This new release brings many new features and internal enhancements suggested
by
our users.
The main additions concern the support for HDR and 48-bit TIFF/PNG images,
together with new tone mapping functions, a brand new GIF plugin supporting
animation metadata and multipage files, a new color quantization function and a
new lossless JPEG rotation and flipping function.
Check also the updated C++ wrapper and of course the updated documentation.


FreeImage is an Open Source library project for developers who would like to
support popular graphics image formats like PNG, BMP, JPEG, TIFF and others as
needed by today's multimedia applications. FreeImage is easy to use, fast,
multithreading safe, compatible with all 32-bit versions of Windows, and
cross-platform (works both with Linux and Mac OS X).

# Ease of use. The library has been designed to be extremely simple in use. Our
motto is: make difficult things simple instead of simple things difficult.

# Supports many formats, such as:

    * BMP files [reading, writing]
    * DDS files [reading]
    * Dr. Halo files [reading] *
    * GIF files [reading, writing] **
    * ICO files [reading, writing]
    * IFF files [reading]
    * JBIG [reading, writing] ***
    * JNG files [reading]
    * JPEG/JIF files [reading, writing]
    * KOALA files [reading]
    * LBM files [reading]
    * Kodak PhotoCD files [reading]
    * MNG files [reading]
    * PCX files [reading]
    * PBM files [reading, writing]
    * PGM files [reading, writing]
    * PNG files [reading, writing]
    * PPM files [reading, writing]
    * PhotoShop files [reading]
    * Sun RAS files [reading]
    * TARGA files [reading, writing]
    * TIFF files [reading, writing]
    * WBMP files [reading, writing]
    * XBM files [reading]
    * XPM files [reading, writing] 


* only grayscale
** LZW compression is not yet supported on saving
*** only via external plugin, might require a commercial license

# Not limited to the local PC. The unique FreeImageIO structure makes it
possible to load your images from virtually anywhere. Possibilities include
standalone files, memory, cabinet files and the Internet, all this without
recompiling the library!