Despite the appeal of color images, when you get right down to it, most DTP image processing deals with gray scale. If you don't need the color image-processing capabilities of a high-end program such as Photoshop or ColorStudio, you'd do well to take a look at Enhance, an affordable gray-scale image-processing program that delivers more powerful features than any other program in its class.
Enhance is a sophisticated image processor that can open files in TIFF, PICT, MacPaint, or EPS formats. It processes 1-, 4-, and 8-bit graphic files and uses a virtual-memory scheme that can accommodate large images. In fact, the image size is limited only by your available disk space (or your patience for dealing with slow screen redraws and lengthy filter processing of largo files).
Enhance's tools are predictable for a gray-scale image processor: pointer, hand (grabber), magnifying glass, dropper (for picking up specific grays from an image), selection tools (rectangle, oval, lasso, and magic wand), and paint tools (brush, eraser, pencil, airbrush, line, filled rectangles and circles, and paint bucket) as well as blur, smudge, sharpen, gradient (linear only), and font tools. Most of these tools have associated icons that appear at the bottom of the Tool palette and provide options for the selected tool.
What sets Enhancers Tool palette apart from other programs', however, is its customizability. If you know you're not going to use the filled-object tools, for example, you can simply replace them with other tools you use frequently.
Enhance features a full set of image controls, including filters, masks, and anti-aliasing. The program’s own suite of filters (which it calls kernals — apparently a misspelling of kernels) might initially seem anemic if you’ve used other image-processing programs. Gone are novelty filters such as Zigzag and Twirl. However, Enhance does supply all the important professional-level filters. You can also create your own custom filters and save them to disk.
In addition. Enhance accepts Photoshop-compatible plug-in filters. But be forewarned — the current version works only with Photoshop 1.0 plug-ins. Photoshop 2.0 plug-ins don't work with Enhance, which means that you can't use the striking Aldus Gallery Effects package with any success.
Enhance's mask control can match that of any high-end program. You can feather or blur masks to create softer, more natural transitions, and you can create and save your own masks. The program supports 1-, 4-, and 8-bit masks.
The anti-aliasing controls are impressive. You can apply anti-aliasing to selections and can configure several tools including the font tool) to apply antialiased characters and images directly.
Other nice touches include multiple levels of undo, real-time image editing without the need for previews, and a font tool that’s an absolute joy to use. Unlike Photoshop’s font tool, it doesn’t spirit you off to another window that’s separate from the original image. You can see the image as you type the text, making placement a snap. You can also append notes to images in a file-information box.
Although Enhance has plenty to recommend it, it’s not always the most intuitive program to use. Its main weakness is the fuzzy terminology it uses for command names and menu items. The program sometime refers to filters as convolution kernals and at other times as plug-in filters. It would be less confusing simply to settle on the name filters and group them under a common menu item.
The program’s documentation, however, provides valuable instruction on the sophisticated art of image processing. The manual’s appendix on the fundamentals of filtering is especially helpful.
Minimum system requirements for using Enhance are a Macintosh SE/30, LC, or member of the Mac II series; at least 2 megabytes of RAM; System 6.0.3 or later; 32-bit Color QuickDraw (either as an INIT or hard-wired into ROM); and a hard-disk drive. The program is System 7-compatible but not -savvy.
The Bottom Line
Because of its confusing terminology, Enhance comes across as less polished than similar gray-scale image-processing programs such as Digital Darkroom and ImageStudio. Nonetheless, we prefer Enhance. Overall, the program’s masking and anti-aliasing tools, customizable Tool palette, and informative documentation work together to make it a winning package.
Wasson, Gregory. (May 1992). Enhance. MacUser. (pgs. 54-55).
Tom Pinkerton
Applications
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2023-01-07 / 
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Enhance20.hqx
Emulating this? It could probably run under: 
Mini vMac
