Comments on: Do you use PICT?

By: victoria

victoria — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 21:00:44 +0000

I use PICT FILES for a lot of my Graphic as an overlay, because they are not as big as a PSD so less space and work fast in my programs to zoom adjust photos. Can you please tell me an alternate way to get this IF PICT FILES are no longer available.

By: Ben Gurney

Ben Gurney — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 20:10:32 +0000

I use pict files all the time. I know it’s an old format but it works great in After Effects, Flash, Premiere, and Final Cut Pro. I always know it’s going to be RGB, and the file sizes are small. I am disappointed that it was removed, but I guess I need to change.

By: Destination Wedding Photography

Destination Wedding Photography — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 23:36:21 +0000

Fort Myers, Wedding and Photography offers a good mixture of direction and photography tips for beginners, and handy hints for the more experienced.

By: barnaby hall

barnaby hall — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:58:20 +0000

This discussion is WAY above my tiny head. My principal concern, as a photographer who has used Photoshop quite successfully -in a primitive analogue kind of a way for some time- is how to avoid the horrendous frustration of compatibility and unexpected change. Recently my trusty PowerBook G4 “broke” and was diagnosed with lower RAM slot failure (apparently a known issue that is currently being thrashed out by infuriated Apple clients and Apple).
I was advised to get important files out fast and buy a new laptop. Reluctantly I did this. I was assured that migration of all my previous software etc would be seamless, painless and that I would be delighted with the end result. It would be as if nothing ever happened. Hmm.
The result of this, so far, is that I am unable to use my Epson printer and photoshop CS (the first one) is not functioning at all well. I´m sure it will be resolved eventually however I am angry to find that until then my expensive new MacBook pro with Snow Leopard is only good for internet and I´m forced to use my lame old G4 to print or work in Photoshop. I have nothing against progress and change at all. BUT I don´t think one should “forced ” into it just when one has finally found a comfortable and efficient style of working.
I realize this has nothing to do with this discussion thread but I ´m venting wherever I can. Forgive me.

By: Chad

Chad — Thu, 07 May 2009 19:56:14 +0000

Hmm…I think I used the PICT format 20 years ago on a Mac Classic.
Even if it wasn’t that long ago, it seems like it. No worries here, most of the graphics I work with are for the web or Mac applications.

By: Geoff

Geoff — Tue, 05 May 2009 21:47:52 +0000

I have a lot of content in pict files backed up on CDs that I hope to someday compile into a texture and stock photo library. Please don’t make me have to buy DeBabelizer or some other obscure graphics converter tool in order to use old file formats. What’s the harm in leaving in old formats? It’s not like HD space or RAM is getting more expensive.

By: aaron breckenridge

aaron breckenridge — Tue, 05 May 2009 10:42:59 +0000

Ryan,
Wow, thanks for the tip about MS Office. Word opens these just fine, even when Apple has left the format in the dust.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Mon, 04 May 2009 20:44:32 +0000

As much as I hate to admit it, a quick search with Spotlight revealed that I used PICT in a project as recently as 2003 (just before moving from OS 9 to OS X actually). Have avoided them since OS X in favour of newer, better supported formats.
However, there are some very new PICT images on my computer — in the form of about a hundred PICT Clipart images installed with Microsoft Office 2008! Unbelievable!

By: Jamie Reid

Jamie Reid — Mon, 04 May 2009 20:08:18 +0000

A number of indie/shareware games on the Mac use PICT for textures. Some of them support any Quicktime-supported format, but some don’t.
All my intermediate work is stored as .PSDs, though, so I don’t care that much if it’s deprecated. Would be nice if there was at least a read-only PICT option.

By: Tim Buchheim

Tim Buchheim — Mon, 04 May 2009 15:48:23 +0000

I love the idea of a Colbert-style “on notice” board. :-)
Apple put PICT “on notice” years ago, when it deprecated QuickDraw. For those that don’t know, PICT is very closely tied to QuickDraw. A PICT file is essentially a list of stored QuickDraw drawing commands. Currently it’s easy for Photoshop or any other program to use PICT.. you just ask QuickDraw to replay the list of drawing commands. Creating a PICT is as simple as saying “hey QuickDraw, I’m starting a PICT”, then issuing normal QuickDraw drawing commands (eg. “draw a rectangle here”, “draw a line there”) and then letting QuickDraw know when you’re done. It spits out a PICT, ready for saving to disk.
But when QuickDraw goes away (as it has in the 64-bit runtime) then that easy way of supporting PICT goes away too. The easiest way to deal with it is to have a separate (32-bit) process do these steps, but that gets messy. And doesn’t get around the fact that Apple has been pushing developers for years and years now to stop using QuickDraw.
re Carbon/Cocoa: Cocoa and Carbon exist side-by-side. Neither is built “on top of” the other. They’re both built on top of some shared frameworks, such as Core Foundation, Core Graphics (aka Quartz), Core Audio, and so on. Current versions of Cocoa make use of a few Carbon functions (most notably for drawing menus) but that’s going away. And even the parts of Carbon used by the current version of Cocoa don’t use QuickDraw anymore. QuickDraw has been dead for years, with only its rotting corpse hanging around to keep ancient applications like Photoshop and Office running. And Apple’s recent actions (such as leaving it out of their 64-bit libraries) have finally killed it for good. (And it’s about time. While QuickDraw was wonderful back in the 80s, it just hasn’t kept up with modern demands.)
I’d go with a separate “Convert PICT to PDF” utility if people really insist on PDF support. (Or just tell people to use Preview.)

By: Colin Holgate

Colin Holgate — Mon, 04 May 2009 06:54:38 +0000

There are two type of PICT, the one that was a container for lots of vector graphics, and the one that is usually a RLE compressed bitmap. Dropping the vector graphics one would be ok, but If you drop PICT, you should also drop support for BMP.
As for use of PICT in workflow, we’ve used it a lot as a way to show a flat image of a design, that is still possible to pick colors from. Using JPEG won’t do, the colors are all changed. Using PNG would often lead to unintended premultiplied colors being present. It was possible to explain carefully how to do a Save For Web to avoid the PNG issue, but it was much easier just to say to save a flat PICT.
Now, arguably anyone with PS CS5 will have the improved PNG saving, so as long as you don’t rip out PICT support from CS4, we’ll all survive! Hopefully someone with Director 12 and PS CS5 will still be able to edit bitmap cast members without PS complaining about it being too much like a PICT.

By: Bobby

Bobby — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 05:24:19 +0000

We use pict files on a regular basis. If you were to eliminate the feature, we would be unable to deliver project needs to our vendors. We do lots of video, and it’s my job to deliver the graphics files in required formats. Please don’t do away with picts!

By: Scott Chandler

Scott Chandler — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 15:51:30 +0000

I have a number of workflows that still use PICT. Even if that were to change today, I would still have hundred of PICTs (many of them long since archived but still referenced once in a while) that would be essentially unreadable since Preview no longer opens them.

By: Adam Twardoch

Adam Twardoch — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 19:07:45 +0000

John,
I use CS4 apps to do a lot of low-level office document engineering.
PICT just like WMF or EMF are essential formats in the office world. Microsoft Office natively uses WMF and EMF while iWork uses PICT. The newest office file formats (iWork and Office 2007/2008) are ZIP archives containing XML files along with graphical resources.
In case of iWork files (such as those created in Pages), the images are often saved in PICT format. For example, if I install MathType 6 for Mac and insert a MathType equation into Pages, and then save the document as a .pages file, after unzipping the .pages file, inside the folder I will have a vector-based PICT file containing the rendering of the equation. There are situations when I would like to open that PICT file, examine it, edit it, perhaps convert it to PDF etc.
So, PICT just like EMF and WMF are essential.
Regards,
Adam Twardoch

By: Keith Humm

Keith Humm — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:12:40 +0000

We use PICTs here maybe once a month? Never write them, but reading old files is extremely handy.
It’s not a huge deal for us to run a converter, but that converter really should come with Photoshop – either as a separate utility or as part of the app.