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convert.exe 

the free conversion utility from ImageMagick


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Background Information:
  1. The image format conversion found in Project Dogwaffle is powered by the great free image manipulation utility from ImageMagick, called convert.exe, which can be found at www.imagemagick.org
  2. There appears to be a problem with converting images to PNG format with Project Dogwaffle 2.x - other formats work fine. It also works ok to Open a PNG. The only thing that fails is saving to PNG.
  3. Over the years, newer versions of convert.exe have been included.
  4. It appears that the problem with saving to PNG from PD 2.1b is fixed when using a more recent version of convert.exe than the one included in PD 2.1
Using the version of convert.exe from PD Pro 4.1:
  

Here is a version of convert.exe that is newer than the one that was included with Project Dogwaffle 2 - this is the one included with PD Pro 4.1:

convert.zip - zip file contains convert.exe

    Installation:
Save this Zip archive to the desktop, and extract the convert.exe file from it. Then go to C:\Program Files\project dogwaffle (or wherever you installed PD) and rename the existing convert.exe as a backup, for example to convert-orig.exe
Then copy the newly downloaded  version into the dogwaffle folder.



Using the Newest Version:  


You know the saying: if you want something done right, you've got to do it yourself. Perhaps you'll want to explore the ImageMagick website for yourself and learn more about convert.exe and other imaging tools they offer. It's free.

     Visit the ImageMagick websitewww.imagemagick.org

And, if you have a few bucks left in your Paypal account, why not sponsor them? 

The following page might be of particular interest to you, in conjunction with Project Dogwaffle, when looking for the latest binary distribution downloads for Windows:

There are several versions. For using it with Dogwaffle, you may want the statically linked version that is especially made for use with other applications. Look for this description:

Portable Win32 static at 16 bits-per-pixel. This distribution does not include an installer and is most useful if you want to include ImageMagick in your own application distribution


Example: On February 16, 2010, we saw this version for Windows:


We have downloaded it, and extracted the convert.exe file found in it, and made some tests that would seem indicate that this version of convert.exe can be used, if you want a more recent version than the one that came with PD Pro 4.1.

You can download this version of convert.exe here:  

convert.exe  (from ImageMagick-6.5.9-6)
built: February 15, 2010, 7:45:30 AM
size: 5.05 MB (5,300,224 bytes)  or 5,176 KB

How to deploy it: the above version is not an installer, it is the executable program which does the conversion. SImply download and save it to the desktop and then copy it to the folder where you've installed Project Dogwaffle. In that folder, you will already find a file named convert.exe. We recommend making a copy (or renaming it), before placing the new version in there, just in case it turns out that your version of Project Dogwaffle, PD Artist or PD Particles can't  use this new version of convert.exe. You can either move the original to a different folder, or simply rename it. SUch as renaming it to convert-orig.exe. After copying the new version in the folder PD folder, you might see these two versions, or just the latest copy:




We recommend that you do some tests with this new version, save a few files in Jpeg, Png, Tiff and Bmp format and view them in various image viewers to make sure it works just fine.

Note that ImageMagick includes many other tools and goes beyond the conversion tool. You can also find numerous filter effects in there. 









 


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