Amiga Computing - Commodore Is Awesome

that in a picture, relative areas usually
consist of similar colours, so you can pro
tect these areas by selecting the relevant
colours.
This same sort of thinking is also used
with ArtEffect, but the execution is very
different. With Dpaint you got a list of
colours in the picture and which ones are
in the stencil. With a 24 bit image this is
obviously not practical, so instead the
area masked out by your selection is
shown graphically on screen with
ArtEffect shading out the selected areas.
Tolerances
Area is determined on the colour you
choose and you also have control over the
tolerance levels, or how closely matching
other colours have to be before they will
also be selected for the stencil. You can
select and de-select multiple areas using
the alt and control keys.
Once you have the area selected, fur
ther control is provided via invert, add
border, grow and shrink functions. Finally
there is a feather option that fades in any
effect that is applied and covers over the
edge of the selected area. Anyone that
The new motion blur filter in action, all the while
a second filter is still working in the background
Ul AND YOU-ME
It seems to be common place now for Amiga pro
grams to shun the standard interface in favour of the
increasing number of replacement systems out there.
Since version two of the Amiga's operating system
arrived a new interface library has been available
called CadTools.
This was meant to supply the programmer with
access to all the different gadget types they would
ever need in one small library, which it did.
Unfortunately, to implement even a simple set of but
tons required you to go through the arduous process
of creating a CadTool data structure for each one, and
then there was the matter of then having to collect
the gadgets messages afterwards.
Because of the unfriendliness of CadTools many
programmers took it upon themselves to produce
replacement interface libraries - entirely new ones
or ones that built upon the existing CadTools
Amiga Computing
MARCH 1997
Qhose effects
Just as every other art package out
there, ArtEffect has a bulging pouch of
image effects ready for you to unleash
on your unsuspecting pictures. Just as
with Photoshop and Photogenics,
ArtEffect uses a plugin system to allow
filters to be updated or added to at a
later date.
ArtEffect uses quite a good window
system in which a preview thumbnail o!
the finished effect is shown and any
options are available. Even though a
progress bar shows how long the pre
view will take to display, it would be
even better if the preview was a pro
gressive display. One interesting point
about the effect windows is that they
run asynchronously to the main pro
gram. So you can open an effect, leave
it open and go back to editing the main
picture, and the preview will continue to
be updated.
All the effects are pretty much what
you would expect. I was half hoping
for a decent gausian blur filter but
has used Photoshop will now realise that
the stencil is another name for Photoshop's
magic wand, and the tool in ArtEffect used
to select the stencil area is called
exactly that, but you get the added bonus
of being able to draw on the stencil as
well.
As with most programs today, to get the
best out of ArtEffect, you need a relatively
high specification Amiga - preferably an
040 Amiga with a CyberGraphX card. With a
plane old ACA or ECS machine drawing on
screen with some of the fancy pens can be
a laborious task, even though most of the
effects and other drawing tools do work fast
enough.
For a first release, ArtEffect shows enor
mous promise. I think it has a way to go
before it can live up to the claim that it is
equal to Photoshop. It has some good
library. The best known, or some would say infa
mous, is Magic User Interface, this provides a
wealth of special gadgets and features for the pro
grammer while being simple to implement To be
honest the word overkill could describe MUI, every
single part of it is adjustable and at the end of the
day most people use the same type of fonts and
gadgets.
I would say the runner up in the GUI war is BGUI,
another long running replacement system that
takes a much more cut-down approach than MUI. It
only requiring a single 100k library but still gives
the programmer a simple way to create rescable,
font sensitive windows and interfaces. With pro
grams such as ArtEffect, DrawStudio, World
Construction Set and Digital Universe all opting for
these replacement interface systems, I can only see
the trend continuing in the future.
r bolanz e
JlJI50%
Shape
Brightness
Low
1
1
1
Execute
Everything you would expect is
provided by ArtEffect's filters, I
just want a progressive display
Jie
_|32
Jo
m
unfortunately it is still limited to only two
blur levels and was almost as slow as
Photogenics'.
advantages over Photogenics - excellent
brush manipulation tools and functions are
something that Photogenics sorely misses -
and the ability to create new brushes with
in ArtEffect is excellent. Personally I cannot
wait for version two which we should be
seeing something of by the start of
February.
Bottom
" line
Requirements
RED essential BLACK recommended
RTG card
Product details
Product ArtEffect vl .5
Supplier Blittersoft
Price
Tel
E-mail
£79.95
01908 261466
bsoft@wildnet.co.uk
WWW http://blittersoft.wildnet.co.uk
Scores
Ease of use 92%
Implementation 85%
Value For Money 90%
Overall 89%