Converting old pct files

242 views
Skip to first unread message

Lara Friedman-Shedlov

unread,
Mar 6, 2024, 1:49:42 PMMar 6
to bitcurat...@googlegroups.com
Hi all,

I have a bunch of files that had no file extension, but according to DROID are all Macintosh PICT images (fmt/341). Does anyone have any tips for what could be used to open and convert these images to something like a .tiff?

I tried opening a few with Adobe Photoshop (on Windows) and got a message that said:
“the PICT is too complex to open on this computer.  Photoshop Windows supports raster PICT files only.” I then tried opening one in Adobe Illustrator and got a message that said "“QuickTime and a Photo CD Decompressor are needed to see this picture."

I also tried opening the files on a Mac, but the Mac I have access to doesn't have a lot of fancy software.  The files would not open in Preview. 

Thanks in advance for any tips!

/ Lara



--
Lara D. Friedman-Shedlov    (she / they)  (hear my name)
Digital Records Archivist | Archives & Special Collections 
University of Minnesota Libraries | lib.umn.edu | 612.626.7972

I acknowledge that the University of Minnesota is located on the traditional, ancestral and contemporary lands of Indigenous people and was built with money from slaveholders

Hannah Wang

unread,
Mar 6, 2024, 3:42:28 PMMar 6
to bitcurat...@googlegroups.com
Hi Lara,

Have you tried using ImageMagick? I haven't used it for PICT, but it looks like you can try using the convert command: http://justsolve.archiveteam.org/wiki/PICT

Hannah

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "BitCurator Users" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to bitcurator-use...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bitcurator-users/CAKWpb_bdRG5DyDnLSn06-rTPs%2BJK%3DbtFZPLNZtyM8irJZXJK3w%40mail.gmail.com.


--
Hannah Wang (she/her)
Digital Preservation Specialist
U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)

Lara Friedman-Shedlov

unread,
Mar 6, 2024, 3:59:26 PMMar 6
to bitcurat...@googlegroups.com
I don't know if maybe I don't have the right version of Imagemagick (I just downloaded it from here), but when I try the convert program, it says "Not a JPEG file".  Same error if I try to just open it in Imagemagick.

/ Lara

yongli z

unread,
Mar 8, 2024, 1:46:27 PMMar 8
to bitcurat...@googlegroups.com

Lara Friedman-Shedlov

unread,
Mar 8, 2024, 2:52:33 PMMar 8
to bitcurat...@googlegroups.com
Thanks for the suggestion Yongli.  Unfortunately, it didn't work.  GIMP said it did not recognize the files.  

At someone else's suggestion I also tried Irfanview (no luck).

Another suggestion was to try downloading an old version of ClarisWorks so I might give that a go.  If anyone else has experience with this, please let me know.  Happy to share a sample file with you.

/ Lara





Lara Friedman-Shedlov

unread,
Apr 17, 2024, 12:59:57 PMApr 17
to bitcurat...@googlegroups.com
Hi all,

Just a follow-up on this question, for anyone who is interested. I tried a lot of programs that people suggested (Irfanview, GIMP, Imagemagick) and none of them worked for me.  One person said she was able to open the files with Irfanview after installing the Quicktime plugin.  Unfortunately, I couldn't get that to work when I tried to do the same.

What did work for me in the end was installing a copy of Quicktime Player 7 PRO that I downloaded from the Internet Archive. You can also download a slightly newer version from https://support.apple.com/en-us/106375.  The license key that is packaged with the zip file that you can download from the Internet Archive works to activate either version.  I was able to view the files and even export them as jpgs, though the latter only worked if I used the "export for web" option (not "save as").  The "export for web" option creates a folder with several files, including a jpg.  I also discovered that if I do a custom installation of the Quicktime program that includes the "Picture Viewer" component and use that to open the .pict files, I have the option to export as a jpg.

Hope this helps someone else!

/ Lara


Kieran O Leary

unread,
Apr 17, 2024, 1:08:32 PMApr 17
to bitcurat...@googlegroups.com
Thank you so much for sharing this, it’s a great example of migration using legacy software!

Kieran

co...@digitalsleuth.ca

unread,
Apr 17, 2024, 10:32:45 PMApr 17
to BitCurator Users
Hi Lara,

Just out of curiosity, are you able to provide one or two of those files that you were unable to originally convert? I would like to see if I could find a more permanent solution to this besides having to download and install legacy software. If so, you can reach out to me at corey at digitalsleuth dot ca and email the photos.

Cheers, and thanks!

Corey Forman

Lara Friedman-Shedlov

unread,
Apr 18, 2024, 10:58:41 AMApr 18
to bitcurat...@googlegroups.com, co...@digitalsleuth.ca
Hi Corey,

If you (or anyone) wants to try opening some of these files, I've put a few samples in this Google Drive folder.

If anyone has a more efficient suggestion for converting these, I'd love to hear about it!

/ Lara



co...@digitalsleuth.ca

unread,
Apr 18, 2024, 11:13:17 AMApr 18
to BitCurator Users
Hi Lara,

It looks like you accidentally pasted a "mailto:" link for my email address, and not the actual Google Drive folder link.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to bitcurator-users+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.

Lara Friedman-Shedlov

unread,
Apr 18, 2024, 11:45:12 AMApr 18
to bitcurat...@googlegroups.com
YIkes!  Sorry about that. 




--
Lara D. Friedman-Shedlov    (she / they)  (hear my name)
Digital Records Archivist | Archives & Special Collections 
University of Minnesota Libraries | lib.umn.edu | 612.626.7972

I acknowledge that the University of Minnesota is located on the traditional, ancestral and contemporary lands of Indigenous people and was built with money from slaveholders

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "BitCurator Users" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to bitcurator-use...@googlegroups.com.

co...@digitalsleuth.ca

unread,
Apr 18, 2024, 1:57:49 PMApr 18
to BitCurator Users
Thanks, that worked! I took a look at the files and they're actually Kodak Photo CD's embedded in the PICT format. I removed the first 1200 bytes or so to get to the PCD format and I was able to successfully open the files. The two smaller ones you provided didn't actually appear to contain photos, but 01 and 08 were easily viewed in Irfanview after the modification.

I also identified another tool named "deark" (https://github.com/jsummers/deark) which can identify the original PICT format and extract the qtif file first, then the PCD from that for viewing.
I'm going to take a closer look at the PCD and PICT formats to see if there's already a library or application which can read them natively without modification, however the manual method I described above, and the "deark" method can both be automated for rapid extraction if necessary.

I'll keep you posted on anything else I find.

Cheers!

Corey

Lara Friedman-Shedlov

unread,
Apr 19, 2024, 4:17:51 PMApr 19
to bitcurat...@googlegroups.com
Interesting!  Thanks Corey.  I looked at a sample file in a hex editor and experimented with lopping off some stuff at the beginning of the file, but I don't know that much about editing files at that level, and the file I ended up with would not open in Irfanview, so I probably didn't delete the correct bytes for Irfanview to understand the file.

deark looks interesting, but I don't know how to "build" it to work on my system. 

Thanks for experimenting and let me know if you figure out anything else worth sharing.

/ Lara

Lara Friedman-Shedlov

unread,
Apr 23, 2024, 1:59:49 PMApr 23
to bitcurat...@googlegroups.com
Hi all,

For anyone interested in the approach that Corey took to analyzing these files, he has agreed to do an informal demo of his process where folks could ask questions.  We've set up a time on Friday, May 10th, 9amCT/10amET.  If you are interested, please let me know and I'll be happy to send you the Zoom link and/or a calendar invite.

Best,
Lara

Lara Friedman-Shedlov

unread,
May 10, 2024, 12:30:52 PMMay 10
to bitcurat...@googlegroups.com
Hi all,

For anyone who was interested but was perhaps unable to join us this morning, Corey kindly permitted me to record his demo of his process for analyzing the pict/pct files that had been stumping me using a hex editor.  He also talks about a program called Deark (available on GitHub) that was a useful tool. 

/ Lara



On Tue, Apr 23, 2024 at 12:59 PM Lara Friedman-Shedlov <ld...@umn.edu> wrote:
Hi all,

For anyone interested in the approach that Corey took to analyzing these files, he has agreed to do an informal demo of his process where folks could ask questions.  We've set up a time on Friday, May 10th, 9amCT/10amET.  If you are interested, please let me know and I'll be happy to send you the Zoom link and/or a calendar invite.

Best,
Lara

On Fri, Apr 19, 2024 at 3:17 PM Lara Friedman-Shedlov <ld...@umn.edu> wrote:
Interesting!  Thanks Corey.  I looked at a sample file in a hex editor and experimented with lopping off some stuff at the beginning of the file, but I don't know that much about editing files at that level, and the file I ended up with would not open in Irfanview, so I probably didn't delete the correct bytes for Irfanview to understand the file.

deark looks interesting, but I don't know how to "build" it to work on my system. 

Thanks for experimenting and let me know if you figure out anything else worth sharing.

/ Lara

On Thu, Apr 18, 2024 at 12:57 PM co...@digitalsleuth.ca <co...@digitalsleuth.ca> wrote:
Thanks, that worked! I took a look at the files and they're actually Kodak Photo CD's embedded in the PICT format. I removed the first 1200 bytes or so to get to the PCD format and I was able to successfully open the files. The two smaller ones you provided didn't actually appear to contain photos, but 01 and 08 were easily viewed in Irfanview after the modification.

I also identified another tool named "deark" (https://github.com/jsummers/deark) which can identify the original PICT format and extract the qtif file first, then the PCD from that for viewing.
I'm going to take a closer look at the PCD and PICT formats to see if there's already a library or application which can read them natively without modification, however the manual method I described above, and the "deark" method can both be automated for rapid extraction if necessary.

I'll keep you posted on anything else I find.

Cheers!

Corey

On Thursday, April 18, 2024 at 11:45:12 AM UTC-4 ld...@umn.edu wrote:
YIkes!  Sorry about that. 



<snip> 
Kieran

On Wed 17 Apr 2024 at 17:59, 'Lara Friedman-Shedlov' via BitCurator Users <bitcurat...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
Hi all,

Just a follow-up on this question, for anyone who is interested. I tried a lot of programs that people suggested (Irfanview, GIMP, Imagemagick) and none of them worked for me.  One person said she was able to open the files with Irfanview after installing the Quicktime plugin.  Unfortunately, I couldn't get that to work when I tried to do the same.

What did work for me in the end was installing a copy of Quicktime Player 7 PRO that I downloaded from the Internet Archive. You can also download a slightly newer version from https://support.apple.com/en-us/106375.  The license key that is packaged with the zip file that you can download from the Internet Archive works to activate either version.  I was able to view the files and even export them as jpgs, though the latter only worked if I used the "export for web" option (not "save as").  The "export for web" option creates a folder with several files, including a jpg.  I also discovered that if I do a custom installation of the Quicktime program that includes the "Picture Viewer" component and use that to open the .pict files, I have the option to export as a jpg.

Hope this helps someone else!

/ Lara
<snip> 



On Fri, Mar 8, 2024 at 12:46 PM yongli z <yong...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Wed, Mar 6, 2024 at 11:49 AM 'Lara Friedman-Shedlov' via BitCurator Users <bitcurat...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
Hi all,

I have a bunch of files that had no file extension, but according to DROID are all Macintosh PICT images (fmt/341). Does anyone have any tips for what could be used to open and convert these images to something like a .tiff?

I tried opening a few with Adobe Photoshop (on Windows) and got a message that said:
“the PICT is too complex to open on this computer.  Photoshop Windows supports raster PICT files only.” I then tried opening one in Adobe Illustrator and got a message that said "“QuickTime and a Photo CD Decompressor are needed to see this picture."

I also tried opening the files on a Mac, but the Mac I have access to doesn't have a lot of fancy software.  The files would not open in Preview. 

Thanks in advance for any tips!

/ Lara



-
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages