Libpng

libpng: Open Source PNG Image Library

libpng is an open source library providing API for manipulating PNG image files, supporting various color channels and transparency options.

What is Libpng?

libpng is an open source C library that provides an API for programmers to handle and manipulate Portable Network Graphics (PNG) format image files. It aims to be a replacement for the PNG reference library. libpng is widely used across platforms and languages to read, create, and transform PNG files.

Some key capabilities and features of libpng include:

• Reading and writing PNG files with support for different color types - indexed color, grayscale, truecolor with alpha transparency
• Progressive loading so images can render as they download
• Powerful built-in filtering and transformation functions
• Robust error handling using png_jmpbuf()
• Compatible across platforms like Linux, macOS, Windows
• Thread safe and pluggable memory allocation
• Output interlacing for progressive display
• Supports user-defined chunk types to store custom metadata

libpng is written in portable C and has bindings for a multitude of languages like C++, C#, Java, Lua, Perl, Python, Ruby, etc. It's released under the libpng license which is considered BSD/GPL/zlib compatible. Maintained by a group of developers collaborating online, libpng continues to evolve to support modern PNG extensions.

Libpng Features

Official Links