** 2 page feature / 1158 words **

Image Processing on the Atari

Anyone here ever use Photoshop? I have Photoshop 5.0, it's a great program with lots of bells, whistles and even the odd tambourine! I actually sometimes use it on my Mac! A very impressive piece of software, still I prefer my Atari and it's own image processing programs. As with Desktop Publishing, there's no need for me to go elsewhere for satisfaction. After all, why do you use this kind of software anyway?

Image Processing

The overwhelming use of image processing software is simply for the correction of photographs for final printed output. No software is perfect for this task, the largest inherent limitation being the transformation of a visual display consisting or RED, GREEN & BLUE (RGB) on your monitor to a printed display of CYAN, YELLOW, MAGENTA & BLACK (CYMK) on hard copy. Yes, yes, of course we also work with black and white photo's. But the above represents 90 percent of the reason for manipulating images. The Atari machines, anything from Falcon on up have more then enough power to accomplish this task. In fact, ANY Atari machine has the speed.

Is Image Processing on an Atari slow? The answer is no. Naturally the faster the machine the quicker you get the job done, but in practical terms even the oldest Atari is fast enough to make Image Processing practical. Some programs are faster at this then others. One Atari program, Photoline, is probably the fastest program on any platform. Memory is a much more important question. Do you have enough memory to load really large images, 10-20Mb or more? The program Das Picture can handle images much larger then available memory. Thus there are actually Atari solutions to all these image processing problems. There's a tremendous diversity of software out there, some quite shocking in their power. Power even some Photoshop users are envious of.

Atari Software

I basically depend on two programs for my image processing needs: Photoline, by Computerinsel which, contrary to rumours, is still being developed and Das Repro, by Digital Arts, (formally Retouche CD) which ran out of steam in 1993. There are at least twenty other Atari Image Processing programs that I've heard of and I'm sure quite a few that I haven't. Photoline can do almost everything that Photoshop on my Mac can do. It is only in the special effects department that Photoshop leaves most of my programs behind. But basic filters are embedded in the Photoline program. And Photoline is fast. On a TT it will run almost as fast as Photoshop on a 300MHz 8600 Mac. On my machine there's no comparison. On the Hades, processing images is much more efficient then on the Mac.

Das Repro is still the best piece of software on any platform for colour correcting and separating images. Its idiosyncrasies are legendary and it's long out of print, but remains a powerful addition to anyone's software library. Despite its steep learning curve Repro is a good tool for other aspects of image processing such as collage.

Both of the above programs depend on RAM memory. Repro does include an option to use your hard drive as virtual memory but it's very slow and I would recommend the virtual memory program Outside for use with either program is if memory is tight. However, Das Picture, also by Digital Arts, allows images far larger then available memory to be loaded and edited in real time. They've programmed an incredibly fast virtual memory hard disk routine - so fast it's often transparent to the user. If the image is larger then memory, and that can include images MUCH larger then memory, that image is divided into segments and only the segment actually being viewed is in RAM memory. Other programs out there include Studio Paint, TruePaint, Repro Studio, Cranach Art, Apex Media, Positive Image, Vision, Papillion, and a host of others. Imagecopy is still supported and allows basic image processing along with useful conversions between many different graphic formats and GEMView, a shareware program, does much the same.

Calamus SL, the desktop publishing program, also features many basic image processing functions with advanced capabilities available as optional extras. Calamus allows correcting contrast and brightness and intensity from its built-in histogram functions. Collage's can be put together using the Vector and Mask Modules. Optional modules include a full featured Paint Program and Merge, a collage making module. Finally there's an optional Filters module and extra Filter packs which include a large number of professional filters. Not bad for a program best known for its Desktop Publishing abilities.

Das Layout, another powerful DTP program, includes basic image correcting tools and an optional monitor correction module which allows the monitor to be corrected to match printed results and is truly a powerful tool for colour printing.

Filters, Special Effects

Image processing doesn't stop with colour correcting. Special effects and collage are favourites with both amateurs and professionals - check out the screenshots for some examples.

Filters are mini programs which alter your image in ways conventional film developing has difficulties with. For example, Sharpen or Soften increase or decrease the contrast between neighbouring pixels and they can take this a stage further and alter the contrast between groups of pixels, or alter the pixel structure itself to enhance contrast. Many other variations of just these two filters exist along with a host of other filters.

Summary

This article is merely an introduction to the image processing software available for the Atari platform and barely scratches the surface.
I do not want to close this article by leaving the reader with the impression that image processing on the Atari has ALL the options available in programs on other platforms. For example, Photoshop allows you to overlap images into collages while maintaining the images as separate layers and as far as I'm aware only Papillion on the Atari platform supports layers. Photoshop (and many other programs) also offer hundreds of optional (usually big bucks) special effect filters. The Photoshop History Palette allows a virtually unlimited Undo buffer.
The point I'm trying to get across is that Atari programs, are fast and reliable and offer some options other platforms lack. Das Repro allows an exact calibration of the monitor with your printer and allows storing files to reflect each monitor/printer combination. No other program on any platform comes close to being able to do this, trust me.
Finally, most of these programs run just fine on Mac/PC machines running MagiCMac/PC.

** Images / Captions **
** ALTEREDG.JPG **
Filter and Special Effects: From top left, first row: Original Image, Embossed Image, Gaussian Blur. Second row: Gaussian Blured background, Image mapped to grid in Das Repro, projected image from Photoline. Third row: Water filter, Stredal effect and simple sharpen filter

** COLLAGE.JPG **
A collage of three images created in Das Repro

** FILTERS.IMG **
Inverse Media's Filters Module for Calamus SL
 ** PROGRAMS.IMG **
Clockwise from top left: Das Picture, Photoline, Das Repro and
Studio Photo