[Hitch]

Originally Posted by AlanHK

Was this scripted by Amazon's legal department?
I cited the documentation that states the KF8 format does support PNG.

Yes, and it's said that since at least 2012. In the 2012.4 documentation:

3.5.1 Image Guideline #1: Use Supported Input Formats
The Kindle platform supports GIF, BMP, JPEG, non-transparent PNG, and Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) images.

Which is pretty much what it says NOW, no??? In fact, unless I'm losing it, 9.4.1 says exactly what 3.5.1 said 6 years ago. :-)

...and, as far as I know, nothing in terms of that has really changed. Although, Alan, we get really good image quality, compared to 2012 or even 2015. Yes, like you, we use PNGs and GIFs as the base image--GIF for line-art and tables, etc., PNGs for pretty much everything else. The image quality of the reprocessing has certainly increased. IMHO, of course.

I want to know if I can actually make a KF8 file, using the PNGs Amazon states are supported by the format, and not have them "processed" and degraded.

I'm guessing the answer is still "No", but I live in hope.

Sorry--unless something's changed in the last two or three days, the answer is "no." I was just discussing this with them, as it happens. I have a client that is having cows over the fact that in Sepia/Night/Green his fleurons and chapter heads have the ubiquitous "white box" behind them. (sigh). I even sent him a Harry Potter, so he could see that even the biggest author in the world has the dreaded White Box. ;-) (not your issue, I know--yours being degradation--but that's why I was on with them.)

I have heard that Calibre can do this, but while I'm sure it would work, might not be accepted for upload to Amazon.

Given that the resulting file would be, at best, reprocessed, during the intake and PW (Publishing Workflow, as Amazon calls it) it's somewhat moot.

There are KF7, KF8, KFX, AZK. The files do not "vary"for each device, though how each device displays them may be different. Or am I mistaken?
I don't care about KF7, but the rest should be able to cope with PNG, a format unencumbered by patents invented over 20 years ago.

They absolutely vary. HD images, non-HD images...two different devices literally get different files. About 4 years ago, there was KF8 and KF7. Now, there are myriad different...flavors, I'd guess I call them...of KF8 delivered to the different devices.

You could try SVG, of course, but that's got its own issues and equally, KF7 doesn't support that at all. Moreover, at the moment, SVG will cause a page-break after each usage, too. Kind of a big PITA, really.

May I ask what type of image you're fighting with? Or examples, or...? I probably can't help, but you never know, someone here might have a helpful idea.

Hitch