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Text File
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1989-07-28
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7KB
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161 lines
~ S p e c t r a ~
Welcome to SPECTRA, a display/editing program for 16 million colour
pictures. This program allows easy editing of ray traced pictures
produced by QRT, DKB and POV raytracers. The pictures can also be
displayed using an amazing 64 grey scales on an STe or 32 on an STFM.
Using a colour enhanced palette (IE going from black to white through an
intermediate colour), displays of 64 shades are also possible on an STFM.
The editing facilities include smoothing, dithering, scaling and also a
pixel editing mode for touching up any areas in a picture. The resulting
pictures can also be saved in either RAW or TGA format, thus allowing
conversion from one format to another (including converting the POV RAW
output format to one useable by Photochrome)
> Getting Started <
After loading, you will see the main menu from where all the
functions are selected. Some choices will allow access to further sub
menus for the extra options. To select a choice, simply move the mouse
over the appropriate bar and click a mouse button. At the bottom of any
menu, you will see the size of the main buffer and the file name and size
of the current picture. Note that on a 520 ST you should remove all
accessories to allow loading of large pictures. If the main buffer is
less than 195K then you may not be able to load full screen pictures. It
is also not possible to enlarge pictures or load the POV RAW format on a
520 ST due to the lack of memory. However, you will be able to use all
the other editing facilities.
Following is a description of all the functions available. They are
grouped according to their position in the menu structure.
1) Load RAW - This replaces the currently loaded file with a new one in
RAW format.
2) Load TGA - This loads a TGA format file into the buffer.
3) Load POV RAW - After selecting this option, you will need to enter the
width and height of your POV RAW picture. This is because this format
does not include the picture information, but uses three separate files
called X.R8, X.G8 and X.B8 where X is the filename. After entering the
dimensions, you must select the .R8 file to load. The other files will
then be loaded automatically. You must enter the same dimensions as the
picture was saved with or the file will not be loaded.
4) Save RAW - This option simply saves the current picture file in
RAW format.
5) Save TGA - As above, but this saves the picture in TGA format.
6) Display Picture - After selecting this option, a new menu will
appear, depending on whether you are using an STe or an STFM :
6a) For an STe, you will have a choice of displaying the current picture
in 16, 32 or 64 grey shades.
6b) For an STFM, you will be able to choose either 8, 16 or 32 shades
using a black and white palette or 16,32 or 64 shades using a colour
palette.
After choosing the display mode, the picture will be drawn. After this,
you can alter the palette using any of the number keys 0-9. On an Ste,
any of these keys will alter the palette where 0 is the original palette.
Keys 1-7 produce various coloured palettes and 8 and 9 produce reversed
palettes with 9 being a reversal of 0. On an STFM, the selection depends
on the display mode selected. For a black and white palette only 0 and 9
have any effect. With a colour palette, only keys 1-8 have an effect.
Pressing SPACE when the picture is being displayed will return you to the
main menu.
7) Edit - Selecting this option will bring up a new menu where the
various editing functions are selected :
7a) Pixel Edit - This powerful option allows you to edit any
single pixel in the picture. You must first select the area to edit by
moving the square around the picture. You can magnify by different
amounts by pressing any of the function keys F1 - F10, where F1 is
maximum zoom and F10 is the minimum. Click the LEFT mouse button to
select the desired area and the zoom grid will be displayed.
At the top of the screen there are 3 sliders corresponding to the
Red, Green and Blue amounts of the editing brush. You can alter these by
clicking a mouse button anywhere on any of the sliders. The values range
from 0 (lowest intensity) to 255 (highest intensity). You can also select
a colour by clicking the RIGHT button on any pixel in the editing window.
This alters all of the RGB values to correspond to the values of that
pixel. This allows you to copy any colour from one point to another. If
you click the LEFT button in the window, the pixel will be replaced by
the current values of the RGB sliders. To leave the editing mode, you
must press SPACE to return to the editing menu.
7b) Dither - Both of these options bring up a new menu allowing
7c) Smooth - different sizes for dithering/smoothing
i) Pixel This carries out the option on single pixels in the picture.
ii) Area This affects all the pixels in a 5x5 square.
iii) Full screen This affects the whole screen in one go.
If you select pixel or area edit then you use the mouse to select the
place to edit. Then use the LEFT button to affect that place and SPACE to
return to the edit menu.
7d) Enlarge - Both of these options ask you the amounts to alter
7e) Reduce - the width and height of the pictures.
Both axes can be scaled by one, two or four in both directions. After
selecting the width and height factors a bar will appear to show the time
for the scaling. Note that pictures cannot be enlarged beyond 320 by 200
or reduced below 5 by 5 pixels. Also, if you do not have enough memory to
enlarge a picture you will be told.
7f) Brightness Adjust - Again, another menu will appear containing
several functions to alter the brightness of the current picture.
7f i) Lighten 20%
ii) Lighten 5% These all adjust the brightness by the
iii) Darken 5% amount specified.
iv) Darken 20%
v) Negative This produces a negative image by reversing all of
the R,G and B values (IE 255 becomes 0 and 10 becomes 245 etc.) This
operation can be undone by selecting this option again.
vi) Return to Edit Menu
8) Change to 60Hz/50Hz - This simply alters the frequency of the
display. In 60Hz, a 64 or 32 scale picture will be slightly less
flickery. DON'T select this if you have a TV that can't handle 60Hz as
you may have to reboot.
9) Quit - This returns you to the GEM desktop. Make sure that you
have saved any edited picture first.
Finally, a word of warning - If you load a POV RAW picture and find that
it is displayed wrongly, make sure you have entered the right dimensions.
For instance if the picture is 80 x 50 pixels and you enter 50 x 80
pixels then the picture will still be loaded but will look corrupted.
That's it! Written in STOS and also using the STOS compiler by Andrew
Sage.