IrfanView versus XnView for PNG files

R

Rili

IrfanView versus XnView for PNG files


IrfanView doesn't appear to be able to show emmbed text information in PNG
files; however, XnView
http://www.xnview.com/
does.

The following webpage has a PNG picture of an owl on it with the following
embedded text information (IE6 doesn't seem to be able to show this PNG
image, where as Mozilla Firebird can, so if you are an IE user you might
have to right click and save the png file first)

http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/png-OwlAlpha.html

Embedded text is:

Title: Horned Owl
Author: Pieter S. van der Meulen
Description: The original image was taken in July '90 with a Canon A-1
and FD35-70 on Ektachrome, 100 ASA, on July 1990 in Alaska.
The photographer (me :) is reflected in the eyes (@left),
and is being completely ignored by this magnificent bird.
Digitization was done via PhotoCD. From 4Base resolution,
the alpha channel was created by edge detection and floodfill.
Low-pass filtering (norm. cut-off 0.2) was applied to create
a soft alpha mask. The final result was shrunk by half.
URL: http://www.geocities.com/Yosemite/7147/nationalparks.html for the
original PhotoCD image;
http://www.cdrom.com/pub/png/ for the PNG home site.
Copyright: Copyright 1999 Pieter S. van der Meulen. This image, including
the alpha channel, may be used, edited and reproduced freely.
Software: pnmtopng 2.37.2

Does anyone know of any software that can display the above information
(select properties from XnView for the above) or that can actually edit this
information?

I haven't been able to find any freeware that can edit PNG text or tag
information. I don't know why this is as you would think it is easy to code
and very useful.
 
B

Blinky the Shark

Rili said:
IrfanView versus XnView for PNG files
Click to expand...
IrfanView doesn't appear to be able to show emmbed text information in PNG
files; however, XnView
http://www.xnview.com/
does.
Click to expand...
The following webpage has a PNG picture of an owl on it with the following
embedded text information (IE6 doesn't seem to be able to show this PNG
image, where as Mozilla Firebird can, so if you are an IE user you might
have to right click and save the png file first)
Click to expand...

I don't know anything about embedding text, but IE can't handle png
files with alpha transparency[1]. Sounds like that might be the issue
here -- the encoding uses the alpha layer. Not sure, I repeat, but it
sounds too coincidental with its general png shortcoming to be not be
connected.

http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/pngapbr.html

[1]Which is a shame, with the movement from gif to png, since jpg
doesn't offer transparency.
 
D

Dan

On 25 Oct 2003 01:22:49 GMT, Blinky the Shark <[email protected]>
wrote...
| [1]Which is a shame, with the movement from gif to png, since jpg
| doesn't offer transparency.

On the other hand, IE does seem to do OK in handling the same type of
simple, non-alpha transparency in png similar to gif (which doesn't
have alpha transparency either). So it can be a good replacement for
gif, so long as you don't use alpha transparency. And png can have
more than 256 colors, which gif doesn't offer. But I do agree with you
that it would be nice if IE brought up to date to fully support all
the other things png offers. After all, isn't this a product of a
company which touts its supposed "innovation" ;-\





- return address is altered slightly to reduce spam.
 
B

Blinky the Shark

Dan said:
On 25 Oct 2003 01:22:49 GMT, Blinky the Shark <[email protected]>
wrote...
| [1]Which is a shame, with the movement from gif to png, since jpg
| doesn't offer transparency.
Click to expand...
On the other hand, IE does seem to do OK in handling the same type of
simple, non-alpha transparency in png similar to gif (which doesn't
have alpha transparency either). So it can be a good replacement for
gif, so long as you don't use alpha transparency. And png can have
more than 256 colors, which gif doesn't offer. But I do agree with you
Click to expand...

Yes, Microsoft has created another half-measure, in its partial ability
to deal with a good, and common format.
that it would be nice if IE brought up to date to fully support all
the other things png offers. After all, isn't this a product of a
company which touts its supposed "innovation" ;-\
Click to expand...

They probably will. Golly, gosh -- maybe even as soon as Longhorn!

2005 or 2006, IOW.
 
R

Rili

Thanks!

I've been looking for an answer for to this question for ages, but no one
ever seemed to know what I was talking about or didn't know of any software
to do it.

Thanks once again.
 
P

peter online

Rili said:
[...]
I haven't been able to find any freeware that can edit PNG text or tag
information. I don't know why this is as you would think it is easy to code
and very useful.
Click to expand...

It is easy, and I use it often for JPGs - but if it's true that it is hard to
find anything that does what you'r looking for - does it really make sense to
use it, when nearly all other people won't be able to see your written
information?

btw: IrfanView couldn't write anything into GIFs ... How about XNview?
 
D

dszady

peter said:
Rili said:
[...]
I haven't been able to find any freeware that can edit PNG text or
tag information. I don't know why this is as you would think it is
easy to code and very useful.
Click to expand...

It is easy, and I use it often for JPGs - but if it's true that it is
hard to find anything that does what you'r looking for - does it
really make sense to use it, when nearly all other people won't be
able to see your written information?

btw: IrfanView couldn't write anything into GIFs ... How about XNview?
Click to expand...

No. Tried it with PNG also. Nope.
 
R

Rili

It would be great to use, as you can embed, or tag large amounts of text
into the file, you can then do a simple windows search for files containing
text to get all the photos that you want.

For example, lets say that you you have a heap of photos of one of your
girlfriends called Simone, simply search for all files with Simone in it and
you can find them all within seconds, very handy indeed.

It will become a lot more popular as more and more digital cameras are sold.

I just need to start commenting my photos :)



peter online said:
Rili said:
[...]
I haven't been able to find any freeware that can edit PNG text or tag
information. I don't know why this is as you would think it is easy to code
and very useful.
Click to expand...

It is easy, and I use it often for JPGs - but if it's true that it is hard to
find anything that does what you'r looking for - does it really make sense to
use it, when nearly all other people won't be able to see your written
information?

btw: IrfanView couldn't write anything into GIFs ... How about XNview?
Click to expand...
 
R

Rili

Don't know about gif's?

Do they support text embedding or tagging?



peter online said:
Rili said:
[...]
I haven't been able to find any freeware that can edit PNG text or tag
information. I don't know why this is as you would think it is easy to code
and very useful.
Click to expand...

It is easy, and I use it often for JPGs - but if it's true that it is hard to
find anything that does what you'r looking for - does it really make sense to
use it, when nearly all other people won't be able to see your written
information?

btw: IrfanView couldn't write anything into GIFs ... How about XNview?
Click to expand...
 
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