TGA files for portraits? help???

[Melvoid]

Ok so im a total noob here, got some nice portraits i want to use but they are not .tga files, what do i need to use to change them from .jpegs or .png to .tga.
I only have basic paint package which seems to let you export into various other formats but of course not .tga.
is there some nice easy to find app i can download for this, any help here would be much appreciated by me (Lord Noob of Noobington)
and many others im sure.
many thanks in advance guys.

[Jack Dandy]

Pretty sure paint.net is a nice free program that can convert files to .tga.

[Crashbanito]

I'd highly recommend Paint.net. It makes a great replacement to the standard Microsoft Paint. It allows you to convert to the .tga format.

[Melvoid]

Thanks guys you were spot on, just to add to anyone else tho go to GetPaint.net to leave out being redirected from another paint.net site.

Loaded it up and it works fine does what it says on the tin , as they say
And your right its much better than MS Paint by a country mile.

[Xombium]

Why the hell would they make you need TGA files? No one has images stored on their PC as .tga and the fact that you need an entirely different program just to convert the file is retarded. They should have made it compatible with a much more common image format that any standard paint program can use. Like say the one that comes with windows, that would have actually made sense.

[Crashbanito]

"TGA or Targa image file format was one of the most ubiquitous and relatively early formats that supported alpha transparency and generally was used by the games industry for sprite data. In addition it also supported RLE (run-length encoding), which is very simple way of compacting repetitive data and can be useful for some sprite data.

The file format specification was fairly linear and also importantly wasn't encumbered by patents, so this format is trusted for its ease of implementation, features and lack of legal issues associated with software patents."

Source: http://superuser.com/a/305522

[Patchumz]

Why the hell would they make you need TGA files? No one has images stored on their PC as .tga and the fact that you need an entirely different program just to convert the file is retarded. They should have made it compatible with a much more common image format that any standard paint program can use. Like say the one that comes with windows, that would have actually made sense.

Microsoft Paint is absolutely horrid, why you'd expect anything to work with that is beyond me. The only people that use MS Paint is stubborn pixel artists. Either you get a real program, or you stop complaining.

Targa is very common, and very easy to convert to.

[darkhaven3]

I use MSPaint and IrFanView to do most of my graphical editing, with supplemental functions provided by Photoshop Elements. It's not incredibly horrid, it's just not exactly feature-rich if you know what I mean.

[DJK]

Why the hell would they make you need TGA files? No one has images stored on their PC as .tga and the fact that you need an entirely different program just to convert the file is retarded. They should have made it compatible with a much more common image format that any standard paint program can use. Like say the one that comes with windows, that would have actually made sense.

Microsoft Paint is absolutely horrid, why you'd expect anything to work with that is beyond me. The only people that use MS Paint is stubborn pixel artists. Either you get a real program, or you stop complaining.

Targa is very common, and very easy to convert to.

I'm not a pixelartist but I have used mspaint for over 15 years now and while I on some occassions have been forced into photoshop (mostly when I need layers who can be modified later on), I use mspaint for pretty much everything else :p it's rock solid and after 15 years I edit in no time