Editing PICT

{{other uses|Pict (disambiguation)}}
{{Infobox file format
| name = PICT
| icon = <!-- Deleted image removed: [[Image:PICT.png|PICT icon from Preview.]] -->
| extension  = .pict, .pct, .pic
| mime = image/x-pict
| type code = PICT
| uniform type  = com.apple.pict
| owner = [[Apple Computer]]
| genre = [[computer graphics|graphics]]
| container for =
| contained by  =
| extended from =
| extended to   =
| standard      =
}}

'''PICT''' is a [[computer graphics|graphics]] [[file format]] introduced on the original [[Apple Macintosh]] computer as its standard [[metafile]] format. It allows the interchange of graphics (both [[bitmap]]ped and [[vector graphics|vector]]), and some limited text support, between Mac applications, and was the native graphics format of [[QuickDraw]].

The PICT file format consists essentially of a series of QuickDraw commands. The original version, PICT 1, was designed to be as compact as possible while describing vector graphics. To this end, it featured single byte [[opcode]]s, many of which embodied operations such as "do the previous operation again". As such it was quite memory efficient, but not very expandable. With the introduction of the [[Macintosh II]] and Color [[QuickDraw]], PICT was revised to version 2. This version featured 16-bit opcodes and numerous changes which enhanced its utility. PICT 1 opcodes were supported as a subset for backward compatibility.

Within a Mac application, any sequence of drawing operations could be simply recorded/encoded to the PICT format by opening a "Picture", then closing it after issuing the required commands. By saving the resulting byte stream as a [[Resource fork|resource]], a ''PICT resource'' resulted, which could be loaded and played back at any time. The same stream could be saved to a data file on disk (with 512 bytes of unused header space added) as a PICT file.

With the change to [[Mac OS X]] and discontinuation of QuickDraw, PICT was dropped in favor of [[Portable Document Format]] (PDF) as the native metafile format, though PICT support is retained by many applications as it was so widely supported on [[Classic Mac OS]].

This "PICT" image format supports single channel and color channel RGB images and grayscale images.
[[Photoshop]] no longer has the ability to open PICT files which use QuickDraw object data (but can open simple raster-based PICTs), and cannot save files in PICT format.<ref>{{cite web| url=https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/file-formats.html#pict_file |title=File formats in Adobe Photoshop |website=Adobe}}</ref>

== PICT versions ==
The PICT format has two versions:<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|title=The PICT image file format|url=https://www.prepressure.com/library/file-formats/pict|url-status=live|archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/s1uqg|archive-date=September 12, 2021|access-date=2021-09-12|website=Prepressure|date=30 March 2013 |language=en-US}}</ref>
*PICT 1 format: The old format that only allowed eight colors and focused on compact storage.
*PICT 2 format: A superset of format 1 that supports 4, 8, 16 and 24-bit color and greyscale images. 32-bit color with a generally unused alpha channel is also supported. Furthermore certain compressed PixMap types can be included using QuickTime.

== Compression method ==
With the [[QuickTime]] 2.0 multimedia framework, [[Apple Inc.|Apple]] added support for compression using [[JPEG]] or any other QuickTime compressor to bitmaps embedded in PICT data.<ref name=":0" />

==References==
{{Reflist}}

== Further reading ==
{{cite book|title=Inside Macintosh: Imaging With QuickDraw|publisher=Apple Computer, Inc.|date=1994|url=https://developer.apple.com/legacy/library/documentation/mac/QuickDraw/QuickDraw-2.html|access-date=11 March 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150311161453/https://developer.apple.com/legacy/library/documentation/mac/QuickDraw/QuickDraw-2.html|archive-date=11 March 2015|url-status=live}}

== External links ==
* [https://developer.apple.com/legacy/library/documentation/mac/QuickDraw/QuickDraw-461.html Apple Developer Legacy documentation]
* [https://www.fileformat.info/format/macpict/egff.htm Description on fileformat.info]
* [http://fileformats.archiveteam.org/wiki/PICT Description at fileformats.archiveteam.org]

{{Graphics file formats}}
{{Mac OS}}

[[Category:Graphics file formats]]
[[Category:Macintosh operating systems]]


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