Image Optimiser Plugin [Closed - To continue discussion see link in last post]

[luciansabo]

I just finished a beta version of such plugin.
It is available as stand-alone executable (portable app) or dynamic link library for developers
I spoked with Irfan and I am waiting for his feedback.

If you like my plugin you can request on this forum to be included into the program.

Official website: http://luci.criosweb.ro/riot/

RIOT key features:

* it can open multiple graphic file formats by looking first at the magic number (it does not need file extension to recognize format)
* save and optimize JPEG, GIF and PNG with a simple,clean user interface
* dual view: original - result. Automatic preview of resulting image
* the compression and the results are comparable to those of commercial products.
* fast processing (all is done in memory); see instant results including resulting filesize
* common tools: pan and zoom, rotate, flip
* resize image by using best known resample filters

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Thanks for that. It looks good. A few initial impressions to share:

1. The name is not good. It conveys the impression that the program will make a right mess of users' images.
2. The important data — the file size — is at the top of the window, about as far away from the adjustment slider as possible.
3. The file sizes are in bytes, without any commas. Kilobytes or Mbytes would be easier to understand.
4. Add a Reopen option to the File menu.
5. After resizing, the original image on the left is replaced with the resized image. It would be better to keep the original image on the left, and allow users to adjust resizing (also with a slider control) and/or compression
6. Even with another slider for resampling, I think all of the buttons: Open, Save As, About, Preview could be made to fit below the preview images, thus allowing the full window width for the images.

[luciansabo]

Thank you for the feedback

1. The name is not good. It conveys the impression that the program will make a right mess of users' images.

It stands for Radical Image Optimization Tool , but you're right. Could anybody come up with a better name?

2. The important data — the file size — is at the top of the window, about as far away from the adjustment slider as possible.

I don't see a reason why the filesize should be near the slider.
When you optimize you look at the resulting image not the slider... then look at the filesize.

3. The file sizes are in bytes, without any commas. Kilobytes or Mbytes would be easier to understand.

Ițm attaching a screenshot of Ulead PhotoImpact Optimizer. The program was inspired by this tool. The size is in bytes because *normally* optimized images are smaller than 100,000 bytes (~100 KB). I can put thousand separator and the size in Kilobytes in brackets. Based on your suggesion from 2. I can put the filesize at the bottom of the image.

4. Add a Reopen option to the File menu.

Reopen? I don't understand...

5. After resizing, the original image on the left is replaced with the resized image. It would be better to keep the original image on the left, and allow users to adjust resizing (also with a slider control) and/or compression

This is a feature not a bug. It is replaced because the images are zoomed together to see the same thing in dual view. Resampling can be time consumming for large images with these filters. Putting a slider on resize will make the user wait to much. Too much load on CPU and memory. I don't see a reason why someone would want to see a real-time comparition between the original image and the resample one. Usually the user needs to resize the image to a certain width or height - just that.

6. Even with another slider for resampling, I think all of the buttons: Open, Save As, About, Preview could be made to fit below the preview images, thus allowing the full window width for the images.

I was thinking at the same thing. I want to make in the view menu a radio option like "Dual View". Disabled you can see only the result, thus leaving more space for the preview.

POLL:

What buttons do you need in the main screen?
1. Open 2.Save as 3.Preview

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Could anybody come up with a better name?

My first thought was "RIO." I'm sure others could do better. If this is a plugin for IrfanView, then maybe IrfanOptimiser.

I don't see a reason why the filesize should be near the slider.

Becausue the user may be trying to get the image below a certain file size required by picture upload sites or for sending by email. People ask, "How can I resize my image to 100 Kbytes?" For the same reason resize also needs to be adjustable via a slider. In Serif PhotoPlus the resize options are on a second tab of a tabbed dialogue.

The size is in bytes because *normally* optimized images are smaller than 100,000 bytes (~100 KB).

What is "normal" for one person may be abnormal for another. One person may be resizing icons or avatars while another may be resizing images upwards to make posters.

Reopen? I don't understand...

See the file menu in IrfanView. Shift R reopens the current file, abandoning all changes.

Resampling can be time consumming for large images with these filters. Putting a slider on resize will make the user wait to much. Too much load on CPU and memory. I don't see a reason why someone would want to see a real-time comparition between the original image and the resample one. Usually the user needs to resize the image to a certain width or height - just that.

Agreed, there is no need for real-time resampling, but you already have the Preview button and a check-box to turn off automatic resampling for preview. Perhaps a slider is too tempting for users to keep adjusting the size, but at least put the resize scroll fields on the main dialogue, and resample the original image each time.

What buttons do you need in the main screen?
1. Open 2.Save as 3.Preview

I think they all need to be on the main dialogue.
The About button could be an icon at the end of the toolbar after the Resize icon (see how IrfanView and IrfanPaint do it).

Moved to separate thread to concentrate discussion on RIOT in one place

[Sam_Zen]

Nice work, luciansabo.

As a first confrontation with this tool I concentrated on the standalone app to start with.
(I will check the function as a plugin dll later)
This looks very promising. Since I'm in favour of using small dedicated tools instead of big 'suites',
I have added this exe to my graphic toolbox already, as a kind of add-on to IV.

[luciansabo]

This tool is designed to optimize web images, not posters, bytes do count in this case.
A well-optimized 400x300 image is 10-20 K. GIFs and PNGs with few colors can be smaller, even 800-1000 bytes.
Let's say you will save a 800x600 full version image. This can lead to a 30-80 K JPEG image. A good thing is indeed putting the KB size in paranthesis. MB is too large.
This does not mean the program can't handle big images. I've tested with a 10000x10000 image (200 MB) and it works, but the preview is slow.

I will not put a the original vs resampled side by side because I want the zoom to scale the same region.
Let's see if Irfan wants the resample function, because last time we talked he asked me to strip functions that IrfanView handles (suc as the open functionality) and make a single smaller DLL. He thinks the DLLs are too large.
We will see how the plugin will turn out, but I plan to make a full version of the optimizer with al these features included, as an IrfanView plugin or not.

I will keep you updated.

PS: Thank you for your support, Sam_zen

[matera]

Interesting, very. Chaotic being that I am, the name RIOT doesn't bother me, but maybe something like RadOpt would please sensitive souls

I'm going to give it a good try, I do a lot of web work sometimes.

Thanks.

[Sam_Zen]

Forgot to mention. I don't mind about 'riot' at all either. A string is a string and if it's useful to determine, fine by me.

EDIT : I consider this as a dedicated function as a IV plugin with a lot of potentials.
Just like IV Paint, but in another area of discipline.
So I hope some consensus can be made with Irfan to introduce this as a plugin.
If so, I will recommend to make this a sticky one.

And I'm strongly in favour of the philosophy behind this :
Why publishing a 2-color paper scan as a full color JPG with high resolution ?

[luciansabo]

RIOT was created using Borland Compiler. It uses a modified FreeImage library, that was compiled under Microsoft Visual Studio.
So the, as Irfan requested I had to integrate FreeImage as a static library into the DLL and compile just the thing that I need.
Borland (omf) and Microsoft (coff) formats are not compatible.
After few hour of strugle compiling the sources under Borland I managed to compile a lite library with GIF, PNG+ZLIB and JPEG support and some other useful functions that I will integrate into a single Riot DLL.

The resulting DLL will have around 800 KB (UPX compressed), but with some optimizations I can strip 100-200 K more.

This DLL hopefully will be included in the main plugin package.

I plan to provide on my website a full version of the plugin with all features included (support for opening many graphic formats) that can be downloaded separatelly along with the standalone app.

Questions:
How much do you need the following, or what's the priority of implementing:
1.opening many formats
2.crop function
3.basic image processing (brightness, contrast, gamma, saturation)
4.resample filter for zoom (better quality scaled images when zooming)
5.indexed transparency for GIF and PNG
6.alpha transparency for PNG
7.weighted optimization (regional compression)
8.modifying subsampling for JPEG
9.JPEG softening
10.choosing PNG filters and PNG compression from 0-9. (currently 6-default and 9-best are available)
11.Color quantization with dithering

Transparency (indexed and alpha) is already handled by RIOT, but the transparent color cannot by chosen now. RIOT is preserving image transparency.
Can I create a poll ?

[Sam_Zen]

I totally agree with you about a plugin not doing 'too many things'.
That's why I emphasized about the original 'optimize' function of this.

[luciansabo]

RIOT will be available as an IV plugin and as a standalone app.
The plugin will come in two "flavours": lite and full.
The lite version will open only bmp, jpeg,png and gif, but all other image optimization features will be there.
Image optimization in this topic means saving images for web or other media where filesize counts, while preserving image quality, or sacrifying some quality for smaller filesizes.
For saving the user can chose the common web formats: JPEG, GIF or PNG.
Each format has advantages, though PNG may replace GIF with great success.
For now I can drop from the lite version the "resample" option if most of the users want so.

Anyhow, the full version can be downloaded separatelly from my website for people that want more features.
Full version will include: support for reading many image formats, maybe resample
Future versions can include also: cropping, basic image processing, other ideas.
So the full version is optional for people that care about productivity and see full RIOT as an aid for IV not as another stupid image editing program. Some people don't want to return to Irfan View to open another file, or forgot to resample the image, or forgot to crop it... so these functions can have sense for some people (like me). I use Irfan View for viewing, but I need a strong but fast save for web dialog that has all tools included that allows me to do all that I need there, without returning to Irfan View for crop, resize, image processing and discarding all changes.

RIOT can handle transparent files if he opens them by himself. Files transfered from IV will not include transparency information. Future versions of RIOT will allow you to choose transparency also.

I've almost completed the lite version...

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

An uncompressed mode like BMP should be possible too, because maybe the 'optimization' process is part of a longer route.

Though it is compressed, PNG is lossless, so what advantage is there of saving to BMP format? PNG images tend to be a lot smaller, and are also smaller than TIF. I don't think compression time is an issue unless we're working with huge images.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

RIOT will be available as an IV plugin and as a standalone app.

I have moved the off-topic discussion to another thread in the General forum. Please limit all discussion in this thread to the Plugins for IrfanView.

If you want feedback on the Standalone app, then please start a new thread in the Software forum for that purpose.

I have not yet been able to download the plugin. If you want to discuss it here, at least the plugin should be made available.

For now I can drop from the lite version the "resample" option if most of the users want so.

That would probably make development of the lite plugin a lot easier. Since users can resample in IV already, it is not really necessary. Resize in IV, then open the Optimizer Plugin just for saving (exporting) images.

[luciansabo]

The IV plugin is under developement.
It must be approved by Irfan, then it will be released.

You can test the functionality of the plugin by looking at the standalone application.

BMP is not a format suitable for web, nor optimization. BMP is an old format widely available, but TIFF and PNG are doing a much better job for storing high quality images.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

The plugin really needs to be tested within IrfanView. Better ask Irfan about releasing the plugin otherwise how can we know if it will work? How will it be called? Will it be like using the PNGOUT plugin when one goes to save a file?

Does anyone even need Irfan's permission to develop plugins for his program? To get their plugins distributed with the program is another matter of course, but I don't see a problem with developing plugins independently if one wishes to.