The Sinclair QL Forum

Hi there,

What progs do you guys prefer for creating / editing Mode 4 pics? I’m primarily looking for something I can use on Windows or an emulator.

Multipaint sounds ideal apart from the fact it only does Mode 8. I have Eye-q on mdv which miraculously still works, but it is copy protected so I can’t transfer it to an emulator. Then I’d need to get a serial mouse. Hence my preference for doing it on the pc.

Any ideas?
Cheers,
Alan

Sebright wrote: Sat May 24, 2025 12:00 pm Hi there,

What progs do you guys prefer for creating / editing Mode 4 pics? I’m primarily looking for something I can use on Windows or an emulator.

Multipaint sounds ideal apart from the fact it only does Mode 8. I have Eye-q on mdv which miraculously still works, but it is copy protected so I can’t transfer it to an emulator. Then I’d need to get a serial mouse. Hence my preference for doing it on the pc.

I tend to use Gimp in palette (indexed color) mode and a palette of the four QL colours. I'm happy with it, but your mileage may vary - Gimp is a lot more complicated than Paint or thelikes.

I use Photoshop - you can add QL palettes for mode 4 and mode 8 and work/save the image in indexed colours.
You can also use Gimp, Jasc Paint Shop Pro or Aseprite

if you prefer something simpler
http://grafx2.eu/
save as .png
and use
https://www.dadither.com
to convert

Hope it helps
Markus

Thanks for the replies!

I’ve seen your graphics Andrew, theyre fantastic, I don’t think I can aspire to those heights.

My current plan is to do outlines and fill in some areas with colours, using some of the stippled combinations. I have an ancient copy of PSP and it has done me fine up to now, but it keeps crashing when I try and fill with custom patterns. I use a big image with the stipple pattern because if you use a small one, you can see the joins in the fill, if you get my drift. That probably is my problem.

Anyway, I will persevere and have a look at the other apps, which hopefully can do something similar without crashing!

Cheers,
Alan

desin wrote: Sat May 24, 2025 1:41 pm if you prefer something simpler
http://grafx2.eu/
save as .png
and use
https://www.dadither.com
to convert

Hope it helps
Markus

Thanks for the suggestion Markus. Never knew about that one. Will definitely try it out…

If it's sprite graphics, I use Paint and just grab the color palette from a screenshot of Qlay, keeping a sample of each color in the corner and using the dropper to grab it when I'm ready to use it. I like the simplicity of Paint and if you zoom 800 then you can easily to pixel by pixel.

Just a little addendum...

I solved my problem with fill patterns by creating and saving tiny images, 4x4 pixels, with the various stipple patterns and they worked just fine without crashing the program. Glad I posted this in the newbie section.

Cheers,
Alan