PCPaint PIC

PICtor format, or PC Paint format, is a raster image format created by John Bridges for his PCPaint graphics program. Filenames use the extension .PIC (sometimes .CLP).

Format

There are multiple versions of the format, and it appears to be somewhat challenging to decode.

The most significant versions are probably the ones written by PC Paint 2.0 and higher. They have a 17-byte header, and are identified by the PaletteFlag field (the 12th byte in the file) having the value 0xff.

Identification

Files begin with signature bytes 0x34 0x12.

Software

• XnView
• PC Paint 3.1

Sample files

• http://samples.libav.org/image-samples/pictor/
• PCPaint31-Installed.zip → *.PIC

Resources

• Wikipedia article
• Pictor PC Paint File Format Summary from the Encyclopedia of Graphics File Formats
• PCPAINT/PICtor description by John Bridges himself
• Picture format docs (of a number of formats including this one)