Loadstar 224/224.d81/t.orchids

Text File | 2022-08-26 | 5KB | 185 lines

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           ORCHID ART 1 & 2
       by Jane M. Voskamp-Jones


THE ORCHIDS

    These Orchid graphics came from a
source called "The Plant Kingdom
Compendium", edited by Jim Harter,
Published by Bonanza Books in 1988,
ISBN 0-517-65833-X. It is a definitive
volume of more than 2400 Copyright-
Free engravings. It is always nice to
know the source of pictures when they
are used for something else.

    In 1994 and 1995, Bodo Schwarz
from Victoria, Australia, sent me
pictures of Orchids to be scanned into
the Commodore using the HandyScanner64
(a Scanntronik device) and PageFox
Cartridge, and then convert the scans
to GEOS. Bodo was quite happy with the
results of what I sent him, and he
went ahead and used them while
publishing his Orchid Clubs
newsletter.


ORCHIDS INTO ART

    Recently when I was trying to
clear out some space in my filing
cabinet, I re-discovered the disks
with the Orchids scans on. It seemed
nicer to share these pictures with
everyone. The Orchids were really
quite fantastic and deserving of a new
life.

    So I wrote to Bodo and enquired if
he would mind :

  a) my trying to share the resulting
    Art through LOADSTAR.

  b) my using the Orchids in Cards for
    friends and relatives.

    Bodo said that he certainly had no
objections to my using the graphics of
the Orchids. Thanks Bodo. Like many
computer users, Bodo has now
'graduated' to a PC, but he still has
all his Commodore gear. He says "In
hindsight, I think the old Commodores
was, still is, the best home
computer". Amen to that.

    These pictures are beautiful. The
orchids look divine and are fantastic
transferred to the GEOS medium of the
Commodore computers. There are quite a
few Geopaint pages so I will space
them out over time. Come and share
them with us, and enjoy using them
yourselves. I hope you enjoy the
Orchids as much as I do, and then get
yourself ready for Orchid Cards to
follow. My Dad who now grows Orchids,
said he loves the pictures of the
Orchids, and he should know.


SCANNING ORCHIDS - ABOUT THESE FILES

    As it turned out, I would not have
been able to scan the Orchids in
without the assistance of the PageFox
cartridge.

    To give you an idea of the process
involved for scanning, first you will
need to have a flat page to scan from,
so a photocopier might be required.
The scanner will pick up any wrinkles
or folds in the pages and create
shadowed lines. Many of the drawings
will take two passes of the scanner to
get the whole picture in, then the two
halves will need to be joined within
the art/drawing program of PageFox.
The snap together that happens in the
drawing program looks great when
working on the pictures. It always
gives me a buzz to watch it happen
anyway.

    It seems complicated, but it is
worth it to see the pictures in GEOS.
Often the colored in (grey) pictures
are difficult to scan up. Some work
out alright, and some don't, it has to
do with the contrast between black and
white, and at times, the scanners mood
on the day! The majority of the
drawings come up really good.

    The HandyScanner64 and the PageFox
cartridge, (Scanntronik devices) were
connected to my C64, to scan these
Orchids into Handy format. Then using
GEOS128 v2.0 on my C128D, and the
program HandyImport v1.1 (a Joseph P.
Buckley program) the scans were
converted to geoPaint. Some slight
editing was required, after which
ScrapCan v1.3+ (a Nate Fiedler
program) was used to compile the
pictures together on a single geoPaint
page as you see them presented here.
The text was compiled using The Write
Stuff v2 for C128 (an Eric Lee
program), using the BB Speller feature
in a 1750 REU for spell correction.

    As usual, I had lots of fun
compiling this Orchid Art for you. My
whole Commodore and GEOS system keeps
working at its best for me. Just the
way I like it. Jane.

JMV Grafix PO Box 635 Enfield Plaza
5085 South Australia


[DAVE'S ADDENDUM]: Thanks, Jane! I
believe that these works of art need
to be shared with those who, for one
reason or another, don't have or use
GEOS.

 Jane sends the files Wraptored, since
my copying system right now does not
do GEOS at all. But she kindly
includes the original GEOS files.

 I use GEOVIEWER, from LOADSTAR 152,
to look at the GEOS graphics and save
them to Doodle format, one screen at a
time. This has to be on my [real]
C-64, but it is connected to my PC
with the XE1541 cable, 64HDD, and
64HDriver (the Home Tower
configuration). After getting the
Doodles saved, I move over to the PC
and use VICE to run Doodle. Disk
access if much faster this way!

 To get the graphics to fit well on
the 320x200 pixel screen, I use
Doodle's cut, reduce, and paste
features to fit four Doodles on one
screen. This is not quite as long as
the GEOS graphic, but give you an
idea.

 The last step is to put together the
slide show. I use STB PRINT (LOADSTAR
205) to convert the Doodles to SHP
format. These and VIEWER are linked
together using Linker 2.1 by Lee
Novak. VIEWER is designed to flip
through as many SHP files as one can
put at once in memory. Next month, I
will show the programs in detail.

 Again, thanks, Jane, for some
wonderful graphics we can all use and
enjoy.

 DMM