by Char James-Tanney (Boston Chapter) 76747.1325@compuserve.com

PaintShop Pro provides almost everything you would need to produce quality graphics for electronic and print documentation (including the Web) at the extremely reasonable price of $69.

Back in the good old days (about, say, five years ago), there were basically two kinds of graphics programs: those you couldn't afford, and those that were free.

Windows Paint just ain't enough
Microsoft Windows came with Paintbrush, a nice little application that let you draw simple bitmap graphics that you could include in your documentation. Paintbrush has a square paintbrush that you can resize to preset limits, a fill tool, rectangular and oval outline and filled shapes, several cutout tools, and the ability to enter text.

Online documentation authors and developers soon realized that this was not enough. After all, we don't use only bitmaps any longer; we use metafiles and JPEGs and GIFS. We don't want just square paintbrushes in preset sizes; we want square and round and line shapes, and we want to control the size. And we want more than paintbrushes. We need other ways to edit, fill, and create our pictures.

Enter PaintShopPro
JASC, Inc. saw our dilemma and developed PaintShop Pro ("More Than Just A Paint Program") to fulfill our needs.

Currently, three PaintShop Pro (PSP) programs are actually available: version 3.12, a 16-bit version for Windows 3.x (which is staying on the market); version 3.12-32, a 32-bit application for Windows 95; and version 4.0, currently in beta but due to be released in July, for Windows 95 and Windows NT.

More than a paint program
PSP 3.12 provides more than drawing tools. It also lets you do all the following:

• Retouch photographs, change their color depth, and lighten or darken portions or the entire thing

• Colorize a graphic; apply any of 20 special effects or 15 normal effects; and cut, paste, crop, and resize the graphic to your specifications

• Use PSP's screen-capture facility to capture all or part of a screen with a user-definable hot key

• Import images into PSP 3.12 using any one of 60 supported TWAIN-compliant scanners

• Create transparent, interlaced GIFs for use on your Web pages

• Edit your graphic at the pixel level by zooming

• Batch convert graphics from one format to another

Easy to find, open, create graphics
PSP 3.12 can open files from almost any Windows application and supports 26 raster image formats as well as 9 metafile and vector image formats. Raster formats include all of your favorites: .bmp, .dib, .gif, .jpg, .pcx, .tga, and .tif. Vector formats include .cdr, .cgm, .drw, and .wmf. PSP's comprehensive online help includes definitions of raster and vector, and a chart showing the formats, source applications, and whether PSP 3.12 can open and/or save files of the specified type.

Creating a new graphic is easy. You select File | New and the New Image dialog box opens. Specify the width, height, and image type (1, 4, 8, 16, 24, or 32 bits per pixel), which are also easily changed from within PSP 3.12. Or you can open an existing graphic by using either File | Open from PSP or the PSP Browser, a utility for "scanning" a directory for graphics supported by PSP so that you can view or open them.

The Browser loads all images from a specified directory into "thumbnails"--miniature versions of the images. Double-click the image you want, and it opens in PSP. The Browser remembers any directories you have already scanned, and updates the thumbnails if you select the directory again. From the Browser you can copy, rename, move, and delete graphics, and display the graphic's specifications. The only thing you can't do is display the graphic at full size.

A complete tool set
By default, the Zoom, Select, and Paint Tool windows (see Figure 1) are open. You can also display the Histogram window, which displays a graph that measures the graphic's brightness.

PSP 3.12 provides eight different brushes (paintbrush, airbrush, pen, pencil, marker, crayon, chalk, and charcoal). You can select from square, round, left and right oblique, horizontal line, and vertical line for the paintbrush, pen, and pencil, giving you complete control over the tool. And all eight tools allow you to set their size in pixels.

Text is extremely easy to add to your graphic. Click the Text tool and click the cursor anywhere in the graphic. From the dialog box that opens, you can select the font, font style (bold, italic, etc.), size, text effects (strikeout and/or underline), and special effects (anti-alias, shadow, and/or rotate). Enter your text in the input box and click OK. Then position the cursor in the graphic and click.

Selecting an area
Another nice feature of PSP 3.12 is the ability to change the selection area. In Paint, if you select a portion of your graphic but click off a little too soon, you have to reselect the portion. In PSP 3.12, you can use the Selection Adjustor tool to move or resize the selection area.

The one thing you can't do easily in PSP 3.12 is move a selection to another part of the graphic. If you need to reposition something, you have to cut it and then paste it in the new position.

A feature of Paintbrush that I often use is copying a selection from one file to another. PSP 3.12 takes this feature a step further by allowing you to create a new image from the selection (sized to the selection), paste it into the current graphic inside a selected area, or paste it into the graphic for manual positioning.

Comprehensive but "jumpy" documentation
The printed documentation for PSP is nicely produced and extremely comprehensive. However, it is quite "jumpy." For example, if you want information on the Select Tool window and you start on page 12 under "Getting Started: Main Window," you have to flip to page 18, which then tells you to go to page 105.

The Help file appears to be single-sourced from the printed documentation. The jumps aren't as obtrusive, since you can move around much more easily with the hypertext. However, it uses nonstandard colors for jumps and pop-ups.

Click red text to jump to a new topic, blue to display a pop-up (except in the Table of Contents, which displays the next level), and pink to display a how-to box. The help file (see Figure 2) uses horizontal tabs, making it easy to navigate among major headings, but you sometimes have to resize the window to see tabs on the right-hand side. This is especially evident in the how-to windows.

Version 4 beta is promising
The beta version of PSP 4.0 adds even more functionality. The toolbars are now at the top of the screen, like other Windows applications, and they are movable. Just click anywhere in the background of the toolbar and drag the toolbar where you want it.

All the tools have been enhanced. For example, the paintbrush icon now represents all eight drawing tools. When you click on the icon, the Tool Control box displays drop-down boxes where you can select the brush type, size, shape, and paper texture.

A selection can now be moved to another part of the graphic. The current background color replaces the area. However, you can't resize the selection area.

PaintShopPro provides almost everything you would need to produce quality graphics for electronic and print documentation (including the Web) at the extremely reasonable price of $69.

You can download a 30-day demo version of PSP from any of the following:

http://www.jasc.com

CompuServe: GO JASC (library 19)

AOL: Keyword JASC

MSN: Find JASC

BBS: 612-930-3516