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The most notable exception was ToyViewer, the cool little Jack of all trades graphics utility that I have become addicted to. Attempting to save a file with ToyViewer 4.73 in Tiger would cause the program to crash, rendering it all but useless for my purposes. In the month or so since I upgraded to Tiger the thing I have missed most is ToyViewer. Well, I really mess the simple and fast Find function from the OS 10.3 Finder too. Otherwise, Tiger has pretty much been a home run.
I haven't been completely out of luck. Amazingly, the Color It! 4.5 non-public beta I have courtesy of the good MicroFrontier folks works great in Tiger, perhaps because it is a Carbon application whose roots date back to System 7 days. I love Color It!, which is wonderfully fast and slick, and has pretty much everything I need for day to day graphics editing and conversion, butToyViewer is quicker and slicker yet for simple graphics tasks, and I really noticed how much I've come to depend on it when it wouldn't work for me in more. Another little freeware graphics application, ImageWell, helped to fill the void, and it's a very nice little piece of software, but well short of ToyViewer's power and versatility for editing, correction, and file conversion.
Happily, ToyViewer's developer, Mr.Takeshi Ogihara, has been on the case, and yesterday released ToyViewer 4.74 for Tiger. It surely is great to have it back., andthe save function now works fine again.
No version change log has been posted as yet, and the Help files still refer to version 4.73, so I'm assuming that the main change with 4. 74 is the Tiger compatibility. Which is perfectly fine with me. ToyViewer isn't perfect, but with a couple of exceptions, it would be tough to improve on. The main exception is the fact that ToyViewer's editing functions don't include a cutting tool or new document creation, although it does support a variety of amazingly sophisticated and powerful image correction, enhancement, and special effects tools, including contrast, brightness, and color correction features.. The design, interface elements, and polish of this little application puts most commercial software to shame.
ToyViewer is more than a graphics viewer, but less than a full-fledged image-editing application like Photoshop Elements or Color It!, while incorporating elements common to both. I find that ToyViewer can do 90+ percent of the stuff I routinely need to do with graphics. I keep it running all the time for production work. even when I'm already running Photoshop Elements or Color It! I find ToyViewer indispensable for quick, slick image viewing and basic editing, resizing, and file format conversions. It is also a quick and convenient PDF viewer, with the ability to display and navigate multi-page PDF documents added several months ago in the in Version 4.60 release along with a number of more advanced image editing features (see below). If just cut & paste editing were added, ToyViewer would serve about 99% of my graphics utility needs admirably.
ToyViewer was developed originally on NeXTstep and then OPENSTEP. Currently it is for Mac OS X (Cocoa). ToyViewer has an impressive array of simple (and some amazingly powerful) image editing functions, and also offers file type conversions and filter services to other applications.
ToyViewer features in a nutshell:
ToyViewer can read and display image files in following formats:
tiff, gif, bmp, png, jpg, bie(jbig), pcx, pcd, pict, pnm (ppm, pbm, or pgm), xbm, mag, SUN Rasterfile, JPEG2000(jp2, jpc, j2k), and other formats supported by Mac OS X.
Displayed images can be saved in following formats:
tiff, pdf, gif, bmp, png, jpg, jpeg2000, bie(jbig), pnm, or xbm.
Bitmap Images, Vector Images, and PICT Format. In image formats such as JPEG, GIF, or TIFF, an image consists of pixels (colored dots). Such images are called 'Bitmap images' or 'Raster images'. Most operations of ToyViewer are for bitmap images. PDF or EPS images consist of drawing information such as lines or circles andare called 'Vector images'. The quality of vector images are independent of the resolution of printer or display. ToyViewer provides a function of rasterize, that is, conversion from vector image into bitmap image. You can apply operations such as adjustment of brightness to rasterized images. However, the quality of the images depends on the resolution of printer or display.
PICT format images can have the information of both bitmap and vector, though ToyViewer basically deals with PICT images as vector images, ToyViewer can also deal with them as bitmap images. In this case, because ToyViewer automatically rasterizes the PICT image. For example, you can clip a part of the image, or you can adjust its brightness. In order to turn on/off the function, use the check button of "PICT: Deal with as a bitmap image" in "Formats" of Preferences panel. Therefore, if you want to deal with a PICT image as a bitmap image, rasterize first.
There is a Control panel to show specified page of multi-page PDF.
JPEG format can achieve high compression, however, the quality of the image is diminished. In general, high quality prevents good compression, and good compression spoils quality. This parameter of JPEG can be set by the save panel.
JPG is recommended to apply to continuous color or monochrome 8bit images. Applying to other images, especially B/W images, will bring not only worse quality of images but also larger file size. You can save images in interlaced(progressive) format. In case that an image in this format is displayed on a Web page, its outline is displayed faster even if the speed of the net is slow. But, compression ratio is slightly worse.
When you save an image in tiff, you can select either no compression or LZW compression. As LZW is a lossless compression, the quality of the image is not spoiled. In some tiff images, color is represented with CMYK instead of RGB. ToyViewer can convert CMYK into RGB using "Operation / CMYK->RGB", but it takes a long time with current implementation.
In the JPEG2000 format, like JPEG, high quality prevents good compression, and good compression spoils quality. In JPEG2000, you can save images without loss of the original data (lossless compression). JPEG2000 is recommended to apply to continuous color or monochrome 8bit images. In lossless compression, JPEG2000 provides better compression ratio than PNG. In lossy compression, even if compression ratio is relatively high, artificial noise is inconspicuous comparing with JPG.
ToyViewer can attach a custom icon to any file as well as a newly saved image file, read and write gif or png files with transparent color, and also can read and write interlaced(progressive) gif, png, or jpg files.
ToyViewer can scan (auto-display) image files in a folder. You can also display images in full-screen size.
Displayed images can be scaled (enlarge/shrink). You can rotate, flip, or clip images.
ToyViewer has the ability to fix the balance of colors automatically. You can also adjust brightness, contrast, color tone of images, and replace specified color with another color or transparent color. Full color images can be reduced into 256, 64, or 8 colors. Also, each color value of images can be cut down to 4, 2, or 1 bit. ToyViewer can make images monochrome (8bit gray, 2bit gray, or bilevel)
If the "Auto Fix" button is clicked, ToyViewer examines the balance of the brightness of the image, and sets the sliders of brightness, contrast, and gamma. Clicking "Brightness" button, you can make a new image. However, Auto fix does not always function satisfactorily. If newly displayed image does not appear pleasing to the eye, you should adjust the sliders manually.
If a part of image is selected, ToyViewer refers to only the inside (or outside) of the selection. Auto fix ignores the brightest part and the darkest part of the image. Slider "Auto Fix Range" specifies the percentage of the part which is not ignored.
For each element of RGB, you can adjust brightness (strength), contrast, and gamma. This operation can not be applied to vector images (e.g. PDF). In order to tune the color balance, using mainly gamma sliders is recommended. Smaller gamma value makes the corresponding color richer. Moreover, if the original color balance doesn't need correction, you can use the Auto fix function of the Brightness panel instead.
You can also tune color tone (saturation and hue) of images. If you click "Effect / Enhance Color Tone..." of the menu a panel is displayed, on which you can set the degree of enhancement. Large values of "Saturation" make images brilliant. You can also control the hue of images. This operation can not be applied to vector images (e.g. PDF).
You can replace specified color in the image with the other color. If you click "Effect / Replace Colors..." of the menu a panel is displayed, on which you can set replaced colors with the color-wells. The degree of exactness in comparison of colors is set by the slider. If an area is selected by dragging, this operation will be applied to only inside or outside of the area. You can replace specified color with another color or transparent color.
ToyViewer supports some typical operations to images, such as enhancement, mosaic, embossing, and such.
Full color images can be reduced into 256, 64, or 8 colors. Also, each color value of images can be cut down to 4, 2, or 1 bit. ToyViewer can make images monochrome (8bit gray, 2bit gray, or bilevel).
Images can be printed. An image is automatically shrunk to be printed on a sheet, or divided into some pages.
You can set ToyViewer to display any image format if there is a filter program to ppm format.
ToyViewer provides image conversion filter services for other applications.
You can soft frame an image.
You can add comments to images (comments are written into only gif, png, jpg, or pnm formats).
You can make Aqua-button-like images.
If you like a displayed image, you can make it the Desktop picture (wallpaper) of your Mac.
System requirements:
• Mac OS X 10.4 or higher (Version 4.73 is for Mac OS X 10.1 (Puma), 10.2 (Jaguar) and Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther)
ToyViewer is freeware
For more information, visit:
http://waltz.cs.kobe-u.ac.jp/OSX/toyv-eng.html
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