Studio Convert

Introduction

Once upon a time every computer platform had its own graphics
file formats, often derived from the particular programs that
invented them.

On the Apple Macintosh there was Macpaint and on the PC the PCX
file, from a program called PC Paintbrush. The Amiga had its own
formats too, such as HAM and IFF/LBM, from the famous Deluxe
Paint program. On the Atari, formats like Degas and IMG quickly
became the accepted standards.

Things have changed though and while the same old standards still
exist, the wider availability of huge clip art libraries
(especially CD ROM ones) and the communications revolution that
allows modem users to download files from all over the world,
means Atari users are coming up against more and more foreign
file formats.

Compo's Studio Convert supports a wide range of graphics file
formats. This means you can load almost any image, from any
source, be it black and white or colour, and convert it into
another format that you can use in another program. You may want
to convert it so you can view it or use it in a DTP program or
word processor like That's Write or Write On.

System requirements

Studio Convert runs on any Atari in any resolution, from the STFM
and STE to the TT and Falcon. Images with more colours than the
screen resolution allows will be dithered to provide an
approximate representation on the screen. When the image is
saved, however, the full colour depth is saved along with it.
This means you can load a 24 bit colour image such as a TIFF
file, view it on screen and save it as a Targa with the same
number of colours.

In ST low resolution, images will be displayed using 16 colours
but in ST medium or ST high resolutions they will appear as
dithered monochrome images. On a Falcon in 256 or true colour
mode, the images will look slightly more realistic as there are
more colours to use on screen.

Formats

There are ten major formats that Studio Convert will load and
save, including TIFF, Targa, GIF, PCX, IFF, all versions of
Degas, Neochrome, JPEG, IMG and the proprietary SEF format used
by Studio Photo. It can read many more, ranging from Atari
specific ones like Spectrum 512, Doodle, STAD and Art Director to
much more obscure ones like XGA, Dali, Cranach, RAW, MTV, DIS and
SUN which most users are unlikely to come across.

The program also lets you load PhotoCD images from a CD ROM drive
attached to your ST at any desired resolution. PhotoCD is Kodak's
proprietary system for developing film directly in to a
compressed digitised image format stored on ISO standard compact
disc.

The *.PCD files on the disc can be accessed using appropriate
software at any one of five resolutions - 192 by 128 (wallet),
384 by 256 (snapshot), 768 by 512 (standard or base), 1536 by
1024 (large) and 3072 by 2048 pixels (poster). These images take
up roughly 74K, 295K, 1.3 MB, 4.7 MB and 18.9 MB respectively,
meaning 4 MB Ataris are limited to 768 by 512 and even 14 MB
Falcons can't load the highest resolution images.

Using Studio Convert

1. Load the program and under the FILE menu, select IMPORT. The
list shows all the possible file formats that you can load. 
Select the one you want using the mouse to scroll up or down the
list and make sure it is ticked.

2. Under the FILE menu select LOAD.

3. The GEM file selector (or replacement if you use one) will
appear. Select the file you want to load.

4. The program will load the file and display it on screen in a
resizable, movable Window. You can repeat steps 1 to 3 and load
as many images (of different types if necessary) as memory will
allow. If you are unable to load an image you may have
insufficient memory. Try loading a smaller image.

5. The images can be viewed at a quarter size, half size, twice
and four times magnification. Click on ZOOM under the IMAGE menu
an select the level from the popup menu. Images can also be
mirrored horizontally, vertically or both at the same time
(flip/flap) by selecting MIRROR.

6. A wide range of dither patterns can be applied and if the
image is saved in the black and white GEM IMG format, these
patterns are saved with it. This makes the program useful for
halftoning colour images for printing or special effects when
desktop publishing or designing creative graphics. There are 12
different patterns (actually there are 11 as numbers 0 and 7 are
identical for some reason) and each can be applied in three
different dot sizes.

7. To save an image, choose EXPORT from the FILE menu to select
an output format and then choose SAVE. To save as a JPEG image,
you can specify as a percentage. The higher the percentage, the
higher the compression ratio (in terms of file size) but the more
detail you will lose. A value between 75 and 90 is about right
for most purposes depending on requirements.

Notes: Note that the PRINT feature has not yet been enabled in
Studio Convert. The SAVE PATH command in the FILE menu saves the
last image path and the input and output formats.
