3.3. Image Viewer and Image Processing Programs

After printing a document, one would usually want to take a look at the result on screen before sending it to the exposure device. For this purpose, there are appropriate Image Viewer Programs like:

·         ACDSee

·         IrfanView

·         Imaging

·         or – in case of emergency - Internet Explorer

and Image Processing Programs such as:

·         Adobe Photoshop

·         QuarkXPress

·         PageMaker

·         Paint Shop Pro

·         iPhoto Plus.

The difference between image viewing programs and image processing programs is that the image processing programs allow us to modify or edit pictures, while the image viewing programs only allow us to view  the images.

As already mentioned in chapter “TIFF Format ”, there are numerous file formats for image files (from JPEG to EMF and from TIFF to Bitmap). Most of these formats are also divided into sub formats grouped by for instance:

·         compression algorithm (RLE, LZW, JPEG, uncompressed, etc.)

·         color space (RGB, CMYK, Lab, etc.)

·         color depth (Black-and-white, gray scale, 24-bit-Colors, etc.).

It is not surprising that not all image viewing programs can recognize and read all the types of formats and sub formats. MS Imaging (in "Accessories package" of your Microsoft OS) for instance, reacts as below for CMYK-TIFFs:

Generally, nearly all Image Viewers and Image Processing Programs are capable of reading and displaying EXTIF pro’s output files correctly.