JPEG Saver 4.13
Published
In keeping with the last update to JPEG Saver, this new version adds some things from the to-do list that are so old that I think most people would have given up hope of them ever happening. I'm referring to the new “Mirror X” and “Mirror Y” options that are available from the Background tab.
These options work with the tiled image modes and the image copy mode, and flip alternate copies of the background image either horizontally or vertically. It can produce quite a nice effect, and made me wonder why I hadn't got around to it earlier.
The major reason why it has taken me so long to do this is that up until now the background images were always tiled from the top-left corner of the screen. This isn't a big problem for background images loaded separately, but for the image copy mode the mirrored images just looked wrong. This version fixes that, with the background images positioned so that the centre of the first tile coincides with the centre of the foreground image.
The “Desaturate” background option is new in this version too – it takes all of the colour out of the background image, leaving a grey-scale version. By using this option with the colour and alpha options you can create a sepia effect or other coloured tints. With the option unchecked, JPEG Saver behaves the way it always has before, mixing the image colours with the solid colour.
There are also some internal changes in this version that are quite important, but utterly boring. I won't go into detail, but the code that started new images loading has moved from the display threads to the main thread. While doing this I found and fixed a bug that could cause multiple screens to load images out of sequence. I suppose that's not very interesting either.
The new version is available from the downloads page.