What software are people using these days to make PCX graphics?

[DarkKobold]

I found a super old thread asking the same question (like, 2006 old) so I didn't want to necro-bump it. So, what is the best software for making these?

[Punch]

Photoshop is... well, decent when used in indexed mode, however it flips the order of the colors in the palette for some reason IIRC. Plus it doesn't put the colors in the 9-bit RGB color range of the PCE so some shades are flattened out by PCEAS.

edit: Arkhan uses grafx2 to draw his stuff if I recall correctly.

[ccovell]

Amiga Personal Paint (PPaint)

[ClodBuster]

Ah, the good old .PCX days. I remember that I came in touch with this format when I took in-game screenshots of a DOS-based soaring flight simulator. I think I also used it for creating custom tilesets on a Mahjong game, though I could be totally wrong with that latter guess.

However, my tool of choice for PCX back then was Corel Photopaint on Win 3.11.

About the original question, I have no idea. Sorry, my write up is essentially worthless but for me recalling memories.

[cabbage]

how about gimp, paint shop pro, or neopaint?

[cabbage]

I don't think Graphics Gale has the pcx support he's looking for

[cabbage]

or could convert directly to pce tile/sprite data and bypass huc's pcx support altogether

[Bonknuts]

Photoshop has 9bit color support. You just have to use "posterize" and use a level value of 8. That'll translate 1:1 to PCE. Though I don't use PCX files anymore. I use standard BMP format and write my own conversation utilities (which makes it easier for multi-paletted images like meta-sprites and complex BG images).

[Gredler]

Obviously my efforts had failed, but I think it's related to how my table is reversed in Photoshop so once I reorder it hopefully it will populate colors to the image correctly, having made it in Photoshop.

I haven't put the image into the tools discussed in this [http://www.pcenginefx.com/forums/index.php?topic=18777.0] thread, but I hope to do some more tests tonight trying to get a working PCX out of Photoshop after re-ordering the table using the preset manager in Photoshop (fingers crossed). I would prefer to work in Photoshop as much as possible, and export directly to PCX, or as bonknuts mentioned process the file with a secondary tool after creating a bmp in photoshop, but from the sounds of it is I am going to have to open the file in Grafx2 or similar program and fix the palette there, as photoshops "post processing" screws the order of things and I do not have the coding prowess to create a told to reorder the index of colors in an image.


Edit:
First thing I am doing is trying this tool lol: http://www.pcenginefx.com/forums/index.php?topic=16282.0

[DarkKobold]

Yeah, I'm having a real failure getting the proper palette to load from the image gredler created for me. The sprite can show up fine, but when I use the palette from it, it just shows up as a white box.

[Arkhan]

NeoPaint, PSP, and Grafx2 seem to have the best PCX support.

[elmer]

For what it's worth, I used grafx2 to create the new icons for Zeroigar and also for palette-reducing-and-matching the 24-bit level name subtitles into a 16-color shades-of-yellow palette.

It was nice to use all the familiar old dpaint tricks again.

[Gredler]

NeoPaint, PSP, and Grafx2 seem to have the best PCX support.

For what it's worth, I used grafx2 to create the new icons for Zeroigar and also for palette-reducing-and-matching the 24-bit level name subtitles into a 16-color shades-of-yellow palette.

It was nice to use all the familiar old dpaint tricks again.

Thanks for confirming and clarifying guys I appreciate you taking the time with the rookies.

Grafx2 exported the first successful pcx I've made. I am happy with Grafx2, so will probably skip over PSP and NeoPaint, but thanks for the advice if I run into a roadblock with Grax2 I can check those others for solutions.

I really enjoyed my time with Grafx2 after playing with it a bit. The interface brought my back to my childhood of Macintosh image creations software, KidPix, etc. Such a blast to mess with once I got it open.

I am unfortunately so accustomed to Photoshop at this point I am significantly faster in photoshop, so I will need to keep doing the heavy lifting in photoshop using indexed color palettes and swatches.

I did a test using photoshop to manually modify the color table, and was able to set the transparency to 0.0 (solid unused color from outside the color range I wanted), and it looked great as far as photoshop's color table view window, but when I opened the file in grafx2 (and image2pce) it showed up as reversed just as Arkhan said it would - annoying

I was able to at least fix the palette in grafx2, and got the thumbs up that the image worked as intended. I will probably keep using this workflow for more complicated images. I can control image manipulation, drawing, and color indexing in photoshop much better than anything else right now, and can get it to within a close shot of what it needs to be there, and convert using grafx2.

Now I just need more time to put into this, any advice on that?!

Thanks again, so much fun doing this

[TheOldMan]

it looked great as far as photoshop's color table view window, but when I opened the file in grafx2 (and image2pce) it showed up as reversed just as Arkhan said it would - annoying

At which point you open it in the gimp, reverse the palette, and re-save it.

[Gredler]

At which point you open it in the gimp, reverse the palette, and re-save it.

Oh glorious, a reason to finally try gimp hahah. I will try the reverse pallete trick in gimp asap and see if it works the same as the grafx2 exported fully. As nostalgic and fun it is to use grafx2, it sounds like this gimp trick would be quicker.