Visual Encryptor Help



General instructions explaining how to use Visual Encryptor are given on the Visual Encryptor webpage. However, I've created this page to hopefully answer some FAQ's people have about my program.

Q: What kinds of files can I encrypt?

You can encrypt any windows bitmap image (monochrome, 16-color, 256-color, or 24-bit real color).
You cannot encrypt any other type of file (like .gif's or .jpg's) in this program. Q: What if I try to encrypt an image that isn't black & white? You can open color bitmap images but any pixel that is not black will be displayed and encrypted as though it were white. Q: When I try encrypting the secret image a second time I get junk for shares. What the heck is happening? Whenever you choose "Encrypt", the image that is currently displayed in the window is what will be encrypted, so if you have another image (such as a share) displayed that image will be encrypted, not the secret image that you opened before. If you want to encrypt the secret image again make sure you select it from the third combo box and have it displayed before you press "Encrypt". Q: Why is the secret image cropped off when I coalesce the shares? The main window only displays the top-right 570x800 pixels of any image, unfortunately, so you cannot view the entire image of any share or combination of shares in the main window if they are too large. However, the program creates each share correctly so if you want to see the whole image, you can view it the entire file, whether it's a share or "coalescence.bmp", by opening it in Paint or another image-editing program. Q: I'm trying to print out the shares I created but the printer keeps printing in grayscale and doesn't print each pixel precisely. How can I print each share exactly as it should be? I had problems with this myself and I was told to use Adobe Photoshop to print the shares, which worked. I don't know what other programs you could use to print the shares correctly, though.
When you print the shares, I would recommend printing them directly onto transparencies, if possible, in order to eliminate distortion that the Xerox machine might introduce. It's hard enough to realign the shares as they are, and it's even worse when the pixels on different shares don't line up exactly after they've been photocopied.