PMV 3.30 build 23853
Tested under both 'doze & OS/2 (same build)

I scan to a largish (~18MiB) TIFF file. Sometimes I move things around on the image (like moving the page number up on a scanned page, if there's a lot of white space).

The first time I cut (draw bounding box, <Ctrl+X>), the resulting background where the cut took place is white.

If I do another cut (somewhere else) on the same image, the cut area is now black. As are all subsequent cuts.

Actually, now that I've tried a bit more testing, it's not that consistent.

If I scan and then crop (not cut first), the above is what I see, and this is what I do a lot of, so I never checked further. But with some images, if I cut first and crop later, the cut area is black right from the start. But if I crop first, cut later, white then black on the 2nd cut.

I do have undo enabled.

If I can provide more info, let me know.

Hi Al,

Is your system display only set to 256 colors? If so, see the help file for the "Preserve Color Depth" option under the Edit menu. Turning this option off should correct the issue.

--
Thanks,
Brandon

Help->System Info:
===========================================
Application
Product name : PMView Pro for OS/2
Version : 3.30
Build : 23853
Graphics
Screen size : 1152x864 pixels
Bit depth : 32 bits
Plane count : 1 plane
Number of colors : 16777216 colors
Palette manager : No
Raster caps : 0075
Screen
Physical size : 283x212 mm
Resolution : 103x104 dpi
Processor & memory
Number of CPUs : 1
CPU family : 6
CPU model : 4
CPU stepping : 2
Page size : 4096 bytes
Physical RAM : 1024 MB
Virtual address limit: 2048 MB
High memory support : Yes
Operating system
Operating system : OS/2 Warp
Version : 4.5
Build : 14.103
Boot drive : E: HPFS
===========================================

Also, this behaviour is exhibited on a different box entirely that runs 'doze98SE.

Let me know if I can provide any other help. I could do screenshots too.

Hi Al,

Is the image all B&W? Are you saving the image between cuts/crops? If you have a smaller image that you can repeat this on, please send that along with a single step-by-step to repeat the issue to bugs (at) pmview (dot) com

--
Brandon

Greyscale
No.


Can I post it here first?

Test image, 400k

Steps to reproduce:

• Open PMV
• FOC->Open test image
• Set tool for Selection tool (or whatever it's called)
• Crop image (any size crop: some crop operation must be performed) (I use <Alt+X>)
• Select a small area and cut it (I use <Ctrl+X>). The cut area will display (and save) White.
  • Any number of subsequent cuts can be made, and the cut areas will be White
• Paste (I use <Ctrl+V>)
• Again, select a small area and cut it. The cut area will display (and save) Black.
  • Any number of subsequent cuts can be made, and the cut areas will be Black

If the image is saved at any point, the color of the cut area displayed will be saved, whether black or white; that implies it is not just a display driver artifact.

The same behaviour is seen on both 'doze & OS/2 versions of PMV 3.30 build 23853

I have some JPEG images for which the above steps do not work: for those images, the cut area is always Black.

Please post if I can provide any additional information.

One of the confusing aspects of PMV's support is the multiple channels it can take. The Betas list. Private email. Public forum.

To aid others who may run into a similar situation as mine, I am posting the "answer", as received via email from Peter. Posting publicly allows others to search, and maybe even find, information about this in future.

======================================
Re: Cut area color variation (before and after Paste)

Thanks for the image. I can repeat the scenario here. I am glad to tell
you that it is not a bug.

The image is 256 colors, and hence opens in color mapped mode (8 bit color
map). The background color for color mapped images is 0, and is white in
this image. Doing cuts will fill the area with index 0 (white). For color
mapped images, the background color has to be one of the indexed colors.
This means that if the image only has shades of red and blue, the color
used for filling a cut will be a shade of red or blue - the color at
index 0. It cannot be anything else, since PMView is limited to using one of
the colors in the color map. To keep things consistent, PMView always uses
index 0. (PMView *could* of course try to search for the color closest to
black, but this could lead to very inconsistent and confusing results).

When pasting into a color mapped image, the resulting image will
always be deep color. In deep color mode all colors are available, and PMView
always fills with black.

So, in your case you first cut in 256 color mode and the area cut out
gets the background of index 0 (which happens to be white for this image. Like
I said, it can be any color, depending on what is on index 0). When you
paste, the image is converted into deep color and now if you cut out an
area, it will be filled with black.

Working with color mapped images can be very confusing. I would recommend
that you always convert to deep color before starting to edit.
Alternatively, you could convert back to 256 color immediately after
doing any operation that switches to deep color. (For instance any
interpolation, e.g. resize or rotate, will also convert to deep color).

Hope this helps to explain what's happening.
================================================

Hello, Peter:

Thanks for taking the time for your detailed explanation, which I understand.

> Alternatively, you could convert back to 256 color immediately after
> doing any operation that switches to deep color.

This is probably what I will do, now that I know that a Paste operation triggers a switch to Deep Color. I see another keyboard shortcut definition in my future

> (For instance any interpolation, e.g. resize or rotate, will also convert to deep
> color).

Hmmm. I do a LOT of resizing, cropping, and rotating. So much so that I have keyboard shortcuts set up for resize and rotate at 90°, 180°, 270°.

Just checked, and rotating and resizing doesn't _appear_ to trigger a mode change to Deep Color: the image's status bar says the image is still 254 Grays" after a resize or rotate, even if the rotate is at an Arbitrary Angle.

But Paste definitely does.