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Saving PNGs in Photo-Paint  (View post)

Tsu [PersonRank 1]

Sunday, May 7, 2006
18 years ago5,601 views

How is that a bug? A missing feature, perhaps, but not a flaw in the programming.
Anyway, you can't even save an image with layers (or 'objects', rather) as PNG (at least not with File|Save). Which only makes sense, of course, since PNG doesn't support objects (although Fireworks would like to convince you otherwise).
When you export, rather than save, it as PNG, it flattens the image beforehand (it even notifies you of that), so naturally all object, and thus, transparency, information, is lost.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

When I only have a single layer (not even a background, only the chessboard pattern Corel displays when there's no background), and this layer includes varying levels of transparency, then I except the image to retatin that transparency when I save as PNG. GIMP does just that when I save a PNG. Many users were puzzled by Corel Photo-Paint's behavior even back in '99, as newsgroup postings show... flaw, bug or usability issue, I'd except a good program support to listen and fix these things or do some usability testing on their own...

Brinke Guthrie [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

I like MSFT's "Picture It!." Pretty basic, but always does the job. Trying to show Picasa some love, but hasn't clicked for me yet. Fiddling with the HELLO posting program now.

Tsu [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

I'm sure they did do usuability testing, but not everyone has the same logic. Personally, I never even considered that it could work that way. When you flatten an image manually, it simply makes the background whatever the current background colour is. So when the program needs to do it itself, the same should happen, no?

Machiavellean [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

So you've been corelled.

More than 10 years ago, I purchased a version of the QuattroPro spreadsheet program. I updated to new versions through 6.0. Some time after that, Corel purchased the company. Later versions always had many more bugs in them than the versions before Corel took over.

So, I've continued to use 6.0 – it does everything I need it to do (pretty simple stuff, really) and I've never run into any bugs. I have always thought that was amazing for a .0 release. (have what amounts to zerophobia, a fear of .0 releases. I try to avoid them. I'm willing to wait a while for a .1 release that corrects the bugs in the initial release, the one that introduced new functionality.

Because of the problems I experienced, I also have Corelphobia. I'm far, far too old to waste any of the precious time I have left on Earth with any Corel products. If it says Corel on the box, I just move on along and look for something else.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

> When you flatten an image manually, it
> simply makes the background whatever
> the current background colour is

Yes, once you accept the flattening what follows is a logical result... but I don't want the flattening to happen! I only have 1 layer in Corel, and this 1 layer includes transparent regions... as PNG can support the transparent regions, Corel should allow me to let it save like this. I understand that the user model is not always the program model, but the user model should overrule...

By the way, I can list many more bugs (/issues), but I don't have a workaround for all of them... Corel 11 here:
- you need to turn off color management to make colors work on saved JPGs etc.
- sometimes, combining two objects doesn't give the results as shown (e.g. layer 2 is using "Add 90%" and layer 2 is using "Normal 100%")
- There are what seem to be rounding errors when you crop an image – you can't precisely crop! (If I want to do precise pixel drawing or cropping, I go to Paintshop Pro 4.)
- Photo-Paint crashes ever so often. I'm sure every program does that, and on its own I could live with that.
- When you use the keyboard to navigation the layer merge effects box in the top right, you can't go back to "Normal" setting... even tho you moved on it, you need to click again with the mouse
- Often, copying an object fails... an older clipboard object is used, even though the area was masked, focused etc. – probably the single most annoying bug I'm seeing (I can use object duplicate as somewhat of a workaround).
- The macro recorder often skips steps so you can only use it for a limited set of functions, but I could live with that... I'm sure it's hard to program a macro recorder that does everything as expected
- Sometimes, dialog settings are memorized, sometimes not (e.g. resampling or rotation settings are lost, whereas many other dialogs are nice enough to remember your last choices)
- Entering a new brush size into the tool bar on top, using keyboard, often (always?) ignores the value even tho it's shown *until* you click increment/ decrement with the mouse
- When you save, your Undo history is lost (why? Not a bug per se, I agree)
- Sometimes, hitting delete won't work on layers, sometimes it will (with otherwise exact context, e.g. same selection, no mask etc.)

These were just off the top of my head, I don't know how many more there are.

Many things worked better in older versions (9?), as a lot of bugs were added in newer versioins! But there are also nice additions, especially smart blur. I always liked Corel's layer handling better than Photoshops (usability-wise... Corel has a more standardized interface). Oh well.

Roger Browne [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Machiavellean, I had exactly the same experience with the Ventura Publisher desktop publishing software. After Corel bought it, they brought out version after version. Each new version had shiny new features and the promise of greater stability – but each new version brought more new bugs than it fixed old bugs.

After a few years, most of their users had gone.

Alex [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Did google ever say anything about google health?

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