Aren't DPaintIV files IFF?
 

I really am having a good time getting back to the tools that made my early days of computer artistry really worth while. I remember that the files were being saved as IFF format - when I try to access them with gimp (which i think reads IFF (if not I have something that does but cant remember which prog)) there is no file extension at all.

So on that thought - how would I make the bridge from Amiga to PC for my DPaint projects to be shared and used and printed?

Am I on the right track by working with the memory of the IFF format?

Or is there another way?
:confused

try irfanview to view them.

Free XNView for Windows can view, edit and save IFF files.

Xnview doesn't support actually the halfbright mode (64 colors) to convert.

I'm not sure if Amiga programs necessarily save files with file extensions automatically. It could be that you need to manually name the file *.iff

I thought GIMP could open IFF files too.

Actually these files are ILBM (InterLeaved BitMap). IFF is a framework which can store any kind of data. Pictures, animations, sound, text, settings and many more. A file which is called .iff does not necessarily need to contain a picture.

As Thomas points out, the format is actually called ILBM. GIMP doesn't read ILBM (at least not out of the box), you have to convert them first.

Which OS are you running?

Yep, good program. Get it here: http://www.irfanview.com/ and don't forget the plugins, they're needed for ILBM. Also, the program can convert multiple images in one go. Just keep in mind that it can't save ILBM files.

Iff Pro http://www.underwaredesign.com/?page=programs.IFF-Pro
allows saving. There's also a plugin for Photoshop but it's old and not so good.

I use Sview 5 to load images from deluxe paint on my windows machine

I am running Win7 32bit (I have my reasons :nuts)

Ideally I would be able to port images back into DPAint4 for editing from there.

Is it possible - ie get an ILBM handler for Gimp?

XNView works nice for viewing purposes btw

SView5 is not readily accessible for download - lots of spam dl links

There used to be a IFF (sic) plugin for GIMP, but it has been abandoned nearly a decade ago (official site, sources for 0.9.4). I don't think it has ever been compiled for windows.

Your best bet will probably using Irfanview to batch convert ILBMs to/from formats GIMP can understand.

Funny (or maybe not so funny): In contrast to the above plugin, gimp-cbmplugs, which supports various C64 formats including exotic ones like AFLI, is still actively maintained.

Perhaps http://download.cnet.com will do the trick? Or is this site bogus?

Anyway, if you just want to convert IFF images then IrfanView is a very easy way to do it. Or you could use Adpro on the Amiga and convert images to BMP (Adpro is a little slow, though, and not all versions have built in batch processing).

My IFF Loader program I wrote a few years ago loads all ILBM formats including half-brite. Its easily the most complete ILBM image viewer for win32. I never got round to introducing conversion to other formats but it was on the cards. Maybe I will come back to it one day. http://download.abime.net/utils/IFFLoader100.zip

Thanks Thorham - cnet seems to be ok :agree obviously (i would hope)

>GIMP doesn't read ILBM (at least not out of the box), you have to convert them first.

How lame, it's supposed to be the flagship open source paint package and it can't even handle IFF ILBMs! Paint Shop Pro can handle them (although V7 seems to have some bugs related to 24-bit ILBMs).

@Morbane:

You'll end up with a piece of malware on your machine called "CNet TechTracker".

Hopefully Norton has caught it - no flags up so far :banghead

It's not the kind of malware that tries to hide, it's the intrusive type (puts an icon on your desktop and nags the hell out of you, etc.). I got it when I downloaded a file from TUCOWS, but I would assume CNet does a similar thing.

A great paint package that can be used to load / edit ILBM files or read other formats and save to ILBM is ProMotion.

The current version is 6.5 and is available here:

http://www.cosmigo.com/promotion/index.php

It's not free software but it's not too expensive either and can be used to do lots and lots of other cool graphics stuff other than just converting to / from ILBM format. :)