[fitsbits] fits to gif or png

[dwalker]

I need to transform a whole lot of 16bit FITS images to gif or png
format for display on a web server(2000 fits images a day) however
IRAF commands for export, netpbm in C and other such software change
the images to a greyscale gif that looks terrible. This has to be done
"autonomously" in a script or c program on LINUX, at the moment the
only way is by opening the files in Ximdisplay and saving the files
one by one , which come out great.
I have also investigated what seems to be Fits2gif.pro a script it
seems but I don't know how to implement it.

Any help would be useful...

David Walker