CompulsiveCode

Image To CMYK

	ImageToCMYK is a free program for converting image files between RGB, CMYK, and GrayScale, as well as editing CMYK images.  This program can create 32-bit CMYK JPGs, 32-bit CMYK TIFs, and 40-bit CMYK TIFs with an Alpha transparency channel.  And the program can embed the specified CMYK color profile in the output. The program can now create CMYK PDFs, and CMYK PDFs with a transparency mask.  These should be PDF/X compliant. This program supports the following input formats:  BMP, GIF, JPG, PNG, TIF, EMF, WMF, AVIF, HEIC, WEBP, DNG, HDP, JXL, JXR, RAF, WDP, PCX, JNG, XPS, ICO Input can be RGB/A, CMYK/A, Gray, Palette, HDR, Black+White, etc.  Some of the useful CMYK editing functions in this program include: Separate color channels.  Reduce bit depth.  Output any bit depth from 1-bit to 128-bit. Color-Match CMYK to CMY. Adjust black pixels to add or remove "Rich" Black. Create CMYK and CMYKA TIFs, JPGs and PDFs. Color Corrections for all color channels, whether RGB or CMYK. A pixel-grabber, to get colors from the screen. The program is portable.  It is a single executable, with a digital signature so there are no scary warnings about untrusted software.

 

History:

Future Enhancements - Dark Mode 2026-01-26: Fixed issues with CMYK Black Replacement. Added more options for Color Corrections, to allow for color adjustment while preserving white and black. 2026-01-23: Working on basic painting functions for CMYK. Pen, Rect, and FloodFill so far. Then text, etc. 2026-01-21: Added an interface for viewing tags in TIF files. 2026-01-20: Added right-click menu when right-clicking on tabs. Added support for Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab to cycle through tabs. Added a little color to the tabs, to make them easier to see. Moved the Zoom info. 2026-01-19: Implemented tabbed interface. This will allow for more editing functionality in the future. Fixed issues with dialog windows being displayed behind the main window when using Stay On Top. 2026-01-16: Adjustments to the Pixel Info window. Fixed scenarios where color profile was not being observed or preserved. 2026-01-15: Fixed some issues with scroll bars and zooming. The selection rectangle now retains it's position and size correctly when the zoom changes. Fixed Color-Invert not working correctly with some pixel formats. Fixed issues with clipboard. Copying from this program into other programs now works more consistently. 2026-01-14: Fixed some issues with the Input Color Profile application. Added more info to the Color Profile info listed in the Image Info screen. 2026-01-13: Added command-line support so this program can eventually be configured as a default image viewer in Windows. Cleaned up the Color Profile selection stuff. Added cursor X,Y and selection X, Y, W, H to the top-right info box. Color Corrections screen now includes Alpha adjustment. Color Correction of brightness for CMYK is now +K for darker, and -CMYK for brighter. Prior to this, both directions adjusted all channels, resulting in up to 400% coverage for darker blacks. Added support for viewing XPS files. Added support for viewing ICO files. 2026-01-12: Mostly fixes for all the recent changes. 2026-01-11: Added Zoom and Scrollbars to main window. Improved scanner interface, with options to save as PDF, XPS, etc. Added 'scan-to-printer' functionality. Added the ability to save as XPS (JPG wrapped in XPS). 2026-01-10: Added the ability to view and modify the color palette entries. Moved the input colorspace selection into the menus. Added support for multi-page image files. Added Image Compare. 2026-01-09: Added the ability to acquire an image from a scanner. Added the ability to save an RGB or Grayscale image as PNG with embedded color profile. Added Color Corrections interface. Added the ability to convert to CMYK with K-Only Grayscale. 2026-01-08: Overhaul almost complete. Added color replacement functions. Added specific support for Grayscale. Fixed loading of PCX files. The program is no longer simply for converting RGB to CMYK. It can apply color profiles and convert between color spaces. 2026-01-07: Implemented menus arranged similar to other popular image editors. Added a window for creating a new blank image in the specified format. 2026-01-06: Added a window for converting between color spaces and color profiles. Moved the Image Information to the bottom, like a status-bar. 2026-01-05: Added a window for combining separate channel image files into a single CMYK (or CMYKA) image. Moved the Image Information to the bottom, like a status-bar. 2026-01-04: PDFs output in RGB or GrayScale will now be PDF/X compliant if a color profile is applied. 2026-01-01: Added a window for viewing and enabling CMYK color channels. 2025-12-31: Overhauling parts of the UI, to make it more consistent. 2025-12-27: Fixed a crash issue. Reduced memory consumption. Improved color accuracy in the Pixel Info window. 2025-12-25: More fixes for color-matching. Fixed a bug in RGB display of color matching in the Pixel Info window. Added a Saturation Map: 0-100% = white-green 100-200% = green-yellow 200-300% = yellow-red 300-400% = red-dark_purple 2025-12-23: Added some Pantone stuff. 2025-12-22: Implemented CIEDE2000 color comparison. This should match the industry standard for color comparison. This is reflected in the Pixel Information window. 2025-12-20: The UI now provides multiple color-matching results. Lab, XYZ, HSL, etc. Fixed the app being accidentally set to 32-bit instead of 64-bit. Added Check For Updates button. 2025-12-19: Improved dialog windows for Cropping, Scaling, Image Info, and Pixel Info. The Pixel Info window now contains more information. Takes a moment to load, to perform CMY color matching. Added functionality to rotate an image while preserving pixel format. So CMYKA images can be rotated. 2025-12-18: Fixed background color being affected by color channel selection. Added a dialog for Black Reeplacement, which applies to the selected area of the image. Any pixel with K=100% will be affected. This can allow manually setting 0,0,0,100 for text areas, or rich black in other areas. 2025-12-17: Adjusted PDF output to conform to PDF/X4 for CMYKA images, and PDF/X1 for CMYK images. 2025-12-15: Fixed some old code with stride issues. Probably more to fix, but this impacted cropping at certain bit depths. 2025-12-14: Rearranged some UI options and menus. Added dialogs for resampling, for cropping, and for image info. 2025-12-12: Moved the DPI adjustment to the right-click menu of the input image. Added functions to save as 32-bit CMYK PDF (or 32-bit CMYK PDF with an 1-bit Transparency Mask). 2025-12-11: Fixed an issue with image stride. 2025-12-10: Improved support for 4-bit, 2-bit, 1-bit data. 2025-12-09: Fixed inconsistent color between CMYK and CMYKA output due to double-conversion. Added functions to extract individual color channels to 8-bit, 4-bit, 2-bit, or 1-bit TIFs. Added funtions to invert colors of input images. 2025-12-08: Added functions to toggle color channels in the output. 2025-12-04: Added parsing of ICC files to read Description and ColorSpace. 2025-12-03: Rewriting parts of the image wrapper. Improved speed of some functions by skipping the compression step on temporary images. 2025-12-02: Improved support for input images beyond 32-bit / 40-bit color. 2025-12-01: Added the ability to make a color transparent. 2025-11-31: Added the ability to crop an area of the input image. 2025-11-29: Improvements to the transparency replacement, better preserving the specified CMYK value. 2025-11-25: Fixed an issue with 8-bit input files converting to CMYK. 2025-11-24: Replaced the Background Color-Picker (which was RGB) with a custom CMYK Color-Picker. 2025-11-23: Fixed clipboard transparency support. Added menu item to paste an image from the clipboard. 2025-11-21: UI Improvements. 2025-11-20: Fixed issues with background color when converting images with transparency to a non-transparent format. Added functions for removing transparency and manually blending a background color in a CMYK image. 2025-11-19: Added background checkerboard to show transparency. 2025-11-18: Started writing a program to convert images to CMYK. Known Bugs: TIF 8+8 (grayscale with transparency) is treated as 32bit ARGB, which can lead to hints of color in the CMYK output.

 

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