Multimedia Technology and Applications
5 - Graphics
Author: Dave Hillman    ...     Delmar    ...   April, 1999
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1- Introduction
2 - Products and Evaluation
3 - Hardware, Op Sys, and Software
4 - Text
5 - Graphics
6 - Digital Audio
7 - Digital Video and Animation
8 - Product Design
9 - Authoring Tools
10 - Multimedia and the Internet
11 - The Development Team
12 - The Development Process

Latest News and Standards for Graphics Technology

Graphics Technology Vendors

  • Adobe (Photoshop) - This is one of the best tools used by many graphic arts professionals.

  • JASC (PaintShop Pro) - this is recommended for those with limited graphic arts skills. This is a very good tool for basic graphic creation, image manipulation (adjusting brightness and contrast, sizing, and resolution), and image conversion (bitmap, JPG, GIF, and many other formats).  

  • Hewlett-Packard - Printers, scanners, and many other products.

  • Mustek - A very good set of scanner products.

  • Art Today - An on-line resource for graphics. Literally thousands of images.

  • Kodak - the people who invented photography.

Resources for Students

Product Reviews

Paint Shop Pro 5

Paint Shop Pro 5.0 by Jasc, Inc. is the latest release of this often underrated (by many graphic arts professionals) graphics package. Some of the more interesting features for PaintShop Pro 5.0 include:

  • Picture Tube brushes allow you to easily paint with realistic graphic elements
  • Normal and Bezier line tools
  • Create composite images with multiple layers support
  • Comprehensive blend mode controls control layer interactivity
  • Layer grouping, naming, ordering and visibility for efficient editing
  • Transparency locking and variable opacity
  • Layer mask linking and toggle
  • Multiple-level undo, with viewable history
  • Free-form layer or image deformations to easily translate, scale, rotate, skew and add perspective
  • Retouching tools let you soften, sharpen, smudge and emboss
  • Photography tools allow you to dodge and burn images for exposure correction, and adjust color levels
  • Includes special effects filters, such as buttonize, chisel, cutout and drop shadow
  • Powerful image deformations include circle, cylinder, pentagon, perspective, pinch, punch and skew
  • Full third-party plug-in filter support for packages such as The Andromeda Series and Eye Candy
  • The Eye Dropper allows you to easily select colors from your image
  • Apply custom palettes to multiple images
  • Powerful image and monitor gamma correction
  • Create and print CMYK color separations
  • Separate, edit and combine CMYK, HSL and RGB color channels on screen
  • Pressure-sensitive tablet support
  • Direct interface support for Kodak DC40, DC50 and DC120 digital cameras
  • Enhanced TWAIN device support for scanners and digital cameras
  • Intuitive palette options with transparency previews
  • Internet graphics support includes transparent GIF, and progressive JPG and PNG formats
  • Includes Animation Shop for creating and optimizing animated GIF files
  • Batch file format conversion
  • Microsoft Explorer-style thumbnail image browser makes finding and identifying graphic files effortless

Animation Shop for creating animated GIF files...

  • Intuitive and convenient filmstrip-style interface
  • Native 24-bit image editing mode for photo-realistic color editing
  • Automatic full frame regeneration of opened files
  • Support for transparency in animations
  • On-screen image editing functionality allows for simple touchups and frame modification
  • The Optimization Wizard gives precise control over completed animations
  • The Animation Wizard creates new animations from existing animated and still-image files
  • Cut and copy frames from file to file, or within the same file, with drag-and-drop editing
  • Position drag-and-drop edits with a "hot spot" cursor or to a snap-to frame grid
  • Propagate Paste copies edits from the target frame to selected frames
  • Cut and Paste frames between Animation Shop and Paint Shop Pro
  • Multiple-level undo allows you to reverse any number of edits
  • Customizable frame transitions and effects
  • Customizable text effects include back lit, highlight, flag, drop shadow and bounce
  • Automatically renders image and text effects for instant preview

PaintShop Pro 5.0 File Format Support

  • Over 40 graphic file formats supported, including BMP, CDR*, CGM*, CLP, CMX*, CUT, DCX*, DIB, DRW*, DXF*, EMF, EPS+, FPX, GEM*, GIF, HGL*, IFF, IMG, JPG, KDC*, LBM, MAC, MSP, PBM, PCD*, PCT, PCX, PGM, PIC, PIC, PNG, PPM, PSD, PSP, RAS, RAW, RLE, SCT, TGA, TIF, WMF, WPG, WPG (Vector)*
    * Read Only, + Write Only
  • Paint Shop Pro file format (PSP) includes a full range of file compression options and multiple-layer support
  • Supports Kodak's Digital Camera, FlashPix and Photo CD formats
  • Full multiple-layer Adobe Photoshop file format (PSD) support
  • Support of Adobe Photoshop file format plug-ins

(the above taken from the Jasc, Inc. web site)

As someone who has used PaintShop Pro for a number of years, I have found it to be easy to use and capable of providing most features that are needed for supporting multimedia production efforts.  The latest release includes tools that are directed towards web-based producitons, specifically the Animation Shop for created animated GIF productions.

Paint Shop Pro is ideal for those who need a powerful, easy-to-use tool to create, edit, and manipulate graphics.  While it will never replace PhotoShop and similar high end tools for professional graphic artists, it fills the void for the rest of us.