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                                 PRESS RELEASE
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                    FLOPPYSHOP ANNOUNCES EZ-ART PROFESSIONAL
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Despite the apparent decline in the ST market, Floppyshop remain firmer than
ever in their support for ST users and intend to prove that innovative software
which pushes the machine to its limits, is not a thing of the past. EZ-ART 
(pronounced Easy Art) PROFESSIONAL is the result of three years' research 
and coding done in close association with a graphic artist and a number of
other professionals within the industry.

EZ-ART PROFESSIONAL came about as a result of a comprehensive study of the top
graphics packages on the ST and Amiga. It appeared that the programs which were
most desirable to the public were those which offered thousands of colours on
screen. Due to the architecture of the ST, these type of packages were only ever
seen on the Amiga, although a few are starting to appear for the Falcon now.
They were great for creating realistic effects but would eat up huge amounts of
RAM and were cumbersome to use. 

Then there were the packages which use clever tricks to display 'lots' of
colours on screen, two of which made an impact on the ST scene some years ago.
Both were restricted to the 'standard' 320x200 of the low resolution screen.
They were tedious to use, due to restrictions imposed by the ST's hardware and
as a result, were mainly used for touching up digitised pictures. So what about
the 'real' computer artist who draws his own, has he been forgotten or simply
restricted to the uninteresting, drab 16 colour efforts of the past? 

When developing EZ-ART PROFESSIONAL, we decided to go 'back to basics'. The
obsession with lots of colours has clouded everyone's judgement to such an
extent that they have come to accept the fact that you cannot create a 
realistic looking picture in 16 colours. This is a myth when you consider that
the average game title screen and backgrounds are done in 16 or 32 colours. 
With this in mind, we have created a graphics package which is very easy to 
use, yet produces realistic effects through the use of specially developed 
proprietary algorythms.

We have dispensed with the limited size of the low resolution screen and given
the user, perhaps the most comprehensive, yet simple to use, editing tools
available on an ST. The program is icon driven and includes a built-in Help
feature to guide the user as to the function of each and every icon.

EZ-ART PROFESSIONAL is exactly what its name suggests, it is EASY to use and 
can generate PROFESSIONAL results. ART HAS NEVER BEEN SO 'EZ'! Here's a brief 
list of some of EZ-ART PROFESSIONAL's features.

*  Runs on all ST's from the 520 upwards.

*  Fully supports the 4096 colour extended palette if run on an STE.

*  Easy conversion between standard Atari, EZ-ART Professional and EGA palette
modes as well as custom written palettes for Sepias and Grays. Quantising and
remapping are fully supported.

*  Supports the independent loading and saving of palettes, although the
palette in use is always saved with a file.

*  Separate control of brightness so that you can make a colour a tone lighter
or darker without having to fiddle around with RGB sliders.

*  Moveable pop up menus.

*  Over 20 different types of shapes can be created by EZ-ART Professional.
These range from your standard boxes and circles to arcs, discs and shaded
polygons. EZ-Art's range editor allows pseudo ray traced effects to create
realistic looking 3D objects.

*  EZ-ART Professional's flexible zoom mode supports several different
magnifications and smooth scrolling while in zoom mode. The zoom window always
shows exactly where you are in relation to the full picture.

*  Full implementation of keyboard shortcuts for most commonly used functions
when the menu is not visible.

*  Cut out any block and use it as a brush!

*  Irregular blocks may be 'carved' out of your picture. Carve out a block and
leave its silhouette behind.

*  Over 20 different effects may be applied to blocks. These include re-size,
scale, remap, rotate, skew, shatter, soften, pixelate, outline and much more.

*  EZ-ART Professional has extensive font support. A number of example fonts
will be included on the distribution disks or you can create your own using
The ST Club's Fontkit. Fonts can be used at a wide variety point size and 
numerous text styling attributes may be easily applied to any font. 

*  EZ-ART Professional has its own built-in Fill Designer which allows you to
load, save, grab and edit both mono (2 colour) and 16 colour fill patterns.
Naturally we have supplied a number of these with the package.

*  There's a special picture preview mode which lets you view pictures which
are larger than the standard screen size.

*  Up to a maximum of ten workscreens are available to the user, subject to 
the size of pictures loaded and available memory. Extensive control is allowed
over the size of these workscreens and they can be re-sized at any time or 
removed to free up more memory for other operations.

*  EZ-ART Professional has almost twenty drawing tools and modes. These range
from the commonly used brush, line and point tools to the less common but
equally effective bezier curve, carve block, roller and tape measure. Yes you
can actually measure lines and shapes as you draw them in cases where accuracy
is of paramount concern. 

*  As well as its own EZA format, EZ-ART Professional loads numerous other
formats including NeoChrome, Degas (compressed and uncompressed), Crack Art,
Tiny (TNY and TN1), Spectrum 512 (compressed and uncompressed) and IFF
(including ILBM and HAM). The most useful of these are also supported for 
saving your pictures.

EZ-ART PROFESSIONAL is available now. The package consists of two double 
sided disks and a comprehensive fully illustrated manual. The first disk 
comprises of the program and system files along with numerous fonts and fills. 
The second is filled with a multitude of pictures both in EZ-ART PROFESSIONAL's 
own format as well as examples in standard IFF as well as HAM format, which 
users can load directly into the package. EZ-ART PROFESSIONAL retails at 19.95. 
Postage is free in the UK, Europe  (including Eire) please add 2.00,  
Rest of World  please add 5.00.  All payments must be made in UK currency. 
Credit card orders welcome. Contact:-

FLOPPYSHOP, PO Box 273, Aberdeen, Scotland, UK, AB9 8SJ, Tel: 01224 312756

email: sdelaney@steil.wintermute.co.uk

Remember - ART HAS NEVER BEEN SO 'EZ'!

