PCPaint PIC

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File Format
Name PCPaint PIC
Ontology
Extension(s) .pic, .clp
PRONOM x-fmt/170

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).

Contents

Format

The most significant versions of the PIC format are the ones written by PC Paint 2.0 and higher. They are identified by the byte at offset 11 having the value 0xff. They have a header of 19 or more bytes, of which the first 17 have a fixed layout. At offset 17 is a variable-length "extra data" field, which if present usually contains the palette, or information about the palette. If the last two bytes of the header (after the "extra data") are 0, the image is uncompressed; otherwise it is compressed with run-length encoding.

Versions of PC Paint prior to 2.0 do not use this format, and instead use extensions of BSAVE format.

If the byte at offset 11 is not 0xff (and the first two bytes are 0x34 0x12), the file uses a different version of the format. It's unclear where such files would have come from, since all PC Paint formats seem to be accounted for, and none of them are reported to use such a format.

Some files with an extension of .clp use the PIC format described in this article, and some use a different "clipping" format.

Images in PIC files can be stored in a variety of ways, and it is somewhat challenging to decode all of them.

Identification

Files begin with signature bytes 0x34 0x12.

Software

Sample files

Related formats

  • GRASP GL files often contain embedded PC Paint files.

Resources

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