Monday
Jan082007
Make PNGs Not Suck
Monday, January 8, 2007 at 12:54AM Mac users, read The Sad Story of PNG Gamma, and then download GammaSlamma.
In short, PNG is a potentially useful file format hampered by a well-intentioned but disasterous attempt at simple color management. But when you remove the bogus Gamma flag from a PNG file, you've got an elegant and free cross-platform lossless image format.
Windows users can aparently strip out PNG Gamma flags with PNGCRUSH.
I've tested neither of these, so please let me know if they work for you!
Reader Comments (4)
Hi Stu... I've used PNGCRUSH since 1998 for getting close to correct gamma and better compression when taking PNG files created in Photoshop to Flash. Start the batch and walk away. Makes quick work of the files intended for Web/Flash purposes... takes care of the annoying gamma shift problem. ~Aaron
Thank you thank you thank you! Finally a third option between generating graphics in Photoshop and getting crappy PNGs or generating them in Fireworks and having them not look as good.
There's a new version out that does "batch slamming". Actually according to the post date, it was already out when you posted this article. Here's the link: http://www.shealanforshaw.com/gammaslamma-11-update-now-available/
Does anybody know if this issue also affects Quicktime PNG codec .mov's or just still image PNG's?