Change the color depth of an image

The image viewer includes a feature to change the color depth of an image. This may be useful to reduce the file size of an image. Three image color depth are supported by the application:

• True Colors with Alpha Channel (32 Bits) - Each pixel of the image is coded using 4 bytes. It creates high quality image and supports alpha channel transparency. The file size is very big.

• True Colors (32 Bits) - Each pixel of the image is coded using 3 bytes. It creates high quality image but does NOT support alpha channel transparency. The file size is big.

• Indexed colors (32 Bits) - Each pixel of the image is coded using 1 bytes. It can only display 256 colors stored in a color table (aka palette). It creates low quality image and does NOT support alpha channel transparency. The file size is small.

1. Create a File Browser window by choosing File/New/File Browser (Ctrl+Shift+O).

2. Browse your disks and select the appropriate folder in the left pane. The media files included in the folder appear in the right pane.

3. Select the file you wish to open.

4. Double click on it or choose File Browser/Open Item (Enter) or right-click on it and choose Open in the menu.

Change to True Colors with Alpha Channel

5. Select Image/Convert to True Color with Alpha. A dialog box opens.

6. This dialog permits you to create a transparent area in your image. This feature is useful to create a sprite-ready image with transparent background. To do this, you must click the Convert The Following Color To Transparent option. In the field below, select the color that you want to transform to transparent in the image. This is usually the background color of your image.

7. Click OK when done.

8. The image is converted. All the area containing the color specified have been transformed to transparent.

Change to True Colors

5. Select Image/Convert to True Color. If the image was 32 bits (with Alpha Channel), a dialog box opens.

6. This dialog permits you to specify the color you wish to use as background color.

7. Click OK when done.

8. The image is converted. All the area containing transparency have been transformed to the specified color.

Change to Indexed Colors

5. Select Image/Convert to True Color. If the image was 32 bits (with Alpha Channel), a dialog box opens.

6. This dialog permits you to specify the color you wish to use as background color.

7. Click OK when done.

8. The image is converted. All the area containing transparency have been transformed to the specified color. A color table has been associated to the image.

Undo the change

9. If you want to undo the crop operation, select  Edit/Undo (Ctrl+Z).

10. You can also redo the change by choosing Edit/Redo (Ctrl+Y).

Save the modified image

11. As the document has been changed, you'll be prompted to save it when you'll close the window. You can only save the new image to a JPEG, BMP, PNG or PSD file.