[X Newbies] jpegs, etc.

[Florin Alexander Neumann]

On Tuesday, May 13, 2003, at 22:49 Canada/Eastern, Anne Keller-Smith 
wrote:

> Thanks for your input. I can't seem to get Photoshop to open 
> PictureViewer
> images though. I need to make color corrections, etc. in Photoshop with
> any images. I could open Simpletext images right up in Photoshop, but
> Simpletext is not available in X. I can use it through Classic, but 
> once
> OS 9 goes away, I need to know what to do with PictureViewer.

There's some confusion here. There is no PictureViewer or SimpleText 
image format. In this respect, both PV and ST are essentially front 
ends for QuickTime. Under OS X, the overall job of displaying images 
has been relegated to Preview.

You should be able to open with Photoshop virtually any PICT, JPEG, 
TIFF or GIF file you are able to view with PictureViewer, either under 
Classic or under X. The technique is simple and has been mentioned 
before: just drag-and-drop the respective file on the Photoshop 
application icon. (You can place an alias of Photoshop in some 
convenient place on the desktop, or in the Dock.) Of course, you can 
still open the file from inside Photoshop with the File>Open... command.

In some instances, Photoshop can't open JPEG files, either because it 
gets confused (as you described earlier, and Jon pointed out how to fix 
it), or because it's an older version which doesn't support a newer 
compression algorithm or the file format. In this case, Thorsten 
Lemke's superb tool GraphicConverter often helps: use GC to open the 
respective file and save it as TIFF, then open it in Photoshop by 
drag-and-drop and edit it to your heart's content. If you have a whole 
CD of such images, GC can do batch conversions.

> Why can't a jpeg just be a jpeg?

Well, first because there is no such thing as a 'just a JPEG'; second, 
because standards evolve to match evolving technology; third, because  
some programmers may wish to add capabilites that are not provided for 
in the format most commonly used. (As a web designer, I'm sure you know 
about that more than I do.) The way to get around this is to 
communicate with your clients and make sure they supply you with images 
in a format your software can read.

>> A problem in PC to Mac transfers is often the compression method used
>> on the dark side machine.

Zip is a popular format on Windows, just as StuffIt is on Mac. You 
should have no problem in manipulating Zip archives with StuffIt -- the 
standard edition allows you to compress as well as expand Zip; and, on 
the Win side, there is a free StuffIt Expander, which your clients can 
use to expand archives you send them. However, you should be aware that 
it's counterproductive to compress JPEG or MPEG files (as well as some 
TIFF files) -- they are already compressed, and you only waste time 
zipping or stuffing them.

f