Almathera's great new graphics software gets the full
The obvious design philosophy behind Photogenics is a simple one - take the best of the image processing programs on other platforms (preferably ones which also begin with the word photo) and reinvent the best bits in a super Amiga-friendly piece of software. For the most part, this has been very successful indeed. If you were frustrated with ADPro's lack of effects on user-defined areas or with ImageFX's disappointing display, then this is the package you actually meant to buy.Before we get into the details, now might be the best time to talk about system requirements. AGA is not a necessity, but it is highly recommended. If you have an older machine, you will only be able to preview your work in greyscale mode, which is a bit of a limitation. Realistically, the rest of the restrictions mean you will have AGA anyway, because you also need WB3.0 and 2Mb of Chip RAM.
The most notable thing about these restrictions is how easy they are to comply with - a basic A1200 fits the bill. You don't need huge amounts of memory as you do with ADPro. This is mostly due to the cunning buffering systems involved.
The program is object-orientated. You can have multiple images loaded at once (which is necessary for the Alpha and Rub Through modes anyway) and each image has its own window. These windows can be dynamically resized. This is all the more amazing considering how fast it happens - resizing an average window takes about four seconds on a HAM8 display. Speed characterises most of Photogenics' operations, from freehand drawing modes to JPEG saves. The flexible requester system means you can have many windows open at once, including the requesters for brush type, paint mode, palette, loaders and savers.
After you have chosen your weapon, you should decide how to use it. All the brushes can be fine tuned to your requirements by indicating their size, pressure and transparency ratings. Then you can draw what you like, with either the freehand tool or one of the polygon tools.
Anything you paint isn't permanent until you choose Fix. This means that you can undo anything you've painted by clearing it all, or painting with the right mouse button. So you can paint in one effect, say Negative, and then decide that you'd rather the effect was Brightness - all you have to do is select the new mode from the list. It is also possible to adjust brush characteristics - basically you can change anything until you fix it. This gives an amazing degree of flexibility because you can paint the effect and then adjust it to suit your needs at the end.
The scope for updating and adding to the program at a later date make it an almost timeless piece of software. The only notable omission is ARexx support, which means ADPro will probably remain the favourite for batch processing - at least until the next version of Photogenics...
