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http://realmofchaos80s.blogspot.com/2014/02/chaos-scribe-interview-with-mike-brunton.html

Mentions GW using apple macs and Amstrad PCWs in the 80s.

Once you hit the 90s there was a lot more desktop publishing to choose from.

 slave.entity wrote:
That would mean all of the art/graphic assets for the 2nd and 3rd edition books were created by hand, then scanned in and laid out for print in Quark. Does that sound about right?

Scanned painted artwork. You can still buy prints of a lot of it.

Desktop publishing packages back then would just show downscaled versions of the images to get around system memory limits while sending the full resolution image to the printer.

 slave.entity wrote:
What were those things capable of? Were they for black and white layouts only or did they also handle color photography and artwork?

The 80s PCW? 720×256 monochrome bitmap graphics.

Technologically speaking it was garbage, but it was also dirt cheap at £400 including printing where an IBM system would cost upwards of £2400. At the time other cheap 8 bit rivals were either using more expensive memory (BBC) or had shot themselves in the foot (commodore) allowing Amstrad to undercut everyone.