Floppyshop 2/Floppyshop - 2.zip/Floppyshop - 2.iso/diskmags/4671-5.790/dmg-4790/power_20/rainbow.pwr

Text File | 1989-12-31 | 8KB | 139 lines

               Rainbow Version 1.0 by Addiction Software
           Distributed  by JCA Europe Limited [phone]

                              REVIEWED


It's hard to know where to start with this package, you see I cannot
class it as a full art package, yet it also lacks some of the more
important features of a top range photo studio, but somehow it still
retains some of the most interesting effects available in any Falcon
graphics program yet.

You can run Rainbow from floppy or hard drive and it will function
perfectly well with either an RGB or S\VGA monitor, infact that is
one thing that really impressed me with Rainbow, the amount of
options you can configure for your monitor type, suffice to say you
should have no problems running this at all.

The program is quite small taking up only about 170K which is a nice
change.  As you load up a nice title picture appears and then enters
you into the main work screen for the picture studio.  From here you
can either start work on your masterpiece or enter the photo studio
(more later).  One thing about Rainbow is that you can configure
anything and everything!  All the multitude of windows that litter
the screen can be picked up and thrown around at will so you can
quite simply redesign the whole user interface with your mouse.  But
there are so many boxes and at such irregular shapes you will find it
hard to design anything that works other than the pre-defined screen
which is a shame.  I tried to get the constant zoom box to be fully
on screen the same time as I edited my picture but try as I might I
couldn't seem to fit the boxes in around it which led to frustration.

You may be wondering why I said that this isn't much of an art
package, well that is because it has only a VERY limited selection of
tools available to you.  To be precise there are only 6.  A pen which
does its job of providing you with a pixel tool, you can set the pen
to blend and smooth (as you can with most the tools in Rainbow) which
is a nice touch.  Then there is the fill tool, I was expecting
something really special here, nice gradient fills with maybe that
impressive 'blend' function that Rainbow has in abundance.  However
all you get is a nice fast single fill.  A real shame and maybe
something they could work on for version 2.0.  Then there is the line
tool, you can do a normal line, a coloured line, heck even fading and
blending lines, this is a nice tool.  Then comes my favourite -
sponge - a very very clever tool and one which I feel you will spend
most your time playing with.  Load a picture, select sponge and
smooth and make those jaggies vanish with a simple swipe of your
sponge.  You can have it coloured so it acts like a real sponge or
simply blending and harmonizing the colours as only Rainbow knows
how.  The spray tool is just as fun with this respect, you can
configure the size of the spray, the density and make it smooth or
blend and with playing around do alsorts of other things.  Shape has
only two shapes at the moment, a box and a triangle.  Put this into
filled fade mode and blend mode and you can have some amazing fun
here putting box on-top of triangle and watching the colours merge
together, quite amazing really.  Finally there is the pick colour
tool which does just that and a little tool known as RGB which is a
kind of filter pen and can produce some interesting effects indeed.

I have been drawing graphics for years now and have used a lot of
packages and I am just baffled why Addiction Software have not
included some of the most elementary art tools.  There is no circle
option, no polygon option which could be wonderful fun if they had a
blend option built into it.  No gradient or even multi-colour fills
which is a real shame.  No text input or font options at all, perhaps
you could make use of Speedo fonts?  A possible spline function would
be nice and some way of defining the block you are drawing with.
There is a very very basic cut and paste function but its nothing
like you will be used to using, for example you cannot drag a box
around the area you want and simply copy this to another area of the
screen, you have to use their awkward box selection whereby you pick
the top left point and then the bottom right point and then click
somewhere in the middle, it takes getting use to.  There is no option
to select where the actual 'cut' image ends up on the destination
screen which is a real shame, you cannot position it at all, it just
puts it in the top left corner regardless.  The blend option on the
cut and paste is wonderful though and you can (attempt) to merge
various pictures together with limited success but the end result
looks stunning.  Please if you make any changes for version 2.0 then
make this one of them so we can copy an area onto the current screen
and place it anywhere we like or indeed onto the source screen.

There are 10 pre-defined palettes and they are all very nice but
what's more is that you can make your own up by choosing a colour and
merging it with the current palette by clicking in one of four boxes.
 Its hard to explain so play with the demo on the cover disks and see
what I mean!  The palettes are wonderful and I feel the selection
method they have used is very very clever and saves a lot of time and
hassle.  There are a few basic picture options such as horizontal and
vertical flip and x y halve which can be nice.  They could have made
an option so you select which percentage you wish to decrease the
image by, ie 60% X and 30% Y to make some very interesting pictures.
Also the ability to wrap the image onto a shape would be amazing, but
I think maybe that could be reserved for a 3D studio perhaps?

The Photo Studio allows you to load a picture and pass a few filters
over it such as negative, contrast and noise.  This section is quite
nice but has nothing on those features in programs such as Studio
Photo.  Current supported format types are TIFF, TARGA, NEOCHROME,
DEGAS and TRUE PAINT.  However I did have a fair few problems with
trying to load True Paint files, I'll put this down to True Paint
though!  Options for JPEG or GIF (both industry standards) would be
appreciated and indeed very useful.  You can also save your picture
as raw data which could be of some use to programers although no
display source code is provided.

Rainbow only costs thirty pounds and for that you get a graphics
package that is sturdy in use, well written and certainly very fast
in all areas, you'll never be left waiting with this program.  But I
do feel it is lacking in some crucial areas and this really needs to
be addressed as there is not a decent drawing package on the Falcon
yet and this looks like it could well be the one if only they provide
us with some more of the basic tools we need.  It will support a
Tabby graphics tablet if you have one, it will run with 1 or 4 meg
and looks like it is to be updated regularly which is a refreshing
change.  If you have some pictures you would like to play around with
then can I recommend you purchase Rainbow, select the fade filled box
and play away because this is the most colourful graphics program on
the Falcon.

Overall - 86%


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