This month's template uses a dithered 640 mode graphic trick that you may find it useful to understand. The information here is a bit technical, but don't be intimidated. Relax, and follow me.
You already know that dithering is a process that creates the appearance of sixteen colors (using 640 mode's actual four colors) by grouping pixels of two colors side by side to approximate a third color. Thus, a red and a yellow pixel together appear to be orange, a blue and a white pixel appear to be light blue, and so on. If you look closely, furthermore, you can see that these dithered pixel combinations are "weighted" - they "lean" - to the right or to the left, depending on which side the darker of the two colors in the combination is placed. The orange color, for instance, is created with the red pixel to the right of the yellow, so it "leans" to the right (the red pixel side). The light blue color "leans" to the left, because the darker of the two adjoining pixels -- the blue one -- is to the left of the white pixel in that combination, and so on. These placements are always the same -- every color is laid down the same way every time -- so they follow a pattern that can be learned and employed in painting.
This may be more clearly understood if we look at the one exception I have found. On all dithered 640 palettes two greys appear. These are each composed of a black pixel and a white pixel, which look grey in combination. The greys seem the same on the palette, but they're not. One grey actually places its black pixel to the left of its white pixel, and the other places it to the right. If you paint a pixel of each grey on your screen in "fatbits" mode, that is, you'll see that one "leans" quite markedly to the left and the other "leans" just as markedly to the right. Also, you may know by now that when you "flip" a dithered paint object horizontally the greys in it seem to end up "backwards." This, of course, is because they are.
Using this rudimentary explanation to expand your skill through experimentation will allow you to appropriate the trick I employed in the "Coach.Lamps" graphic to paint a fan-shaped pattern on the lanterns' reflector shields. In effect, I used dithered color combinations, rather than lines, to articulate the design. Had I tried to do this with the line drawing tool, the result would have been an unsightly blotch of black and grey pixels, a blob. But, since each dithered pixel "leans" variously according to its fixed properties, using them in careful combinations let me hint at the appearance of the design without actually drawing it. Try it yourself!
Remember, you can open, modify and/or print "Coach.Lamps" in almost any SHR paint program because it's stored in Apple Preferred Format. If you want to make an Apple- works GS template of it, open a folder in the AWGS page layout module and click "import" in the "File" menu. If you want to stretch your graphic for sharper printing when combining it with text, hold down the option key when you click to place the graphic on the page - AWGS will stretch it for you!
INSTALLING SPENCER'S CORNER
Select "File Copier" from the File menu (or simply press Open-Apple-F). When the File Copier is loaded in, select Spencer's Corner from the list, choose where you want Spencer's placed, then let the Copier do its work!
