| ★ APPLICATIONS ★ CREATION GRAPHIQUE ★ THE IMAGE SYSTEM ★ |
The imaginative Image System Christina Erskine draws out the newest art package Graphics and art packages are storming into the Popular office at the moment - the latest being CRL's Image System for the Amstrad CPC machines. "All 28 colours on the Amstrad can be used, 16 at any time” Art programs are fast becoming standardised. No longer is it enough to give the facility to draw lines, fill them In various colours, and dump the result to a printer, but circle routines, rotation, zoom, texture variety, airbrushes, and the ability lor the program to operate with joysticks, mice, light pens etc. are all considered hallmarks of the quality art program. The Image System has some, but not all of these. Firstly, it operates solely from the keyboard. There are worse keyboards to use with a graphics package than the Amstrad's. but it is still unwieldy For example, to draw your line, you use the cursor keys plus Shift. A variety of keyboard controls then enable you to draw circles, change colour, the colour palette options, textures and so on. All 28 colours on the Amstrad can be used, 16 at any one time. The first 16 colours are set out at the bottom of the drawing screen, and accessed - this gets tricky - sometimes by numbers 1-8 or Shift 1-8. and sometimes by the cursor keys, according to what mode you are In. The extra 12 colours can be accessed separately using their code numbers (consult either instruction booklet or Amstrad manual, or the top of your 6128 disc drive). If you want to colour anything brown or pink (flesh tones, for example), you'll need to go through this rather cumbersome process fairly soon, since the ‘base' colour screen is heavily weighted in favour of green, yellow and blue. The main drawing aids in the program are circles, fills and straight lines from point to point. "The basic freehand drawing mode is fairly simple to use” A circle is created by defining the extreme points of its diameter, a line - most useful lor diagonals - by setting its extremities. and fills by cursor positioning and ShiWCopy. The fills are pleasingly quick, while the circles are at their best when large. Small circles look disconcertingly squashed.
The basic freehand drawing mode is fairly simple to use, but inevitably slow and finicky, and thus difficult to use well. If your line overshoots, or goes off-course, then to delete a small part, you must change your drawing colour to that of the background, and go over the exact lines of the mistake. It must now be apparent that this is not a program for the uncoordinated. Indeed, in the accompanying booklet. CRL suggests that if you have a definite picture in mind, to try it out freehand first with felt pen and acetate film which you can then position over the screen and 'trace' with the Image System To me, this rather negates the idea of computer art packages making drawing easier for the hopelessly inartistic. Having created a picture, it can be saved and modified. It can be rotated, moved around the screen, and scaled up or down In size. The finished image can of course be dumped to a printer. As an arts package, the Image System is far less sophisticated than many on the market, and on the Amstrad hits some very stiff competition from the recently converted Melbourne Draw. However, it has most of the facilities expected of programs of this type, its main drawback being the limitations of using the keyboard only Christina Erskine , Popular Computing Weekly |
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