SIGNBANK LESSONS: Adding Signs

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
January 16, 2003

Hi Bill, and Everyone!
Yes...I know about the PNG format. Thanks for mentioning that. SignBank
accepts GIFs, JPEGs, PNGs, PICTs and several other formats. The reason
I was suggesting keeping to GIFs and JPEGs is that they are
better-known, more widely used formats. But if people prefer to use PNG
then go right ahead. The great thing about SignBank is that it is built
inside a modern program...FileMaker...and the FileMaker programmers
keep FileMaker up-to-date with all these new developments...so we have
less risk of going out of date with SignBank...but SignWriter DOS only
exports to BMP, and that is my full responsibility. That is why we need
SignWriter 5.0 so badly. It is working on Mac OS X now, (with some
bugs) and on Mac OS X the signs can be printed directly to PDF without
owning Acrobat - so I tend to print SignWriter signs to PDF, then open
the PDF in Photoshop...when you do that the Photoshop PDF format gives
a very clean background too, just like the PNG...so there are a
thousand ways to work on these multiple formats!

But yes...go right ahead and use PNG - PNG 24 and PNG 8 are both
acceptable...Take a look at the attached PNGs...they drag and drop from
SignBank into any text document... Val ;-)

PNG 8 and 24...

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On Thursday, January 16, 2003, at 12:38 PM, Bill Reese wrote:

> Valerie,
>
> I have been working with a newsletter for a few years now and have 
> almost always preferred to insert the pictures in jpg format. 
> ?However, this past month, I revamped that newsletter, wanting to use 
> some neat new features in the updated program I use for that. ?I 
> wanted to do things like add drop shadows. ?However, my jpg pictures 
> were awful when trying to enhance them that way. ?I have been hearing 
> a lot about PNG files this past year, as an acceptable alternative to 
> GIF, which is a proprietary Compuserve format. ?I tried it and I love 
> the format. ?No more lossy jpg. ? A lot of my jpg files look as if 
> they have a pure white background but in reality, there are a lot of 
> pixels a fraction of a shade off. ? While this is ok for the most 
> part, it's when you want to do something with the pictures beyond 
> their initial purpose that the trouble starts.
>
> I'm trying to look down the road here and thinking of the pictures 
> being exported from signback - for whatever purpose. ?While I know you 
> are looking at Signwriting as one day not relying on pictures, perhaps 
> for the interim we can encourage creation of signs in picture formats 
> that are clean, clear and crisp.
>
> Would it be possible to store PNG formatted pictures in SignBank?
>
> Bill
>
>
> Valerie Sutton wrote:
>
> SignWriting List
> January 16, 2003
>
> ADDING SIGNS TO SIGNBANK continued....
> See the American sign for "airplane" in the attached diagram? Please 
> send me your sign for "airplane" in your Sign Language...any Sign 
> Language is welcome...I hope we will receive the German, Norwegian, 
> Swiss-German, Brazilian, Colombian, Saudi Arabian signs for 
> airplane...etc...
>
> How to do this? Type the sign for "airplane" in SignWriter DOS, export 
> it to BMP, and create a GIF or a JPEG. Then attach the single GIF or 
> JPEG to an email message and send it to the SignWriting List. With 
> your GIFs or JPEGs, I will start a separate SignBank for each country 
> with one sign - "airplane"!....
>
> When I add those signs, I will show you how I did it...slowly we can 
> build an international database this way...
>
> So I am waiting for your signs....smile...
>
> Val ;-)
>
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