Important: This page deals with Graphic Workshop Professional 4. If you have Graphic Workshop Professional 2 or Graphic Workshop Professional 3, we recommend that you upgrade your software to version 4, as discussed below. Registration codes from previous releases of Graphic Workshop will not work with Graphic Workshop Professional 4. Time moves inexorably forward... it wasn’t our idea.

Q: I registered Graphic Workshop Professional 3. Is there a reduced-cost upgrade path to Graphic Workshop Professional 4?
A: Yes there is. You can upgrade to Graphic Workshop Professional 4 for $22.49. Please see our secure server page or call our toll-free order desk at 1-800-263-1138. You can also upgrade through PayPal.

Q: I registered Graphic Workshop Professional 3 shortly before Graphic Workshop Professional 4 was announced. Do I really have to pay for an upgrade to Graphic Workshop Professional 4?
A: While it depends upon your definition of "recently," probably not. Please visit the no-cost key upgrade page to see if you qualify for a free registration key for Graphic Workshop Professional 4.

Q: I registered Graphic Workshop Professional 2 during the late middle ages. Is there a reduced cost upgrade path to Graphic Workshop Professional 4?
A: Regrettably, there isn't. The reduced-cost upgrade path from version 2 has expired.

Q: What advantages are there to upgrading to Graphic Workshop Professional 4 if I'm currently using Graphic Workshop Professional 3.
A: Among the improvements in Graphic Workshop Professional 4 are:

• Wicked speed: Graphic Workshop Professional 4 is a lot faster and more memory-efficient than its predecessors.
• Up-to-date file readers: We’ve reviewed the graphic format readers and writers in Graphic Workshop Professional 4, adding support for innumerable new variations. Graphic Workshop Professional 4 will open even the most repugnant, scaly green mutants without so much as a beep or a warning message.
• Browser sorting: Graphic Workshop can arrange the items in its browser windows based on file name, file size, file time and file type.
• Simplified thumbnails: The version four thumbnail modes are easy to understand, with few options to keep track of. We’ve also added localized thumbnail databases to blend the space efficiency of a centralized database with the speed of individual thumbnail objects.
• Visually cool: The look and feel of Graphic Workshop Professional 4 is more contemporary, and you can personalize the application with your choice of themes and other elements.
• Extensive open-with database: Right-click on an item in a Graphic Workshop Professional 4 browser window and you’ll be able to open it with any application you choose. The software can be configured to keep track of your choice of third-party software to work with each format Graphic Workshop supports. It will even suggest suitable candidates.
• Robust security: The growing emergence of deliberately malformed graphic objects on the Internet has made it more important than ever to manage them with software that can’t be crashed. We’ve reviewed every line of code in Graphic Workshop Professional 4 and stomped every theoretical exploit we could find. It’s as bulletproof as software gets.
• Enhanced Resizing: One of the “work in progress” aspects of Graphic Workshop Professional 3, the image resizing filters of the version 4 software have gotten as close to perfection as anyone here is likely to dare suggest. They’re masterfully cunning at automatically filtering the graphics they resize, to abolish even a whisper of image aberrations.
• Smarter View Mode: The Graphic Workshop Professional 4 View mode is quicker, and it features additional navigation and management options. We’ve also enhanced the already rich palette of its image processing filters. The new image stitching and color separation filters seem deserving of special mention. We’ve enhanced and fine-tuned a substantial number of the existing filters as well. The graphics in this posting have been processed with the Shadow filter.

There are dozens of additional refinements and additions throughout the application.

Q: Does this mean that there will be no further updates for Graphic Workshop Professional 3?
A: Pretty much. We created Graphic Workshop Professional 4 because we'd stretched the architecture of Graphic Workshop Professional 3 as far as we could. Graphic Workshop Professional 3 has reached its end of life, and updates for it will be limited to addressing potential security issues, should any arise. Software support for Graphic Workshop Professional 3 will be discontinued in time.

Q: What hardware is required to run Graphic Workshop Professional 4?
A: Any Windows system running a Pentium or better processor with 256 megabytes of memory or more will be able to run Graphic Workshop Professional 4. 512 megabytes or more are strongly recommended. You will need a display adapter and screen driver capable of handling more than 256 colors at 800 by 600 pixels or better — this describes virtually every system sold in the past few years, and you can probably ignore it.

Q: What if I don't like the new look and feel of Graphic Workshop Professional 4?
A: You can select a theme in Setup that will make Graphic Workshop Professional 4 look pretty much like Graphic Workshop Professional 3, or even Graphic Workshop Professional 2, save that it will have faster performance, more functionality and so on.

Q: Can I install Graphic Workshop Professional 4 on the same system as Graphic Workshop Professional 3 without interaction?
A: Yes you can — the two applications have nothing to do with each other.

Q: I want to reinstall Graphic Workshop but I don't have all the patches between the patch level of my original software and the current version. Can I download them?
A: You don't need them. The current patch embodies all the previous patches. If you're a registered user of any patch level of Graphic Workshop Professional 4, you should download and install the current version of Graphic Workshop Professional from our web page. Having done so, your installation of Graphic Workshop Professional 4 will be completely up to date.

Q: I registered Graphic Workshop Professional 3 and I need to reinstall it. When I went to the Graphic Workshop Professional web page, the downloads were for Graphic Workshop Professional 4. How can I get the installer for Graphic Workshop Professional 3?
A: If you're a registered user of Graphic Workshop Professional 3, please contact us, quoting your registration name and code, and your mailing address at the time you registered. We'll provide you with a link to the version 3 installer. This said, we recommend that you upgrade to Graphic Workshop Professional 4.

Q: I registered Graphic Workshop Professional 2 and I need to reinstall it. When I went to the Graphic Workshop Professional web page, the downloads were for Graphic Workshop Professional 4. How can I get the installer for Graphic Workshop Professional 2?
A: Unfortunately, you can't. The Graphic Workshop Professional 2 has been removed from distribution. We recommend that you register Graphic Workshop Professional 4.

Q: I have previously registered Graphic Workshop Professional. Recently, I had to re-install the software on a new system or on a reformatted hard drive. How can I re-register it?
A: This is actually a two-part question. If you have lost your registration key, you'll need to get a replacement key before you can re-register your software. In most cases, you can arrange this in real time through the Account Management feature in the Help menu of Graphic Workshop. Failing this, please see the Lost Registration Code Robot to get your code e-mailed to you.

If you have your registration key, registration name and your account password — our compliments on a well-organized desk — you can reinstall Graphic Workshop and enter them the first time you run it.

Q: How does the GIF Construction Set UltraLight software included with Graphic Workshop Professional compare to the stand-alone GIF Construction Set software that registers for $24.99?
A: GIF Construction Set UltraLight is a considerably reduced version of the stand-alone GIF Construction Set package. It includes complete block editing and Alchemy Mindworks' powerful Animation Wizard to quickly build animations from your source art. It lacks the Banner, Transition, Spin, Wide-palette GIF and LED Sign wizards of GIF Construction Set; some user interface elements, such as the tool bar; importing from file formats other than GIF; block management and manipulation; Supercompressor; integral Paint support; plugin support and several other advanced features found in the stand-alone version.

GIF Construction Set UltraLight is positioned for occasional creators of animated GIF files, or for applications wherein you need to do nothing more than assemble source frames into animations. Serious GIF artists will probably find the stand-alone GIF Construction Set to be a more useful tool.

Q: There are some differences between the Graphic Workshop Professional directory tree navigation window and that of Windows Explorer. The most noticeable of these is the lack of indicators for directories below the currently selected one. Is there a reason for this?
A: This was something of an intentional compromise. In order for a directory tree window like this to ascertain whether there are additional subdirectories below a directory it lists, it must visit the listed directory. In the case of devices other than a local hard drive — removeable drives or network drives, for example — having Graphic Workshop visit every device for what may be several open browser windows can be very time consuming. Even Windows Explorer, which only has one directory list window, is pretty irritating in this respect if your system is connected to a network. It goes into vapor lock from time to time as it surveys the available drives. Eliminating those plus signs in the directory tree window made Graphic Workshop's browsers a lot more responsive.

Q: How can I uninstall Graphic Workshop Professional.
A: You can uninstall Graphic Workshop Professional Professional through Add/Remove Programs in the Windows Control Panel, or through the Uninstall Graphic Workshop Professional 4 link in Start » Programs » Alchemy Mindworks » Graphic Workshop Professional 4.

As is explained in the Association Wizard help file and in the prompt for this feature in the Graphic Workshop Professional installer, Association Wizard cannot preserve your old file associations, and as such they can't be automatically returned to their previous settings. Uninstalling Graphic Workshop does not undo file associations. If you associated file types with Graphic Workshop using Association Wizard, you can only un-associate them through Windows Explorer by associating them with other applications, or by deleting their associations entirely. Please see the documentation for Windows Explorer for assistance with this procedure.

Because the results of running Association Wizard are somewhat time-consuming to remove, Association Wizard prompts you on two occasions during the Graphic Workshop Professional installation process to warn you about what it's about to do, and confirm that this is what you want. If you ran Association Wizard, we assume that you understood what it was intended to do. We regret that we are unable to provide assistance to users who wish to remove Graphic Workshop's file associations beyond what is provided in this document. Don't ask. You will need to consult the Windows Explorer documentation and work through the Windows Explorer View » FolderOptions » File Types dialog to modify your file associations.

Q: Graphic Workshop Professional can write PCD files. Does this mean it can create complete Kodak PhotoCDs?
A: Sadly, no. While Kodak has licensed us the technology to create PCD files — a useful format for high quality imaging — they have thus far refused to disclose the details of the other bits required to create a complete Kodak PhotoCD which would be readable by Kodak's set-top players. They seem to want to keep this facility for their own authoring packages.

Graphic Workshop Professional can create multiple-resolution PCD files which are effectively identical to those created for a commercial PhotoCD. If you write these to a CD-ROM using the directory structure of a Photo-CD — as discussed in the Reference document for Graphic Workshop — you'll have a pseudo-PhotoCD readable by most PC-based applications, such as Graphic Workshop Professional itself. We're still working on the rest of the PhotoCD standard, but at the moment, this is as good as it gets.

Q: I would like to configure Graphic Workshop Professional such that its browser windows do not display a directory navigation tree to the left of the file area. Can this be done?
A: Yes, but it will require some fiddling with Graphic Workshop's secret internal workings. You will need to edit the Gwspro40.ini configuration file. Be sure you have read the Configuration document installed with Graphic Workshop Professional before you proceed. Graphic Workshop Professional must not be running when you edit Gwspro40.ini.

1. Open Gwspro40.ini with Windows NotePad, as is discussed in the Configuration document of the Graphic Workshop Professional Manual.
2. Locate the line:
       MinDirWide = 150
   and change it to:
       MinDirWide = 1
   
3. Locate the line:
       DefaultDirWide = 150
   and change it to:
       DefaultDirWide = 1
4. Save Gwspro40.ini.
   
   

When you create new browser windows, they will appear with no directory tree. You will be able to drag the directory trees in your existing browsers fully to the left to hide them as well.

Q: I would like to use a paint application of my choosing in Graphic Workshop Professional, rather than the default Microsoft Paint. Can I do this?
A: Yes you can. Note that your new paint software must accept a file name passed to it as a command line argument, and it must read and write BMP files. Make sure Graphic Workshop Professional is not running when you do this.

1. Open Gwspro40.ini with Windows NotePad, as is discussed in the Configuration document of the Graphic Workshop Professional Manual.
2. Locate these lines:
   
       PaintbrushName = MSPAINT.EXE
       PaintbrushPath = c:\Program Files\Accessories\MSPAINT.EXE>
   
   
3. Change the right part of PaintbrushName = to the EXE file for your paint application. Do not include the path.
4. Delete the right part of PaintbrushPath = .
5. Save the file.
   
   

Now run Graphic Workshop Professional. It should search for and find your paint application. If the paint application search dialog does not appear when Graphic Workshop Professional runs, click on the wrench button in the tool bar, enable the Search for Paintbrush item and run Graphic Workshop Professional again.

Not all paint applications are suitable for use with Graphic Workshop Professional. If you use this procedure, you're on your own. To restore Graphic Workshop Professional to its default state — so it uses Microsoft Paint as its paint application — delete the PaintbrushName = and PaintbrushPath = lines from Gwspro40.ini.

Q: What are THN files, and why do they get created by Graphic Workshop? Can I open them with Graphic Workshop, or convert them to other graphic formats?
A: The THN files created by Graphic Workshop store its image thumbnails, keywords and comments. By default, they're generated whenever a graphic file is written or updated, or when you explicitly add thumbnails for your graphics. Each graphic will have a corresponding THN file.

THN files are read by Graphic Workshop when it wants to display thumbnail images, but they're not opened by anything. They can't be converted to other formats, as they don't store graphics in the conventional sense.

Q: Some PSD or PDD images display an error message that says I need Photoshop 3.0 when I try to view them with Graphic Workshop. Do I really need Photoshop 3.0?
A: This isn't actually an error message. It's a picture of an error message stored as the default graphic in your PSD or PDD file. It actually pertains only to files saved from Adobe PhotoDeluxe Home Edition 3.0 or earlier, and as such is a fairly infrequent problem.

Adobe recommends that you do one of the following:

• Export your photo from PhotoDeluxe to a different file format, such as TIFF or JPEG.
  • In PhotoDeluxe 1.x, choose File > Export > File Formats.
  • In PhotoDeluxe 2.0, choose File > Send to > File Format.
  • In PhotoDeluxe Business Edition, choose File > Save As > Other
  • In PhotoDeluxe 3.0, choose File > Export > File Format.
  
  
• If you're using PhotoDeluxe 2.0, 3.0, or Business Edition, merge the layers in your photo before saving it:
  1. Click Advanced and choose View > Show Layers.
  2. Choose Merge Layers from the Layers palette menu. To access the Layers palette menu, click the black triangle on the Layers palette.
  3. Choose File > Save As and give your photo a new name.

The foregoing was obtained from Adobe's web page, and has not been verified by Alchemy Mindworks. We do not have the Adobe applications in question in house, and as such are unable to provide you with assistance in using them.

Q: Can Graphic Workshop be operated from a command line, rather than through its user interface?
A: Not really. It will view image files passed to it as command-line arguments, but this is as good as it gets.

Q: When I open the Setup dialog of Graphic Workshop, the text is in a bold font that's too large — some of the text extends past the edge of the dialog. Is this the Attack of the 50-foot Font, or is the problem something that can't be described as a B movie?
A: Perhaps Captain TrueType on the Planet of Doom. Actually, Windows is missing the MS Sanserif bitmap font. If you download SSERIFE.FON and install it under Windows, the problem will be resolved.

Q: When I attempt to use the Graphic Workshop Paint function, Windows Paint attempts to run but crashes immediately. Is this an indication that Windows Paint has been eating genetically-modified crackers when I wasn't looking?
A: This is unlikely, as Windows Paint as shipped with most releases of Windows doesn't have any fingers. This problem pops up occasionally under newer releases of Windows, such as Windows XP. Locate the desktop shortcut icon for Windows Paint and right-click on it. Select Properties from the menu that appears. When the Properties dialog opens, make sure Windows 95 Compatibility Mode is disabled.

Q: Can Graphic Workshop Professional convert AVI or MOV to MPEG, or MPEG to other video formats?
A: 'fraid not. The MPEG format is encumbered by a software patent. Implementing it in Graphic Workshop would have been prohibitively expensive. Unlike traditional patents, software patents usually apply to discoveries rather than inventions — the first person to happen upon an algorithm slaps a patent on it, and everyone else winds up paying for it. Considering the relatively narrow range of applications for MPEG movies, we decided that it wasn't worth raising the price of Graphic Workshop for everyone to include this functionality. Don't thank us — thank your elected officials for patent laws which allow this sort of abuse.

Q: When I right-click in a Graphic Workshop browser window and attempt to move, copy, convert or otherwise process all the selected files, only one file is actually processed. Is this the work of subversive neo-liberal minsters of underwater pottery?
A: Probably not. By default, the right-click menu in a Graphic Workshop browser window only operates on the file you right-click on. The tool bar buttons and the functions in the Image menu operate on all the selected files. A very long time ago, when dinosaurs walked the earth, the right-click menu duplicated the tool bar functions, and processed all the selected files, hence the potential confusion for long-time users of the software. You can make the behavior of the right-click menu revert to its earlier behavior by changing the setting of RightClickOneTimeFunctions in Gwspro40.ini — see the configuration document in the Graphic Workshop Professional Manual for more about this.

Q: Graphic Workshop Professional was running fine, and then I installed the ART format plugin. Graphic Workshop thereafter refused to start, and I think it's sulking. Any idea why this happened, and how to put it in a better mood?
A: This one's exceedingly rare. For reasons we have yet to determine, the libraries which allow Graphic Workshop Professional to read and write ART files interact with a small number of other Windows applictions. When this happens, Graphic Workshop will refuse to boot up. If you uninstall the ART plugin from Graphic Workshop, the problem will be resolved. There's an uninstall link for it in the Start » Programs » Alchemy Mindworks » menu.

Q: I attempted to view or convert an AVI file. I was told that the format was unsupported, or that there was an error reading the file. I tried covering my monitor in aluminum foil to shield it from cosmic rays, but the problem persisted. Any idea what’s wrong?
A: We hate it when the aluminum foil thing doesn’t work. The only other possible explanation is that you’re encountering a codec issue. A codec is a block of code that knows how to unpack the particular type of compression used to create your AVI file. There are lots of different codecs. Sadly, Windows doesn’t install with a particularly rich library of the little beasts. If your AVI file was created with a codec that Windows doesn’t have access to, you’re sunk.

Installing the Media Player Codec Pack resolves a surprising number of AVI compatibility issues, by adding lots of new codecs to Windows. Please note that the Media Player Codec Pack is not our product, and we have not reviewed it in detail.

Q: Every time I want to install an update to Graphic Workshop Professional 4, the MSI installer insists that I uninstall the previous one. In previous versions, the new releases installed over the old ones. Why has this process become more complicated? Should I blame the insidious, creeping evil of leftist politicians and their secret wealth-transfer agenda?
A: Yes! Blame them. We knew someone would eventually come up with something they're good for.

The version 4 Alchemy Mindworks software — that includes Graphic Workshop Professional 4 — are being distributed as MSI files, rather than Windows executables, as was the case for the previous versions of our software. Windows MSI files are Microsoft Software Installation database objects. Rather than running a program to install your software, MSI files are intelligent archives that Windows unpacks and copies the contents of to the appropriate locations on your hard drive.

MSI installers get around a number of issues that have entangled our previous-generation installers, most of them having been caused by Windows and some third-party security software growing increasingly paranoid with the passage of time and the phase of the moon.

The catch in using MSI installers is that our installations are effectively bound by Microsoft's rules. One such rule is that, in so far as we've been able to determine, an MSI installer won't install new software over old software. If you attempt to do so, the new installer will instruct you to uninstall the previous version first.

While we regret the additional step involved in updating Alchemy Mindworks applications — and we're working on developing a way around it — there's not much we can do about it as of this writing. To make uninstalling previous releases of the version 4 applications easier, you'll find uninstall links in the Alchemy Mindworks section of the Windows Programs menu, precluding a rummage around the Control Panel.