Fractal Design Sketcher¬ brings revolutionary natural media¬ and imaging technology to grayscale graphics for the first time. Sketcher is distributed exclusively by Letraset Software Products.
Sketcher faithfully duplicates the expressive line of a soft lead pencil on rough sketch paper or the luminous glow of oil paints that have been layered on a fine-weave canvas.
As image-editing software, Sketcher offers unparalleled ease-of-use through its simple interface. Creative photo retouching has never been easier - or more fun.
Because it works in grayscale, Sketcher keeps memory consumption to a minimum. Because it's a paint application, drawing in Sketcher is easier and more natural than drawing in PostScript¿-based illustration programs.
Natural-Media¬ Tools
Sketcher generates images that look as if they were created with traditional media by simulating the behaviour of conventional drawing and painting tools. Sketcher includes pencils, chalks, charcoals, crayons, erasers, calligraphy pens, spay paint and a variety of paint brushes for oils and water colour. Sketcher also has "Artists" tools - brushes that duplicate Van Gogh's distinctive brush strokes, and Seurat's pointillism.
Paper Grains
To complement the natural-media drawing tools, Sketcher comes with a complete set of drawing surfaces accessible from the Paper Grains palette. Sketcher's tools interact with textures just as their natural-media cousins do on drawing paper, water-colour paper or on canvas.
Photo Retouching
Sketcher takes its easy-to-use interface a step further and applies it to the art of photo retouching with amazing results. Many powerful effects and operations are provided, such as sharpen, soften, distort, flip and rotate. Sketcher's friskets, which are utilised for both masking and area selection, are easily rotated and resized. Imaged processing filters like Contrast and Brightness, and Equalise optimise your images with ease. Sketcher also supports plug-in compatible filters.
Cloning Effects
Sketcher's unique cloning feature allows you to open an image and re-create it using any tool. With Sketcher, a photograph is transformed into anything from pencil drawings to charcoals. And if drawing isn't your fortÄ, the AutoClone command can automate the process for you.
Advance Printing Controls
You can print to any PostScript¿ or QuickDraw¬ device with Sketcher, including high-resolution imagesetters. Sketcher offers several advanced printing controls, including print/press dot gain, screen gamma and output device spot type. These settings can be kept with the image when saved in EPS format. Sketcher also supports RIFF, TIFF, PICT, PhotoShop, BMP, PCX and Targa file formats. Exporting your image into other applications is a snap.
Tracing Paper
Take your initial sketch and refine it into a finished illustration. Sketcher comes complete with Tracing Paper, which works just like the real thing. Draw or paint over an existing image. When Tracing Paper is turned off, all of your new imagery remains and can be saved independently of the original image.
Type Effects
Sketcher imports Type 1 and TrueType¬ fonts to create interesting effects with words and letters. Outlines can be filled with brush strokes, paper textures or photographs. Sketcher lets you scale, distort and rotate text for the widest range of possibilities.
System Requirements
Macintosh¿ Classic II, LC, SE30, Macintosh II series computer, the PowerBooks¬ 140 and 170 and Quadras¬.
A hard disk
Black and white, grayscale or colour monitor
2.5 megabytes of RAM
Apple system software 6.0.5 or later (System 7 compatible)
32-bit QuickDraw¬
Fractal Design Sketcher and Natural Media are trademarks of Fractal Design Corporation. Letraset is a registered trademark of Esselte Letraset Limited.
Macintosh is a registered trademark and Quadra, PowerBook, QuickDraw and TrueType are trademarks of Apple Computer Inc. PostScript is a registered trademark of Adobe Systems Inc.
Sketcher supports Wacom, CalComp and Kurta pressure-sensitive styluses, and other tablets and mice.
Design Studio Special Edition
Everything you could want from professional page layout software╤ and much more. Whatever the job, from a bus ticket to a set of encyclop╛dias, DesignStudio Special Edition gives you the power to combine text, illustrations and images in any way you choose.
Use grids, guidelines or free-form layouts; add PANTONE¿ Color to text and graphics; print to QuickDraw¬ and PostScript¿ printers and imagesetters.
Control typography precisely and easily with powerful stylesheets, giving effortless accuracy throughout the longest document.
Add rules and borders, create graphics, import drawn or scanned images╤and have text flow round them automatically.
Re-arrange, re-size or rotate text and graphics to get exactly the layout you need, then print. Finishing a document was never easier.
* Easy upgrade available from Ready, Set, Go!
Features include;
Paste-board style work space for intuitive page make-up
Work in Centimetres, Inches, Points, Picas & Ciceros
Type Size and Leading to 0.01 of a point
Automatic Vertical and Horizontal Justification
Rotation of any graphic or text element to one 0.01 of a degree
Import text from all common word processors
Automatic spell-checking with search-and-replace
Full word processing capabilities
Unlimited number of pages in a document
Horizontal scaling of text
Positioning of any element to 0.01 of a point
Geometric shapes for text and graphics blocks
Editable thumbnail views of pages
PANTONE¿ Colors and spot colour separation
Stylesheets and glossaries for streamlined text handling
Text flow through linked text blocks
Automatic conversion of text to proper fractions (ie. 1/5)
Built-in tables for kerning, tracking and hyphenation
