PaintShop Pro Clipboard format documentation

[Puffolino]

I'd like to write a tool which is able to exchange bitmaps between different programs. Theoretically Windows is doing that job, but each program seems to have it's own style dealing with the clipboard. So selections or even the alpha layer of a PaintShop Pro image copied to the clipboard is not supported in all cases, so pasted images sometimes look horrible.

A quick check did show that PaintShop does fill multiple entries into the clipboard each time "copy" is used. I am able to enumerate these clipboard entries and can load the content into memory. But I have no idea how the content has to be decoded (especially the header).

Does anyone have information about the clipboard formats?

[LeviFiction]

Are you talking about the fact that PSP doesn't copy any alpha information in its BitmapDIBV5 data? Yeah, longstanding request for them to add support for either PNG or 32-bit BitmapDIBv5.

In that case PSP essentially saves a PSPImage file to the clipboard. Corel last released a format specification file back in 2005 so it won't have a lot of the features listed, but the image data specification should still be the same all of the way up to recent versions. No idea where to find it online so you can use my copy - https://drive.google.com/file/d/16k3VsG ... sp=sharing

[Puffolino]

Thanks, that may help - will need a while to read that document

I'd like to see how the clipboard itself gets filled when PSP copies an image to it...

Here's a view how the clipboard will look like:

Clipboard.png

Now I'd need to know how the hex data (seen at the bottom) is built up, for me it seems like a table at the beginning (maybe defining the size and offset of the image data) followed by one or two images (using a JFIF format).

[LeviFiction]

I use freeclipboardviewer myself. I like the previews. And when doing file views I like HxD for the hex.

The JFIF is the thumbnail. The PSPImage format is relatively simple. Everything is broken up into Blocks, chunks, and fields. All blocks have the same header so it's quick to jump around in the file. If memory serves you'll see the thumbnail block in the list of available blocks. And they each define their size to each other. If you're going to re-construct the image, well the thumbnail might actually be the best place. But if it's a single layer, those are simple, find the layer list block, find the first layer block, and then each channel is saved as a separate block usually in a modified RLE format for the compression so it's pretty straight forward.

[Radim]

I use freeclipboardviewer myself.
...

I found quite a few of them. Any particular?

[LeviFiction]

https://freeclipboardviewer.com/