---
template=post
title=Colorsquash
style=/styles/post.css
style=memoryleak.css

description=Colour quantizer
art=astro_squash.gif
art_alt=squashed dog
---
[@paragraphs off]

<style>
	table {
		border: none;
		border-collapse: collapse;
		border-spacing: 8px;
	}

	table tr:nth-last-of-type(2n) {
		background-color: var(--background-alt);
	}

	table td:first-of-type {
		padding-right: 8px;
	}

	table a {
		padding: 16px;
	}

	table caption {
		caption-side: bottom;
		color: var(--text-dim);
	}

	#images {
		display: flex;
		flex-direction: row;
		gap: 0.5rem;
	}

	#images figure {
		width: 50%;
		margin: 0rem;
	}

	figure img {
		width: 100%;
	}

	figcaption {
		text-align: center;
	}
</style>

<section id="images">
	<figure>
		<img src="astro.jpg" alt="a small dog laying on a concrete floor in an industrial building">
		<figcaption>24bit rgb</figcaption>
	</figure>

	<figure>
		<img src="astro_squash.gif"
			alt="the same image in 256 color. there are some visual differences, but the two images look very similar">
		<figcaption>256 color indexed</figcaption>
	</figure>
</section>

<table style="max-width: 75%; margin: auto; float: right;">
	<tr>
		<th>Platform</th>
		<th>Size</th>
	</tr>
	<tr>
		<td><a href="./v0.3.0/squash-v0.3.0_windows-x64.zip">Windows x64</a></td>
		<td>463K</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
		<td><a href="./v0.3.0/squash-v0.3.0_linux-x64.tar.gz">Linux x64</a></td>
		<td>460K</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
		<td><a href="./v0.3.0/squash-v0.3.0_linux-aarch64.tar.gz">Linux aarch64</a></td>
		<td>463K</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
		<td><a href="./v0.3.0/squash-v0.3.0_macos-x64.tar.gz">MacOS x64</a></td>
		<td>424K</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
		<td><a href="./v0.3.0/squash-v0.3.0_macos-aarch64.tar.gz">MacOS ARM</td>
		<td>413K</td>
	</tr>
	<caption>
		squash v0.3.0
	</caption>
</table>
[@paragraphs on]

colorsquash is a tool for squishing your image into only 256 distinct colours,
allowing it to fit in a GIF or indexed PNG. It tries to do this with as little
change as possible. It's quite good! And often matches the input image very closely, but should
be considered an artists tool.

squash accepts input from png or jpg files and can output gif and png.

<!--

Links:
1. https://stackoverflow.com/a/63868920
	- https://github.com/herzbube/birthtime_touch
	- https://www.anmolsarma.in/post/linux-file-creation-time/
2. https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/statx.2.html
-->