In the Dead (Easy) Zone
By David Shamah, The
Friends, I am about to embark upon yet another new
career but because I have to be dead in order to pull it off, it's going to
have to be a lifelong commitment. And you can't tell anyone this has to stay
between us!
See, I met this guy let's call him Lester. Lester
is an artist, but a special kind he's what's called a "posthumous
artist." And after he told me his story, I decided to become one too!
Not that I'm such a big fan of art. To me, one color
is as good as the next except for green, which I have a real affinity for,
especially it it's on little pieces of paper, if you know what I mean!
You may have heard of Lester; he's actually well
known in certain art circles for his modern art. Lester painted during the '60s,
allegedly "under the influence." Rumor has it that he lived in Andy
Warhol's mansion and taught Andy everything he knew about soup cans. Lester was
on the cutting edge of the art world until he died tragically under
mysterious circumstances.
Although people knew about Lester, apparently, his
work did not surface until about five years ago after he died, of course,
because the people who collect this kind of stuff have a thing for works from
people who can't produce anything anymore. His stuff started appearing in
galleries, and the posthumous buzz started moving prices on his work up way
up. Now his paintings, drawings, sketches, etc. are fetching top dollar in the
best galleries.
So that's the deal; Lester rakes it in as a big name
artist, but has to live incognito, because, of course, he's only pretending
to be dead. This doesn't stop him from painting, though; every few months a new
"find" surfaces, which he gets his network to market to "art
targets" (see http://www.artbusiness.com/arttarget.html).
This sounds like a business that's right up my alley!
Obviously I must be creative I must have some talent to keep coming up with
stories like these! But why should I slave for a lowly journalist's wage when I
could be living the champagne life, raking it in as a big name artist? And all
I have to do is "die," if you know what I
mean.
Unfortunately, though, being alive is only one of the
roadblocks on my way to fame and fortune. The other one?
I can't draw, paint, color, sketch or even color by
numbers properly!
Well, that would have seemed to put a quick kibosh on
this whole posthumous artist idea. Lester can get away with this because he
really knows how to paint; he actually did work with Warhol, although he was
into painting green bean cans.
But then I got this other idea. Why not meld my
computer career with my artist career and use my computer to produce the
modern art that's going to make me posthumously rich? All I need is a good
drawing program and I believe that the one I found, Zoner
3, will do the job quite nicely.
In the computer graphics world, drawing programs'
place is somewhere between photoretouching apps like
Photoshop and layout programs like QuarkXPress.
Drawing programs, of which Illustrator and Freehand are perhaps the best known
examples, have tools that can manipulate imported or scanned files, as well as
text layout tools to create charts, lists, etc. but their main function is to
allow users to produce vector graphics (as opposed to a bitmap editor a good
explanation of the differences can be seen at http://www.zoner.com/draw4/graphics-basic.asp).
Bottom line is vector programs are useful for designing shapes, items with
curves, quickly changing and manipulating text, etc.
There are certainly many applications one can buy or
download for free that let you draw but the fact is that most users prefer to
pay for Illustrator (about $450), Freehand ($400), or Smartdraw
($350). Vector graphics of all types have come and gone, and yet users prefer
to shell out big bucks for the big name applications. Why?
Like any other purchase, it's obvious that there is
more value for money in terms of productivity. In order for an application to
take off, it needs to have sophisticated tools necessary to do the job, and a
relatively easy to use interface.
If youre running an advertising agency or other
organization that has to produce high level graphics for print, Illustrator or Freehand are the programs you want to be looking at. But for
other organizations, like schools, businesses, organizations, etc., you cant
go wrong with Zoner.
Despite the supposed aspirations of yours truly, I am
never going to be a big time artist conventional or computer. And yet I often
need and use graphics programs for posters, ads, designs, etc. The truth is
that I can't even draw that well with precision computer drawing tools, like
freehand vector point tools. Almost every drawing program has that tool, as
well as a rectangle, oval, and plain text tool. Desktop publishing programs
have these tools, as well.
The trick to easy computer graphic artistry is to be
able to integrate photos into designs you create in a drawing program, build
some nice effects, and then export your work for use in a layout program. In
fact, despite the sophistication of some basic and advanced graphics programs
have, many do not have this ability to interact with other applications,
the ability to export work produced with them into other formats, and
sophisticated enough tools to make investing time and effort into using them
worthwhile. As far as I could tell, most of the freeware in this category
offers only a partial set of solutions to these needs; even low priced
shareware programs are grossly inadequate, in my experience. Maybe that's why
this is the first time I'm reviewing a drawing program in this column.
I mention all this in order to emphasize how useful
and easy to use Zoner is. It certainly fulfills the
criteria that I, and I think most, amateur computer
artists have. We want tools that will leave us relatively free to be creative
and develop something we can be proud to put our name to whether it's on a
flyer, poster, print ad, or even Web site - as well as the ability to import
and export easily, without paying an arm an a leg.
Fortunately, Zoner's got
all those bases covered, in my opinion. And the price free for Zoner 3 is certainly right. I spent a long time with it
to make sure it could do what I wanted, and would let me work relatively
closely to the way I would work in Freehand and Illustrator. It's got all the
standard shape tools, including stars and polygons. You can also easily create
stepped blends. In addition, you can import jpegs or gifs into objects, so you
can make a circle or starburst with a photo, for example. There are two text
tools one for regular text and one for "artistic" text, which can
be manipulated as a graphic, and converted to bezier
curves (as can other graphic elements). You can also blend objects, spreading
effects between them.
You can export finished work into a number of
formats, including jpg and tif. Zoner
also supports layers, with transparency between each layer, and documents up to
2.5 x 2.5 meters, which can be printed on separate pages from the same file. You
can import objects in many drawing and bitmap formats. Vector objects can be
edited with Zoner's vector tools, and there are tools
for adjusting bitmaps color, brightness, etc. In addition, Zoner supports Photoshop plug-ins, which can also be
applied to any imported image. One thing Zoner cannot
do, as the more expensive programs can, is convert bitmaps to vectors. But to
tell the truth, Zoner 3 free edition had nearly all
the features I would look for in a drawing program. If you want to spend some
money, you can buy Zoner 4, which has more advanced
features and an even nice interface (although I was perfectly happy with Zoner 3's system). The program also has a very complete
help system, a downloadable PDF manual, and tutorials (http://www.zoner.com/draw4/default.asp)
meaning this would be a great way to learn vector drawing. I may not get to
be a rich artist, posthumous or otherwise, but at least I can have the
opportunity to try without spending any money.
Download Zoner 3 and 4 from
http://www.zoner.com. For all Windows systems.
ds@newzgeek.com