:

bmp is obsolete.

In a Mac OS, BMP isn't even the native image container. So, I would be
obvious that most, if not all of Mac softwares don't use BMP.

In Windows however, not so. BMP is the native image format in that OS. i.e.
used by the graphic kernel.

The information in the graphics RAM while a picture is on screen -
whatever the OS - is going to be raw image data, regardless of how it
was saved to or loaded from disc.

correct.

(What _is_ the "native" format for
Macs then?)

pdf

In article , J. P. Gilliver (John)
wrote:

I find it difficult to believe that no software in the future will be able
to read older image formats - no matter how hard the software developers try
to.

Just for interest: sometime in the last few years, I emailed an image
(down, boy, whoever it was who ranted against email attachments - this
would have been well under 100 KB!) to someone who was unable to view
it; I think it was in .pcx format (which was what the old scanner I'd
used produced). So formats _do_ fall out of fashion.

mail it to someone with a mac.

"JJ" wrote

| there
| is also the issue that a given raw format might not be readable at some
| point in the future, whereas jpeg always will be.
|
| I find it difficult to believe that no software in the future will be able
| to read older image formats - no matter how hard the software developers
try
| to.

He doesn't grasp the concept. It's like saying
we won't have words in the future, but that
English will always exist. The truth is the other
way around, but he doesn't grasp file formats.

I was reading an article
yesterday postulating that programming has become
a very steep learning curve simply because the
usage of a computer is so abstracted. Someone
can be a successful photographer working with
digital images yet with no need to understand
what a file is, how the image is stored, or even
where their images are. Fire up Adobe rental-
ware, log into your online storage, sync your
phone, edit images from yesterday's wedding,
then send them to friends.... There's no need to
have even the barest concept of how that all
happened or "where" the photos are, much less
what they are.
And there are lots of valorizing terms to make
it sound technical: "I'm managing assets in my
workflow" sounds far more official than, "****,
where'd I put that file?"

JJ wrote:
On Sat, 17 Feb 2018 21:35:36 -0500, nospam wrote:

In article , JJ
wrote:

This is designed to be simple, quick cropping and
resizing, while retaining the best possible image
quality when desired. (Crop a JPG and you'll
lose some quality,

not when it's a lossless or non-destructive crop.

That's true for lossless. But the cropping itself is always destructive.

no it isn't.

You misunderstood. If you crop an image to keep only the left side, the
right ride of the image will be gone. Meaning that the crop function itself
removes data. Whether there's an undo or redo functionality or not, that an
entire different function.


Your editing software is the important factor. There are several photo
editing application which can perform non-destructive crops which are
reversible, among them Photoshop CC, Lightroom Classic CC, On1 Photo RAW
2018, Luminar 2018, AlienSkin Exposure X3, & Affinity Photo.

bmp is obsolete.

In a Mac OS, BMP isn't even the native image container. So, I would be
obvious that most, if not all of Mac softwares don't use BMP.


As a Mac user BMP is far removed from my thoughts, and workflow. I shoot
RAW+JPEG, and use a RAW workflow, and usually the only time I use JPEG is
when I produce one for online sharing. Though recently I have been using
SOOC JPEG from my Fujifilm cameras, and their great film simulations.

In Windows however, not so. BMP is the native image format in that OS. i.e.
used by the graphic kernel.


Not being a Windows user, I don’t understand this idea of holding on to the
BMP format when there are much better ways to go.


--
Regards,
Savageduck

In article , Mayayana
wrote:

| there
| is also the issue that a given raw format might not be readable at some
| point in the future, whereas jpeg always will be.
|
| I find it difficult to believe that no software in the future will be able
| to read older image formats - no matter how hard the software developers
try
| to.

He doesn't grasp the concept.

he does.

*you* don't.

It's like saying
we won't have words in the future, but that
English will always exist. The truth is the other
way around, but he doesn't grasp file formats.

no, it's not like that at all.

if the format is not public, then there's no guarantee that it will be
readable.

I was reading an article
yesterday postulating that programming has become
a very steep learning curve simply because the
usage of a computer is so abstracted. Someone
can be a successful photographer working with
digital images yet with no need to understand
what a file is, how the image is stored, or even
where their images are. Fire up Adobe rental-
ware, log into your online storage, sync your
phone, edit images from yesterday's wedding,
then send them to friends.... There's no need to
have even the barest concept of how that all
happened or "where" the photos are, much less
what they are.

exactly how it should be.

people don't need know how to fix cars when they want to drive to the
store, so why should they know about the inner workings of a computer
just to take and edit photos?

And there are lots of valorizing terms to make
it sound technical: "I'm managing assets in my
workflow" sounds far more official than, "****,
where'd I put that file?"

it's also far more powerful.

you are stuck in the past.

In article , Savageduck
wrote:

In Windows however, not so. BMP is the native image format in that OS. i.e.
used by the graphic kernel.

Not being a Windows user, I don¹t understand this idea of holding on to the
BMP format when there are much better ways to go.

don't lump all windows users based on the actions of a few.

nospam wrote:
In article , Savageduck
wrote:

In Windows however, not so. BMP is the native image format in that OS. i.e.
used by the graphic kernel.

Not being a Windows user, I don¹t understand this idea of holding on to the
BMP format when there are much better ways to go.

don't lump all windows users based on the actions of a few.


I know. As far as I know we only have a single BMP obsessed Windows user in
this NG.

--
Regards,
Savageduck

"JJ" wrote

| I know that BMP stores image data uncompressed. But I also know that it
| stores a 24bpp (RGB) pixel in a DWORD (4 bytes) storage. That's 25% waste.
|

Not actually. It requires a scan line divisble by 4. Maybe
that's what you're thinking of. But that's just for building
the file. As a DIB it's just 3 bytes per pixel. If you create
a 10x10 white BMP and save to disk you can see it clearly.
Each horizontal scan line is 30 bytes. 10 pixels at 3 bytes
each. If you look at it in a hex editor you'll see 2 null bytes
after each 30 FF bytes, rounding up each line to 32 bytes.
The width and height are in the header, so Windows will
unpack it accordingly. And the loaded DIB will be just 300
bytes of value 255.

Thus: 10x10 BMP @ 374 bytes. 54 byte header. 300 bytes
for 100 pixels of data. 20 bytes scan line padding. If the
image is something like 800x600 the padding, if any, will
be negligible. In fact, with 800 x 600 it's zero:
800 pixels wide x 3 bytes per pixel = 2400 bytes per scan
line, which divides evenly by 4.

The pixel value can be handled as a DWORD/long integer
but it's only actually 3 bytes of data. One byte for each
RGB. (Notice the color picker ion any graphic editor.
Typically it's a 6 character hex code. 3 bytes. 24-bit.

A PNG has to store 4 bytes for the alpha channel
AKA transparency percentage value of the pixel. But
for BMP it's just 3 pixels.

"JJ" wrote
|
| - 32bpp: each pixel is stored in a DWORD storage. i.e. 1 pixel per 4
bytes.
|
I think that's the point of confusion. Monitors
and graphics drivers talk about 32-bit display and
that term is common, but there's actually no such
thing. It's 24-bit color. The other byte is for
transparency data, so that Microsoft could show
their semi-transparent techno- kitsch windows on
Win7 and make people think they were getting
something new.

Savageduck wrote:
nospam wrote:
In article , Savageduck
wrote:

In Windows however, not so. BMP is the native image format in that OS. i.e.
used by the graphic kernel.
Not being a Windows user, I don¹t understand this idea of holding on to the
BMP format when there are much better ways to go.
don't lump all windows users based on the actions of a few.


I know. As far as I know we only have a single BMP obsessed Windows user in
this NG.


So you've never run into a situation before, where a
tool doesn't support the entire spectrum of file formats ?

Well, OK then.

Let's take (WinXP) Windows Movie Maker as a poster boy for this.
It only supported Microsoft formats and nothing else.
Requiring the user to use a second tool to make
an actual usable output.

To me "every capability is a possibility" when
cobbling together a solution out of a pile of
software I've got. I don't reject something just
because its old. If a wonderful tool only had BMP
input, I'd still be using it. Some tools are
demonstrators (written by academics), and they
don't necessarily support every format you might like.

There are people out there, writing perfectly fine software,
who don't even know how to craft useful command line
parameters (for their so-called command line programs).
It takes all kinds to make a world. Since the functions
the software performs are actually useful and unique,
we just put up with this.

Paul

In article , Paul
wrote:

Let's take (WinXP) Windows Movie Maker as a poster boy for this.
It only supported Microsoft formats and nothing else.
Requiring the user to use a second tool to make
an actual usable output.

nothing like proprietary microsoft formats to lock you into the
platform.

To me "every capability is a possibility" when
cobbling together a solution out of a pile of
software I've got. I don't reject something just
because its old.

bmp is not being rejected because it's old.

it's being rejected because it's obsolete, as is windows xp.