LodePaint User Manual
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File Formats
This document describes the file formats supported by LodePaint.
PNG
PNG or Portable Network Graphics. This format can store compressed RGBA images.
Extensions: png
Reading and writing supported.
Lossless.
Includes alpha channel.
JPEG
JPEG is often used for photos. Files compressed with JPEG often have visible artefacts, this isn't a lossless format.
Extensions: jpg, jpeg
LodePaint only supports reading these files, and only non-progressive interlaced JPEG's. No writing to JPEG and no progressive JPEG's, sorry!
This is a lossy format and it doesn't support an alpha channel.
BMP
The uncompressed bitmap file format introduced by Microsoft Windows.
Extensions: bmp
Reading and writing supported.
Lossless.
Includes alpha channel. The BMP file format specification allows an alpha channel in these files, but not much programs actually support this. LodePaint supports it however.
TGA
Targa image files. This format is quite similar to BMP, but its alpha channel is more widely supported by applications.
Extensions: tga
Reading and writing supported.
Lossless.
Includes alpha channel.
Radiance HDR (RGBE)
Radiance HDR images, also known as RGBE images, are high dynamic range, so they support colors outside the typical RGB range. LodePaint decodes these images to a RGBA floating point image (128 bits per pixel), but this graphics format uses only 32 bits per pixel.
NOTE: when loading a HDR image, the image will be in RGBA32F floating point color mode (so many operations don't work on it).
NOTE: saving to a HDR file format is only available in the save file dialog if the image is in RGBA32F color mode.
NOTE: when the image is in RGBA32F floating point color mode, 32-bit file formats such as PNG and BMP are NOT available in the file dialog!
Extensions: hdr, rgbe
Reading and writing supported.
Not Lossless for LodePaint. LodePaint uses 128 bits per pixel for high dynamic range images (96 for the RGB values), while RGBE uses only 32 bits per pixel. So not all information of a floating point image can be stored in this format, but it still supports a much more dynamic range than PNG, BMP, etc...
Doesn't include alpha channel.
LodePaint Image
This is the image format for use only by LodePaint itself. It can contain images of any color mode that LodePaint supports, without information loss (unlike RGBE which can't contain the complete floating poing values of HDR pixels). This image format is experimental, don't use it as only backup of data.
Extensions: lpi
Reading and writing supported.
Lossless.
Includes alpha channel.
Legal Stuff
This software is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied
warranty. In no event will the authors be held liable for any damages
arising from the use of this software.
Copyright (c) 2009-2010 by Lode Vandevenne.
Note: No images? Get the full manual at http://sourceforge.net/projects/lodepaint/files/LodePaint_Manual_Full.zip/download/. The full manual with images is released separately because the images filesize is larger than that of the program!