PPaint always saves image as 320x200
 

Apologies if this question is in the wrong place so feel free to move it if it is.

I am using PPaint for my images and sprite sheet conversions etc. but I cannot for the life of me work out how to save my image at the correct size.

It ALWAYS saves the iff as a 320x200 image no matter what dimensions I put in the image and screen format. Some of my sprite sheets are no bigger than 304x64 and I'd like them saved at that exact size, but PPaint just refuses to do it and always just sets everything back to 320x200.

Am I missing something?

Are you pressing Enter after putting in the desired image dimensions?

No I'm just clicking "Proceed", but I can see that it switches everything back to 320x200 before the panel closes.

I tried pushing Enter there to try it out but all it did was switch the dimensions back again.

I'm genuinely at a loss.

I always thought that you need to save as brush if you want to have a special image size. It seems the smallest screen format you can set is 320x200. This would explain the behaviour you described.

Wow you are quite correct! I just tried saving as a brush .iff and it worked fine.

That's a really odd and clunky way of doing things, isn't it? I don't see why it just isn't possible in the standard image save section.

Anyway, thank you for the help everyone. It's much appreciated! :)

PPaint probably limits the min size to 320x200 to keep enough on-screen space for menus and tools. And the image can't be smaller than the screen.

I don't know if there are better ways of doing it but PPaint has an ARexx port that can automate some things. I guess save as brush in specific size should be doable without the need to "cut" the brush first. However, others may have some better hints for you.

It was pretty normal to work that way back in the day. The image couldn't be smaller than the screen because the screen was directly displaying the image's bitmap. This is why PPaint offers you the option of scaling the image to the screen size when you try to load one that doesn't match the current format. And, after you've loaded the image that's smaller than the screen, you can draw beyond the limits of the original size. So, naturally when you save it, it's going to be saving it at the screen's size.

Other packages work differently and will limit the viewable area to whatever size the loaded image is. These are generally more demanding packages however and tend to have a different focus than the likes of PPaint and DPaint, so might not suit your setup or workflow. Look at TVPaint for example (needs RTG) or ArtEffect, both of which fit the canvas to the original images size.

Another, maybe unconventional solution:

Use Brilliance 2.0, it allows all kinds of resolutions, including 160x240 (SO much fun to draw directly in this resolution - and nostalgic as well (C64 uses 160x200, similarly wide pixels)).

What I do is I use CRT TV to load up everthing, then switch to 160x240 mode (or whatever mode I want, there are SO many to choose from!), and turn off the TV just before the mode changes, and turn on my TFT monitor that's also connected to the Amiga - that way, I can use a real Amiga with TFT monitor and with authentic 'wide pixels' drawing mode.

Less work, and more beautiful result (well, it's debatable, but seeing dithering in 160x240 on CRT TV just looks so good to my eyes for some reason - I just love wide pixels).

Brilliance has everything a drawing package needs, so I don't know why anyone would want to use anything else - to me, it's even better than Deluxe Paints, since it's less bloated, more intuitive to use once you learn it, doesn't have unnecessary menus and other distractions, has multiple UNDO levels, and so much more usability when it comes to animations, different Zoom levels and everything.

And YET, it uses the same key shortcuts as DPaints do.

It's just a Brilliant software in my opinion.. (ok, small pun intended)