PNG-supporting Image Editors

Image Editors with PNG Support

The selection of PNG-supporting image editors is sparser than that of the viewers/converters, but it's coming right along. At least one other (commercial) product will have PNG support shortly (or does already? time to check its status).

As on the other PNG-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).

These are listed alphabetically, more or less:

ArtEffect [Haage & Partner Computer] (Amiga) - all versions; read/write; full alpha support.
Becasso [Sum Software] (BeOS PPC/x86) - version 1.1 and later; read/write (via the translation kit and Becasso's bundled PNG translator); full (32-bit) alpha support; no gamma support; commercial. (The PNG translator is also included in the free demo version.)
BePaint [Kevin Hendrickson] (BeOS) - all versions; read/write (via Jon Watte's BeOS datatype library and Simon Clarke's PNG handler). (This app has not been updated since January 1997 and presumably no longer works with current BeOS releases.)
Canvas [Deneba Software] (Windows 9x/NT, Mac PPC) - version 6.0 and later; read/write.
ColorWorks:WEB [SPG] (Windows 9x/NT) - version 3.0(?) and later; read/write.
CorelDRAW [Corel] (Windows 9x/NT, Mac PPC) - version 7.0 and later; read/write; read-only alpha support (only for importing bitmaps, not exporting vector images); commercial.
CorelXARA [Xara] (Windows 3.x, Windows 9x/NT) - version 1.5; read/write. (Windows 3.x support requires win32s 1.3.)
Enhance [MicroFrontier] (Mac 68k/PPC) - version 4.0 and later; read/write; no gamma support. (Enhance is a ``Photoshop-like image editor'' for Macintosh. The PNG support is still fairly basic.)
FilmFX - see Satori below
Fireworks [Macromedia] (Windows 9x/NT, Macintosh) - all versions; read/write (Fireworks' native file format, in fact); full alpha support, including good quantization to RGBA-palette mode in version 2.0; no gamma support; partial interlacing support; version 1.0 reportedly writes 1-bit images as 8-bit and includes spurious, incorrect sBIT chunk indicating 8-bit precision; commercial. (As of version 2.0, the quantization from 32-bit RGBA to 8-bit RGBA-palette appears to be perfect; Greg will do some personal testing soon. Even without that, this seems to be the best PNG-supporting image editor available as of early 1999, though The GIMP is quite close.)
FreeHand [Macromedia] (Windows 9x/NT, Mac PPC) - version 7.0 and later; read/write; full alpha support. (According to Chris Lilley: ``FreeHand has a rather nice interface when writing a PNG of a vector graphic - the amount of anti-aliasing (supersampling of pixels) and even the sampling method can be specified.'' Version 7.0 included xRes [below] and Extreme3D [miscellaneous apps page].)
FrontPage - see Image Composer below
The GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) [Spencer Kimball, Peter Mattis, and many others] (Unix/X, Windows 9x/NT, OS/2) - versions 0.54, 0.60 and 0.99.7 and later; read/write; full alpha support; gamma support, but always writes 1.0 (incorrect for most systems) as of version 1.0.2 (this was fixed in version 1.1.7 of the PNG plug-in, which has its own release schedule); no support for palette-based transparency in stock 1.0.2 (but this is also fixed in version 1.1.7 of the PNG plug-in); good text support in PNG plug-in 1.1.7 (Title, Author, Description, Copyright, Creation Time, Disclaimer, Warning, Source, and Comment keywords); uses libpng and zlib; freeware. (The GIMP is a ``free Photoshop-like image editor for X11,'' with built-in PNG support.)
HoTMetaL PRO [SoftQuad] (Windows 9x/NT) - version 3.0 (Windows 3.x) and later; read/write; commercial. This is more of a general-purpose web-page authoring tool, but as of version 3.0 it integrates image-editing features (in version 5.0, this is through the inclusion of Ulead's PhotoImpact 3.02 SE, below). See also MetalWorks below.
Illustrator [Adobe] (Windows 9x/NT, Mac PPC) - version 7.0 and later; read/write; commercial. (Version 7.0 also supported Mac 68k.)
Image Composer [Microsoft] (Windows 9x/NT) - version 1.5 and later; read/write; full alpha support; reads images with invalid filter values as if filter type were `none'; commercial. (This is part of FrontPage 98. It was formerly known as Altamira Composer and may now be superseded by PhotoDraw 2000, below.)
ImageFX [Nova Design] (Amiga) - version 2.1a and later (natively), or any version via a PNG DataType (see the miscellaneous apps page for a couple); read/write
ImageReady [Adobe] (Windows 9x/NT, Macintosh PPC) - all versions; read/write; full alpha support (possibly including palette-alpha?); commercial
ImageStudio (Amiga) - version 2.1.1 and later with ImageStudioPNG add-on [88k]; read/write; 640k + 579k
ImageStyler [Adobe] (Windows 9x/NT, Macintosh PPC) - all versions; read/write; commercial
Kai's Power Tools - see xRes below
MediaStudio Pro [Ulead Systems] (Windows 9x/NT) - version 2.0 (Windows 3.x) and later; read/write; commercial.
NetStudio [NetStudio] (Windows 9x/NT) - all versions; read/write; commercial
Paint Shop Pro [Jasc] (Windows 3.x, Windows 9x/NT) - version 3.01 and later; read/write; no gamma support; only simple (binary) transparency in version 3.x; full alpha support in version 4.0 and later (save with grayscale mask); writes unnecessarily large palettes; text support (Title, Author, Copyright, and Description keywords); uses MNG as its native ``Animation Shop'' format; commercial.
Personal Paint [Cloanto] (Amiga) - version 6.3 and later; read/write. (This was the first commercial app to ship with PNG support, in April 1995. Cloanto also made available a free PNG DataType, listed on the miscellaneous apps page, and has a commercial PNG toolkit for the Amiga, for which information is available via e-mail to info@cloanto.com .)
PhotoDraw 2000 [Microsoft] (Windows 9x/NT) - all versions; read/write; commercial. (This is part of the Office 2000 suite. It is apparently the new name for Image Composer above.)
Photogenics [Paul Nolan / Almathera / Randomize] (Amiga) - version 2.0 and later (or version 1.2 with the Photogenics PNG loader/saver, listed on the miscellaneous apps page); read/write; commercial. (Almathera went out of business in early 1997, sadly. Randomize sold off the the remaining stock of 2.0 CD-ROMs. Paul Nolan, the original programmer, demonstrated version 4.0 in early March 1999; its release is ``imminent,'' though it's not yet clear where one will be able to buy it.)
Photo>Graphics PRO [TrueSpectra] (OS/2) - version 2.0 and later; read/write. (This product has been discontinued. There is no sign of the Win32 version that was at one time in beta.)
PhotoImpact [Ulead Systems] (Windows 9x/NT) - all versions; read/write; no gamma support; reads images with invalid filter values as if filter type were `none'; commercial.
PhotoLine [CiEBV / Computerinsel] (Windows 9x/NT) - version 2.2(?) and later; read/write; may still have problems with saving alpha channels
Photonyx [Chrome Imaging] (Windows 9x/NT) - all versions; read/write; commercial
Photo-Paint [Corel] (Windows 9x/NT, Mac PPC) - version 7.0 and later; read/write; full alpha support in 8.0 and later; full 16-bit support? commercial.
Photoshop [Adobe] (Windows 3.x, Windows 9x/NT, Macintosh 68k/PPC) - version 4.0 and later; read/write; full alpha support; broken gamma and chromaticity support (gamma-writing appears to be broken in 4.0, at least when the ambient-light setting is not at `medium'; it is completely broken in 5.0--i.e., Photoshop records a value that is off by a factor of two, making images look far too dark; and gamma-reading is reportedly non-existent); relatively poor compression; doesn't save text descriptions; incapable of saving bi-level PNGs; no 16-bit support (for PNGs); commercial. See Jordan Mendelson's Photoshop PNG page for information on making alpha-channel PNGs with Photoshop 4.x. (Photoshop 3.0 for Windows is still supported via the PNGForm.8BI plug-in; the Mac version was also once supported by Infinop's plug-in [no longer available]. See also Macromedia's xRes below.)
PhotoStyler [Adobe/Aldus] (Windows 3.x) - version 2.0 and later with Ulead UF2PNG.FIO plug-in; read/write; commercial. (Also see Ulead Viewer on the image viewers page. PhotoStyler died after Adobe's acquisition of Aldus.)
PhotoXL - see Satori below
Picnic [Peder Blekken] (BeOS PPC) - all versions; read/write; freeware. (This is a Photoshop/``GIMP-like paint/image-processing program.'' PNG is the only supported output format in version 0.4. Source code will eventually be made available.)
Picture Publisher [Micrografx] (Windows 9x/NT) - version 7.0 and later; read/write. (Picture Publisher is also incorporated into Graphics Suite 2, Webtricity, and ``a few other suites published by Micrografx.'')
Satori [Spaceward Graphics] (Windows 9x/NT) - version 2.5 and later; read/write; full alpha support; full 16-bit support? commercial. (This is a high-end family of image-editing, compositing and special effects programs. PhotoXL is the scaled-down consumer version; FilmFX and FilmFX64 are the high-end professional versions targeted at the film and video industry.)
Shake [Nothing Real] (Irix/X, Windows 9x/NT) - all versions; read/write; full 16-bit support; full alpha support; partial gamma support; color correction? commercial. (This is a high-end family of compositing and image-manipulation programs, used primarily for special effects in film. Version 1.0 consisted only of command-line tools, but 2.0 added a GUI interface. Shake Render is the medium-cost, command-line-only image-processing engine [for batch processing]. Shake Lite is the stripped-down, command-line-only version, but it is still capable of displaying and converting between a large number of image formats.)
VideoStudio [Ulead Systems] (Windows 9x/NT) - version 2.0 (Windows 3.x) and later; read/write; commercial.
Visio [Visio] (Windows 3.x, Windows 9x/NT) - version 4.1 and later (a patch [1.1M] with the new PNG and JPEG filters is available for users of version 4.0); read/write; commercial. (This is a suite of applications that includes Visio Standard, Visio Technical, Visio Professional and Visio Enterprise.)
WebImage [Group 42] (Windows 3.x, Windows 9x/NT) - all versions; read/write; commercial. (Version 2.11 appears to be the final release; version 1.72 was the last for Windows 3.x.)
WebPainter [Totally Hip Software] (Mac PPC, Windows 9x/NT) - version 3.0(?) and later; read/write; commercial.
WinImages [Black Belt Systems] (Windows 9x/NT) - version R5 and later; read/write; commercial. (This is more of a special-effects and animation studio than a ``normal'' image editor.)
Xara Webster [Xara] (Windows 9x/NT) - all versions; read/write; commercial.
xart [Rick Hohensee, David Koblas, Torsten Martinsen, Greg Roelofs] (Unix/X) - all versions; read/write; no alpha support; uses libpng and zlib; freeware. This is Rick Hohensee's ``mutant spawn'' of XPaint (below), with emphasis on freehand drawing.
XPaint [David Koblas, Torsten Martinsen, Greg Roelofs] (Unix/X, OpenVMS/X) - version 2.3.1-png and later (PNG support fully integrated as of version 2.4.2); read/write; no alpha support; uses libpng and zlib; freeware. (The OpenVMS port [3.3M] for DECWindows contains both VAX and Alpha objects, but the VAX version doesn't work yet [crashes]. Full sources are also included.)
xRes [Macromedia / Fauve] (Windows 9x/NT, Mac 68k/PPC) - version 2.0 and later; read/write; full alpha support; no gamma support; commercial. (Version 2.0 was bundled with Kai's Power Tools 3.0 SE, and version 3.0 is part of FreeHand 7 above.)

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

Last modified 8 May 1999 by newt@pobox.com , you betcha.