  /CiD /CiD /CiD /CiD /CiD /CiD /CiD /CiD /CiD /CiD /CiD /CiD                                                                                                                                                                                        Pros and Cons to GIF to ANSI Converters                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Throughout the duration of my ANSI art  career,   there have been          many tricks to produce the 'easy' ANSI.  One  such tool of wonder is a          program that converts a VGA picture  into  ANSI.  I was at first quite          excited yet skeptical  about what results I was going to obtain.  This          article is a report of the results  I  obtained  by using the graphics          converter.  Using a SVGA/VGA  GIF  picture  I  found  the  are  if the          GIF that could be converted to ANSI is quite a small percentage of the          whole GIF.  I was also forced to zoom  in  many  times  on  the GIF in          order to reach a recognizable ANSI screen...  recognizable only if you          were standing 20 feet from the  monitor.  The  resolution  of  the GIF          was so high that  is  was  nearly  impossible  to  get distinguishable          ANSI  out  of it.  The  shading  of  the  ANSI  was  very  rough,  and          though  it  provided a fair outline shape,  much had to be modified to          reach a decent picture.                                                                                                                                              Hoping  that  I  would  reach  more  success  with  a  lower  GIF          resolution, I tried an EGA  bitmap.  Shading  of  the  converted  ANSI          was fair,  but  again I was forced to stand  10  feet  away  to  get a          clear picture.  I suppose this might do for  a  public domain  artist,          but no way would it receive praise from the ANSI gods in ACiD.                                                                                                       Going even farther down the graphic scale,  CGA resolution proved          a fair result.  I was able to convert more of the GIF, and since there          is little to no shading in a CGA GIF,  the ANSI came out satisfactory.          This was swell  and  fine  but two  problems  then  arose.  One, there          aren't many CGA GIFs out there to convert, so finding a decent picture          would be difficult.  Second,  although  the  ANSI  was  ok, any artist          could do  the same if not better by hand using  The Draw.  besides the          VGA  to  ANSI  converter  being  graphically  bad,  it  is  downplayed          as artistically wrong.  There is an  unwritten  code that every artist          must follow.  An  elite   artist  doesn't  look  for the easy way out,          instead he is praised for his talent,  the  skill of changing a blank,          void computer screen into  25  lines  and  80  columns  of   exploding          colors,  eye-catching graphics, and unique fonts.  So in my opinion as          a member of ACiD, this program is a serious waste of time.                                                                                                                                     TANK <ACiD>                                                                                                                                                                                                   