Best way to reduce to 256 colors for RE1 .TIMs

I'm freaking out right now I'm working on a 256x256 tim that uses 3 cluts, and sadly everytime I compile the TIM file the colors are screwed up ingame..

I know exactly how to do that CLUT stuff so and I also did everything right with importing the palettes with indices intact etc.. So i tried different color reducing routines with Corel PaintShop Pro X4 and some were better while others sucked donkey balls..

So has anyone a programm or routine that is bullet proof when reducing to >256 colors for RE1 tim files?

if your trying to reduced a picture to 8bpp but you want to keep the colours of a 24bpp picture use irfanview

open your picture (in irfanview)
move your cursor to the image tab
select decrease colour depth
a box will pop up showing you options select 8bpp (256 colours)
click ok then save it where you want to what format you want

hope this helps

Will try that, I already have IrfanView installed but never tried it's decrese color function

well i hope it works it usually does for me but i havent tried modding re1 yet let me no if this has solved your problem

Allright I tried to use IrfanView sadly had the same results with it :/ It seems like the .TIM i want to use has some limitations when used ingame.. No matter how I do it, the colors are screwed.. Sometimes it looks almost right and with other methods it toally screwed..

Non-skin multi palette tim's in RE1 can be pretty annoying to edit

the only other solution i can think of is latest adobe photoshop sorry i couldnt be more help

I generally use PSP 7, optimized octree/nearest colour option and work fine
but to be fair i never try editing RE1 3 cluts tim

What is that you are trying to edit exactly?
that way i can try do it my self

if you don't wanna spoil the surprise just send me a pm

Thanks for the offer but I'm not willing to share anymore details on what im working on exactly right now .. I know can't expect more detailed help by that but it's ok

I've been using the exact same setting too, just in PSP X4 and prior to that in PSP 9. I never really had a problem with that setting before.. :/
Fun fact is, that most of the time the results are exactly as I want them, and the troubling TIM also had the right colors one time, but after editing it once again things got screwed up. I think I may have fucked up the palettes and will have to start from scratch for this one.

Thanks for all the answers guys

I use Ultimate Paint personally, it presents a near flawless conversion. However I've had this problem with two skins recently and it's only those two, I think something else may have gone wrong prior to the conversion.

I have tried to create that TIM from scratch and it seems that I screwed it up myself before. There were some problems with the color table. It has vanished after doing every step with a bit of patience though.

But it's not working everytime with RE1 sadly.. There are some pictures that will never look like how the should look like.. Maybe some header's are in fact hardcoded? Or the game reads the header out of an other file? I can't say for sure but it sometimes feels like RE1 is just trying to troll you

I am into skin making only just recently, but i started to use Adobe photoshop for 8bpp conversion.

My routine is like this:
1. Open the file you want to convert,
2. Select IMAGE -> MODE -> INDEXED COLOR -> and indicate to 8bpp,
3. Save your BMP file to 8bpp depth.

And thats it. Doing this does not lower the quality.

Hope this helps.

Hi trilliou thanks your advice is appreciated.
I've also used the exact routine you have mentioned but it's like I have stated already. It seems like the palette of the original is still being loaded for some TIM pictures. Don't know more about it yet but some pictures will be messed up when edited even when you do everything that we know of in the right way. This problem somehow does only appear in RE1, I will have to do a bit more research to proof what I'm talking about. But all routines here will work when you're dealing with skins for examples