Amiga ISO Collection/AmigaDemoCD2.iso/ASCII/TEXTE/c.s.a.reviews/software/cd-rom/PhotoworX

Text File | 1994-06-02 | 15.9 KB | 464 lines

Article 472 of comp.sys.amiga.reviews:
Path: menudo.uh.edu!usenet
From: [e-mail] (Christoph Guelicher and Heiko Rath)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews
Subject: REVIEW: PhotoworX version 1.71
Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.graphics
Date: 21 Feb 1994 15:55:27 GMT
Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett
Lines: 444
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Reply-To: [e-mail] (Christoph Guelicher and Heiko Rath)
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Keywords: graphics, CD-ROM, Photo CD, image processing, commercial


PRODUCT NAME

    PhotoworX version 1.71


BRIEF DESCRIPTION

    Access software for Kodak Photo CDs, with image processing functions.

    The authors of this review were both involved in beta testing
PhotoworX, but have no financial connection whatsoever with increased sales
of the program.


AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION

  Germany:

    Name:        Corporate Media GbR    ("COME")
    Address:    Boedekerstrasse 92
            D-30161 Hannover
            Germany

    Telephone:    [phone]
    FAX:        [phone]

  USA:

    Name:            Interworks
    Address:        42191 Camino Casillas
            Temecula, CA 92592-3714
    Phone/FAX:      [phone]

    Name:        Spectronics International USA, Inc.
    Address:    34 East Main Street #23
            Champaign, IL 61820
    Telephone:      [phone]
    FAX:            [phone]

    Author:         Olaf 'Olsen' Barthel
    E-mail:         [e-mail] (programmer's address)


LIST PRICE

    Germany:  198 DM suggested retail price.
    Bundle prices with CD-ROM drives and host adapters
    are available from COME.

    USA:  approximately $199 (US)


COMPONENTS SUPPLIED IN PACKAGE

    o   AmiCDROM filesystem (Public Domain, written by Frank Munkert)
    o   Sample Photo CD
    o   Manual
    o   Floppy disk with the program on it ;-)
    o   Registration card


SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

    HARDWARE

        An 'XA' compliant CD-ROM-drive is required to read a Photo
        CD, although the software does not require one. If you move
        the Photo CD data files to a different medium (such as your
        hard disk) PhotoworX will treat it just as the original CD as
        long as the directory structure is left intact.

        2 MB RAM required.  The more, the better.

        A hard drive is recommended but not required.
        Approximately 350 KB disk space is needed for a complete
        installation.

        It is possible to run the software from floppy disk, but it
        makes more sense to have a hard drive to increase
        performance, to store exported pictures, etc.

        Two versions of the software are supplied:  one for 68000
        and 68010-based systems, and one for faster systems (68020,
        68030, you name it). A faster CPU is not required, but you do
        yourself a favour if you have one. ;-)

        PhotoworX works with any graphics hardware setup, including
        the ECS and AGA chip sets and third party graphics cards
        that offer an Intuition emulation.

    SOFTWARE

        A CD-ROM filesystem.  One is supplied with PhotoworX
        (AmiCDROM).

        AmigaDOS 2.04 or higher is required.

        If you have a graphics card, it may have its own software
        requirements.


COPY PROTECTION

    None.

    The hard disk installation procedure requires you to personalize the
program with your name, address and your serial number.


MACHINES USED FOR TESTING

    Computers:
    A1200,  2 MB Chip,  0 MB Fast, IDE hard disk, no CD-ROM.
    A1200,  2 MB Chip,  8 MB Fast, 68030/68882 both at 50 MHz, GVP SCSI.
    A3000,  2 MB Chip, 14 MB Fast, Picasso II, internal SCSI.
    A3000T, 2 MB Chip, 14 MB Fast, Retina II, internal SCSI.
    A4000,  2 MB Chip,  8 MB Fast, Z3-Fastlane SCSI.

    CD-ROM-drives:
    Apple CD-300, XA multisession drive, double speed.
    Toshiba XM3401, XA multisession drive, double speed.
    NEC CDR83, nearly XA single-session drive, double speed.

    Operating systems:
    Kickstart 37.175, 39.106.
    Workbench 38.35 (2.1), 39.29 (3.0).

    CD-ROM filesystems:
    AmiCDROM 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 1.7, 1.8.
    AsimCDFS 2.0.
    CD-Xetec FS v1.94a.
    Babel-FS v1.1.
    Z3-Fastlane CD-ROM FS.

    Photo-CDs:
    Kodak Photo CD sampler (24 pictures).
    Philips CD-I Photo CD 'Akt Aesthetik' (67 pictures).
    HifiVision Test Photo CD (130 pictures).
    'Photo CD and PC' sampler Photo CD (102 pictures).
    3 'self made' Photo CDs with various pictures (42, 26, 45 pictures),
    one of them in multisession-format with three different sessions
    COME Photo CD (27 pictures).


INSTALLATION

    The Commodore Installer program copies the PhotoworX software to your
hard disk drive, and also installs the AmiCDROM filing system if requested.


REVIEW

    When PhotoworX is started, it opens either a window on the
Workbench, a public screen to support OS3.0 palette sharing, or its own
screen, whichever you prefer.  This choice is made via tooltypes or the
program's saved settings.  The settings can be adjusted, loaded and saved in
PhotoworX.  PhotoworX distinguishes the general settings for the programs's
operation from the special settings for the 'currently loaded' or the
'to-be-loaded' Photo.

    The general settings let you define the following items:

    - Photo CD Volume to be used:
      You can enter or select (via standard ASL file requester) which
      device or volume is to be used by PhotoworX.  So, PhotoworX does
      not necessarily need a Photo CD:  it needs just the correct Photo
      CD directory structure as defined by Kodak:

         photo_cd (dir)
          images (dir)
          rights (dir)
            rights.use
           info.pcd
           overview.pcd

      Note: this directory structure is required only if you wish to
        load and display the Photo CD image directory (also called
        'contact sheet' or 'index print'). You can still load single
        photos using the file requester.

    - Path to store pictures:
      You can enter or select via file requester the path to store
      exported pictures.

    - Define the program startup operation:
      Load the contact sheet, a photo, or just wait for user input.

    - Define the contact sheet settings:
      - Size, either 32x48, 64x96 or 128x192 pixels.
      - Colour or Grayscale display.
      - Layout (number of columns and colours).

    - Define the screen settings:
      - Select a non-HAM screenmode from the display database.
      - Select a font and size for PhotoworX's windows and requesters:
        very useful for higher resolution screens on graphic boards, etc.

    - Miscellaneous settings:
      - File format of photos to save (all IFF-ILBM):
        - 24 bit, true colour data.
        -  8 bit, grayscale data.
        - Processed screen data as shown, or
        - 2...256 colour data,
        both in available amiga screenmodes
        from LoRes - SuperHiRes-Interlaced,
        in HAM or HAM8 and with/without Floyd-Steinberg-dithering.

      - Viewers: Picasso II, Retina, EGS, DCTV or HAM.

        According to the capabilities of the viewer or the graphics
        extension, the number of colours may be chosen.  For example,
        the Picasso II and Retina viewers support 32,768, 65,536 and
        16,777,216 colour displays.  PhotoworX makes use of the Amiga
        HAM mode also through a viewer module with 4,096 colours on an
        OCS/ECS-Amiga, or 262,144 colours on an AGA-equipped Amiga.
        Because viewers can be used only for display purposes, editing
        in HAM, HiColor or TrueColour modes is not supported.

    You can also select whether PhotoworX should operate with or without
confirmatory requesters for potentially destructive operations.

    The Photo-specific settings let you define the following items:

    - Define the screen settings for the Photo display:
      - Select a non HAM screenmode and its colour depth from the
        display database for an editable view of the Photo.
      - Select the size to be loaded:
        128x192, 256x384, 512x768, 1024x1536 or even 2048x3072 pixels.
        The possible size directly depends on the available RAM, because
        a picture in the highest possible resolution means 18 MB of raw
        24-bit-data.

        To make this clear:
        Sorry folks, on an A500 with 1 MB RAM, there is NO WAY to load
        these beasties.  Even sufficiently equipped Amigas are busy for
        a quite a while when 18 MB must be transported from a rather
        slow CD-ROM to memory, not even considering the required display
        memory....

      - Select if the picture shall be displayed in Colour or Grayscale.
      - A toggle switch to display the photo using the selected
        viewer directly after loading.
      - A toggle switch to enable/disable dithering.
      - A toggle switch to enable/disable the progress indicator display.

    When all the settings are set, they can be saved as the default or
under special names, so that they can loaded later or upon startup.

    For an overview of the Photo CD, the contact sheet may now be loaded.
PhotoworX displays it nicely in numbered slide frames.  From the contact
sheet display, the user may

     - Single-click to select a single picture, or
     - Shift-click to select several pictures, or
     - Double-click to load a picture.

    Selected pictures are marked in the contact sheet.  There are also
menu functions available to 'Select all pictures' or 'Clear all
selections'.  All slides selected may then be loaded or exported, allowing
the possibility of batch processing; for example, to read all pictures from
the Photo CD, convert to 16-bit grayscales, and save as Amiga HighRes mode
IFF files.

    When a picture is being loaded, PhotoworX displays a progress
indicator which shows the different stages of loading.  The author claims
that the photo loading routines are about four times as fast as the code
used by Macintosh programs such as 'Adobe Photoshop' or the MS Windows
version of 'Kodak Photoedge'.  Due to lack of hardware and software, we have
not been able to verify these claims.  However, if compared to the other
Photo CD reader programs which are currently available for the Amiga,
PhotoworX literally 'flies' when loading images in larger resolutions:  say,
1536x1024 and up.  When loading is finished, either the picture will be
immediately displayed using the selected viewer module, or the dithering
process will begin for a display in Amiga screenmodes.

    In 'viewer display' mode, the user can only look at the picture.  One
can return anytime with a click to the PhotoworX main screen.

    The other alternatives are to display a photo in a window on the
same screen as the contact sheet, and to display it on a custom screen.  The
second case causes the program to choose a special colour palette which may
take some time.  If the photo is displayed in a window on the contact sheet
screen, a default colour palette will be used, which greatly reduces
calculation time.

    Now the selected picture may be exported, printed or edited.
Picture export time is dependent on the export format selected and the CPU
power of the computer used.

    The printing of the selected picture can be controlled in every
single aspect the printer driver supports.

    Several editing functions can now be applied to the loaded picture.
These include:

    - A rectangular area of the picture may be selected with the mouse
      and then cut, cropped, enlarged or shrunk.
    - The current picture data can be rotated in 90-degree steps in
      clockwise or anti-clockwise orientation.
    - The current picture data can be flipped horizontally or vertically.

Different filter functions are available:

    - Colour Filters may be applied to adjust brightness, contrast and
      gamma value. One can even directly change the red, green and blue
      channels.
    - A 'sharpen' filter.
    - A 'smooth' filter.
    - A 'negative' filter.

    The picture currently being edited may be displayed at any time
using the selected viewer module.


DOCUMENTATION

    For reviewing purposes we had access only to the German version of
the manual, a 56-page leaflet in German DIN-A5 standard size.  The
typesetting system TeX was obviously used for the production of the manual.

    On the floppy disk is a 'Hinweise' file with additions to the manual.

    The quality of the documentation is good.  Every aspect of the
program and Photo CD technology, production, and handling is covered to a
sufficient degree and illustrated with screenshots when needed.

LIKES AND DISLIKES

    The user interface complies fully with the Commodore Style Guide and
is intuitive to use.  Almost every function of the program is not only
accessible via menu/mouse button, but also via keyboard shortcut, which also
applies to every single requester in the program.

    It takes a while to understand the concept of the external viewers
for displaying purposes only.  The reason is that modification of Photo CD
images can take place only in non-HAM, Workbench-compliant Amiga
screenmodes.  Because the Amiga Operating System does not yet support
24-bit screenmodes (only up to 8 bit), editing in 24-bit is not possible.

    A slideshow function and an ARexx interface would be nice to have.


COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS
('+' means advantage, '-' means disadvantage)

    Amiga:

    AsimPhoto v1.0 (from the AsimCDFS v2.0 package)
    + Contact sheet can be displayed in three sizes.
    - No dithering of contact sheet display.
    - Contact sheet cannot be displayed in colour.
    + Display database support for contact sheet display.
    - No viewing/displaying of the Photo CD pictures.
    - Conversion of the Photo CD pictures is only possible in
      base resolution (768x512) or below.
    - Not licensed by Kodak.
    + Has an ARexx interface.

    HPCDTOPPM (freely redistributable software)
    + Source code available (also freely redistributable).
    - Not licensed by Kodak.
    - Command-line-interface control only (CLI).
    - No display capabilities.
    -/+ Photo CD-picture-conversion to PPM, JPEG only.
    + Portable source (written in C).
    + All Photo CD resolutions supported.

    CDXetec PCDtoIFF v0.2 (from CDXetec package)
    - Not licensed by Kodak.
    - Command-line-interface control only (CLI).
    - No display capabilities.
    -/+ Photo CD picture conversion to IFF-ILBM.
    + All Photo CD resolutions supported.
    (All in all, it looks like a 'quick and dirty' port of the
    HPCDTOPPM-routines.)

    Macintosh:

    Quicktime v1.61 on Mac-IIci with 8-bit display
    - Feels very slow in total, no good dithering like FS.
    + Included in operating system.  'Recognizes' the Photo CD files
      and calls Quicktime modules for display, slideshow, etc.
    + Official Kodak license.
    - Almost free scaling/resizing possible, but quite bad results. ;-(

BUGS

    None encountered.


VENDOR SUPPORT

    COME, the German distributor, offers free BBS access to registered
users for questions, updates, special drivers, etc.  A phone hotline is also
in service.


WARRANTY

    The distributor warrants the product only against media failure or
missing items in the PhotoworX package.


CONCLUSIONS

    We rate the program 4.75 stars out of 5, because of the (yet)
missing ARexx interface and the (maybe because of the lack of the
ARexx interface) missing slideshow function.

    The program is very intuitive to use and is one of the most
Commodore Style Guide-compliant programs we've ever encountered.  The GUI is
fully font-adaptive and supports localization.

    The author Olaf 'Olsen' Barthel of TERM-fame has shown in the past,
that he is a very capable programmer and adheres closely to the C=
software developers' guidelines.


COPYRIGHT NOTICE

    Copyright 1994 Christoph Guelicher ([e-mail]) and
    Heiko Rath ([e-mail]).  All rights reserved.

-- _
|_|_) <HR> aka Heiko Rath, Raiffeisenstr.10a, D-64331 Weiterstadt, Germany
| | \ The Software Brewery | PGP | Voice: [phone] | [e-mail]

and

 Christoph Guelicher
 Dohlenweg 4, D-57078 Siegen              \|/     [e-mail]
 Universitaet-GH Siegen, FTS (ETG238)     o^o     [e-mail]
---------------------------------------oO-(_)-Oo----------------------------
     MS-DOS is the worst text adventure game I have ever played:
         poor vocabulary, weak parser and a boring storyline.

---

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