ScuzzBlog: Diaries September 2020
Entry 18th September 2020: Post 1: Amiga Art - Useful paint software.
Amiga Art - Useful paint software.
From the dawn of my Amiga years I have been impressed by the wealth
of Amiga titles that let you manipulate and edit images. With the
Desktop Dynamite pack I received DPaintIV which I still use today
and has been a great partner in my animation adventures. Whilst
the title was a commercial product it did come out on a number
of cover disks and is worthy of tracking down. Not sure what was
the very latest but I have DPaint I thro to V... IV was the best.
One tip with DPaint is to get the book or at least the keyboard
shortcut list. I have mine written in a card and jammed between
my keys so I never lose them.
When I moved over to the PC I really needed a paint package that
could edit and modify JPG and GIF formats. These are essential
for internet work. DPaint will not see these formats and so the
very splendid PPaint came into play. Be very careful what package
you install if you get it free cus the demo version leaves a large
demo series of lines on all you create.
The best PPaint packages came out on CD if you can hook one up.
The most useful being on the mini CD. Having a program that can
handle jpgs and gifs means you can save them in ILBM/IFF format.
There are PC tools that can create and save in IFF so that is also
very useful.
In support of the many many paint packages that adorned the covers
of cover disks and CDs from magazines you are advised to get a
good file manager, such as DOpus or DirWorks. Knowing what files
you have and being able to quickly copy, rename and move them is
a real help. You can instantly view all your pictures in the
file manager including jpgs and gifs. Note that not all older
Amiga monitors will display certain image formats.
DataTypes are essential. Whilst there are easy ways to copy types
I would recommend actually installing them with an installer. For
jpgs or jfif I found that the DataType on the AUI cover disk is
the only one that works for me with AmigaGuide. Once you start
mucking around with software like AMOS and AmigaGuide you really
want best access to all your image formats.
There were also loads of image and animation manipulation tools
such as Image Engineer and Main Actor that were a great help in
converting file formats. I cannot stress enough the bonkers way
the Amiga worked in trying to display vast amounts of colours
and the crazy screen display formats. The Amiga was a rule to
itself in the day and was not best prepared for PC format screens
and also the image file types of the modern internet.
Anyway, I dragged a whole bag of Amiga magazines that carried the
various paint packages out and if you are minded to have a play then
go dig some out. You won't be disappointed. Great fun.
Amiga Art - Useful paint software.
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