MTS: untitled.bmp

[Admin]

Yeah, hey.
Something that always baffled me in my use of teh intarnets, is how sometimes, seemingly randomly, every time you try to save an image from your browser window, be it JPG, GIF or PNG, it always defaults as "untitled.bmp". (Or in my case "naamloos.bmp, since I'm using a Dutch version, of course.)
This has been happening all the way since Windows 95, and has never seemingly been different up to XP.
What causes this, and how can I avoid it?

[Teflon]

I've found that savign the image ASAP usually works. If that doesn't work, refresh and try again.

[Eric]

It's a stupid bug. Clear your temporary internet files and try saving it again.

[OgtraX]

I have a theory. I dont know if it's correct but it makes some sense. When you right-click on a link to a image or a image inside a website it doesn't come up. At least not for me. But when you click on a direct link or you enter the url in the address bar it comes up as bmp. And pictures has to be decompressed to show up on screen. When they are decompressed it is the same as a bitmap. So when opening it directly you decompress it to a bitmap. Just a theory. If you find a flaw in it let me know.

[Admin]

Well, I'm sorry to say that there is a certain flaw, actually.
Unlike regular file compressing, image compressing is done by physically altering the image itself, not packing the data for it like you would a zipfile.
Any obsolete data, colors, pallette entries, and sometimes detail are removed from the file, in order to shrink the data needed to build up the image.

A Bitmap image is exactly that - a "map" showing where every single bit is placed, and what color it's supposed to be.
Due to this, it's the most accurate in detail, but takes the most space to use.
In addition, the data is stored in a "Color 1 out of a possible 25,000 colors" fashion - which is why a monochrome image saved in a 16-bit pallette still takes more space then the exact same image in a monochrome pallette.

JPG compression is mostly done by blurring images somewhat - decreasing the quality when viewed close-up, but hardly noticable when viewing the full photo.

GIF compression is mostly done by minimizing the amount of colors neccesary to build up the image.
This can be done in two ways:
-Edit the image to fit with the default pallette.
-Edit the pallette to fit the colors available in the image.

Generally, a process called "Dithering" takes place in both kinds of compression (in JPG moreso then GIF, usually), which somehow makes the image smaller - but don't ask me how that works exactly, I'm not even sure if I got everything right I typed up here so far.




....

But hey, I'll try clearing my cache. XD;

[OgtraX]

Yeah I know. But the hardware needs to decompress the image. The format hardware decompresses to equals a plain bmp. So it might be a solution microsoft to make it less intensive on old video cards. Cause loading a image with the same dimensions but in different format takes more video memory.

[NeroKid]

I thought it had something to do with how people would change filenames to remote link them off geocities
I recall personally having it happen to me when trying to save one of Darthmoogle's signatures.

[SonKnuck]

I have had the same problem for a very long time now... all the solutions posted never worked for me so I usually use Firefox to save pictures in their original format... otherwise nothing works

[Epon]

Actually, H, you're a weeee bit off.

If that was true, then what's the real difference between a 256 limited GIF or a 256 limited PNG? Depending on the picture's color arrangement and whatnot, each has it's advantages. It all has to do with algarithms:

www.icthus.net/CGI-City/articles/Can.You.Say.PNG.shtml