HST files are mostly associated with the Image Alchemy program – a major part of the Handmade Software product line. Image Alchemy was primarily developed to run in the Unix platform but was then subsequently ported to the MS-DOS platform. The HST file format is basically used for HSI raw files that belong to the Image Alchemy program’s image files group. Programs associated with the HST file extension are therefore classified as image processing applications with format conversion capacities. This allows manipulation of different HST image files by either importing them to the native format or exporting them to other image file formats.
Files with the HST file extension has the superb ability to be saved in either an 8-bit or 24-bit image data (bitmap) that represents images in 256 colors or less and those that are categorized as true color images. The HST file extension can be further classified into two – one that supports anywhere from at least 2 to a maximum of 256 colors and one that supports RGB saved under a single file. HST files can also be saved in gray-scale, bi-level and true color graphics formats.
The HST file extension could also be associated with the “History” files for many programs running in the Windows operating system like Messenger Service, Internet Explorer and other related applications. In this nature of HST file extension, the content of the files would probably be relevant settings information and how to apply these settings in a specific application. Other contents could also be previous corrections made on a document for other applications.
HST files are therefore used by various programs and can only be opened and modified using the appropriate application that generated it.