Alchemy Mindworks

Graphic Workshop professional 4 is nearing its first public beta. Unofficially, it should see daylight in late July or early August. We hasten to note that anyone who has registered or upgraded their registration for Graphic Workshop Professional 3 within a year of its release will be able to apply for a no-cost Graphic Workshop Professional 4 registration, and never see the version 4 reminder screen.

We’ve reviewed a wealth of suggestions for features and improvements to Graphic Workshop, and many of them will appear in the new software. Some of the suggestions in question date back a while – the version 4 architecture has allowed us to implement things that were largely impossible in version 3.

Continue reading ‘Graphic Workshop Professional 4 Sneak Peak #4: It’s Also There’ »

In transitioning from Graphic Workshop Professional 3 to the new version 4 application, we’ve updated a lot of the functionality in the software. Some of the changes are subtle – you’ll notice them if they affect your use of Graphic Workshop.

Some of them are decidedly worth mentioning… very loudly. We’ve tried to avoid assigning the greatest volume to the ones that were the most difficult to implement.

Continue reading ‘Graphic Workshop Professional 4 Sneak Peak #3: Cool Toys’ »

The response to last week’s Graphic Workshop Professional 4 Sneak Peak posting would have been deafening if e-mail made noise. While we enjoyed hearing from a great many users who could still remember buying the software on floppy disks during the late middle ages, perhaps the most productive aspect of the mail and comments we received about the upcoming Graphic Workshop Professional 4 release were suggestions for functionality to be added to it.

In some cases, we were pleased to be able to reply that the suggested features were already in place in the new software.

Continue reading ‘Graphic Workshop Professional 4 Sneak Peak #2: It’s There’ »

The transition from 16-bit Windows software to 32-bit Windows software over a decade ago was an event that future archeologists will no doubt write papers about and bore people at parties with until they all make up excuses about having forgotten to hypnotize their ferrets and leave. Admittedly, archeologists get excited about the damnedest things.

It’s been our experience that neither archeologists nor most of the people who use Windows software actually know why 32-bit applications are preferable. This is arguably as it should be – well-written software should allow its users to do whatever they bought the beast for and never concern themselves with that’s going on under the hood.

Continue reading ‘Is There a 64-Bit Version?’ »

Graphic Workshop is a singular application. First released in 1986 – yes, they did really have computers back then – it has evolved to provide an expanding palette of graphic functionality to its users for almost a quarter of a century.

At times, it makes us feel really, really old.

One of the unseen components of Graphic Workshop has always been its internal architecture. The way Graphic Workshop manages its memory and resources to manipulate the oftentimes substantial data objects represented by digital images has allowed it to make the best use of the hardware it found itself running on. Its architecture has always been a bit of a juggling act in this regard – typically requiring that we keep a lighted torch, a chainsaw and a polecat in the air at all times.

Continue reading ‘Graphic Workshop Professional 4 Sneak Peak’ »

We’ve become aware of an issue that may affect your future receipt of the Alchemy Mindworks E-mail Update List, replies from our support staff, order confirmations and most other e-mail communication from us. It could also affect your receipt of e-mail from other on-line merchants you do business with, your physician, your bank and possibly your great-aunt Blothelda.

You’ve got to wonder who thinks this stuff up…

Continue reading ‘About Your E-mail…’ »

While you can create sophisticated banners and other complex animations using Alchemy Mindworks’ Animation Workshop – and nothing else – adding animated objects to Animation Workshop will unquestionably drop it into hyperspace. Alchemy Mindworks offers a suite of inexpensive, easy-to-master tools to build animations.

Animation Workshop will import animations from a number of popular formats. The two you’re most likely to get involved with are GIF and MNG. While conceptually similar, it’s important to understand the distinction between them.

Continue reading ‘Building Animation Objects for Animation Workshop’ »

The hard drive in your computer is easily its most valuable component – although its worth probably can’t be measured entirely by the damage it did to your credit card. Installing Windows, and subsequently installing all the applications that will run under Windows, can take days.

While you can back up important files on your hard drive, there’s no way to back up an entire Windows hard drive in a form that would allow you to subsequently restore it and get back on line immediately, should your current hard drive get nuked by a virus, or wiped accidentally, or just die.

Continue reading ‘Windows Adjustments: Back Up your Windows Installation’ »

PNG/MNG Construction Set and the newly-updated animation plugins with alpha-channel support – the 3D Effects #1 plugin set, as of this writing – allow the creation of animations with sophisticated translucent shadows. Place such an animation over a textured surface or a photograph and its shadow will darken the details of its background, but not obscure them.

Continue reading ‘Building an Alpha-Shadow Animation’ »

Your system tray – the rightmost area of your Windows task bar, usually inhabited by small icons and the Windows clock – will probably start looking like an aerial photograph of unsold cars if you have a lot of stuff happening on your computer. As the real estate occupied by the system tray reduces the available breathing room for the rest of the task bar, it’s worth adjusting your system tray’s behavior to minimize its footprint.

Continue reading ‘Windows Adjustments: Thin Out Your System Tray’ »