Making themes with ThemeMakerProPT

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.pocketthemes.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=159' target='_blank'>http://www.pocketthemes.com/store/p...products_id=159</a><br /><br /></div>Enjoy making themes for the Pocket PC, but want something more advanced than Microsoft's freebie tool? Check out ThemeMakerProPT.<br /><br />"From the winner of the Best Theme Maker by PocketPC Magazine comes the latest version of ThemeMakerPT, ThemeMakerProPT! The new ThemeMakerPT Pro is for the serious PocketPC Theme Author and high end Designer! Loaded with Imaging features no other Theme making program has including: <br /> <br />• A Multi Document Interface that allows you to have as many images as you need opened to create your theme. <br />• Numerous ways to select image data and modify the selection <br />• Image Effects including, Posterize, Mosaic, Blue, Sharpen, Add Noise<br />• Fundamental Paint functions including Brush, Pen, Eraser, Fill, Gradient Fill<br />• You can now upload up to 100 themes to <a href="www.pocketthemes.com">www.pocketthemes.com</a> with the click of one button!"

[Foo Fighter]

ThemeMaker Pro is a good tool, but it has one annoying flaw. It doesn't maintain high-bit color image quality in backgrounds when building theme files. You end up with a slightly "dithered" image, which is what happened to my DELL themes I created.

I use Pocket Theme Manager from BVRP. It does an excellent job of producing high quality theme files. If the message board still supported file uploads, I could show you a side by side comparison of the two.

[KAMware]

Actually the first versions of ThemeMaker and ThemeMakerPT only saved images in 256 color and gave/gives you the option to dither it or not. But ThemeMaker, ThemeMakerPT and now ThemeMakerProPT all save the images in either 16million colors or 256! BVRP still does only 256. Try out the new ones and you will be pleased with the results.

KAMware

[Foo Fighter]

Actually the first versions of ThemeMaker and ThemeMakerPT only saved images in 256 color and gave/gives you the option to dither it or not.

No, I don't mean it saves images in 256 color. I mean that is causes visual artifacts like "dots" or "noise" in the background images.

BVRP still does only 256.

No it doesn't. It supports 16 million colors, just like Thememaker.

[KAMware]

You seem to be living in another world! Open up a tsk file from the BVRP program and put a .gif extension on each image. They open up! GIF images can only contain 256 colors or less! BVRP does not save images with 16 million colors. If it did they would say so!

You have not used any of the new ThemeMaker programs with the 16m color option or you would not be talking about dots.

Optimization for 256 color images is a way to fool the human eye into thinking there are more colors there. There are numerous ways of doing this. ThemeMakerPT has an OPTION ot dither or not to dither. If you dither the image many solid colors will have dots in them. If you choose not to dither they will not have the dots. Simple.

If you choose the 16 million color option then ther is no dithering involved.

Another problem with 256 color only images is the tend to band gradients where 16m images display all the colors. ThemeMaker in all it's versions can save the images in 16m colors thus eliminating the banding. In the Pro versions 16 million colors is the default.

BVRP has a Optimization option on their program that misleads people into thinking it saves the images in colors higher than 256! It does not.

Create a theme in BVRP with the color optimization set to it's highest value. Take the .tsk file and rename it with a .cab exension. Open the cab file and extract the tdywater.001 file. Rename it with a gif extension. Double click on it or open it with a image editor and see it has only 256 colors!

KAMware 8)

[Foo Fighter]

You seem to be living in another world!

Well someone certainly is. :P

Open up a tsk file from the BVRP program and put a .gif extension on each image. They open up! GIF images can only contain 256 colors or less!

Of course BVRP will open a GIF. All theme editors open files with a graphics extension...BMP, JPG, PNG, GIF. What does that prove?

BVRP does not save images with 16 million colors.

Oh for God sake! YES IT DOES. If you don't believe me, try it yourself. Create a new theme using a high color BMP file. Save the theme, and voilà! You have a theme with a high color background, not 256 colors.

If it did they would say so!

It does say so. Right in the editor window it gives you the option to optimize your theme for different color depths.

You have not used any of the new ThemeMaker programs with the 16m color option or you would not be talking about dots.

Well since a picture is worth a thousand words, here is clear side by side comparison to illustrate what I am talking about:

http://www.aurorawebstudio.com/compare.jpg

Open the cab file and extract the tdywater.001 file. Rename it with a gif extension. Double click on it or open it with a image editor and see it has only 256 colors!

Of course. When you save it as a GIF file, you immediately truncate the color depth to 256 colors. What does that prove?

[Foo Fighter]

Here is the original image, if you would like to try testing this yourself:

http://www.aurorawebstudio.com/dell.bmp

[Foo Fighter]

Hmm.....I think I figured out what the problem is. Apparently these "dots" appear when you crop a background image. I just tried the resize option, and now I'm not getting these visual artifacts. I wonder why TM can't tolerate cropping?

[Foo Fighter]

Another complaint I have is that ThemeMaker keeps placing a small white dot in the upper left corner of all my backgrounds.

[KAMware]

FooFighter:
Of course BVRP will open a GIF. All theme editors open files with a graphics extension...BMP, JPG, PNG, GIF. What does that prove?

I nerver said BVRP could not OPEN a gif. I said BVRP saves it's images as 256 color GIFs! Which means it does not save them in 16 million colors!

All tsk files have their two images saved with .001 and .002 extensions. To discover what type of image it was saved as you have to rename them to view them and BVRP saves them in 256 color gif images. Every time.
BVRP does not save images with 16 million colors.

FooFighter:
It does say so. Right in the editor window it gives you the option to optimize your theme for different color depths.

Where does it say 16 million!? And what does optimize mean?! It does not mean they are creating high color images to save in the theme! It still saves the images in 256 colors! Not 4096 and not 65536!

Of course. When you save it as a GIF file, you immediately truncate the color depth to 256 colors. What does that prove?

It means that BVRP saved the images as 256 colors so does not have 16m color images in the themes it makes!

The examples you displayed are correct. The ThemeMaker one was in 256 colors. The algorithm BVRP used in creating the file is different that the one in ThemeMaker. Now choose the 16Million color option in ThemeMaker and see the difference. If you are using ThemeMaker or ThemeMakerPT then click on the Color menu and click on the last menu entry to change to 16 million colors. Now when you save the theme the images will be in 16 million color jpg format.

ThemeMakerPro and ThemeMakerProPT have Toolbar and Menu options to save in either 256 or 16 million colors.

If you are satisifed with 256 color themes them please continue to enjoy BVRP. For everyone else try ThemeMakerProPT or some of the other ThemeMaker programs. I think you will find they create the best looking themes out there!