Special-purpose hardware that is designed for collecting images, whether the hardware is a digital camera for consumers or a more sophisticated image acquisition system for technical applications, may use a data format that is not recognized by typical image viewing or editing packages. As a result, the use of such non-standard image formats may make these images difficult to access or, if the image format is not highly compressed, it may make the storage of a large number of images on a computer hard drive impractical.
Some of the more well-known and universally accessible image formats include JPEG, GIF and BMP. These formats are viewable in virtually any image processing package, and, along with other popular formats, they are more convenient for sharing images through e-mail or over the World Wide Web than are many less well-known formats. Ideally, then, the conversion of non-standard image formats from special-purpose hardware to more popular image formats can be a tremendous help to users, both for image storage as well as for image sharing. To convert these images, however, it is necessary to use a software package that can interpret both the non-standard format and the standard format, and that can convert between these formats. The manufacturer or vendor of the hardware may offer a particular software package or tool that is capable of performing the conversion, but taking this route can turn out to be expensive and inconvenient, especially if the user has multiple pieces of equipment that use a number of different non-standard image formats.
As an alternative, a single, specialized image conversion package can be used to handle image formats from virtually any type of hardware device or other source. Image Converter Plus is one such alternative. With the ability to convert almost any type of image to the format of the user’s choice, it is possible to prepare images for storage, sharing or printing using a single, convenient software tool. Image Converter Plus also offers convenient user-friendly profile creation for fast, easy, consistent conversion of multiple images. Many profiles for various image processing and conversion tasks are available for free download from the Internet. The use of a single image conversion package can be a time-saving, space-saving and money-saving alternative to the use of a number of specific tools or programs for converting images from each type of special-purpose hardware.
Author: Jeffrey Clark