Conference hydra::amiga_v1

    
    Do you have any examples of a 256 color GIF converted to IFF using this
    method. How does it compare with GIF2IFF. As well, have you tried using
    Digi-View to convert an RGB format to Dyna-Hires (I think this can be
    done). I'll bet some of those 256 color GIF pics would look great in
    Dyna-Hires.
    
    		Regards....   Clint
    

>    Digi-View to convert an RGB format to Dyna-Hires (I think this can be
>    done). I'll bet some of those 256 color GIF pics would look great in
>    Dyna-Hires.
    
>    		Regards....   Clint
 

I haven't uploaded them yet, but I tried some in HAM, HAM+ and Dyna modes
on DigiView 4.0 - NICE!

this is THE utility for gif -> iff conversion (IF you have DigiView 4.0...)

john   

>>(IF you have DigiView 4.0...)

Are you using the Transfer24 program? If so, then DigiPaint 3.0 users might
qualify.

Dave

>Are you using the Transfer24 program? If so, then DigiPaint 3.0 users might

No, strait DigiView loading of the 24 bitplane images.

john

    The ART Department should also be able to handle these pics. If
    it can I expect better results than Transfer 24.
    								bill

    I tried several pics with GiftoRGB -> TAD(the art department) and
    the results were very good. I did a grayscale pic,and several colored
    pics. In both instances my initial load into TAD left something
    to be desired. Not because the pic was bad but because the images
    were large,so it gave a grainy effect on the grayscale,and the dithered
    colors could be seen on the color pic. Once I scaled them down they
    looked great. I also took the grayscale,and converted it to lineart.
    It was a pic of a woman,and the result looked very much like a 
    charcoal pic,very unusual. The color pic had fleshtones that were
    made up largely of green and yellow. Once scaled down they looked
    close to fleshtones. The last pic I did was an Escher. It came out
    very well. I feel the acid test for a conversion program is 
    fleshtone. Of course I haven't seen the pics on an I** so I cannot
    say how close the conversion is. However my gut reaction would be
    to say thay are very close. What I have seen in the clone world
    holds true to the heavy use of green,and yellow for pics with 
    fleshtones.BTW if you convert a colored pic to grayscale the 
    results are excellent. I think this converter is just great!
    							bill
    PS. I haven't printed the docs yet so I suppose I can do better.
    If there is a shareware attached, the author certainly earned his
    money.

        
        Well, to make a long story short...  for the best  GIF to IFF
        conversion currently possible,  you do not need DIGI-VIEW 4.0
        or GIFtoRGB.
        
        I   have  tried  every  GIFtoIFF  viewer/converter  available
        (GifMAch,SHAM,HAMGIF  and  so  on...)  incluing  GIFtoRGB  ->
        Digi-view 4.0 and  I  have'nt found one that will do a better
        job than the GIF2IFF converter that I wrote a while back (see
        other notes.), although some produce real close results.
        
        DIGI-VIEWs  dyna res mode is the  only  exception...    
        
     *  So  I  enhanced  my  GIF2IFF  program to  optionally  produce
        DYNA RES output. Viewable with DYNA-SHOW.

        My  GIF2IFF  converter produces the exact results  (so  close
        you'd have to page flip to see if  any  pixels are different)
        as using GIFtoRGB -> DIGI VIEW 4.0 -> DYNA  RES  output.   My
        GIF2IFF  or  the  DIGIVIEW  process  is  not a fast one,  the
        GIFtoRGB  to DIGIVIEW dynares takes about 20 minutes which is
        not far off what my converter takes and it requires no manual
        intervention.  [By  the way on a DECstation 3100, my converter
        takes about 20-30 seconds per picture.] On a stock A2000 it 
        runs about 15 minutes for a single pass to over 30 minutes for
        multi pass dyna res large picture (640 by 480).
        
        
        As stated in  the  GIF2RGB  doc file DIGI VIEW also screws up
        the contrast and brightness  of  the  picture you have to set
        the brightness to -25 and  contrast  to  -26 to look like the
        original.  (I did do this  in  my  testing).   The nice thing
        about digiview though is the ability to  adjust  these values
        as in some cases more contrast actually looks better.  (I may
        add a contrast adjustment into my converter if this  is worth
        while).
               
        DYNA RES mode is also over-rated...  those dyna res  pictures
        that come with the PD demos are carefully chosen to have  the
        colors  chaning  from  top to bottom and not left to right to
        get the most out of the new color map per scan line.
         
        Dyna RES mode does clean up the picture  a  little.   But for
        the hassel of DYNA-RES I'm not sure if it's worth the effort.
        But it was not a major effort to add this functionality to my
        existing program, and its interesting to play with.
    
        DYAN RES is'nt  that  much better than plain HAM because most
        digitized pictures have almost  has  many  colors  across one
        scan line as they do across the entire picture, so generating
        a new color map (16 color  regs)  per scan line only varies a
        little from the intial or previous color map. Espescially for
        flesh tones.
        
        The other reason that IFF HAM pictures  don't look as good as
        the digitized GIF orignals is because GIF uses  a  palette of
        20 million colors (256 present at one time) and  HAM IFF uses
        a  palette  of  4096 colors (average of >256 and <500  colors
        present) which does'nt seem goodenough  for  small changes in
        color like flesh tones.
        
        I will post my  updated  GIF2IFF  converter  after  I  finish
        adjusting the code for best  results.  (Not a quick process).
        Interesting  though,  after recompiling my original converter
        code with MANX 5.0 it now runs twice as fast as compiled with
        MANX 3.6a...   anyway,  I  just  happen to be working on this
        when this topic was  started  so  I thought I'd put in my two
        cents worth....
        
    	If I get a change I'll upload some example pictures, or if 
        anyone has some real good GIFs to convert I'd be happy to 
        process them and post the results. 
    
        /Steve/
        

    Hi Steve,
    
    How about adding 24 bit RGB output support as well.  This would allow
    expermentation with the image for Digi-View owners.  
    
    
    ...Ed

    
    >How about adding 24 bit RGB output support as well.  This would allow
    >expermentation with the image for Digi-View owners.  
    
    Just use GIFtoRGB already mentioned in this note, thats what I was
    using when experimenting with DIGI-VIEW.
    
    The output from GIF2IFF is already DIGI-VIEW compatable cause its IFF
    or DYNA RES.
    
    /Steve/