CompuServe Messages

Hilary, Aargh — I've been away from the Forum for a week and a half, and would you believe it, that's the time a helpless new user showed up! Ohhh, when I think of all the opportunities to help I've missed… Oh well. If I can't help you with that pesky image size problem, perhaps I can make some helpful suggestions to turn framestores into visually innocuous backgrounds? —SHRINK IMAGE FOR QUICK TESTS— You can spend hours noodling around Imagemaster's endless options. My suggestion is to experiment using a very low-resolution version of your image. This will allow much faster feedback, and will increase the speed at which you'll pick up this Imagemaster thing. Load a framestore. Make sure the "entire image" area selection button is active. (Left of Redo button) Click on Process/Clipping/Clip .5x/Replace Primary. This will clip out a half-resolution version of your image, and remove from memory the original. From now on, your primary buffer, the one you see onscreen and can manipulate, is the low-res version. This means operations will proceed 4 times as fast, since there are 4 times less pixels. (half-size in X, half-size in Y) Notice that even though the new buffer has half the resolution of the original image, it still occupies your entire screen. (Minus the overscan border) This is because, and I want you to remember this, Imagemaster will always fill the screen with an image, regardless how large or tiny it is. What you see onscreen has no bearing on what the image size actually is. This resolution-independence is one of Imagemaster's basic philosophies, and allows you, for example, to merge two images of different resolutions. You can repeat the process, giving you a test buffer that has 1/16th as many pixels, for really fast experimentation. When you're happy, return all the way to the main menu. Go to File I-O/Save Image File and save this new image as "Test". You'll need it later. —LIGHT BACKGROUND— If you want to make the background innocuous, mix the image with white, at a 60/40 ratio. From the main menu, enter the Paint panel. Click on Palette, pick the white color swatch with the left mouse button, and End. Now, let's set the transparency level. Imagemaster's transparency effects are among its most powerful tools. They are available most anywhere, which explains why _some_ operations are faster in other programs: they don't perform the same sophisticated transparency processing as IM, even when that transparency is basically off. Click on Set Blend. You see several confusing graphs, used to create complex transparency patterns. Our goal, in this exercise, is to select a uniform 60% blend all over. Right now, the graphs show a white line at 100% everywhere; this means, all we need to do is click on Scale Blend and enter 60% and Done. The blend graphs all show 60%, which means that IF WE TELL IMAGEMASTER TO USE THE BLEND SETTING, any operation will be performed at 60% of its "strength". For example, at a blend setting of 100% overall, if we fill the entire image with white, the entire picture will become white. Fine, that's what you expect. But if you set the blend controls to 60%, Imagemaster will combine 60% of the operation's result (a white image) with 40% of the original picture. Got that? Right now, we have set the blend strength to 60% all over. Now we need to tell Imagemaster to USE this setting. From the Paint panel, click on Fill Mode, then Color Mode (top left) and Transparency (bottom centre). Click Done, then set the wheels in motion by clicking Area Fill. Here's what you have told Imagemaster: fill an area (entire image) in white (fill mode = color mode, foreground color = white from palette) with a strength of 60% (fill mode = transparency, set blend = all graphs at 60%) —OLD-STYLE VIGNETTE— The previous exercise used only one buffer; this one uses two. Go back to the main panel, then File I/O and reload the "test" image you saved earlier. Select "New as secondary" to: (1) load the image from disk into a new buffer, (2) select that buffer as secondary, and (3) leave the current buffer as primary. Go to the Paint panel, Fill Mode, deselect Transparency, Done, and Area Fill. This fills the primary buffer with white. Return to the main panel. Now click on Compose, Controls, Set Blend, then Other Options. Click on "Don't use blend curves" and "Smooth Edge Transparency". "Don't use blend curves" means just that, since we want the next effect to only be controlled by the Edge Transparency gadgets. Click on "Edge is percent" and leave the slider at 16. (Meaning, 16%) These settings will apply whatever operation you choose, at full strength in the center of the selection area, and decrease in a smooth, fuzzy manner, until it reaches zero strength at the edge of the area. Click Done twice, bringing you back to the Compose panel. Click on Linear Compose/Merge. Activate the circle selection tool (Area select, top row 3rd icon). Click and hold the mouse button in the middle of your image, and drag the mouse towards the bottom right corner, until you have a nice oval, leaving about an inch of space all around. (Great Imagemaster feature alert: while performing any area selection, you can press & hold the right mouse button to REPOSITION a selection before releasing the left mouse button! This is an invaluable feature) When you do release the mouse, Imagemaster will merge the secondary buffer into the oval selection, using the Blend controls to feather the edge. (You can then reset the Blend controls and perform the first technique on this image, giving it a romantic and very soft look) (You can also use the Entire Image selection tool, and apply the Process/Standard Adj./Antique effect to the final result, for a sepia look) I hope these two simple examples will unlock some of the principles involved in day-to-day use of Imagemaster. Blaq!