{fh40020E0DA's Picture
{fb1000000DA's Picture is a photo retouching / art package for primarily the Risc PC, but also for older systems. It requires a reasonable hard disc (for its virtual memory function), 4Mb and Risc OS 3.1. It will work in a 256 colour mode and give a reasonable representation of the 24-bit picture in memory, by dithering. The picture looks much better in 32,000 and 16 million colour modes obviously. With a decent hard disc, DA's Picture's virtual memory function works very well. As long as you don't try drawing big lines across the whole picture, you don't notice it's there. It is possible to vary how much of the picture is stored in memory and the limit on the hard disc, but the standard configuration works well - I haven't seen the need to alter it.

The package has an extensive range of tools geared to photo retouching, with an OK (though nothing special) list of filters that can be applied to anything including its masks. The cloning pen works well, even cloning from different pictures. A magic wand tool can be used to make masks (which can be used to make irregular shaped sprites). A graduation tool is used as an advanced 'colour shift', enabling the user to adjust contrast, brightness and draw a graph for the red green and blue content of the picture. It doesn't take any time to calculate, which is something I have never seen before. I regard this as the packages best feature, making my copy of ProArt24's colour shifter look shameful. The picture below is a demonstration of one effect achieved using the tool (yes I know it looks awful, but it's only an example).
{sdap
The copy block tool, apart from just straight copying, can plot things transparently, ignore their black backgrounds, multiply them into the picture, add them into the picture, scale them and make masks out of them (along with loads of other things I haven't mentioned). It is very powerful. It is meant to distort the shape of things as well, but I haven't found out how - the manual doesn't mention it. :-(

Although not as comprehensive as the photo retouching tools, the more 'arty' tools are still good. There are two types of airbrush, one more like the old spray can tools, and one smooth - like a real airbrush. The former can also be turned into a bog standard hard edged brush. All the brush tools can pick up a colour from the canvas to paint with. There is a stamp tool, which can act in many ways - from stamping apples all over the screen, to a graduation like effect called psycho. The fill tool is pretty standard - nothing much to say about it here. The blends menu allows graduated fills, which is again pretty standard - vary direction and colour etc. The smudge tool is quite fast and can be varied in the same way as the brush tools. The add water tool can also be varied in this way. There is an undo function. The step you wish to undo can be set by pressing space, instead of the last operation - as with most other art packages. You can either undo the whole screen or select bits of it to be undone. DA's picture is capable of saving in TARGA, TIFF, JPEG and Sprite format. These all work well.

The user interface is one of the few points on which the program doesn't score highly. It isn't standard Risc OS style (probably due to its conversion from Atari) and, mainly due to this, isn't friendly. I have heard that DA may be revamping it soon. It needs it. It is hard to get rid of the tool bar, some of the tools are just on a menu, some are just on the tool bar. Some menus, such as graduation, can only be accessed by the icon on the icon bar or key short cut, you have to use a menu option to activate a window and generally the interface is err... poor.

DA's picture has some very powerful features, a currently hopeless manual (that doesn't tell you everything possible and is worse than the 2 pages about it in Acorn User with the demo version). It also doesn't seem very finished - for example there isn't a printing function, it can't draw geometric objects. DA say they shall bring out more features for it shortly; I live in hope.

DA's Picture is quite good, but not perfect.

Product: DA's Picture
Price: 116.32
Availability: All Acorn 32-bit machines with Risc OS 3.10+ and 4Mb+
Contact: Digital Arts (0181) 6797307

{ss_a
