- SOFTWARE APPLICATIONS -

           

Graphics are the fun and creative programs in the software applications world!  Speaking in general, the graphics world has become (to me) the most fascinating field in computing - and you see the results every day on TV commercials, movies, billboards, etc.  For the home user, however, we use graphics programs to create greeting cards, make our photo collection something special,  jazz up our personal web site (like this one), or just have fun in general.  The "greeting card" thing can be accomplished with "MS Publisher" or "American Greetings" or dozens of other programs written for that purpose, but I want to concentrate here on how to make your favorite photos or clipart a little more exciting.  Think of graphics in two contexts, the "still" and the "animated".  "Stills" are usually in `any name.jpg' format (the Windows/Internet standard - which compresses graphics at full color in the smallest file size available today) and simple animations are in `any name.gif' format (the smallest file size available for an animation).

The below "still" is a picture I took on a recent trip to Colorado with my Olympus digital camera and edited with Paint Shop Pro (more about that below).

The little dancers at the beginning, `GIF' logo above, and fish, red roses and doves below are all "animated GIFs" (with a `transparent' background that makes them blend into the wallpaper) like all of the other animations found in this presentation.  They can be created with a number of different  programs (I prefer Paint Shop Pro) by assembling a series of slightly different graphic "frames" and then `playing them in series' at whatever speed you choose.  To view them in their animation mode,  you either need to be in the program that created them (or one like it) or an internet "browser" that has the built in capability of automatically playing them (like the Microsoft Internet Explorer).

                                                        

The best program I can recommend for both editing stills and creating simple animations is "Paint Shop Pro".  Below is the cover to my users manual I scanned from my latest upgrade, PSP 7.0.  I started with the shareware version of this program about 10 years ago and then purchased Versions 4, 5, 6, and 7 (and when version 8 comes out, I will be the first in line!).  This is the most powerful, simple to use, `do everything' graphics manipulating program on the market and I love it!!  Not only will it let you touch-up, resize, mirror, frame, enhance, etc. etc. graphics on your screen, it also has the best graphics "browser" out there, has full digital camera support, and includes an "Animation Shop" sub-program that I have used to create or touch up most of the "animated Gifs" in this web site.  As a good example of graphic `touch-up', I took the below scan of my manual, opened it in PSP, resized it to it's current size, enhanced the contrast, used the moire' removal feature to smooth it out, and then used the "buttonize" feature to give the border the 3-D effect you see.  What more can I say? 

Getting back to what I said earlier about making your family photo's, etc. more interesting, you can even convert any photo you have into an `animated GIF' using PSP.  If you would like to have the program for yourself, you can go to www.jasc.com and buy the full boxed version for $109.  If you're into graphics stuff, it's worth every penny!