IrfanPaint Support Thread

[MItaly]

Ehm, I'm feel like... little stupid now Its logical. Thank you!

No problem, it's actually one of the more asked questions; if and when I'll write the FAQs this will be the first .

[matera]

It can be hard to know at a glance what the color depth is.

[MartinezZ]

Ehm, I'm feel like... little stupid now Its logical. Thank you!

[MItaly]

If you are working on an paletted images the "light" panel is shown, and it shows all the colors available in the current image; if you are working on a 24bpp image, the normal color selection dialog is shown, since every color is available in 24bpp images. If you opened a paletted image but you want to use all the colors just increase the color depth (Image->Increase color depth...->select "16.7 million colors (24 BPP)"->OK).

[MartinezZ]

Hallo.

At first, thank you for this plugin

At second, please, tell me, what I'm doing wrong:

I open small picture (2 colours) and then I open irfanPaint - I need change color. If I click on Color panel, I get panel with only few colours whith I cannot change - but I need other color (for example red).



But, if I open another picture, complexly and with more colours, I can use "standard" color panel and I can choose every colour what I need.

Its same with stable or develop version.

Please, explain me that "hidden" puprose of that "light" color panel.

Thank you, MartinezZ

PS: Excuse my English, I'm better in Czech

[flizebogen]

My mistake.

The version in the language file did not fit. After correcting it everythings works as expected.

[MItaly]

IrfanPaint do not use the registry, if you set IrfanView to use its German language file IrfanPaint will use its German language file (if available).

[flizebogen]

I copied the whole irfanview folder with all plugins and the german irfanpaint language file (did not installed it)

Irfanpaint complains about not found language file?

Do you check for the language file folder by a registry key?

[matera]

I don't take the change for granted, it doesn't happen in other programs. MSPaint set my expectations in many ways. It is very underrated. It is also hell with an antique junk computer with a dying monitor - LOL - I have fond memories.

You can remove color in IrfanView without changing bit size, by reducing the saturation in the color adjust dialog.

The clone tool does not alter the color depth, so it would serve, but a selection can be more accurate. Must be a way to do it....

I had a nice dream about layers in IV. I'm always dreaming computer stuff

Everybody forgets PaintStar
(not me)

[Sam_Zen]

I agree, that with some modulations it's quite unpredictable if a bitmap stays in the same resolution or not.

[Sjef]

Automatic conversion by IrfanView

Agree. Even a 1 bit picture (b/w) transforms to an 8 bit picture after pasting an 8 bits scrap. With of without using IrfanPaint. I always took this for granted and converted the picture afterwards. In my opinion this behaviour is the logical result of such a past action. When convering a 24 bits color picture to grayscale, it gets the logical 8 bits. To enlarge it to 24 bits is possible in IrfanView. Photoshop is the only program I know within one can remove the colors without automaticly reducing the bit size.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Someone just made the interesting observation that if you cut and paste a selection within a low colour image, the number of colours always increases to 16.7 million. Can IrfanPaint do anything to work around that with its selection tool? One could use the Clone Tool instead, but cut and paste is sometimes quicker.

[Sjef]

To MItaly: The features I described were not so much for meself to use, but I thought it would be handy for IrfanPaint users in general. Not realizing the difficulty of writing the code for it and the growth it would get. I assumed IrfanPaint being a plugin it can grow even larger then IrfanView itself and the user would have the choice to use the plugin or not. Thanks for your answer.

To Matera: I'd never vote for much growth of IrfanView itself. Not just for portable reasons but the immediate startup. Talking about portable, I use Photoshop version 6 on my USB-stick to practise the possibilities IrfanPaint lacks. Its only 144 Mb.

The Bucket fill in IrfanPaint is indeed a strong tool, but I'd say when working with layers, a Lasso tool and bezier-curves would be an obviously pair in my opinion. By the way, the Gimp isn't the only free application: check out Artweaver. It's free, 33 Mb, ‘portable’ after installing and it has lots of build-in plugins and in English too.

[matera]

What I like is not having to wait for the GIMP to load for simple little things like drawing a circle around part of a screenshot and labeling it. And keeping my portable plugin collection small. If I need feathered selections, gradients, multiple layers, fancy brushes, drop-shadows -- then I GIMP it. If the GIMP was small and light, we wouldn't need IrfanView very much. But we do, and if it becomes something else, then what? For me, the Paint plugin is now an essential part of the toolkit. The tolerance setting for the bucket fill was the crowning glory of it. More would be nice, but not at the expense of other good qualities.

[MItaly]

Great, but also a pity, because there's a lot of features to be added to the toolbox. Like for instance drawing and/or painting straight lines between two points holding the Shift key.

I can do it, but it's not one of my priority.

Or paint-tablet sensitive brushes/pencils.

I don't even have a paint-tablet, nor I know how to detect the pressure.

Or soft/smooth brushes.

To implement them I'd need to use an external graphic library or to write all the antialiasing code; both choices aren't acceptable, since in the first case at least 500 KB of code would be pushed in the default IV installer (and Irfan is already concerned now that the UPXed dll is 150 KB), while in the second case my dll size would grow and I'd need to write a lot of code.

Or a Lasso tool...

Without a proper selections support in IV? It would be a real mess.
Anyhow, if you need these advanced features you'd better use The GIMP.