PMPro - The Universal Graphics Desktop Now Available

At the Computer '97 fair in Cologne the new version 5 of the highly awarded (see press feedback section below) Picture Manager professional (PMPro) has been presented to the public.

The german language version already could be obtained there - now the english version is available, too.

Maybe you don't know what the whole program is about ?

PMPro - the universal graphics desktop

PMPro is designed as a universal graphics tool for administration, processing and conversion of bitmapped graphics and IFF animation's. Since the graphics or animation's are displayed as miniaturised thumbnails on the screen, the user gains a complete overview over all graphics files on his hard disks, CD-ROMs, etc. and can directly access these via mouse clicks and may also export these directly to any other program like DPaint, PPaint, AdPro and so on. Integrated 24 Bit image processing functionality and intelligent image conversion into other file formats complete the package.

The following list shows the most important features:

• Recursively scans directories and Hard Drives, Bernoulli Drives, CD-ROMs, etc. for bitmap graphics and IFF animation's.
• Recognises more than 25 graphics file formats (IFF, GIF, JPEG, TIFF, MAC-Pict, BMP, PCX, TARGA, PCD, IFF-DEEP, SGI, SunRaster, YUVN and more) as well as IFF animation's (OPT5, OPT7 and Opt8). (*)
• Saves about 15 graphic file formats. Automatic conversion of graphics in any other file format possible. (*)
• Reads graphics of Kodak Photo CDs.
• Displays up to 80 thumbnails per screen page, depending on selected screenmode. Displaying of these thumbnails is possible in two sizes, in greyscales or in colours. Colour mode needs AGA-Chipset or an appropriate graphic card.
• Supports resolutions up to 1280x1024 pixel with graphic cards.
• High thumbnail-quality by dithering.
• Automatic duplication and reorganisation of image collections.
• Display-modules for AGA, ECS, Retina, Picasso II, EGS, OPAL, Merlin and CyberGraphX.
• Displaying of all graphics also possible in a window on PMPro's main screen.
• The use of external image viewers possible, individaully configurable for any graphic file format.
• Freely selectable screen mode via requester.
• Playing of IFF animation's (Opt5, Opt7 and Opt8). In low memory situations also directly from hard disk.
• Images can be exported directly to external programs like DPaint, PPaint, ADPro, ImageFX etc.
• Various cataloguing functions; not only in tables but also in graphics.
• Possibility to print any graphic with direct support of TurboPrint. Size of the copy regions may be freely selected by the user.
• Integrated 24 Bit image processing functionality, containing functions like:
  • changes in brightness and contrast
  • gamma adjustment
  • changing red, green and blue components
  • colour reduction and dithering
  • rotation and scaling
  • mirroring
  • convolution matrix filters
  • sharpness adjustment
  • edge detect effect
  • blur filter
  • emboss filter
  • mosaic and antique effects
  • conversion of graphic file formats
  • and much more
• Various searching and sorting functions
• System-conforming GUI and requesters
• In some areas, menus are freely configurable
• Freely configurable toolbars (quickmenus)
• Online Help
• and much, much more...

And here are the news of V5 in brief:

• Integrated WebWizard: This powerful tool allows automatized creation of HTML pages from a PictureManager catalog. So, now you can view PMPro catalogs with any web browser, on any platform (MAC, Unix, Win95, WinNT ...).
• Automatized Image Processing: When converting image collections, you now additionally are able to let upto 5 image processing operators automatically be applied!
• Conversion of Catalogs: PMPro5 now also includes a tool to convert catalogs to different thumbnail sizes or color depths. This way, for example a color catalog with 144x112 pixel can be changed into a grayscaled catalog with 120x96 pixel size.
• GFX-Pages: The function Extras/IFF-Pages has been extended by the function Extras/GFX-Pages. Apart from many choices for layout settings, you now also freely can select the graphics file format in which the overview pages will be saved.
• Catalog printing: When printing catalogs there are now many choices for page layout, beginning from freely selectable row and column numbers upto various text options and freely defineable bottom lines.
• Preview for Image Processing: The Image Processing functionality of PMPro now allows a simple preview before applying the correspoding image processing operator.
• Increased speed and more improvements / Extended Load, Save and Image Processing Modules
• PowerPC Support: Calculation-intensive loader and image processing routines have been redone as omptimized PowerPC code. PPC boards after the PowerUp standard are automatically recognized.

(*) the number of supported graphics file formats of course increased, too - we just listed the most important ones

Hardware requirements

Amiga with at least 3 MB RAM, OS 2.1 or greater, Hard Disk. Recommended is at least 4 MB FAST RAM; when working with 24 Bit graphics 8MB FAST memory may be necessary.

What the press had to say about Picture Manager professional V4/5

Amiga Format (1/98): Gold Award, 92 percent (V4)
Amiga Plus: Award 1996 (V4), Award 1997 (V5)
CU Amiga (1/98): over 80 percent (V4)
Amiga Informer (#10): A- rating V4)
Amiga special (2-3/98): [best rating] "sehr gut" (V5)

Where it can be obtained from

- ENGLISH version:

- GERMAN version:

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