===============================================================================
 How to make Grey-Scale ASCII Headings  By AstroBlue (astroboy_blue@yahoo.com)
===============================================================================

Thanks to Dallas for typing out the process of making a Grey-Scale ASCII
Heading first! This technique is not identical to his way, but it is based on
his way.

  PROGRAMS NEEDED
* Paint Shop Pro 7 (www.jasc.com)
* UltraEdit-32 (www.ultraedit.com) or HexWorkshop (www.bpsoft.com)
* WordPad

  METHOD
1. Search the internet for the logo of the game you want to make a ASCII
   Heading for and save it to your hard drive, try using Google
   (www.google.com). If you feel like breaking the law you could also use an
   emulator to take a screenshot of the game's title screen.

2. Open the image up in Paint Shop Pro 7 and make the image so there is just
   the logo with an entire white background. The best way to do this is to use
   the "Flood Fill" tool to make large chunks around the image white and then
   to use the "Paint Brush" tool to clean it all up.

3. Now use the "Crop" tool and make a rectangle around the logo so there is a
   thin border of background around the edge. Then double-click inside
   the rectangle.

4. Now select "Colors" then "Decrease Color Depth" then "X Colors (4/8 Bit)".
   Now input the amount of characters including spaces you want to use in
   the ASCII Heading. 4 is best for uncomplicated logo's and 8 is best for
   complicated logo's. Then click "OK".

5. Select "Colors" then "Grey Scale".

6. Do step 4 again exactly how you did it last time. "Why do I have to do this
   step twice?" you say. Well you should minimize the amount of colors used
   before you "Grey Scale" your image to avoid the colors merging (if they have
   have roughly the same luminance), and you have to do it again cause "Grey
   Scale" bumps up the color palette to every shade there is.

7. Select "Colors" then "Adjust" then "Brightness/Contrast". Fiddle around with
   the values until the shades step down evenly (if you know what I mean).

8. Select "Image" then "Resize". Now make sure "Maintain Aspect Ratio" is
   ticked then input 79 as the Width in Pixels, now un-tick "Maintain Aspect
   Ratio" then using your 2nd Grade Math Skills (or a Calculator) divide the
   Height in Pixels by 2 and then input the product as the Height in pixels.
   Now click "OK".

9. Select "File" then "Save As". Type in a file name then select "Raw File
   Format (*.raw) as the type it is to be saved as. Then change the extension
   from .raw to .txt. Then click "Save".

10. Close Paint Shop Pro 7 and open up UltraEdit-32or HexWorkshop. Then open 
    up the Raw Text File in it.

11. Now this step needs some explaining. With the Raw File Format it saves 
    black as the hex value 00 and if you made it 4 colors it saves white as
    the highest hex value 03, if you made it 8 colors it's 07 , etc. So you 
    want to replace these values with values that are recognised in ASCII 
    Encoding that represent the luminance of the individual shades. So use the
    program's "Search & Replace" function to do it. Change 00 to the hex value
    of the darkest character (usually 23), the change 01 to the value of your
    next lightest chosen character, etc.

    Here are hex values of common grey-scale ASCII Characters in order from
    darkest to lightest:

    # = 23
    @ = 40
    8 = 38
    % = 25
    O = 4F
    o = 6F
    " = 22
    ; = 3B
    , = 2C
    ' = 27
    . = 2E
      = 20

12. Now select "File" then "Save". Then close UltraEdit-32 or HexWorkshop and
    open WordPad and load the .txt file.

13. Now copy the line of stars below:

*******************************************************************************

    Now paste it right at the start of the file then press Enter. Now press
    left, down, enter, left, down enter & repeat until the entire ASCII heading
    is formed. Then select "File" then "Save".

_______________________________________________________________________________
                                                     © Copyright 2001 AstroBlue