Much to the distress of my editors, I often have difficulty coming up with a coherent theme for my column. This month, however, we were all greatly relieved when I realized that I need to tie up several loose ends. So, here's a potpourri of timely topics.
I mentioned back in my September column that one of the most useful resources on the Internet is the newsgroup or mailing list. Mailing lists operate on the assumption that all of us are smarter than any one of us and involve nothing more than freely sharing problems and, with any luck, sharing solutions to these problems.
Several readers inquired about where to find a newsgroup that deals specifically with screen printing, and I had to reply that there really aren't any that deal with the subject directly. But several do deal with concerns that are common among screen printers.
I have now discussed this problem with my own Internet Service Provider, and we've decided to host a mailing list for screen printers. If you have an Internet address that works for mail (which includes CompuServe and AOL accounts), simply drop me a note at vanhorn@whidbey.net with the subject "subscribe screen" and you will be added to the mailing list. One of the first messages you will get when accessing the list will summarize how it works, cover the few rules you need to know about using the list, and provide instructions for getting off the list at a later time.
I have also been building up my collection of screen-printing resources on my web page. Please let me know of any others you find, and stop by frequently as the list grows.
I recently evaluated CorelDRAW! 6 for another publication. The program runs under Microsoft(R) Windows(R) and ships on a stack of CD-ROMs--four to be exact. My first step in reviewing the program was to order and install a new hard drive to hold the 180 MB of files that install with the application.
That's not an illustration tool; that's a font and clip-art collection!" is a common complaint that I hear from long-time CorelDRAW! users, who tend to be more critical than I am about the program's performance. While this criticism retains some validity, the product performs as advertised for the business user. The fact that the application is designed around OLE/2, instead of specific file formats for sharing data among the modules, can be a real problem for professional users. But version 6 is no different from its progenitors in the quality of file importing and exporting it provides.
Although many Corellians have found that CorelDRAW! 5 continues to run well under Windows 95, this operating system needs to run only 32-bit applications for best results and system stability. If you rely on CorelDRAW! and decide to switch to Windows 95, you really need to upgrade to CoreDRAW! 6.
The nastiest sting with version 6 seems to be that it is very difficult to work on a file in version 5 once the file has been opened in 6. Several of the styles that show up in the style sheet during editing in CorelDRAW! 6 are not understood by version 5. Worse, after working on a file in CorelDRAW! 6, you can open and edit the file just fine in version 5, but you cannot save it, so the entire file is lost and must be restored from the last backup copy.
Partially inspired by the vast variety of tools, programs, And graphics on the four discs that come with CorelDRAW! 6 (plus the materials included on three discs from another application I'm evaluating), I just ordered an NEC seven-disc CD-ROM drive. To have all those fonts and clip-art libraries available at all times sounds great. In the future, I'll let you know how the new drive actually performs.
Incidentally, the unit I ordered is a closeout from the double-speed era of CD-ROMs, rather than one of the 4x- or 6x-speed units now available. In my experience and in all the reviews I've read that include careful benchmarks of CD-ROM speed, the time difference between the average double-speed drive and the fastest drive in the world almost never amounts to a full minute, even when you're opening huge PhotoCD files. If you save a minute opening a file that you will then spend two hours working on, or save 20 seconds while installing a new font, the time difference is simply not worth the big expense of the faster drive. Save your money for more memory, which makes a difference in every operation you perform everyday.
Make Your Scanner a Great Design & Production Tool by Michael Sullivan should be in the hands of your art department now. Although some of the suggestions in this 135-page book only apply to certain combinations of scanners and software, its price is trivial compared to the value of the tricks it's likely to teach you.
The first part of the book covers the basics of scanners and scanning, and does it well. Sure, I did disagree with a few details, but I had fewer complaints with this volume than most other books on scanning. However, since you should already have a good background on scanners and scanner operation, that's not why you will buy this book.
Once Sullivan gets past the basics, which include a pretty good set of tips for calibrating your scanner, he launches into problems such as dealing with moire when scanning prescreened images, scanning high-key images (e.g., a polar bear on an ice flow), scanning low-key images (e.g., a panther in a coal bin), creating background textures, adding color to black and white originals, and more. The final section of the book is a gallery of marvelous images created mostly or entirely with a scanner and an image-editing program. I'm serious--buy this book!