MailFaces Help - PIcons

The PIcon Database that is used by MailFaces is made up of icons that have been contributed by many users. You may want to contribute your own PIcon either for yourself or for your organization. There are existing instructions for creating PIcons and submiting them to the database. But these instructions are mostly based on Unix utilities that are not available on the Windows platform. This section will hopefully help the Windows user create and submit their own PIcons.

There are some constraints on the images used for PIcons. Many systems only support a total of 256 colors for everything that is displayed on the monitor at any one point. So to ensure that a set of Picons will display well on systems with a limited number of colors, they are required to be converted to either a greyscale palette or a limited 32 color palette. Since they are also squeezed down to 48 by 48 pixels, a photographic image needs some processing so it does not display as collection of random colored pixels.

Creating Picons (Personal Icons) on Windows

Using Paint Shop Pro

If you have a copy of Paint Shop Pro then you can use this program for all or some of the steps.

• Open the image file
• Resize and Crop so that you have a relatively square image with your desired image or logo centered in it.
• Convert the image to the desired colormap. To do this, select Colors->Load Palette and select one of three palettes that are in the mailfaces/images directory.
  • colormap.pal
  • graymap.pal
  • darkmap.pal
• Resize the image to 48x48 using "Image->Resize"

Your first attempt to do the above will probably result in an unacceptable picon. So you are going to have to do some manipulations on the image. Here are some things that have worked for me.

• Use grayscale rather than color.
• Make the background a single light color. A good color to choose is RGB 191-191-191 which can easily be changed to a transparent color.
• After making the image 48x48 then zoom to a 4x1 size. You will then see many of the image problems as large pixels and you can use the dropper to select another color and then paint over the pixels that are badly colored.

When you finally get an image that is exactly what you want, save it as a gif file.

To submit it to the Picon User database, send a mail message to picons-users@cs.indiana.edu The subject line should contain only the e-mail address (in user@domain format) that the users picon is for (eg, "joeuser@dilbert.com"). Note that the host is the domain that this image covers not the exact address. If you have addresses "joeuser@system1.dilbert.com" and "joeuser@system2.dilbert.com" then the subject line should be "joeuser#@disbert.com" even if that is not a valid email address.

Then add the GIF image to the mail message as an attached file. This assumes that your E-Mail program supports "File attachments". If it does not, it is time to upgrade to a better email program.

Creating Picons (Personal Icons) on OS/2 using the OS/2 Image Viewer and the OS/2 Icon Editor.

• First you need the image in your system. If you do not have a scanner, you can fax the image from a fax machine to your system. OS/2 comes with FaxWorks that you will use to capture the fax image.. Be sure the fax machine is set up to a 16 gray scale otherwise will transmit the image in only two colors (black and white).
• Open the image file. Under Warp 4.0 if the multimedia is installed the images are associated with the Image Viewer, therefore clicking on the image file will open the viewer and load the image. Otherwise drag-n-drop to the Image Viewer or use any of the graphic viewers OS/2 utilities.
• Resize and Crop so that you have a relatively square image with your desired image or logo centered in it. Select part of the image with Lmouse and Edit/Crop.
• Copy the image into the clipboard: Edit/Select all/Copy.
• Resize the image: open the icon editor (in the program/utilities folder). Select New/Bitmap/Bitmap Size 48 x 48/OK. Paste the image from the clipboard into the icon editor: Edit/Paste.
• Convert the image to the desired colormap. To do this, select Palette/Open and select one of the three palettes that are in the mailfaces/images directory:
  • coloros2.pal
  • grayos2.pal
  • darkos2.pal
  Before doing this, select the correct format under Device/List. The grayos2.pal and the darkos2.pal are 16 colors palettes therefore select Independent Color Form (=VGA). The coloros2.pal is a 256 color palette therefore select 8514-(1.2 format). If this format is not in the list press Add and selected.
• Make the background transparent with color 191-191-191. Select the color then, Tools/Color Fill and spray this color as a background. This color will become transparent in the picon. This color is not in the palette distributed with MailFaces because otherwise it could be assigned to the image with unwanted results. Therefore bring the image, do all manipulation and when you are done click twice in any of the colors in the palette and when the color editor opens, type 191 in each of the three fields (RGB).
• Your first attempt to do the above will probably result in an unacceptable picon. So you are going to do some manipulation on the image. Here are some things that have worked for me.
  • Use grayscale rather than color.
  • Make the background a single light color. A good color to choose is RGB 191-191-191 which can easily be changed to a transparent color.
  • Maximize the Icon Editor. You will then see many image problems as large pixels and you can use the pen to select another color and then paint over the pixels that are badly colored. You can always check how the picon is looking by watching the "picon" window in the left upper corner.
• SAVE AS the image as a bitmap "myimage.bmp". Close icon editor. The Icon Editor will ask you to save the modified palette: answer NO.
• Bring the image using the IMAGE Viewer and SAVE AS the image as gif "myimage.gif"
• To submit it to the Picon User database, send a mail message to picons-users@cs.indiana.edu The subject line should contain only the e-mail address (in user@domain format) that the users picon is for (eg, "joeuser@dilbert.com"). Note that the host is the domain that this image covers not the exact address. If you have addresses "joeuser@system1.dilbert.com" and "joeuser@system2.dilbert.com" then the subject line should be "joeuser#@disbert.com" even if that is not a valid email address.

  Then add the GIF image to the mail message as an attached file. This assumes that your E-Mail program supports "File attachments". If it does not, it is time to upgrade to a better email program.

Credits

Palette darkos2.pal

16 palette

0 0 0
018 018 018
033 033 033
051 051 051
069 069 069
084 084 084
102 102 102
120 120 120
135 135 135
255 255 255
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
191 191 191

Palette grayos2.pal

0 0 0
018 018 018
033 033 033
051 051 051
069 069 069
084 084 084
102 102 102
120 120 120
135 135 135
153 153 153
171 171 171
186 186 186
204 204 204
222 222 222
237 237 237
255 255 255

coloros2.pal

0 0 0
210 180 140
50 205 50
0 255 255
0 255 0
245 222 179
30 144 255
230 230 250
220 220 220
178 34 34
205 133 63
135 206 235
238 130 238
190 190 190
160 82 45
47 79 79
255 0 255
255 0 0
46 139 87
160 32 240
0 0 128
255 99 71
255 255 255
255 255 0
255 215 0
112 128 144
255 250 205
255 165 0
152 251 152
0 0 255
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0

Using the PIconCreate web dialog to submit your PIcon.

As far as I know, Paint Shop Pro is the only program for Windows 95 that will easily handle the conversion of the image to a specific colormap, which is an important step in creating a PIcon. Although it is one of the best graphics program available for Win95, it does cost about $70 so we have developed an alternative that allows you to place the original image whereever it can be accessed via the Web and then have the processing and submital be handled by a web server. The web server, which runs on a Unix system, will issue the Unix commands to create a PIcon from your GIF image.

This PIconCreate web server is experimental, but you are welcome to give it a try. Please let me know if you have problems or suggestions.

Using the PIconCreate server

• Convert selected image to GIF if required.

The first thing that you need is the image or logo that you want to use. In general, what you want to start with is either a GIF image or a BMP image. If the image that you want to start with is in some other format, you will need to convert it to a GIF image using whatever image processing tools you have available.
• Crop and Resize selected image

This image should be a fairly square image with the "face" centered in it. Most image utilities have facilities to crop and resize images.
• Place image on Web or FTP server

You need to place the image somewhere where it can be accessed by either anonymous FTP or by a Web server.
• Access the PIconCreate dialog.

This dialog has Help information available to guide you thru the process.

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