LZW compresion freeware now?

Xtreeme · November 18th, 2004, 07:47 AM

Is it free now or what. I have several programs that are freeware. And when outputting a .gif one warns that it does not use the better LZW cause of the license fees. Now I researched this and it was aimed for 2003 to expire (U.S.A) UNLESS their lawyers worked around it. I did in fact notice one 140x 18 button that was 1.85kb (GIMP) vs. 1.45kb (buttonmania app) both in same gif format but diff compresion methods I guess. Buttonmania infact is what said about the LZW license. Which brings us to the real meat and potatoes of the question. This is a German app. Is it still copyrighted there, and not here, giving reason for them to not use it?

The problem.
http://www.dogma.net/markn/articles/lzw/lzw.htm

Announces its over??
http://danbricklin.com/log/2004_06_17.htm

Seems its free now. But have to be carefull with this stuff. So Im wondering if anyone here knows for sure?
http://www.danbbs.dk/~dino/whirlgif/gifencod.html

And while on the subject of .gif what is the best compresion format? For header logo's and link buttons etc. Im looking for the smallest page size without reducing it down alot and making it plain. Arent we all though.

Xtreeme · November 18th, 2004, 08:08 AM

For those interested I found at a photography site that .png is even better compresion and lossless. I got same file down to 1.28KB.........where you can use .png that is. So far its working for me. Any downsides to doing it this way?

Emc2 · November 18th, 2004, 08:14 AM

Only downside to .png is IE6 screws up the transparencies AFAIK. Microsoft might have put out a fix for it by now though...

Talk to Oupatient. Also, look at a few of the stickies in the graphic design forum.

-Emc2

paul9 · November 18th, 2004, 08:21 AM

i believe the lzw patent expires later in europe than in the us. .png is a slightly less supported format, but becoming more popular. i think you have to use it's cousin (.mng ?? ) for animations like gif has. outpatient knows .png is much better than jpeg (it's not a lossy format) for most uses, and has written a jolly decent comparison guide. i can't remember the link, or if it is even at techimo or oic (his own site). pm him, and he'll probably be happy to point you to the guide and provide more info.

**RobRich** · November 18th, 2004, 09:20 AM

You can find information concerning the PNG format here at TechIMO:

http://www.techimo.com/articles/index.pl?photo=92

The Unisys patent expired abroad. IBM still has a LZW-related US patent until August 11, 2006, but the company has never persued any litigation concerning the GIF image format. Check the news section.

http://www.techimo.com/newsapp/index.pl?photo=10993

Robert Richmond

Xtreeme · November 18th, 2004, 11:29 AM

Great, thanks RobRich. I missed that news somehow..png it is then. I have noticed much faster load times converting all my gif's to png. And now web analyzer says it takes less then 8 seconds on 56k so thats a major difference. Only been doing this for 2 months so-forgive my newbie questions. Big learning curve. So Unisys got fudged anyhow in the end, a better alternative was born? Wasnt the png format made just due to the entire .gif patent fiasco? I mean for charging royalties while IBM actually beat them to the patent. They had it coming. Thanks again that really cleared up my qeustions about this.

Emc2- I didnt think about that. So I just checked and luckily I.E. works with it. I'll have to test netscape later aswell just to see. I use firefox myself. Most my visitors use I.E. so you had me worried for a second. I got 1257 I.E. views on my new home page that is 3 days old. That would have been very-bad. Thats alot of page views to me having a little site and being in my newbness. lol.

**RobRich** · November 18th, 2004, 11:48 AM

Internet Explorer only has problems with PNG when using transparencies. If you are simply compressing images with PNG, then you should have no problems. I use PNG graphics here at TechIMO all the time.

The PNG format underwent rapid development when Unisys decided to "enforce" is LZW compression patent on software developers producing GIF applications. The company even went as far as proclaiming anyone using GIF images would have to pay a royalty, but the threat never materialized, especially since PNG was already well into active development.

Robert Richmond

Xtreeme · November 18th, 2004, 10:15 PM

"If you are simply compressing images with PNG, then you should have no problems. I use PNG graphics here at TechIMO all the time."

Thats all I am doing is recompressing them. The ones I made I saved in bmp first....then converted to png in GIMP. Results have been very good so far. May I inquire why the TIMO logo is .gif. Is there a reason? Or is it converted from the server side? Just curious.

**RobRich** · November 19th, 2004, 09:36 AM

Quote:

May I inquire why the TIMO logo is .gif. Is there a reason?

Because the site format was designed well before I officially came on staff, not to mention Opera and Internet Explorer both had some problems with properly rendering PNG graphics back in the day.

Robert Richmond

Xtreeme · November 19th, 2004, 02:03 PM

Ah I see. Thanks.