August 2001

n
double-click
august 2001
Executive Contact List
Please feel free to contact any of the following individuals
if you have comments or questions relating to Macintosh
Users East or Macintosh computing in general.
Position/Name
Phone#
Mac Evangelist
Bruce Cameron
Hm: (905) 983-9205 Orono
Email: bcameron@lis2000.net
Past President
Hugh Amos
Bus: (905) 683-4760 Ajax
Hm: (905) 683-4320
Meeting Coordinators
Mark Fenton
Jim Foster
Hm: (905) 430-8234
Email: fenton@idirect.com
Hm: (905) 432-0921 Courtice
Email: jfoster435@home.com
Treasurer
Hm: (905) 683-3214 Ajax
Membership Chairman
Doug Kettle
BBS Administrator
Jim Foster
Hm: (905) 432-0921 Courtice
Email: jfoster435@home.com
MaUsE BBS - The Source(905) 404-9874 ....56k
Courtice
Special Events
Chris Greaves
(705) 887-2508 Fenelon Falls
Email: cgreaves@i-zoom.com
Executive at Large
John Field
Hm:905-885-8718
Mary McCarthy
Photoshop 6 is Adobe’s professional answer to all
your image editing questions. If it can’t be done
in the latest version of Photoshop, it probably
can’t be done. But Photoshop 6 is not the sole
provider of magic when it comes to working with
images and pictures. There are dozens of alternative programs and utilities that you can use to
work with your images. In this issue we’ll look at
some of the “cheap & cheerful” alternatives that
the amateur photographer can use to rework
photos. Some are freeware, some shareware, and
some commercial products, but each of them just
might be all you really need to do everything
your situation requires. And remember: before
there was Photoshop version 6 there were
Photoshop versions 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 that obviously worked just fine for somebody. The Macintosh
software auctions like eBay are an excellent place
to pick up earlier versions of programs that are
possibly even better for your system than the latest versions, and a lot cheaper, too. When I went
on the internet and searched “Macintosh image
editing software” I got dozens and dozens of
potential programs. I could have picked any ten
for this issue, but I chose a random selection of
the old and the new. I hope you like them. They
are all different from the usual fare and there is
something for everyone among them.
Greeter/Blithe Spirit
Macintosh Users East [MaUsE]
P.O. Box 30530, Oshawa Centre P.O.
Oshawa, Ontario, L1J 8L8 Canada
MaUsE Message Line: 905-433-0777
Double Click
Double Click Editor
Hm: (905) 576-2097 Oshawa
Michael Shaw
Email: michael_shaw@sympatico.ca
fat_idle_bastard@yahoo.ca
FAX: 905-576-5527
Printing & Distribution Hm: (905) 683-3214 Ajax
Doug Kettle
Cover Design
Sean Murphy
From the Editor
Contents
PhotoFlash...Pg. 3
Digital Darkroom...Pg. 5
PhotoSoap...Pg. 7
Graphic Converter...Pg. 8
Rainbow Painter...Pg. 10
PhotoGenetics...Pg.11
Smoothie...Pg. 13
Compositor...Page 15
BME...Page 16
Image Viewer...Page 17
Photoshop 2.5.1...Page 18
MacWorld Expo...Pg. 20
Apple
PhotoFlash 2
Jjust think of it: no Photoshop 6. What are you
going to do ? With digital photography just itching to get into your life and take over your Mac if
you don’t have some heavy duty photo editing
software you are going to be left behind. You
need the heavy hitting power of Adobe
Photoshop. Or do you ?
I’d like to suggest that the latest version of
Photoshop 6.0, powerful enough for the most
demanding and ambitious professional, is perhaps more than the rest of us, the stay-at-home
strictly amateur point-and-shoot shutterbugs,
really need. Or can handle. At the risk of committing blasphemy I’d like to suggest a half-dozen or
so alternatives to the Adobe product.
I’ll bet most of you have never heard of
PhotoFlash, Apple's own photo-enhancement
and cataloging program. While it doesn't offer
the image-editing power of Adobe Photoshop, it
does provide the basic tools you need to enhance,
resize, and retouch images acquired from a scanner or digital camera and then organize those
images for placement in desktop publishing programs like this. With the release of version 2.0,
Apple vastly improved the program's cataloging
features, added support for the Apple QuickTake
100 and 150 digital cameras.
PhotoFlash handles images saved in PICT, TIFF,
JPEG, Photo CD, EPS, and DCS file formats. (It
can also read native Photoshop files but can't
save files in that format.) You can easily convert
files from one type to another, employing any of
several file-compression options.
The program's image-enhancement tools cover
the basics: brightness, contrast, overall exposure,
and color balance. But PhotoFlash doesn't include
tools for editing individual color channels, creating masks, or applying sophisticated special
effects. (The program does support many of
Photoshop's plug-in filters, but it's not compatible with some of the more powerful distortion filters.)
The 14 tools on PhotoFlash's tool palette include
a variety of standard selection tools, as well as
tools for cropping, resizing, rotating, blurring,
and sharpening. Two unique tools are DeDust,
which automatically removes specks in otherwise
solid fields of color, and DeScratch, which
removes thin scratches that might mar a scanned
image. Predictably, it's sometimes
difficult for PhotoFlash to distinguish between genuine hairline
scratches and normal portions of
Word 6.0, and FileMaker Pro 2.1
layouts. To record a new script, you
simply click on the Record button
located on the floating script
palette, perform a series of actions,
and then save the script.
PhotoFlash doesn't have the image
processing
capabilities
of
Photoshop but it also costs a whole
lot less. It handles all the basic
image-enhancement tasks a casual
desktop publisher is likely to need
and provides a simple, uncluttered
interface for organizing images,
improving their general appearance, and placing them in other programs.
a complex image, so these tools must be used
with caution. Fortunately, you can fine-tune their
sensitivity using the Enhance dialog box. This
box works very similar to the Daystar Charger
Photoshop accelerator, but without requiring
Photoshop. With the Enhance features you can
use sliders to apply changes to a small portion of
your complete image and the box changes to provide the appropriate controls for:
•Adjust Colors
•Balance and Exposure
•Brightness and Contrast
•Blur
•Sharpen
•Remove Dust
•Remove Scratches
One of PhotoFlash's real strengths is its extensive
support of AppleScript. PhotoFlash comes with
several useful scripts that automate the program's functions and integrate it with other
applications. Scripts can place an image in
QuarkXPress, PageMaker 5.0, Persuasion 3.0,
PhotoFlash includes cataloging features that let you quickly organize
groups of images in searchable catalogs. Images are displayed as
thumbnails and can be sorted by
file name or date. You can add an
image to a catalog simply by dragging the image's icon onto an open
catalog window. PhotoFlash can catalog the contents of an entire disk by scanning the disk for
images and adding to the catalog each one that it
finds.
You can search catalogs by file name or by a specific string of caption text, and PhotoFlash will
create a new catalog containing images that meet
the search criteria. Version 2.0 also allows you to
search by sketch-you draw a crude thumbnail
using a few basic painting tools, and PhotoFlash
will find images that roughly match your sketch.
In addition, you can
search for an image
by similarity; choose
an
image,
and
PhotoFlash will automatically select any
other images that
match it in basic color
and composition.
Digital
Darkroom 1.2
Here’s another likely candidate. A search for
Digital Darkroom from MicroFrontier will get
you to a program that will amaze you.
Aimed at novices with basic image-editing needs,
MicroFrontier's Digital Darkroom has a simple
interface, a basic tool set, and a few automaticcorrection features. Digital Darkroom's simple
tools are contained in a single floating palette.
Along with the usual complement of
tools, the palette includes a gradient
tool and a basic text tool but no
graphics primitives such as circles or
squares. You make selections by using
marquee, magic-wand, and lasso
tools that prove adequate for simple touch-ups
and basic compositing; Digital Darkroom lacks
the ability to feather selections to create smoother
editing transitions.
An Option button lets you change the brush
tool's size and shape and the line tool's width.
Unfortunately, the eraser is limited to an
unchangeable square, so erasing is difficult in
tight areas. Additionally, Digital Darkroom's lack
of smudge and blur tools makes it nearly impossible to do smooth, seamless touch-ups.
Digital Darkroom supports Photoshop plug-ins,
including Acquire modules, which
allow you to import graphics directly
from scanners and digital cameras. For
color correction, Digital Darkroom
provides a Brightness and Contrast filter as well as a Color Variations tool.
Free of complicated levels or curves
dialog boxes, Digital Darkroom's color
correction is easy to use. For each filter,
the current selection is shown, sur-
rounded by swatches of
variations. Clicking on a
variation updates the
center swatch and provides a new group of
choices.
The
program's
AutoMagic menu provides automatic correction and editing features. The menu's Auto
Enhance feature does a
good job of equalizing
the tonal range of an
image; the Red Eye and
Scratch Removal filters
also
prove
useful.
Although the program
includes a virtual-memory scheme that makes
it possible to edit large
images,
Digital
Darkroom's performance can be a bit sluggish, even on a speedy
modern Mac.
Kai's Photo
Soap
This program has many features you'd expect in
an entry-level image-editing program, plus a few
extras. But befitting the Kai in its title (after Kai
Krause, chief design officer for MetaCreations),
the program implements these features in a most
unconventional manner. In Kai's view, retouching
a photo should be as intuitive as adjusting the
brightness on your TV set. That means dumping
the traditional menu bars and dialog boxes found
in ordinary software, and replacing them with
colorful push-button gadgets that would look
more at home in a stereo system. If you're accustomed to more-conventional graphics programseven one as simple as Adobe's PhotoDeluxeyou'll find this approach hinders your productivity, but the target audience of graphics novices
will love it.
When you run Soap, the familiar Macintosh interface transforms into a brave new "MetaWorld."
This will be a familiar event for users of other
Meta Creations programs like Bryce. It's a fun
place where the tools and controls are works of
interactive art. For starters, Soap's features are
organized into seven virtual rooms, plus a Map
Room that helps you navigate to other rooms. In
these rooms, you can modify hue and saturation,
crop and rotate photos, open images in various
formats, fix exposure automatically, adjust
brightness and contrast, add backgrounds and
objects, erase scratches, soften textures, and fix
red-eye problems. You can apply most of these
effects to the entire image or to selected portions.
Although the program lacks conventional selection tools, it compensates by including brushes
that let you paint effects into the portion of the
image you want to modify. Inexperienced users
will probably find this approach more intuitive
than using a lasso or magic wand, but Soap's lack
of selection tools precludes simple cut-and-paste
operations. Soap also lacks support for Adobe
Photoshop plug-ins, a curious omission on the
part of the company that brought us Kai's Power
Tools.
Soap's amusing interface presents the features in
a seemingly logical manner. But you may find
yourself bogged down as you go from room to
room to access different tools. The irony of Soap's
interface is that experts and novices will find it
equally baffling if they dive in before reading the
mercifully short manual.
Such productivity may be less important to
graphics novices than to their professional counterparts, but in one respect Soap falls short even
as a consumer product: when you run the software, it takes over your entire system. Even the
menu bar disappears, blocking access to the
Apple menu and other open apps. You can
restore the menu bar, but only through a poorly
documented keyboard shortcut or a control that
appears in some of the rooms. Anticipate hunting
through the program and manual to get your
Mac back.
Graphic
Converter
I can honestly say that even with Photoshop on my
Mac I tend to reach for Graphic Converter at some
point during the preparation of every edition of the
Double Click. All of the images in this article about
image editing software went through Graphic
Converter either on their way from PICTs and GIFs
to JPEGs or from the QuickTake camera file format
to PICTs. From the Picture menu seen at right, it is
possible to call up control windows to change most
of the common features of any picture: resolution,
size, and number of colours. Using the tools in the
simple but powerful toolbar at left, I can crop elements from the pictures and make pixel by pixel
repairs.
As the name implies, Graphic Converter, although it has
many other features to make working with pictures easier, is
at its best when used to convert pictures from one format
into another. The demands of different programs and platforms have spawned a plethora of file types for pictures and
images, some popular
and ubiquitous but many
others of them are
obscure or only used in
specific
instances.
Graphic Converter can
recognize and translate
about 145 of them.: PICT,
Startup-Screen, MacPaint,
TIFF
(uncompressed,
packbits, CCITT3/4 and
lzw), RIFF, PICS, 8BIM,
8BPS/PSD, JPEG/JFIF,
GIF, PCX/SCR, GEMIMG/-XIMG, BMP (RLE
compressed BMP's also),
ICO/ICN, PIC (16 bit),
FLI/FLC, TGA, MSP, PIC
(PC
Paint),
SCX
(ColoRIX), SHP, WPG,
PBM/PGM/PPM, CGM
(only binary), SUN , RLE,
XBM, PM, IFF/LBM,
PAC, Degas, TINY, NeoChrome, PIC (ATARI), SPU/SPC, GEMMetafile, Animated NeoChrome, Imagic, ImageLab/Print
Technic, HP-GL/2, FITS, SGI, DL, XWD, WMF, Scitex-CT, DCX,
KONTRON, Lotus-PIC, Dr. Halo, GRP, VFF, Apple IIgs,
AMBER, TRS-80, VB HB600, ppat, QDV, CLP, IPLab, SOFTIMAGE, GATAN, CVG, MSX, PNG, ART, RAW, PSION, SIXEL,
PCD, ST-X, ALIAS pix, MAG, VITRONIC, EPSF (with the help
of EPStoPICT), Meteosat5, Sinclair QL, VPB, j6i, ASCII, ESM,
CAM, PORST, Voxel, NIF, TIM, AFP, BLD, GFX, FAX3, SFW,
BioRad, PSION 5, KDC (only PPC), QNT, JBI, DICOM, FAXstf,
SKETCH, CALS, EletronicImage, X-Face, NASA RasterMetafile, Acorn Sprite, HSI-BUF, FlashPix (with QuickTime 4),
ISS, RLA, VBM, HPI, CEL, WBMP, PGC, PGF.
Once Graphic Converter reads and displays these images they
can be cataloged, enhanced, and filtered using the commands
from the picture and Effect menus and then saved in any of the
following 45 image formats: PICT, Startup-Screen, MacPaint,
TIFF (uncompressed, packbits and lzw), GIF, PCX, GEM-IMG/XIMG, BMP, IFF/LBM, TGA, PSD, JPEG/JFIF, HP-GL/2, EPSF,
Movie (QuickTime), SUN, PICS, PICT in Resource,
PBM/PGM/PPM, SGI, TRS-80, ppat, SOFTIMAGE, PNG,
PSION, RAW, WMF, XWD, XBM, XPM, Clip, ASCII, PAC, ICO,
RTF, VPB, Finder Icons, PSION 5, X-Face, ISS, CEL, WBMP, PGC.
This all sounds very mechanical but what it all boils down to is that Graphic Converter is an allaround universal translator that allows you to make just about any image usable with just about any
program. No matter where you get an image or what format it is stored in, Graphic Converter can
usually fix it up so that it looks and works better with your software and looks better on your monitor and printer.
While writing this article
one of our MaUsE members
showed up at the door with,
among other things, a floppy disk with a Quark document on it that had a logo
that he needed to use. It was
the work of a minute to
expand it in Quark and use
the Shift Command 4 keyboard command to select it
and turn it into a PICT file.
From there I saved it back to
the floppy four times, saving the file as a WBMP,
JPEG/JFIF, GIF and PICT.
Rainbow
Painter
Rainbow Painter is a unique painting and photo
retouching program for the Macintosh. The
unregistered version lets you try all features, with
the exception of some effects and the export function. Any pictures you produce in the unregistered version are saved internally, and can be
exported when you have registered. The interface
is...well...weird. Maybe confusing would be a better word. Its certainly unlike anything else.
Search it out on the internet and download the
demo. All you need is any Power PC Mac and ten
Megs of hard drive space. The main features of
Rainbow Painter are:
• Innovative design.
• Unique user interface.
• Let's you edit and view a picture in multiple
windows simultaneously with individual magnifica• Up to 8 image layers with alpha/opacity
channels.
• More than 60 different effects and tools to use
on your pictures.
• Mask layer with special sets of tools and operations/effects.
• Three different studios, where you may
rearrange and add windows as you like.
• Imports/exports Jpeg and PICT images, as
well as a few other formats.
• Misc. optimizations.
• Info about site licenses added.
Patience and time are required to master the intricacies of this program but the effort is well
rewarded. Once you figure out the interface,
understated as “unique” on the website, you will
find this powerful image manipulation program
well worth the effort.
PhotoGenetics
2.0
At first glance, PhotoGenetics 2.0 looks almost
exactly like the previous versions. They have
tried to keep the new interface familiar, so that
users accustomed to earlier versions will not be
forced to start learning again with every upgrade.
However, deep inside the program you will discover many of the changes. The documentation
has also been updated to reflect the current version, in which you may read about all of the
details of the upgrade.
You will notice the biggest difference upon running an image evolution with the new version for
the first time: optimizing images has become
even easier and definitely faster as a result of the
one-step evolution process with real-time preview. You are now able to see how your image
will change, before you rate the image. The program will also detect color shifts automatically
and try to correct them in the first steps of an
image evolution.
The image browser has been enhanced by a batch
print function that prints any number of images
in a user selectable size and automatically distributes the images sparingly across as many
pages as are needed. Batch printing may include
image processing (optimizing and dewarping) by
use of genotypes and thus makes PhotoGenetics
2.0 a real photo production tool.
The management of genotypes has been greatly
enhanced. You may now store them in folders or
subdirectories, and edit names and comments.
The testing of genotypes with images has also
been simplified by new functions in the genotypes list.
EXIF information contained in some JPEG files
will now be displayed in the image browser and
preserved with the modified images.
And Mac® users will now enjoy the same kind of
image browser as users of the Windows® version. Additional image file formats are available
through QuickTime® import and export.
PhotoGenetics Add-ons are program extensions
that may be purchased separately. Each Add-on
provides a new evolution tool for a certain purpose.
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Smoothie
Smoothie removes the jagged edges from pictures
produced in your drawing and presentation
applications using true subpixel anti-aliasing for
superior results. It can be used to anti-alias single
pictures, batch process many pictures, or even
process an entire slide show for use in presentations as a Smoothie Slideshow or a QuickTime
movie.
Anti-aliasing is the central technology in
Smoothie. The basic operation in anti-aliasing is
to fill in the jagged edges between two colors
with
intermediate colors. Look closely at the before
and after picture above to see the dramatic difference anti-aliasing makes for on screen graphics.
Smoothie has a very useful batch processing facility. This allows you to process either a scrapbook
file filled with pictures or a folder filled with
PICT files. Output can be either a scrapbook file
of pictures, a Smoothie Slideshow, or a
QuickTime movie.
Smoothie Slideshows are particularly useful
when you are smoothing an on-screen presenta-
tion created in programs like Persuasion and
PowerPoint. For Smoothie to do its job, you need
to create a vector picture, that is, one made up of
lines, other graphics, and text. Smoothie will not
smooth pictures containing only bitmaps.
To control how Smoothie works, there is a main
settings dialog. A picture of this is shown below:
Smoothie lets you choose how many colors you
want to use in your output. Usually, the more colors you use, the better the results. On the other
hand, the more colors you use, the larger your
pictures will be.
Smoothie supports dithering. Dithering is a technique used to simulate more colors than are available in a picture. A picture containing 256 colors
can look almost as good as one that uses thousands or millions of colors when dithering is
used. Smoothie lets you scale your picture in one
of two ways: either by a set percentage or to a
specific size in pixels.
Smoothie supports the Edition Manager (Publish
and Subscribe). You can have Smoothie automatically publish the results are they are produced.
You can also have Smoothie process new data
that is published into Smoothie. These options
make it easy to use Smoothie in the background
while you tweak a picture in a foreground drawing application.
Smoothie supports the use of QuickTime's image
compressors to minimize the size of your final
output. Smoothie is sold as shareware, which
means you can use it and see if it is useful to you.
If it is, they ask a $24.95 registration fee.
Compositor 1.9
Compositor is a cool graphic utility program for creating art from images, and basic
image editing. It has over 125 filter and channel effects variations built in, and can
save and replay nearly all of your image editing actions. Compositor is fast, and
gives great results while adding features that artists may fine lacking in any other
program. It still has some limitations reflecting its youthful vintage, the main one being that it is a one
canvas (image) at a time program right now. Use Import To Clipboard and Swap With Clipboard to
work around that a bit for now.
Compositor gives you all this for less than $20 currently. ($19)
Special features and filters:
• Apply Luminosity Map - Make a
movie!
• Apply Actions To QuickTime Movie
• Import a QuickTime movie for playback (only)
• Stars and Planets - drag one on over.
• Luminous Edges filter
• Find Edges filter upgraded to serious business
• New Rude Beast filter
• New Et Tu Beast filter
• New Rude More blur filters
• New Equalize kicks that histogram
into shape
• New Equalize All kicks that histogram into more shape
• New Posterize makes those colors
more challenged
• New Swap Clipboard command
• 13 New Paste compositing variations
• Custom Kernel Filter Revamped to
save and load settings
• Blur menu revamped
• 3 New Combo Filters
• Soften Image filter
• Son of Spazoid filter
• Export QuickTime Image File
• Easier Registration, plus URL
Launchers added
• Quick Tips in Help Menu
• New Icons, more icons.
• Many Bug fixes. "New Features vs.
Bugs Added" Ratio reduced nicely.
BME
Don’t ask me what the name signifies. I don’t know. This program will definitely never be a threat to Photoshop but it more than makes up for what it
lacks in complexity by being simply simple. The pallet of tools is the most
basic imaginable with just five boxes to show the possible actions. There are
only eight filter commands from the Effects menu but each calls up its own
slider control panel to help you change your pictures and all of the effects are
reversible with the “undo” command. This program has many of the most
common and useful effects and filters presented in a very basic format. It is a
great introduction to photo and image editing without the complexities and
complications of layers and paths. Another big difference is the price: BME is
free for anyone to download from the SoftLogik Publishing Corporation
website. The program comes with a wonderful BME Guide application just
like the Mac OS Help Guide that enables the user to learn the program by
searching out topics as they are needed. Get it now before they change their
minds and either pull the program entirely or start to sell it as shareware.
Image Viewer
This little gem will show
a window like the one
shown here below for any
folder or drive you select. These little images are
thumbnail shots of pictures that I keep in the
Double Click “Pix in Case” folder just in case I
need them sometime in the future. For any folder
on your computer you can elect to see ALL of the
graphical images, including all the screen shots
on your hard drive. Even more amazing, the
“Choose” button opens another window for the
file in which you can view all of the images in a
full-size slide-show. by pushing a arrow button
you can begin a slide-show of all the images in
rotation. You could do this with other programs
but none as uncluttered as this one. This ability is
especially good if your images are designated
simply by a date stamp or a number or letter coding as they are in many photo CD and clip art collections. Alphanumeric is great for some things
but a picture record of all your JPEGs, GIFs, and
TIFs makes them a lot easier to catalog and find.
Search for Image Viewer on the internet and try
this one out. If you intend to have a lot of images
or tend to lose track of the ones you already have
this program is for you.
Adobe
Photoshop
v 2.5.1
What to use if you don’t
have the latest Photoshop ?
Ironically, there’s always
Photoshop. I just saw one
of my favourite versions of Photoshop up for bids
on eBay going for a song and a dance, There were
copies of later versions as well, Photoshop v3, v4,
v5, and v5.5 going for slightly more but version
2.5.1 is what I use and I find it totally adequate. Adequate! To be honest
I find Photoshop 2.5.1 overwhelming with its power and complexity.
The list below shows just the
Photoshop filters that start with
first three letters of the alphabet as
they appear in my Quadra 950
Photoshop Filters menu pulldown.
The magic of Photoshop resides in
the Plug-ins folder in the Photoshop
folder which holds the Adobe and
third party resources (filters and
plug-ins) that each extend the powers of the program. From various
sources I have over a hundred addon bits and pieces. And just look at
that Toolbar. Compare it with the
almost laughable puny little 5-box
toolbar in the article about BME.
Photoshop has been the supreme
photo editing software of choice for so long that
every possible effect thought up by a user/programmer has made its way into public use as
freeware, shareware or as a commercially available accessory. The list of things that you can do
with even the oldest versions of Photoshop is
truly amazing. Unlike many other programs that
have been around a while the early Photoshop
versions have not bloated beyond the RAM and
hard drive capabilities of most of our older Macs.
Another nice effect of the ubiquitous pervasion of
Photoshop through its many incarnations is that
even the hardware manufacturers have marketed
specific accelerators for many Macs, like the older
Nubus-based Mac models, aimed specifically at
speeding up various professional Photoshop filters. I have acquired two of these for the two
Nubus Macs that I run Photoshop on: I have the
Daystar Charger Plus system and the Radius
Nubus PhotoEngine. The Daystar Nubus
Charger card in my Macintosh IIci kicks in ONLY
when Photoshop is running and cues my logic
board to pass on intensive filter and effect calculations to the two high-speed AT&T Digital
Signal Processor (DSP) chips on the Daystar card.
During accelerated computations the cursor
turns into a little star to indicate activity. The
Radius PhotoEngine card in my Quadra 950 has
four fast DSP chips and works very similar to the
Charger card except it works invisibly whenever
Photoshop is active and speeds up the most
processor-intensive filters and effects.
For more neat programs get out and surf the ‘net.
Thee’s lots of other free and cheap stuff waiting
for you out there !!
Our Boys
Go To
MacWorld
As you can see from the pictures
Bruce and Jim had another big
week at Macworld in New York.
You have to look closely to see
them there in the croud.