OT: PNG images

[garyu69]

I'm wanting to learn about PNG images and how they work etc and what programs you use to make them.

I am wanting to create one to show current song playing in Winamp as i've seen it done but i am not sure where to start looking for info.

Can anyone help?

[athon]

PNG is kind of the new GIF, but better. GIF has some patent issues, so PNG was created to make sure they never cause a problem. PNGs are not currently fully supported by IE6 (particularly the transparency feature), so at the current time I would advise continuing with JPG and GIF.

An image containing dynamic information can easily be created with the gd library and a scripting language like PHP or Perl.

Athon Solo

[subsys]

if i remember rightly PNG is the native format for photshop.

it always wants to save in png format over jpg/gif anyway.

[Duder]

Look here for some basic info (http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/pngintro.html)
Image Editors that support png format (http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/pngaped.html)
More stuff to read if youre really patient (http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/book/preface.html)

I suggest using Macromedia Fireworks or Adobe Photoshop 7.0 or the new 8.0 version, lovingly called Photoshop CS.

Fireworks loves the .png, Photoshop always wants you to save it in .psd format...