ImageGear for C and C++ on Windows v20.0 - Updated
File Formats and Compressions
User Guide > File Formats and Compressions

This section provides detailed information about the image formats and compressions that ImageGear supports.

This topic provides information about the following:

Supported Formats and Compressions

ImageGear supports the following formats and compressions in the following categories:

ImageGear also provides support for 100+ Digital Cameras.

Raster Color and Grayscale

Format Full Name Support
AFP IBM AFP RW
AFX Auto FX Photographic Edges R
AVI MS Video for Windows video clip R
BMP Microsoft Windows Bitmap RW
CLP Windows Clipboard RW
CUR Windows cursor RW
CUT Dr. Halo RW
DCRAW Digital camera RAW format R
DCX Paintbrush (Intel multi-page FAX format) RW
DIB DIB (Microsoft Windows Device Independent Bitmap) RW
DICOM DICOM (Digital Imaging & Communication in Medicine) RW
DNG Digital Negative file format R
EPS Encapsulated PostScript File RW
EXIF-JPEG Exchangeable image file format (EXIF-JPEG) RW
EXIF-TIFF Exchangeable image file format (EXIF-TIFF) RW
FlashPix FlashPix RW
GEM GEM Raster R
GIF CompuServe Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) RW
HD Photo HD Photo (Windows Media Photo) RW
Headerless Camera Raw Headerless Camera Raw Format R
HEIF High-Efficiency Image Format R
ICO ICO (Windows icon) RW
IFF Interchange File Format RW
IMG Xerox 9700 graphic image (IMG) R
IOCA IBM IOCA (Image Object Content Architecture) RW
JBIG2 JBIG2 (Bi-level Image compression) RW
JPEG JPEG File Interchange Format RW
JPEG 2000 JPEG 2000 RW
JPX JPEG 2000 Extensions RW
MAC PICT Mac PICT RW
MODCA IBM MO:DCA (Mixed Object Document Content Architecture) RW
MULTIMEDIA Multimedia, Motion Picture Expert Group (MPEG) R
NCR NCR RW
PBM Portable Bitmap File Format RW
PCD Kodak Photo CD R
PCX PC Paintbrush File Format RW
PGM Portable Graymap File Format RW
PNG Portable Network Graphics RW
PNM Portable Any-Map File Format RW
PPM Portable Pixmap File Format RW
PSB Adobe Photoshop Big RW
PSD Adobe Photoshop RW
PTOCA Presentation Text Object Content Architecture R
QuickTime QT (QuickTime movie) R
RAS Sun Raster Data Format RW
Scitex CT Scitex CT RW
SGI Silicon Graphics Image RW
TGA Truevision Targa RW
TIFF Tagged Image File Format RW
TXT (ASCII Text) TXT (ASCII Text) R
WMF WMF (Windows Metafile Format) RW
WPG WordPerfect Graphics Metafile R
XPM X PixMap RW
XPS XML Paper Specification RW
XWD X Window Dump RW

Raster Bitonal (1-Bit)

Format Full Name Support
BTR Brooktrout RW
CAL CALS Raster RW
Group 3 Group 3 (G3) RW
Group 3 2D Group 3 2D RW
Group 4 Group 4 RW
IMR IMRS-Raster image R
IMT IMNET (Medical Image Format) RW
KFX Kofax Group4 image R
LV Lazer View format R
MAC MAC (Macintosh Paint) R
MSP MS Paint R
WBMP Wireless Bit-Map RW
XBM X BitMap RW

Vector

Format Full Name Support
CGM Computer Graphics Metafile RW
DGN MicroStation Drawing RW
DWF Design Web Format RW
DWG AutoDesk AutoCAD RW
DXF AutoDesk AutoCAD RW
HPGL Hewlett Packard Graphics Language RW
PDF Adobe Portable Document Format RW
PS Adobe PS (Adobe PostScript) RW
SVG Scalable Vector Graphics RW
U3D Universal 3D RW

Compressions

Format Full Name Formats Supported
ABIC Compression IBM ABIC Compression IBM AFP, IBM IOCA, IBM MO:DCA, RAW, TIFF
ABIC_BW Compression IBM ABIC Compression IBM AFP, IBM IOCA, IBM MO:DCA, RAW, TIFF
ABIC_Gray Compression IBM ABIC Compression IBM AFP, IBM IOCA, IBM MO:DCA
ASCII Compression American Standard Code for Information Interchange PBM, PGM, PNM, PPM
CCITT Group 3 Compression CCITT Group 3 BTR, EPS, Group 3, IBM IOCA, IBM MO:DCA, IMT, LV, NCR, Adobe PDF, Adobe PS, TIFF, RAW
CCITT Group 3 2D Compression CCITT Group 3 2D BTR, EPS, Group 3 2D, IBM IOCA, IBM MO:DCA, Adobe PDF, Adobe PS, TIFF, RAW
CCITT Group 4 Compression CCITT Group 4 CAL, EPS, Group 4, IBM IOCA, IBM MO:DCA, IMR, IMT, KFX, LV, NCR, Adobe PDF, Adobe PS, TIFF, RAW
Deflate Compression Deflate Compression Adobe PDF, PNG, Adobe PS, TIFF
FPX NOCHANGE Compression FlashPix Unchanged Compression FlashPix
FPX SINCOLOR Compression FlashPix Single Color Compression FlashPix
HEVC Compression High-Efficiency Video Coding HEIF
Huffman Compression Huffman Encoding NCR, PCD, TIFF
IBM MMR Compression IBM Modified Modified Read IBM IOCA, IBM MO:DCA

JPEG Compressions

JPEG Compression

JPEG 2000 Compression JPEG 2000 Wavelet Compression JPEG 2000, JPXDICOM, Adobe PDF, Adobe PS
LZW (Lempel-Ziv-Welch) Compression Lempel-Zif-Welch (LZW) Compression GIF, Adobe PDF, Adobe PS, TIFF
Packbits Compression Packed Bits Compression Adobe PSD, TIFF
RAW Compression RAW compression (Uncompressed Binary Compression) PBM, PGM, PNM, PPM
RLE Compression  Run Length Encoding Compression BMP, CLP, CUT, DCX, DICOM, GEM, IFF, MAC, MSP, PCX, Adobe PDF, Adobe PS, RAS, SGI, TGA, WMF, WPG

Encoding vs. Compressing

These two words are often used interchangeably in discussions of graphics file formats. Encoding is actually a broad term under which compression falls. For the sake of clarity, use these terms separately with the following intended meanings:

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