CompuServe Messages

Ben, Some suggestions that came to me while I was working on that alpha channel macro of mine: When I issue the 'area' ARexx command, the user must use the current area selection tool; this is most unfortunate if the 'entire image' button was selected before the macro was invoked — it leaves the poor user with no choice but to proceed, having selected the entire image. Solution: the user should have access to the tool palette to change tools, if they wish, before selecting an area. There should be a "grow selection" and a "shrink selection", as in Photoshop. It would be nice to have a better choice of ARexx area selection commands; for example, I can have the user circle an area ('area'), analyze its color contents ('cdef') and set Imagemaster's key color from the results ('colchange')… but then, I'd want to specify "color keyed selection", and I can't do that in a macro. If memory serves me right, 'entire', 'oval', 'rect' and load/save mask are the only area selections available from ARexx. Other than that, I must say Imagemaster worked like a champ. The new Gaussian blur operator, when applied with a small radius, is very fast and produces results much better than the naive edge detection found in the "smooth edge transparency" blend control. Rolling your own alpha channels using Blur is definitely the way to go, although "smooth edge transparency" is still great for quick & dirty use. I sent the macro to a friend, and even added an interface feature over the phone, by having him key in two extra lines of ARexx code. (He wanted to alter the variance after selecting an area) Ben, I had so much fun working with Imagemaster and ARexx this weekend! Blaq!