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Image MIME Reference
PaintShop-Pro-PSP

PaintShop Pro Image

image/x-paintshoppro
VS

Portable Anymap

image/x-portable-anymap
PNM

A complete technical comparison of PaintShop Pro Image and Portable Anymap — covering compression, feature support, browser compatibility, magic bytes, and when to choose each format.

Equal browser support

Feature Support

Feature PaintShop-Pro-PSP PNM
Transparency (Alpha) Yes ✕ No
Animation Support ✕ No ✕ No
Progressive Loading ✕ No ✕ No
HDR Support Yes ✕ No
EXIF Metadata Yes ✕ No
ICC Color Profile Yes ✕ No
PaintShop Pro Image
image/x-paintshoppro
Extension
.psp.pspimage.tub.pat
Container PSP Chunk-based Format
Compression Uncompressed / RLE (Run-Length Encoding) / LZ77
Algorithm
RLELZ77
Color Depth 8-bit (Indexed), 16-bit (Grayscale), 24-bit (RGB), 32-bit (RGBA), 48-bit (High Color)
Developed by Jasc Software / Corel Corporation (Alludo)
Released 1990
Magic Bytes
7E 42 4B 00
Full PaintShop-Pro-PSP reference →
Portable Anymap
image/x-portable-anymap
Extension
.pnm
Container Netpbm
Compression Uncompressed
Algorithm
None
Color Depth 1-bit (PBM), 8-bit to 16-bit (PGM), 24-bit to 48-bit (PPM)
Developed by Jef Poskanzer (Netpbm Project)
Released 1988
Magic Bytes
50 31, 50 32, 50 33, 50 34, 50 35, or 50 36
Full PNM reference →

Browser Support Comparison

Browser PaintShop-Pro-PSP PNM
Chrome Chrome
✕ ✕
Firefox Firefox
✕ ✕
Safari Safari
✕ ✕
Edge Edge
✕ ✕
IE IE (Legacy)
✕ ✕
PaintShop-Pro-PSP

PaintShop-Pro-PSP Strengths

  • Provides robust, non-destructive editing capabilities with full support for vector layers, adjustment layers, and layer blend modes
  • Historically offered a highly capable and affordable alternative to Adobe Photoshop's PSD format for Windows users
  • Features proprietary support for 'Picture Tubes' (.tub), a unique brush technology that paints sequential or random raster objects along a path
Limitations
  • Deeply proprietary format tied exclusively to the Corel/Alludo ecosystem
  • Third-party software support (like GIMP or ImageMagick) is often limited to parsing older .psp files, frequently failing to render complex layers in modern .pspimage files
  • No support in modern web browsers; must be exported to a flattened web format (JPEG/PNG) for online viewing
PNM

PNM Strengths

  • Unparalleled simplicity: parsers and writers for PNM files can be written from scratch in C or Python in just a few minutes without relying on external libraries
  • Serves as an excellent foundational teaching tool for computer science students learning about image arrays and raster graphics
  • Flawlessly pipes through Unix command-line utilities for robust automated image processing (via the Netpbm suite)
Limitations
  • Zero compression natively results in astronomical file sizes, making it entirely impractical for web delivery or consumer storage
  • No support for standard metadata formats like EXIF, XMP, or ICC color profiles
  • No native alpha channel support in the classic PNM specification (though the newer PAM format 'P7' addresses this)

When to choose which format

PaintShop-Pro-PSP
Use PaintShop-Pro-PSP when…
  • PaintShop Pro Multi-layer Project Archival
  • Digital Art and Photo Retouching
  • Picture Tubes (.tub) and Custom Patterns (.pat)
PNM
Use PNM when…
  • Unix/Linux Command-Line Image Processing (Netpbm suite)
  • Academic Computer Vision Research
  • Intermediary Format for Image Format Conversion

More comparisons

PaintShop-Pro-PSP vs ACES → PNM vs ACES → PaintShop-Pro-PSP vs APNG → PNM vs APNG → PaintShop-Pro-PSP vs AVCI → PNM vs AVCI → PaintShop-Pro-PSP vs AVCS → PNM vs AVCS → PaintShop-Pro-PSP vs AVIF → PNM vs AVIF → All comparisons →
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