Amiga Computing - Commodore Is Awesome

films with all the words and pictures
on them. Four films are needed to
reproduce a full colour page — cyan.
magenta, yellow and black. These
films are sent to the printers, who use
them to print the pages of the
magazine.
At this point you may be saying,
"What! You use Macintosh computers!
I thought you were all Amiga
fanatics!" This is a very valid thing to
shout. In fact, it can be quite
embarrassing for us to have to admit
that our Amiga magazine is produced
on rival computing hardware.
There are good reasons for using
Macs. some of them financial, some
political but most of them all to do
with the lack of decent software
available on the Amiga when the
electronic revolution started.
I'm happy to say that this situation
has changed. There is now enough
high quality software available to
allow everything that can be done on a
Mac to be done on an Amiga. And a
few other things as well.
T thing to have on your desk. It's
Ismall,
quiet. compact and costs about
IEMI
That's a lot of money to spend
E on one small piece of equipment, but
Slet's
have a look at what it can before
hdeciding
it's too expensive.
a If you gave it to a computer
rilliterate
person. there is no way they
p
could ever guess what it's for. There
are no buttons, no switches: Just a
s
c
single cable leading away. It looks
like a slightly larger than pocket-
a
sized colour television set which
n
hasn't been finished yet. Then you
n
start using it...
e Its main purpose in life is to convert
r photographs and drawings into
isomething
which your computer can
s use. It works in a very simple way:
a
l
, ,
o
I
v
t
e
t
l
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y
i
f
t
3 bit colour, 50 dpi. 12k f
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7
Which brings me rather neatly to
this pile of hardware and software I
have on the desk in front of me. For
those who can't see it — and that's
everyone except me.I suppose — I have
an expanded B2000 Amiga. a Sharp
IX100 Handy Colour Scanner and a
copy of ScanLab 100 software.
The last two items were lent to me
by Silica Systems, and unfortunately I
have a nasty feeling they will want
them back in the near future.
What I have here is basically the
capability to produce Amiga
Computing. here and now. The main
reason why I'm not going to is that it
would take me about six months to
produce each issue on my own.
However, let me explain how I would
go about doing it, given the chance
and a time machine.
F the copy using Protext So far, so
Igood.
How long this takes depends a
Rlot
on what it is I'm writing about,
Swhen
the deadline is due and how
T
L
Y
,
I
w
oThe
item to be scanned is placed
underneath, and a miniature camera is
u
ldragged
over it, converting the analogue
d
data to digital data as it goes.
The hardware is supported by a
s
specially written piece of software
i
called ScanLab 100. This is typically
t
ASDG: Totally Amiga-friendly
d
program and is a doddle to use.
o After selecting your image. and
wplacing
it under the 10 by 16 cm
n window you select a "preview" scan.
wThis
quickly and painlessly turns it
rinto
a miniature black and white
i image. Now all you have to do is draw
ta
box around the part of the drawing
eyou
are interested in. and select the
"fine scan" option.
Here a problem becomes apparent: On
a 1Mb Amiga. you can only scan an area
about 2 cm's square with the highest
The Sharp IX100 Colour Handy Scanner
3 bit colour, 200 dpi, 201k
-
much sleep I had the night before. An
article like this would probably take
24 hours, split over the week.
Once written, I would load up my
favourite DTP package, Professional
Page. After consulting my past issues
of Amiga Computing for house style,
and Green's series on DTP for lay-out,
I would create a rough page, leaving
gaps for any pictures.
Now to the artwork: My favourite
bit. Let's say, for the sake of example, I
want to include a picture of Kilhurn's
answer to Kevin Schwantz — my friend
Colin.
I have the original colour print in
front of rue, and it's lust the right size
for scanning, about 9 by 15cms. Time
to connect the Handy Scanner to the
Amiga and install the software on my
hard disk, which incidentally, is very
easy to do.
So the photograph is placed under
the scanner, and a resolution selected.
On a 1Mb machine — the barest
minimum useful — I can just about
scan a grey scale image.
With my extra memory, I can grab a
resolution. You really need lots of
memory. My Amiga has an extra 2Mb,
but I still can't scan the full window.
It is recommended you have more
than 4Mb. Yup, that's a whole lot of
memory. However, if you are taking
DTP at all seriously, you probably
have this amount already.
From within the fine scanning
screen you can select between the
different resolutions and colour
options. The scanner will work at 50.
100 and 200 dots per inch. You can
scan in monochrome, 6 bit grey scale,
3 bit colour or 18 bit colour.
Monochrome and grey scale scans can
all be made in one pass, whereas
colour scans take three different
passes: One for red, one for green and
one for blue.
Scanning in mono and in 3 bit
it 1
It
?
6 bit grey. 50 dpi. 25.(
*