ThumbsPlus Pro now supports 16 bit per channel images: loading, viewing, editing and saving. The following functions work with 16-bit grayscale and 48-bit color images:

• Adjust Colors
• Color Depth
• Color Balance
• Color Profile
• Swap Red & Blue
• Invert Colors
• Histogram
• Remove Red-eye
• Image Stamp
• Combine
• Compare
• Filters
• Processes
• Resize
• Rotate
• Rotate to Line
• Turn & Mirror
• Trim
• Autocrop
• Crop/Add Borders
• Cut, Copy and Paste

Replace Color does not currently work on 16- or 48-bit images, but we plan to fix that before release.

ThumbsPlus can now handle and view alpha channels in 24-bit and 48-bit images. Alpha channels will be loaded and saved to TGA, PNG and TIF files. You can use the View | Channels menu to select which channels to display.

A new View Bar is available, which displays three tabs:

• Channels - Displays information about the image data, including channels displayed, position, RGB value at cursor, channel and intensity histograms, and an image map, indicating the portion of the image currently displayed and the current selection.
• Info - Same as the Info tab in the main window.
• Comments - Image comments.

Image rotation and resize are significantly faster, and bi-cubic is now available as an interpolation option for rotation.

Edit | Create Alpha Channel will create an alpha channel from the current selection.

Edit | Selection Mode allows you to select between rectangular, elliptical or freehand selection styles.

A new View | Preferences tab, Editing, is available where you can set various editing options.

A full Gaussian Blur filter is now available, which will blur to any specific pixel radius.

Beta 2:

You can now select a default color profile (ThumbsPlus previously used sRGB) for viewing images. The selected profile will be used for images that do not have a color profile. Options | Viewing | Color Management

A new fly-out menu is available Image | Mode for quickly switching between image modes (24-bit, 48-bit, 8-bit gray, 16-bit gray).

A new menu selection on the main menu, Edit | Paste Screen Shot will paste an image and convert it from monitor color space to the current working space.

The channels histogram (Image | Histogram) has been updated to look more like the view bar histogram and Photoshop CS.

Beta 4:

The operation previews for Filter, Color Depth, Save JPEG Options and Save Jpeg2000 Options have been greatly improved, to allow various zoom levels and switching between the original and the changed or saved image.

Beta 6:

The toolbar and menus have been revamped, and there are many additional toolbar buttons available.

File Formats - New and Updated

The following image formats will be loaded as 48-bit color (or 16-bit grayscale if appropriate):

• TIFF
• PSD
• DCR
• DCS
• PNG
• RAW
• Images loaded using Photoshop plug-ins
• Images loaded using new Cerious plug-ins
• Scanned images (TWAIN)
• Olympus Confocal TIFF

A new digital cameral raw plug-in (plug_digicam.tpp) is available and in beta also, and file types loaded by this filter will be loaded as 48-bit.

The ORF and MRW formats are now supported by the new camera plug-in (plug_digicam.tpp) rather than directly in ThumbsPlus.

16-bit grayscale and 48-bit color images can be saved as PNG, TIFF or JPEG2000 files.

Beta 2:

JPEG2000 now uses the PolyImagePro library from PolyBytes. Be sure "Load Using" is set to "PolyImage." 16-bit grayscale and 48-bit color images are supported.

You can select a default color profile for loading CMYK TIFF and PSD files that do not contain an embedded profile. (Options | Viewing | Color Management)

Beta 4:

ThumbsPlus now stores and recognizes EXIF and IPTC information in JPEG2000 files, and will now store EXIF info in TIFF files. (IPTC was already available in TIFF files.)

The latest Kodak libraries are available in the tp_kodak.exe download (see the Beta Notes above).

The latest version of PolyimagePro is included for JPEG2000 and digital camera support.

Beta 6:

A new EXIF option, "Rotate based on EXIF orientation" is used for JPEG and TIFF files. (Previously, JPEG files were not rotated based on EXIF orientation, and TIFF files were. This option controls both.)

AOL .art files are now supported. Internet Explorer 5.0 or later must be installed for this to work properly.

Thumbnail Creation and Storage

When ThumbsPlus makes thumbnails, it now calculates an MD5 digest of the entire file and stores this in the database. You may view and sort by the MD5 digest (Options | Show for Files, Options | Sort By). You can limit the file size for which MD5 digests are computed using Options | Preferences | Thumbnails. You can also display the MD5 digest in the Info Tab. The MD5 digest is stored in binary format in the database (in the metric3 field). If you need a text value -- for example, if you're accessing the database from another application -- you can can create a user field with the name "MD5" and ThumbsPlus will store it as text. The MD5 digest can be displayed or printed anywhere that File Info is available (contact sheets, catalogs, the Info tab, web pages, etc.).

Note that you must regenerate thumbnails for MD5 digests to be computed.

You can display the database thumbnail ID (unique for each thumbnail in the database) on the Info tab.

When sorting by Similarity (or right-click | Show Similar), ThumbsPlus will show an equals sign (=) on images whose metrics match the prior image exactly.

When sorting by MD5 digest, ThumbsPlus will show an equals sign (=) on files whose MD5 matches the previous file exactly. (This is almost guaranteed to mean the the files are identical, as long as the thumbnails are up-to-date.)

Many additional third-party client/server databases are supported, including DB2, MySQL, Postgres, and Pervasive. We're still working on Oracle support; there is a major bug in Oracle's handling of zero-length strings that may require significant source code changes. No other database we've tested with has this bug. (Oracle stores zero-length strings as NULL column values). Oracle does work properly except for files in the root folders of disks.

For people using multiple databases, a "Recent Databases" history is available from File | Database | Recent Databases.

File | Database | Export and Import have been improved to include volume aliases. For import into earlier databases, you must select the proper compatibility field when exporting.

Other new features

The File | Properties display is now resizable and will go backward and forward through all files in the folder (if one is selected), or through selected files (if multiple files are selected).

Beta 2:

Options | Preferences has a new tab, Privacy, which you can use to control the items stored in the INI and TDO files.

The Tasks tab in the main window now shows the number of running and waiting background tasks on the tab itself. If a task reports errors, the icon will change to a red exclamation point.

The Parent folder and Favorites buttons on the Location Bar are now more obviously buttons.

Editing IPTC info from the main window (File | Edit IPC Info...) will now retain the original file dates if the option is selected in Options | Preferences | General (Retain original date/time...).

Options | Email will now locate MAPI e-mail clients installed for the current user only (rather than system-wide).

A new option is available in Options | Viewing | Other to reverse the zoom in/out direction when using the mouse wheel to zoom.

After moving files, ThumbsPlus was not selecting the next file in the list.

A option was added to Thumbnail | Remove Orphans for removing orphans in the current folder only.

Thumbnails of images with transparency (alpha channels) are now rendered on a white background. I'm thinking about making this configurable, but that will affect similarity matching. Your input is welcome.

A new option is available to select all orphaned thumbnails in the current display (Edit | Select by | Orphans).

You can now select Options | Sort by | Similarity as a secondary sort order (hold CTRL while selecting it). Note that sorting by similarity always changes the sort to ascending, since "descending similarity" is essentially meaningless.

The File | Properties | Info tab remembers the last selection (EXIF, IPTC, etc.) when changing images.

Beta 4:

You can now set up file types as "linked" to other file types, so that copying, moving, deleting or renaming the "master" type will automatically do so for the linked types. Use Options | Preferences | File Types to locate the type and defined linked extensions. By default, .CRW and .MRW files are linked to .THM files.

The edit background color can be defined differently from the view window background color (Options | Viewing | Editing), and there is an option to use white for bi-level images.

Options | Preferences | File Types now includes an option for whether ThumbsPlus should attempt to resolve Windows shortcuts to files.

Image | Batch Process now handles parent directory specifications; i.e., "..\processed".

Beta 6:

The toolbar and menus have been revamped, and there are many additional toolbar buttons available.

The last E-mail settings are now saved.

"My pictures" is now available as a tab in the folder tree.

Batch processing, contact sheets, and catalogs can now process gallery trees.

Maximum JPEG Q factor for thumbnails is now 96, and 1:1 subsampling (none) is used for Q factors >= 88.

JPEG quality and sampling can be automatically stored as user fields in the database; the names of the fields are "Jpeg Quality" and "Jpeg Sampling".

Bugs Squashed

This is a partial list! If your favorite bug isn't listed, please let us know.

A crash related to the storage of EXIF information in some new Canon camera JPEG files has been eliminated.

The EXIF "Artist" field is now displayed.

"Find Files" criteria are now stored in the database, which eliminates the inconsistency of the criteria being stored in a file, while the results were stored in a particular database.

Some inconsistencies between display and entry for regionalized numbers have been fixed (e.g.., when the decimal separator is not a period).

Line spacing of zero (0) for catalogs and contact sheets will be remembered.

In Catalogs and Contact Sheets, output of the current folder using the "\f" token was working as designed, but not as expected. It only worked when certain other options were set. This has been corrected.

When loading multi-page files with an indeterminate number of pages via a plug-in (for example, PS and PDF files), ThumbsPlus would hang when attempting to print.

Stamped text could be truncated if the text included an ampersand (&) character.

Some calculation bugs in Edit | Figure Area were corrected.

Under some conditions Web Page Wizard output files would not be lower case even when the option was selected. (This occured if the destination file already existed with mixed cased; Windows was not properly renaming the destination.)

When selecting "Finish" in the Web Page Wizard, the options from the current tab were sometimes not used.

Generating hundreds of pages using the Web Page Wizard would sometimes cause a crash.

When linking to a Javascript pop-up window in the Web Page Wizard, the link cursor would not be shown on some browsers.

Some minor problems in the HTML generated by the Web Page Wizard were corrected.

Some non-YCC JPEGs would load with red and blue channels reversed.

Beta 2:

Fixed a crash when trying to add or edit a Color Depth step in Batch Process.

The tabs in the File | Properties window now have accelerators (Alt+1, etc.) for quick keyboard access, and some issues using the TAB key have been resolved, including Ctrl+TAB to switch tabs.

The PSNR (Peak Signal-to-noise ratio) calculation has been fixed for 16 and 48-bit images in Image | Compare

Many Nikon-specific EXIF fields now display properly.

In Edit | Find by Query, the Current Folder was not set correctly in Beta 1.

Some image rotate and resize operations were clearing the image resolution (DPI) in beta 1.

A bug in the histogram display was preventing the display of fully white (intensity) or fully saturated (channels) pixels.

The preview was not being properly updated in the Image | Select Filter dialog.

If Options | Viewing | Window - Initial Position were set to "Centered," when viewing the next or previous image, it would not be properly centered and could overlap the task bar.

Some channel options were accidentally disabled for 48-bit images.

Using a single view bar for all image (globally) on Windows 98 would cause a crash.

The option to make a thumbnail from the clipboard was accidentally grayed out for files on offline volumes.

ThumbsPlus SP1 Beta 1 was saving the current folder and folder history to the INI files whenever you changed folders. This could cause a delay on systems where the INI or TDO were on a network drive.

If ThumbsPlus crashes on Windows XP, you should no longer be asked if you want to send a report to Microsoft.

Some JPEG files from Canon 1DS cameras would cause a crash.

Several minor aesthetic fixes and improvements.

Beta 3:

Corrected a memory allocation problem that could cause strange errors or crashes, including "Case 4" errors when loading JPEGs and random crashes after image modification.

Corrected a problem that could cause a crash when a global View Bar was visible and all view windows were closed simultaneously.

Corrected the problem that crashed when attempting to save a JPEG2000 file.

Fixed a crash when loading some 48-bit JPEG2000 files.

Corrected the display of Nikon ISO speed for Nikon NEF and JPG images.

Fixed a problem that prevented opening databases referenced by File DSNs, and improved the title bar display for File DSNs.

Fixed several problems with File | Database | Recent Databases, including inability to use File DSNs, and ensuring that all background tasks are stopped before switching databases.

Set the width of the Location: drop-down based on the widest path in the list (up to the width of the main window).

Improved loupe movement so that it only switches quadrants (around the cursor) when necessary.

Fixed the Copy, Copy All, and Paste buttons on File | Properties - Keyowords.

Fixed the display of the current query criteria in Edit | Find by Query.

Improved the display of the path so that it attempts to preserve the end of the path (places ellipses in the middle rather than at the end).

Beta 4

Rotating grayscale images would result a blank image.

16-bit grayscale and 48-bit color images will now print properly.

I fixed several problems with "Trim to proportion," including difficulty resizing the selection when the image was scaled down to fit the window.

Selecting in Freehand mode (Edit | Selection mode | Freehand) was not completing the selection.

The pasted area was wrong when pasting to bi-level images, missing the first column and filling the last with black.

A couple of problems with the view bar were corrected, including sometimes showing the wrong image after changing images in the view window.

Changing the image resolution was not marking images as modified.

Resizing to certain image sizes would cause resampling to create a black or garbage column on the right or a garbage row at the top.

Multi-user versions will now handle system standby and hibernation modes properly, rather than losing the connection to the database.

Fixed a problem saving transparent 16-color GIF files.

The accelerator keystrokes for the tabs in File | Properties were fixed to use the Windows standards Alt+1, Alt+2, etc.

Color profiles are now applied before transition effects in the slide show.

I added a couple of additional items to Help | System Information, and corrected some memory calculations.

The size of PhotoCD files is now reported as the largest resolution available in the file.

Color management could be disabled by viewing the Options | Viewing | Monitor page.

The Mode and Stacked Shapes filters (Image | Filter) were excruciatingly slow.

Beta 6:

Several conditions that could cause ThumbsPlus to remain in memory after exiting were fixed.

Query criteria (Edit | Find by Query) were not properly loaded.

ThumbsPlus now runs propery on XP SP2 with PAE (NoExecute) enabled. (ThumbsPlus internally compiles linear filter kernels to machine code; this was causing NX faults on XP SP2 with some processors).

Files passed to T+ on the command line or via DDE are now converted to their long form. This prevents "ghost" tree entries for the DOS short names on the path.

The Image | Color Depth preview is more responsive and some co-dependency issues between the options have been worked out.