Just over a year ago Peter Gorry reviewed the VGP card from Digisolve in very positive terms. He was therefore the obvious choice to review their latest software - Pixel Paint. Fortunately for me Peter was too busy with other commitments, so I had all the fun instead.

Until recently, my experience with graphics packages was limited to what you might call home software. I'd used most of the Penguin packages and found The Graphics Magician suited practically all my needs. I'd also used MacPaint and found it very easy to master. However, its lack of colour was a drawback, if you'll pardon the pun.

Pixel Paint was not quite as easy to use - although that's only because MacPaint is *so* easy - and it also requires a bit more hardware. However, it is intended for use in professional studios and is therefore competing with systems costing in the region of £40,000.

The hardware configuration I used was as follows: At the heart of it all was a trusty Apple II+ with a language card in slot 0; in slot one was a Watanabe DT1000 digitiser tablet, a Digisolve security dongle was in slot two, the VGP64 host adaptor sat in slot 4, connected via the 64-colour version of the VGP graphics processor to a colour RGB monitor, the usual disc interface was in slot 6 while slot 7 contained the interface to an ICE hard disc.

The two floppy drives were connected but unused since the review copy of the software was mounted on the hard drive. There was also a monochrome monitor connected.

When the software is booted, it firstly checks for the presence of the dongle. If it's there, the Pascal system is loaded and you can execute the actual graphics package. The menu of available commands appears on the monochrome monitor while the actual drawing is done on the colour monitor. However, the graphics tablet is used for both.

Moving the pen over the main body of the tabley produces movement on the drawing screen, while moving the pen to the top of the tablet produces a cursor on the menu screen. Once you get this far you are ready to produce your masterpiece. Pixel Paint contains just about every facility you could hope for, including a vast array of both monochrome and colour brushes - and the facility to redefine them - as well as lines, circles, rectangles, a zoom with choice of magnification and so forth.

Of course, freehand drawing is also possible. This is apparently a lot easier with an accelerator card installed because the software can then keep up with fairly rapid movements across the graphics tablet. Even without an accelerator it didn't take long to adapt to the slight delay between movement on the tablet and the corresponding movement on the drawing screen.

The colour palette contains 64 colours but you don't necessarily have to access the palette to change colour. If the colour you want is already on-screen you can pick it off without going via the palette. This saves you having to remember which particular colour you used when you want a bit more of it.

Once you've drawn something you can save it as an "object" or as a "photograph". There is a difference in storage requirements but, more importantly from the user's point of view, there is a difference in how the two things are redrawn.

An object is redrawn exactly as you drew it, including any corrections. If you erased something it is drawn and then erased in exactly the same sequence. I found this a little strange and would have preferred the ability to undo the last addition to the drawing. However, since the emphasis is presumably on the finished drawing, the means by which it was arrived at is irrelevant.

A photograph is simply wiped onto the screen quite quickly from top to bottom. It is popssible to overlay photographcs and it is also possible to do something called "chromo key". This involves overlaying one photograph on another, but only where a particular colour occurs.

Suppose, for example, that you have a picture of the cockpit of a plane. You can key to the colour of the sky outside the plane and then overlay a series of views. Thus the view from the cockpit will appear to change.

Since all menu selection is done via the graphics tablet the keyboard is only required to enter text onto a picture or name a file. Menus other than the main one appear on the drawing screen as windows and these can be repositioned if they get in the way.

Most of the functions are self-explanatory, but a 25-page manual accompanies the package and explains how to set up the system and describes each function individually. I must admit I hardly bothered with the manual once I'd got underway.

Since the configuration I was using involves about £6,000 worth of hardware and software, the system is obviously a lot more up-market than MacPaint. It is intended for use by professional studios, and comparable dedicated systems cost several times as much.

The colour display is suitable for photographing direct to slides or overheads and can even be incorporated in videos if the VGP is fitted with an external video synch. It's also possible to output to a colour ptiner if you have one.

I found Pixel Paint relatively easy to use and the quality of the finished product more than compensated for the learning involved.

The Rupert picture took a couple of hours, but it would probably have tkaen considerably longer to produce a colour drawing to the same standard. In fact, I was sorry to have to return the package - and the hardware I borrowed. I could have designed some lovely Christmas cards and they won't look nearly as good in black and white.