#AlphaPaint
John,
>>I'd Really like to here from some users here in open forum.<<
I have been using Alpah Paint for some time now and I think I can answer a few
of your questions.
You don't need a 2 meg Agnus, but your system ram must be at least 12 meg.
There is a demotape available from InnoVision that should be at your local
dealer or user's group which shows the program in action.
The image processing filters are quite nice, such as watercolor, oilpaint,
emboss, negative, etc. They can be applied on cutout brushes or the entire
image.
Compositing images is extremely easy with the Onion Skin feature. This saves a
lot of time when using rub thru.
The stencil masking is very flexible and allows reverse protection. I use this
feature a lot when I want to apply a texture to a logo or other shape. I
recently took a B&W logo that was a circle design with a lot of internal detail
and lettering, embossed it, filled it with a golden gradient with the reverse
stencil and viola!! A medalion! Took about 5 minutes. Would have been an hour
long project with Tpaint.
The real time painting on the program output is very responsive. Practically
unlimited undo/redo. It supports pressure sensitive drawing pads, but allows
variable pressure emulation on your mouse strokes thru menu selectable weight
settings.
Brush manipulation is way cool, with automatic drop shadow and border
attributes, even with neon or glow effects. Resizing and 3-D manipulation
(including rotation to any degree) either from text entry or interactive on
screen.
The way it handles text effects is extremely nice. When using postscript
Toaster Fonts, the output is very clean on any size text. Because the text is
actually a brush once it is rendered, it can be rotated on angles. There is a
special option that allows rendering of the text in circular curves as well.
I haven't used EVERY feature that the program has to offer, but I don't think
anyone who requires a lot of time with paint oriented projects is going to be
dissapointed with Alpha Paint. The price may bit a bit high for an Amiga
software package, but IMHO, it adds more than enough professional paint box
capabilities to the Toaster to justify it's cost.
Frank