#TPaint
4 messages in this thread
Jerry,
I just spent the last two days trying to learn and work in Toster Paint. Would
I be correct is saying that it is a limited program?
I gave up trying to read the manual. So, I then sat and watched Lee Stranahan's
tape on Paint. Watched it twice. I then played the tape I made of Lee at his
seminar.
Now, here is what I was trying to do. Maybe you could give me some suggestions.
I wanted to draw a frame around a picture. We shot some still photographs onto
video tape. Some of them are vertical and rather than just mask the photo with
a solid background, I thought that I could build a frame around the photo to
make it look nicer.
I started by loading the framestore into Paint. Used the filled rectangle tool
to make a narrow boarder around the photo. In one of Lee's tapes, he showed how
to use the lighten control to make what looks like a drop shadow or beveled
edge. I did this along one side of the boarder. Looked good. Then I tried to
line up the next edging for the next side. If I overlaped the previous side,
the color darkened. If I moved to far a way there was a gap.
Is there a way to position the retangle tool so that it just touches the other
boarder?
I also tried cutting out the entire picture as a brush. Jumped to the other
page and tried to paste down the brush so that the picture was in the center of
the page. Could not do it. Used the "W" command and the aspect ratio was all
off. Tried holding the ALT key while using the retangle tool to make as large a
picture as possible and the largest size I could come up with was about half of
the vertical page.
Finally gave up. Went back into my MX-50 and framed the picture in a few
seconds with a two-toned color boarder. Not exactly what I had in mind, but a
heck of a lot faster.
Also, am I correct that once you pull an image into Paint, there is no way of
moving it around the page. Other than making a brush and trying to figure where
you are.
I know that there must be some good paint programs for the Amiga. Can you make
any suggestions. I've watched what can be done with Photoshop and Photostyler
on the PC and would like just half of that power.
Fred,
PMFJI, about Tpaint. I agree that it isn't nearly as friendly or as
powerful as it could be considering how long it's been on the market.
Although you can accomplish an awful lot once you spend some quality
time with it, it still is quite limited in vertain respects.
In it's defense I must confess that there are many things you can do
with it quite easily that are a real pain in other packages. Example.
The simple lifting of a brush image off a black background (sans the
black background) is quite easy in Tpaint. It takes two quick steps
and you are done. In other packages (such as Alladin Paint) you must
create a luminance mask, copy it to the key layer, then invert the
mask. After this is done, you copy the original image (with mask)
back to the rgb layer, then cut the image as a brush (after setting
appropriate modes in both layers) before you can replace the image
without it's background. I found an easier way to accomplish this with
the Alladin system was to send the image out to the DVE (linear keyed
with it's shape containing the mask outlined previously in the paint
program) then manipulating it in whatever fashion required before
"stamping" it into the other frame buffer. This process is really
handy, but still takes a few more steps than it should to do a simple
logo lift off from a black background.
But I digress, back to Tpaint.
I might suggest that next time you want to create a framed effect,
you use a combination of the TexMap mode (after cutting the opicture
area as a brush and saving it) then load a framestore that has some
sort of center reference. I find that creating a graphic box in the
CG (framestore page) positioned in the area I would like it to appear
when rendered works well. Then when creating your rectangle paste of
the brush, wait until you have aproximated the size of the framed
area before pressing and holding the ALT key. This should give you
much greater freedom of movement around the canvas area. Another tip
is to turn on the co-ordinates and keep track of where your edges are
in relationship to zero.
Once you have placed your graphic in the boxed rectangle, you can once
again load the reference frame you created in CG, do all your framing
effects on this page, and use rub thru to bring the picture into view
without having to worry about lightening or darkening of the image
itself.
BTW, I also find that moving images into a seperate DVE (either the
JAZZ or Alladin) and making size and framing adjustments is much
quicker and easier. For the benefit of those without those toys I
thought the info listed above might be of help.
Regards
Frank
Hiya Fred, ya might wanna take a look at Alpha Paint or Brilliance now
that the Dongle has Thankfully been done away with to avoid Toaster
Paint.
Member of the Assosciation of Media Professionals
Fred,
You're right: TPaint is kinda limited. BUT, since I've used it as my primary
paint program for about 2 years now, I've grown quite accustomed to it myself.
My first tip for capturing photos is to crop, zoom, and position within the
camera as much as possible. I do photo montages pretty regularly, and will
zoom and crop before grabbing the frame whenever possible, so that the picture
fills the frame. There's usually plenty of superfluous junk in photos anyway,
so this takes care of it about 99% of the time.
For the pictures where the above scenario isn't feasible, if I had an external
device (which I don't) that would cleanly shrink and position images, such as
the MX-50 (does it do it cleanly?), I would make heavy use of it for sizing and
positioning the image before grabbing it as a framestore. Then I'd load it
into TPaint for adding backgrounds via rub-thru, etc.
As far as the other intricacies in TPaint, only practice will make it perfect,
and it's still rather difficult sometimes.
On the subject of other paint programs, I'm chomping at the bits for Alpha
Paint. The features sound marvelous to me, and if the quality is like Montage
it'll be fabulous. I am hoping that they've found a way to make it a little
faster than Montage, though, cause it's dreadfully slow, IMO.
Jerry