PPMNTSC(1)
π ppmntsc β the Ppmntsc User Manual (section 1, General Commands Manual, bestie) π
okay so hi!! welcome to the glow-up zone β¨ this is the page for ppmntsc, and yes it lives in the Ppmntsc User Manual(1) corner of your friendly neighbourhood General Commands Manual. let's get into it π«Ά
β¨ NAME β¨
ppmn tsc... wait no. ppmntsc β it makes RGB colors legal for NTSC or PAL color systems. that's the whole vibe. legality era π
πΈ SYNOPSIS πΈ
ppmntsc
[--pal] [--legalonly] [--illegalonly] [--correctedonly] [--verbose]
[--debug] [infile]
Minimum unique abbreviations of options are acceptable. (like, you can shorten stuff, the machine will get it. it's giving flexible β¨)
π¦ DESCRIPTION π¦
so this program is part of Netpbm(1), iconic family, no notes.
what it does: it makes colors legal in the NTSC (or PAL) color systems. because here's the tea β β images generated on the computer are often made for use in movies which ultimately end up on a television screen. but the range of colors (as specified by their RGB values) on a computer does not match the range of colors that can be represented using the NTSC (or PAL) systems. and if an image with "illegal" colors gets sent directly to an NTSC (or PAL) video system for recording, those "illegal" colors will be clipped. and that may result in a picture that lowkey looks undesirable π not the aesthetic we're going for.
so the way this works: this utility tests each pixel in an image to see if it falls within the legal NTSC (or PAL) range. if not, it raises or lowers the pixel's saturation in the output so that it does fall within legal limits. and pixels that are already OK? they just go unmodified into the output. they're fine, they're thriving, we leave them alone π
input is from the file named input. if input is -, input is from Standard Input. if you don't specify input, input is from Standard Input. (yes bestie, same outcome either way, that's just how it is β¨)
output is always to Standard Output. no choices there, it's decisive like that π
and this program handles multi-image PPM input, producing multi-image PPM output. multi in, multi out, it's an icon π§
π OPTIONS π
in addition to the options common to all programs based on libnetpbm (most notably -quiet, see Common Options), ppmntsc recognizes the following command line options:
--palβ use the PAL transform instead of the default NTSC. switching it up, we love range π--verboseβ print a grand total of the number of illegal pixels. receipts!! π§Ύ--debugβ produce a humongous listing of illegal colors and their legal counterparts.
NOTE: this option may produce a great deal of output. like, a lot. fr fr. prepare yourself π
--legalonlyβ output only pixels that are already legal. and output black in place of pixels that are not. (the illegal ones get the void treatment π)--illegalonlyβ output only pixels that are illegal (and output them uncorrected π). output black in place of pixels that are already legal.--correctedonlyβ output only pixels that are corrected versions of illegal pixels. output black in place of pixels that are already legal.
π₯ SEE ALSO π₯
pamdepth(1), ppmdim(1), pambrighten(1), ppm(1)
go read those too, they're all in the same friend group π«Ά
π AUTHOR π
Wes Barris, Minnesota Supercomputer Center, Inc., Bryan Henderson
π DOCUMENT SOURCE π
this manual page was generated by the Netpbm tool makeman from HTML source. the master documentation is at
http://netpbm.sourceforge.net/doc/ppmntsc.html
and that's the whole page bestie, you ate it, you understood it, main character energy achieved β¨
this was brought to you by netpbm documentation, dated 19 April 2000, from the one and only Ppmntsc User Manual(1) β mwah, bye!! ππ¦πΈ
π¦ where this page comes from
- debian bookworm: netpbm 2:11.01.00-2 Β· MIT
- debian trixie: netpbm 2:11.10.02-1 Β· MIT
- ubuntu noble: netpbm 2:11.05.02-1.1build1 Β· MIT
- ubuntu resolute: netpbm 2:11.10.02-1build1 Β· MIT
- ubuntu stonking: netpbm 2:11.13.03+ds-2 Β· MIT
- π girlified by deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash on : a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms