Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!apple!netcom!barry From: barry@netcom.UUCP (Kenn Barry) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: GIF viewing again and again (long but informative!) Keywords: GIF, graphics, IFF, conversion Message-ID: <12896@netcom.UUCP> Date: 30 Aug 90 06:23:21 GMT References: <5338@harrier.ukc.ac.uk> <1990Aug23.045556.17590@uokmax.uucp> Organization: QQQCLC Lines: 50 In article eric@emerald.rutgers.edu (Eric Lavitsky) writes: >In article <1990Aug23.045556.17590@uokmax.uucp> drtiller@uokmax.uucp (Donald Richard Tillery Jr) writes: >> There are two commercial products which will allow decent GIF-IFF conversion >> but I've only had experience with one of them (I just read about the >> other one moments ago and at a list price of $199 I didn't really >> care what it was called). > >Well I care since you're probably talking about my product, ImageLink. >If you are looking for an image file conversion package, ImageLink is >competitively priced if you require support for a wide variety of >image formats (right out of the box). I don't think you realize how >much effort is involved in supporting all these formats, especially >when many of the more popular ones (PICT2 for example) are so horridly >documented. PBM supports about 3 times as many formats as ImageLink, and it's free. And it has all the other bells and whistles, too (scaling, color reduction, much more). >I think you're a little too price sensitive (if you don't want flames, >don't go calling products "rip-offs"). To get color separation >capabilities on any other micro platform would run you into the >hundreds of dollars. Being less familiar with other micros, I can't say you're wrong for a fact, but I do say this is an Amiga newsgroup. You can get PixMate for fifty bucks, and it is a full image processing package, with color separations just one minor feature. FBM, which is free, doesn't list color separation as a feature in the docs, but will do them (I've done 'em with FBM). For that matter, color separation is so simple that I could crank out a program to do it in an evening, and graphics programming on the Amiga is just a casual hobby for me. I won't call your program a ripoff, Eric. I'm willing to let the market make that determination. I will say that, when I saw your program in a store, I took it from the shelf, checked the features listed on the box, looked at the price, snorted, and put it back. I suppose some folks buy it, though I can't imagine why. I'm sure you worked hard on the program, that it probably works well, and you are free to charge whatever you think appropriate. But customers don't pay for effort, they pay for utility, and in the Amiga market, the same functionality can be had from PD and shareware. I can't think of a single function it performs that can't be had for free using PBM, or FBM, or RGBExchange (OK, that one's shareware), or one of the many other PD and shareware graphics utilities available on the Amiga. Can you? - From the Crow's Nest - Kenn Barry ---------------------------------------------------------------- ELECTRIC AVENUE: apple!netcom!barry