This is a list of questions that users have asked most often:
- What is Steganography?
- Why is it that when i create JPEG thumbnails I get a relatively large file size even though i use JPEG compression? (e.g. 20KB for a 100x100 thumbnail)
- Does Pictricity support any other file formats?
- Why don't my output images have transparent/alpha-blended areas even though its specified in the process list?
- Why don't my JPEG out files support transparency/alpha-blending?
- What is EXIF data and why don't my images have it?
- The watermarking process supports blending but does it support transparency?
- "Help! My hidden data will not decrypt properly eventhough i used the correct password"
- "Help! I have forgotten my decryption password"
1. "Steganography is the art of concealing the existence of information within seemingly innocuous carriers. Steganography can be viewed as akin to cryptography. Both have been used throughout recorded history as means to protect information. At times these two technologies seem to converge while the objectives of the two differ. Cryptographic techniques "scramble" messages so if intercepted, the messages cannot be understood. Steganography, in an essence, "camouflages" a message to hide its existence and make it seem "invisible" thus concealing the fact that a message is being sent altogether. An encrypted message may draw suspicion while an invisible message will not [JDJ01]." - Neil F. Johnson, Center for Secure Information Systems, George Mason University (Steganography Web Page)
2. Some images contain a small version or thumbnail of itself for quicker previewing. For example, to save power, most cameras encode a small version of the photo into the full size version so that when you are browsing through your list of photos on your camera, it only has to read this small amount of data in order to display a preview rather thatn the full size version. Pictricity preserves this data (With some conditions). There may also be some EXIF data contained within the image file. You need to add the "Remove Metadata" process to the end of your process list. This strips out all EXIF and internal thumbnail data.
3. It supports other formats aside from the standard input output formats but only on a sigle image by image basis. That is, for example, to create a PDF file from your preview image (The image visible in Pictricity) you need to click "File -> Save Current Image..." or press Ctrl+I. Select the output format and click Save.
4. There are usually 2 reasons for this:
1. The output format does not support alpha-blending. (Only PNG, PSD, GIF support alpha blending or transparency.)
2. When viewing your output images you should use a viewer capable of displaying alpha-blending. Try Firefox web browser or The Gimp (free alternative to Adobe® Photoshop™)
5. The JPEG file format does not support alpha-blending or transparency. Only PNG, PSD, GIF support alpha blending or transparency.
6. Exif stands for "Exchangeable image file format" and is a specification for the image file format used by digital cameras. You can read more about it here.
7. You can achieve clean transparency by creating your own watermark image image and using a black background for it. When inserting the watermark, for the blend mode chose "MAX (Lighten)" as the filter and leave the Opacity at maximum.
8. Ensure you select the correct combination of password, decryption cipher and hashing algorithm. Without this you cannot recover your encrypted data!
9. There are no decryption backdoors so without the decryption password you cannot recover your data!
Power & Flexibility
Use Pictricity for batch watermarking, optimizing, resizing etc. your images, or just for file format conversion to and from jpg, gif, bmp, png, tga, psd or tif.
Image Tagging
Want to date stamp your photos for posterity but forget when any of them were taken? No problem.
If your image has the Exif data (most digital cameras put this in their photos) you can
draw Exif data values, such as date, time, camera model etc. onto the photo files, all with a few clicks of the mouse.
Themes
Pictricity's has several preconfigured themes
Discount License Packs
Contact us about availing of deep discounts on license purchases of 5 or more. Including a site license.