Main Help Index
DROPVIEW 2.1

Drag and Drop Image Processing

©copyright 1993, SJHDesign

Dropview Help Index

Menu Commands

Image File Formats

Palettes and Hardware

Registering Dropview


Menu Commands

File Menu

Edit Menu

Size Menu

Colors Menu

Image Menu


File Menu

OPEN-This allows you  to open another image in an  existing window.  If the current image has been changed you will be propmted to save it.

SAVE AS -saves the current image in a file format you choose. Available file formats are:

.BMP - Windows 3.x bitmap(all compression types)

.PCX - Zsoft PC Paintbrush, Windows Paintbrush

.GIF - Compuserve(non-interlaced only)

.TGA - Targa Truevision

.TIF - Aldus-Microsoft(standard,compressed, group III and IV fax)

.EPS - Adobe Encapsulated Postscript

.JPG - JPEG compressed format

.WMF - Windows metafile

.WPG - bitmapped data only(many WordPerfect .wpg files contain no bitmapped data)

.PCT - Mac Paint, all palette types

For details about the various file formats, see Image file Formats

in the Main Help Index.

IMPORTANT: if you are working with 24 bit images on a display that supports 256 colors, see Palettes and Hardware

in the Main Help Index.

PRINT  -   The print routine will scale the current image to the default page size of your printer.

PRINT SETUP - give you the standard Windows 3.1 printer configuration dialog.

FILE INFO - Pops up a dialog box with the current image's vital statistics.


Edit Menu

UNDO LAST CHANGE - Dropview has a single-level undo feature. You can always undo the most recent change to an image with this command.

COPY - By pressing and holding the left mouse button and moving the mouse, you can define a clip rectangle on the screen.  Use the Copy command to transfer this area to the clipboard. If no rectangle is defined, the entire image is copied. To cancel the operation, click the left mouse button twice.

COPY TO - saves the clip rectangle(or entire image) to a file. The Save  As dialog appears, allowing you to choose a name and file format for the clipping.

PASTE - replaces the current image with the contents of the clipboard  if an image is present.

OVERLAY - If a bitmap or DIB is present in the clipboard, you can move the mouse to the location at which you would like to overlay the clipboard image and press and hold the right mouse button to see how the overlay will look. At this point, you can choose the exact location where you want the  clipping to be pasted by continuing to hold down the right button and moving the  mouse.  When the clipping is in the desired location, it can be pasted by either double clicking the right mouse button or by choosing this command. Clicking the left mouse button twice cancels the operation. If no paste location is defined when you choose this command, the clipping is pasted in the upper left corner of the window.

Note: if you are working with 24 bit images on a display that supports only 256  colors, your video mode could affect the quality of your overlays. For more information, read Palettes and Hardware

SHOW CLIPBOARD - If a bitmap or DIB is present in the clipboard, choosing this command loads the clipboard bitmap in a Dropview window. You can now use all Dropview image processing commands on the image except for using it as wallpaper.

Note: if the clipboard does not contain a DIB or bitmap, the PASTE, OVERLAY and SHOW CLIPBOARD commands are disabled.


Size Menu

ZOOM IN - zooms(enlarges) the bitmap by a factor of +.5 each time this command is chosen.

ZOOM OUT - zooms(reduces) the bitmap by a factor of -.5  each time this command is chosen.

Note: The zoom commands affect the screen display only.  If a zoomed bitmap is saved, it will be saved with it's original dimensions.  One of the RESIZE commands must be used to actually change the dimensions of the bitmap so it can be saved or copied to the clipboard with the new dimensions.

There are 3 RESIZE commands available:

RESIZE 640x480 - resizes the image to 640 x 480.

RESIZE 800x600 - resizes the image to 800x600.

RESIZE CUSTOM - pops up a dialog box that allows you to specify the dimensions the image will be resized to.


Colors Menu

BRIGHTNESS - this command pops up a dialog box that allows you to brighten or darken the image.

CONTRAST - pops up a dialog that lets the user increase or decrease an image's contrast.

GREYSCALE - pops up a submenu for choosing a lighter or darker greyscale. All greyscaled images will have a 256 color palette, regardless of the original number of colors.

DITHER - loads a submenu with five dithering options:

2 COLOR BAYER - monochrome dither with a fixed dot pattern

2 COLOR DIFFUSION(Stucki) - monochrome dither with variable dot pattern

16 COLOR BAYER - 16 color(VGA) dither with a fixed dot pattern

16 COLOR DIFFUSION(Stucki) - VGA dither with variable dot pattern

24 TO 8 - quantitizes a 24 bit(16,177,216 color) image to 256 colors

In Dropview, images can only be dithered "down". In other words, you cannot dither a monochrome(2 color) image up to 16 colors or 256 colors to 24 bit.  Depending on the number of colors in the current image, only the appropriate dithering commands will be enabled.

Note: BRIGHTNESS, CONTRAST and GREYSCALE are not available for monochrome images.


Image Menu

ROTATE 90 - rotates an image 90 degrees clockwise.

FLIP HORIZONTAL - reverses an image on it's horizontal axis.

FLIP VERTICAL - reverses an image on it's vertical axis.

TILED WALLPAPER - loads current image(regardless of type) as tiled desktop wallpaper.

CENTERED WALLPAPER - loads current image as centered desktop wallpaper.

If the current image is not a bitmap(.bmp) file and one of the Wallpaper commands is chosen, Dropview crates a .bmp version of the image to use as wallaper. A dialog box will ask if the user would like to delete the wallpaper bitmap when the program exits. Bitmaps take up a lot of space and creating and deleting wallpaper bitmaps 'on the fly' allows you to save disk  space by storing your wallpaper images in a compressed format like .gif or .jpg.

JPEG OPTIONS - this selection allows the user to choose the degree of compression to use  when saving images to the .JPG format. Higher compression will result in a slightly lower quality image which takes longer to load but uses less disk space.  Lower compression creates a better quality image that will load faster but take more disk space.

For more information about the JPEG format, see Image file Formats


Image File Formats

Dropview can read files in the following formats:

BMP - compressed, uncompressed(RLE), OS/2, all palette types

PCX - all palette types

GIF - interlaced, non-interlaced, 16 and 256 colors

TIF - compressed, uncompressed, all palette types, Group II and Group IV fax

TGA - all palette and compression types

EPS - Screen preview only, all palette and compression types

JPG - all palette and compression types

WMF - all palette types

WPG - bitmapped data only, 2, 16 and 256 colors

PCT - Mac Paint, all palette types

The file types Dropview can save to disk are listed in the Save As section of the File Menu

Let's face it, there are as many image file formats as stars in the sky. Almost every image handling program has it's own proprietary file format, and there are a few things to remember  when moving images between the various file types:

- GIF files can only contain 16 or 256 color palettes

- Compressed bitmaps can only have a palette of 2, 16 or 256 colors. The RLE algorithm used in these files works well on 2 and 16 color images. If however, you save a photographic 256 color image in this format, the resulting file will often be larger(and will load more slowly) than the same image in the standard .BMP format.

- WPG files can contain 2, 16 or 256 color palettes. Many WordPerfect Graphics files contain  formatted text along with bitmapped data. If no bitmap is present, the file cannot be loaded by Dropview

- EPS files are similar to WPG in that they may contain bitmapped data along with formatted text. Dropview only loads the bitmapped portion of the  file, and will not load the file if no bitmap is present.

- While JPG files achieve very high rates of compression, some image quality is inevitably lost.   Dropview allows you to determine the degree of compression used to save JPG images.  The user should experiment with this setting-if the quality of an image saved to the JPG format is unacceptable, a lower compression setting should be used. This option is available through the "JPEG Options" selection of the IMAGES menu. For more information, see Image Menu.

- TIF Group III and Group IV Fax files are monochrome(2 color) images only.  While Group IV images can have any dimensions, Group III images are always padded to a width of 1728 pixels.

NOTE:If you try to save a file in an unsuitable format(for example, attempting to save a 2 color image to the .GIF format), the program will pop up a dialog box informing you of this and cancel the operation.


Palettes and Hardware

Windows has often been described as a "device-independent platform". Whoever said this obviously has never tried to write a program to display color images under Windows.  It can be very helpful for the user to understand some of the oddities of viewing and saving files in the  various video modes available under Windows.

Dropview will run in any video mode supported by Windows, but if your monitor and video card support less than 256 colors(SVGA), there is not much you can do  with color images in Dropview or any other Windows program.

24 Bit Images on 256 color Hardware

The most common hardware-related limitation Windows users run into with color  images is trying to work with 24 bit images on 256 color hardware. Loading and saving of images and screen repaints can be agonizingly slow, and many programs use a crude dither to speed up the process.  Dropview uses a Median-cut algorithm for fast display of 24 bit images with little loss of color.  If you are running Windows in a 256 color video mode and would like to see what I'm talking about, load any 24 bit image in Dropview, exit the program and then load it in that paint program that comes with Windows. A picture is worth a thousand words.

There are,however a few things to keep in mind when running in 256 color video modes:

-If you save a 24 bit image(in another file format for example) without  altering it, it will retain it's 24 bit palette. If any image processing  functions are performed on a 24 bit image, it will be quantitized down to  256 colors. If you want to retain your original 24 bit image, BE SURE TO SAVE THE ALTERED IMAGE UNDER A DIFFERENT NAME!

-If a 24 bit image is copied to the clipboard and pasted into Dropview, it will come back as a 256 color image.

-If a 256 color clipboard bitmap is overlaid onto a 24 bit image, the resulting merged image will contain a 256 color palette. Again, save it under a different name to preserve the original  24 bit image.

Of course, in true color(32 or 64K) video modes, none of the above applies.


Registering Dropview

A wise programmer once said that "The Shareware concept is based on human honesty and is therefore doomed". While we do not take such a cynical view of human nature, we know that users need as much incentive as possible to  register their shareware programs. So, if you register this copy of DROPVIEW you get the following goodies:

- Free Technical Support

- Substantial Discounts on our other Windows programs

- An upgrade to DROPVIEW-IP for only a $4.95 shipping

charge. Dropview-IP will be available around 11/1/93

and will contain a number of enhancements like True

Type font support, drawing capabilities, enhanced

printing and image processing and support for more

file formats.

To register this copy of DROPVIEW, please fill out and print the file ORDERFRM.TXT in Notepad or any ASCII text editor and send it with a check(sorry, we do not accept credit card orders at this time) for $19.95 to:

Scott Hanrahan

326 E. 34th St.

NY, NY 10016

(make checks payable to Scott Hanrahan)

After we get your check, we will call you with a registration number you can input into the program and all of a sudden, no more 'nag' screens!

Please read the ASCII file 'INSTALL.TXT' for details about our other very useful Windows programs.