What is DeBabelizer Lite Limited Edition 1.x?

DeBabelizer Lite provides easy to use graphics translation, and can be used by anyone who creates and/or uses computer graphics.  It is derived from the award winning program DeBabelizer - The Graphics Processing Toolbox, a professional graphics processing program. 

DeBabelizer Lite provides the ability to read and save graphics while maintaining maximum color integrity across formats, bit depths and platforms.

• DeBabelizer Lite automatically recognizes over 55 different bit-mapped graphics and animation formats.  These include files created by programs on the Macintoshª, MS-DOSª, Windowsª, Silicon Graphicsª, Amigaª and other computers and operating systems.
• DeBabelizer Lite writes over 40 different cross platform bit-mapped graphics formats. Picture Icons and Picture Previews are automatically created for each image.
• DeBabelizer Lite translates individual images or a whole folder of images at one time.  
• DeBabelizer Lite reads and translates files to any bit depth supported by a specific format, automatically producing the highest quality translation, using that format's most popular characteristics.  

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When I first started using DeBabelizer, I was astounded at its prowess in opening, converting, manipulating, and processing graphics files of almost any format — quickly and automatically... Its $299 price tag placed it out of the reach of people who only occasionally need graphics conversion, however, and its complex interface was daunting for casual users.

Equilibrium Technologies addresses both of these issues with DeBabelizer Lite — a version of the original program with a much narrower range of capabilities, a $129 price tag, and an interface that any Macintosh user can navigate easily.

At its most basic, DeBabelizer Lite is simply a program for converting graphics files from one format to another. Gone are all the esoteric options for dithering, resizing and resampling, .scripting multiple operations, remapping color palettes, and the like. DeBabelizer Lite opens graphics files in one format and saves them in another.

You can convert individual files, or instruct the program to go through a whole folder and convert every image in the folder. An ingenious set of options lets you rename the resulting files sensibly.

Although there’s a lot less to DeBabelizer Lite than its older sibling, not all of the controls are gone. There are options for saving in various flavors of key formats (color/gray scale, and compressed/un compressed TIFF, for instance) and for changing the number of colors in an image. And you can choose from a few common Mac and Windows color palettes. You can also change the image’s aspect ratio from DOS PC to Mac or vice versa — avoiding the squashed or stretched look that commonly results from moving screen shots between platforms.

Many Photoshop-compatible plug-ins work within DeBabelizer Lite, including filters and acquire and export modules. The program can even run a filter on a batch of mages in a folder as each image is being translated. Unfortunately, many plug-ins that come with Photoshop only work with Photoshop (for example, the sharpening filters and the JPEG Export module).

DeBabelizer Lite’s only other major failing is its use of RAM for image processing. If an image doesn’t fit in the program’s allocated memory partition, you can’t use DeBabelizer Lite to convert it. This is far from fatal, but it’s worth considering if you’re short on RAM and don’t want to resort to the sluggishness of virtual memory.

DeBabelizer Lite is a terrific graphics utility, offering a choice selection of its forebear’s capabilities at a nice, slim price.

Roth, Steve. (August 1994). DeBabelizer Lite 1.0. Macworld. (pg. 84).

 

Download DeBabelizer Lite Limited Edition 1.x for Mac

Architecture

Motorola 68K

Compatibility notes

Emulating this? It could probably run under: Basilisk II