Image-Conversion Applications with PNG Support

Many of the image-conversion applications listed here are also image viewers and are therefore listed on the PNG-supporting image-viewer page as well. Since image conversion is one of the first steps in the introduction of a new image format, several of the entries are pointers to the PNG Source Code and Libraries page. Note also that image editors often have the ability to import and export many formats. Finally, not all of these applications convert both to and from the PNG format; the ``read-only'' and ``read/write'' tags indicate the level of PNG support.

As on the other applications pages, links to home WWW sites or to downloadable versions are provided where known, but if a link is broken, check the location and see if an updated version is available (and please tell Greg!). Relevant operating systems are printed in (parenthesized italics), where ``many'' is defined as at least three of Unix, DOS/Win, OS/2, NT, Macintosh, etc.

These are listed alphabetically, more or less:

• Adobe File Utilities by Mastersoft - see Quick View Plus below

• AI Picture Explorer / AIPICX [Applied Insights] (Windows 9x/NT) - all versions; read/write. (This app not only views images but also creates web pages with image thumbnails.)

• AI Picture Utility / AIPICT [Applied Insights] (Windows 9x/NT) - all versions; read/write

• Alter Image 32 [Nun's Meadow Software] (Windows 9x/NT) - all versions; read/write; reportedly converts bi-level (1-bit) TIFFs into 24-bit PNGs.

• BeShow [Jeremy Moskovich] (BeOS DR8) - all versions with the translation kit (or Jon Watte's Datatypes library) and Simon Clarke's PNGHandler (see the toolkits page); read/write; 191k. (Not updated for current BeOS releases.)

• Cameleo [Caldera Graphics] (Unix/X) - version 2.2(?) and later; read/write

• ColourEdit [Julian Highfield] (Mac OS/OpenDoc) - all versions? read/write. (A Unix/Tcl/Tk port is reported to be 80% finished as of May 1998.)

• CompuShow / CShow [Bob Berry] (DOS) - version 9.01a and later; read/write; interlacing and low-bit-depth PNG-writing code broken in 9.01a; ignores gamma chunk but has generic option to adjust display gamma; progressive display of interlaced images (replicating method); 265k

• CompuShow 2000! / 2Show [Bob Berry] (DOS) - version 2.01a and later; read/write; bugs in versions prior to 2.03a; ignores gamma chunk but has generic option to adjust display gamma; progressive display of interlaced images (replicating method); 258k

• ConGo [Matthias Matting] (Windows 9x/NT) - all versions; write-only? freeware. (This is a viewer for Commodore 64 image formats; it can convert to various ``Internet'' formats, including PNG.)

• CPIC / CompuPic [Photodex] (Windows 3.x, Windows 9x/NT, Mac PPC/68k) - all versions; read/write; no gamma support; progressive display of interlaced images (replicating method)

• Creator [John Kortink] (Acorn RISC OS) - version 3.20 and later; read/write; no alpha or gamma support; shareware.

• CryptaPix [Kent Briggs / Briggs Softworks] (Windows 9x/NT) - version 1.0 and later; read/write in version 1.1b and later; shareware. (Versions prior to 2.0 were also available for Windows 3.x.)

• DeBabelizer [Equilibrium] (Macintosh) - version 1.6.5 and later; read/write; version 3.0 claims gamma support

• DeBabelizer Pro [Equilibrium] (Windows 9x/NT) - all versions; read/write; version 4.5 claims gamma support

• dicom2 [Sébastien Barré] (Windows 9x/NT, Linux, SunOS/Solaris) - version 1.8 and later; write-only; uses libpng and zlib; freeware. (This tool converts medical images from either DICOM or ACR/NEMA format to PNG, BMP, TARGA, DICOM or raw formats. 12-bit grayscale images are upsampled to 16-bit PNGs.)

• Display [Jih-Shin Ho] (DOS) - version 1.88 and later; read/write; gamma support in beta version 1.90t2 and later. (Also on Simtel.Net mirrors: disp189a.zip [740k] and disp189b.zip [532k, optional]. See also the unofficial web page.)

• Drag And View [Canyon Software] (Windows 3.x, Windows 9x/NT) - version 2.0(?) and later; read/write

• DTPicView [Edmund Vermeulen] (BeOS) - all versions with the translation kit (or Jon Watte's Datatypes library) and Simon Clarke's PNGHandler (see the toolkits page); read/write; progressive display in version 2.0 and later

• The Exorcist [Nigel Stewart] (Windows 9x/NT) - any version; write-only. (This is a GUI version of gif2png supporting drag and drop, etc.)

• Galleria [Bitware Australia] (OS/2) - version 2.3(?) and later; read/write. (Shareware; must register to enable writing.)

• GEM-View [Dieter Fiebelkorn] (Atari) - version 3.0 and later with Eric Prevoteau's PNG load/save modules [37k]; read/write

• Ghostscript [Aladdin] (Unix/X, VMS/X, OS/2, Windows 9x/NT, Windows 3.x, DOS, Mac PPC/68k, Amiga, Atari, Acorn) - version 3.51 and later (may be broken in some versions prior to 4.0); write-only; requires libpng and zlib. (PNG support by Russell Lang.)

• gif2png - see PNG Source Code and Libraries, and also The Exorcist above

• GIF Construction Set [Alchemy Mindworks] (Windows 3.x) - version 1.0d and later; read-only

• GIFConverter [Kevin Mitchell] (Macintosh) - version 2.4 and later; read/write (uses libpng and zlib) (prerelease available as of 25 Sep 96)

• gj2png [Neil Aggarwal] (Java) - any version; write-only; requires Java 1.1 or later

• GraphicConverter [Lemke Software] (Macintosh) - version 2.1.4 and later; read/write (comes in English, German and French versions)

• Graphic Workshop [Alchemy Mindworks] (DOS, Windows 3.x, Windows 9x/NT) - Windows version 1.1q and later, and DOS version 7.0f; read/write; no gamma support; shareware. (The Windows 1.1q release had a compression bug; it was fixed in all but very early copies of 1.1r. Versions up through 1.1u also wrote incorrect filter values; this was fixed by version 1.1y patchlevel 3, possibly earlier. Version 7.0f was the first and last DOS release to have PNG support.)

• GraphX Viewer [Group 42] (Windows 3.x) - version 1.51; read/write; full gamma support. (No further versions were ever released.)

• HiJaak PRO [Inset / Quarterdeck / IMSI] (Windows 9x/NT) - versions 95 and 4.0 and later; read-only. (This product was called HiJaak 95 for one[?] release, possibly equivalent to version 3.0. It was later renamed ``Pro,'' presumably after Inset was acquired by Quarterdeck, and then recapitalized ``PRO'' with its sale to IMSI. See also PC Magazine's First Looks review [95] or CNET's Just In review [Pro 4.0] for more information.)

• Icons Control 32 [Chris Doan] (Windows 9x/NT) - version 5.25(?) and later; read-only (converts to .ICO format). (Formerly known as Icons Control 95.)

• Image Alchemy [Handmade Software] (DOS, OS/2, Macintosh, Unix/Motif) - version 1.9 and later; read/write; no interlacing; grayscale broken in 1.9 beta; alpha transparency broken in 1.9 beta but claimed to be fully supported in version 1.10; full gamma and color correction? (This is primarily an image-conversion app, but the OpenLook- and Motif-based commercial versions for Sun, SGI and HP workstations also have viewing capabilities, as do the Mac and DOS versions. The versions for OS/2, Linux, BSD/OS, SCO Unix, Solaris/x86, AIX and Digital Unix only do conversions.)

• Image Arithmetic [Richard van Paasen] (Windows 3.x, Windows 9x/NT) - version 2.0 and later; read/write; shareware. (This is primarily used for combining images in various ways, but it appears to support straight image-conversion as well.)

• Image Engineer [Simon Edwards] (Amiga) - version 3.3 and later; read/write; uses the SuperView Library for reading and writing image formats (see the toolkits page); shareware

• ImageMagick convert [John Cristy] (Unix/X, VMS/X, Windows 9x/NT+X, Macintosh) - version 3.6.3 and later; read/write; full gamma support; full chromaticity support? read/write support for minimal MNGs in version 3.9.2 of 22 November 1997 and later; requires libpng and zlib

• Imagenation [Spicer] (Windows 3.x, Windows 9x/NT) - version 4.2 and later; read/write

• IrfanView32 [Skiljan Irfan] (Windows 9x/NT) - version 1.85 and later; read/write

• KeyView Pro [FTP Software / Verity] (Windows 3.x, Windows 9x/NT) - version 4.2 and later; read/write. (FTP Software sold KeyView to Verity in late 1997. See also its entry as a Netscape Navigator plug-in on the PNG-supporting browsers page.)

• LatinByrd [Stefan Schneider Software] (NeXT, NeXTStep/OpenStep 4.x for Mach) - version II and later; write-only; can quantize and dither RGBA TIFF images to RGBA-palette PNG images. (The full version of the app also converts RTF and ASCII to HTML. The image-converter part can use an image-filter application such as ToyViewer to view the intermediate results. Motorola, Intel, HP PA-RISC and SPARC versions are available.)

• Mastersoft converter - see Quick View Plus below

• NetPBM / PBMPlus - see PNG Source Code and Libraries

• PicCon [Morten Eriksen] (Amiga) - any version via a PNG DataType (see the miscellaneous apps page for a couple); read-only; shareware; 126k. (Click here if link breaks. Last updated in August 1994 for OS 2.04 [V37].)

• PixFolio [ACK Software] (Windows 3.x, Windows 9x/NT) - version 2.0 and later; read/write

• PMJPEG [PixVision Software] (OS/2) - registered version 1.9 only (never released?); read/write; no alpha support; no gamma support? shareware

• PMView [Peter Nielsen] (OS/2) - version 0.92 and later; read/write; shareware

• PNG-Box [Andreas Kleinert] (Amiga 68k/PPC) - any version; write-only; README file; uses the SuperView Library for reading and writing image formats (see the miscellaneous apps page); shareware. (This is a graphical any-to-PNG converter.)

• pngcrush [Glenn Randers-Pehrson] (DOS, Windows 9x/NT, Linux) - all versions; read/write; shareware. (This is a command-line utility to compress PNG images better--i.e., it converts PNGs into smaller PNGs. It's especially handy in conjunction with apps like Photoshop that are a bit weak when it comes to compression.)

• !Png2Spr [Tom Tanner] (Acorn RISC OS) - all versions; read-only. (This is an Acorn PNG-to-sprite converter; see also Spr2Png below.)

• png2tiff / ptot - see PNG Source Code and Libraries

• pnmtopng / ppmtopng / pngtopnm / pngtoppm - see PNG Source Code and Libraries

• PolyView [Polybytes] (Windows 9x/NT) - version 2.40(?) and later; read/write

• Quick View Plus [Inso or Jasc, depending] (Windows 3.x, Windows 9x/NT, Unix) - version 4.5 and later; read-only; uses zlib. (This is apparently the Nth-generation descendant of Mastersoft's Viewer 95. Mastersoft was acquired by Frame, which was acquired by Adobe, which renamed the viewer to Adobe File Utilities by Mastersoft before selling it to Inso in 1997, which renamed it to Quick View Plus and apparently sold part of it to Jasc in 1998. The Inso version includes a Netscape plug-in, the Unix port [Solaris, HP-UX and AIX only; requires Motif] and is intended for ``enterprise'' or government customers of 1000 seats or more; the Jasc version is intended for end-users and SOHO customers and may or may not still include the plug-in. It is not clear what happened to the Macintosh version or whether either Inso's or Jasc's version retains the ability to convert formats.)

• Riptide [Vorton] (Windows 9x/NT) - all versions; read/write

• SEA [Bart Wakkee, Ralph Gortzen, Harold de Laat] (DOS) - version 1.0 and later; read/write; shareware; claimed to be much faster than even QPV. (Now distributed by Photodex.)

• SimpleImage [Chris Wood] (Mac 68k/PPC) - all versions? read/write with QuickTime 4.0 or later; shareware.

• SmartSaver [Ulead Systems] (Windows 9x/NT) - version 3.0 and later; read/write; full alpha support, including tRNS (translucency?) in palette and truecolor images; cannot write bi-level (1-bit) PNGs. (This is a utility to tweak the compression, palettes and transparency of images; it can work as a plug-in to Photoshop et al., too. Version 3.0 is included in PhotoImpact 4.0 as well as being sold stand-alone.)

• Spr2Png [Darren Salt] (Acorn RISC OS) - all versions; write-only; full transparency support, including auto-conversion of 32-bit RGBA to 8-bit RGBA-palette if there are 256 or fewer unique pixel values (as of version 0.08); an old version was reported to produce streaks in conversions of newer (post-RPC) sprites (may be fixed in version 0.04b and later). (This is an Acorn sprite-to-PNG and [on RISC PC only] Draw-to-PNG converter; see also !Png2Spr above.)

• SViewII / SuperView [Andreas Kleinert] (Amiga) - version 5.0(?) and later; read/write; shareware. (This includes the SuperView Library for image import/export.)

• ThumbNailer [Smaller Animals Software] (Windows 9x/NT) - version 2.0 and later; read/write; full alpha support? claims full gamma support; background and text support; shareware.

• ThumbsPlus [Cerious Software] (Windows 3.x, Windows 9x/NT, Mac PPC/68k) - version 3.0 beta 3 and later; read/write as of version 3.0g; full gamma support? no interlacing or transparency support for writing, but supposedly coming in version 4.0. (This program also has the ability to make web pages of thumbnails. A final Macintosh beta is currently available; official release is supposedly ``not too long now.'')

• tiff2png - see PNG Source Code and Libraries

• ToyViewer [Takeshi Ogihara] (NeXTStep/OpenStep) - version 2.0(?) and later; read/write; partial (full?) transparency support; support for writing text comments

• Translator [John Kortink] (Acorn RISC OS) - version 8.0(?) and later; read/write; shareware. (See also John's conversion-only Creator app above.)

• Ulead Viewer [Ulead Systems] (Windows 3.x) - version 1.0 and later with UF2PNG.FIO plug-in; read/write; 1.1MB

• Ultraconv [Felix Schwarz] (Amiga PPC/68k) - version 1.6 and later (natively), or any earlier version via a PNG DataType (see the miscellaneous apps page for a couple); read/write; commercial as of version 3.0 (now Ultraconv NG).

• VidFun [Lawrence Gozum] (Windows 3.x, Windows 9x/NT) - version 1.5 and later; read/write; shareware

• Viewer 95 - see Quick View Plus above

• WebGraphics Optimizer [Plenio Software Solutions] (Windows 9x/NT) - version 2.0(?) and later; read/write; no gamma support; no control over compression level or filtering (output was 10% bigger than input on one test image); broken 2-bit support

• XV [John Bradley] (Unix/X, VMS/X) - version 3.10a and later with Alexander Lehmann and Andreas Dilger's unofficial PNG patch version 1.2d (requires libpng 0.89 or later and zlib) and Greg Roelofs' unofficial fix #2 to the unofficial patch; read/write. (XV 4.00 with full PNG support was supposed to have arrived around Christmas 1995. A Win32 port is apparently underway.)

Here are the other PNG-related pages at this site:

• Introduction to PNG features
• History of PNG
• News (and more history) of the PNG Development Group
• PNG Documentation
  • zlib Documentation
  • MNG Documentation
• PNG Programming Information:
  • PNG Source Code and Libraries
  • zlib home page
  • PNG-supporting Application Toolkits
  • PNG Support in Mozilla
• PNG-supporting Applications
  • WWW and Online Browsers
  • Image Viewers
  • Image Editors
  • Miscellaneous Applications
• PNG support in VRML browsers
• PNG Images:
  • Willem's Test Suite of PNG Icons
  • Ray-traced PNG Interlacing Demo (also GIF / JPEG version)
  • Miscellaneous Images
• Links to other PNG resources
• Back to the PNG home page
• Back to the MNG home site

Copyright © 1995-1999 Greg Roelofs.