Last minute changes docs - V1.1 rev 177 (19/12/94) ================================================== Changes documented by: Keith Smith, Jolyon Ralph & Paul Nolan. See the bottom of this file for information on the V1.1 changes --------------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================== A1200 owners with only 2MB of RAM are advised to boot from Photogenics disk one. This will allow the maximum amount of RAM to be used by Photogenics. ========================================================================== Note: Due to space restrictions there are no longer any example images on disk 1. Use disk 2 for example images. Changes and New Features ======================== Several changes were made to the program after the manual went to the printers. Rather than make you wait for the next upgrade, we thought you'd want these extra features now! Make sure you read these changes once you've familiarised yourself with the program. Toolbar Changes --------------- There are two new buttons in the toolbar which were added after the Photogenics manual went to press. These are for Smear (see below) and the Colour Picker (which is described in the manual but didn't previously have a toolbar button). The smear icon is the S with a blurry trail (above the MODE button) and the colour picker icon is the pipette button next to it. We will provide a new updated quick reference card with the first Photogenics update. Smear ----- Smear is a new powerful effect. When selected, the standard drawing options (except for filled options like filled square and filled ellipse) will smear the picture rather than applying a paint effect. Unlike other paint effects (eg. Negative) Smear does not use the standard system of operation where you can rub-out your work with the right mouse button. Both buttons do the same during smear. If you have undo enabled you can use the Undo option from the menu to undo the LAST APPLIED smear operation. As smear affects the 24-bit data directly make sure you have a back-up of your image (either by cloning the buffer or by saving to disk) before you start using Smear! Smear uses the current brush, so different effects can be used with other brush types like Chalk Pastel. The `harder', the brush is, then the more you will smear. If the brush is `soft', ie you have the pressure set low, you will get more of a smudge efect. So to blur things together, you would use something like the airbrush at low pressure in dotted mode. To distort a picture, you would set the pressure to 100%, and maybe try using Continous line mode. Example 1 Load in a picture of a face. Turn smear on, select the Airbrush, set brush pressure to 100%, and size to 20-30. Click on the corner of the mouth, and slowly curve the mouse upwards, making the mouth extend into a smile. Example 2 Draw a scribble in pencil or Chalk Pastel. (dont forget to fix it!) Select the airbrush, set brush pressure to 10-20%, and size to 20-30. Rub over the sribble and you will find it gives the effect of being smudged in with your finger. Example 3 To create a whirly splodge: Turn smear on, select the Airbrush, set brush pressure to 50%, size to 5-15, and the draw mode to continous. Draw a spiral over an existing picture and you will find that it creates quite a nice effect. Notes: Smear works directly onto the 24bit image data, it operates *underneath* the paint layer! If you have cloned your image before smearing, you can undo areas of the smear by setting the cloned image as the secondary and using 'rub through' paint mode when you have finished with smear (remember to turn the smear mode off by clicking the button to the up position). Blur Paint Layer --------------- A new option has been added to the Alpha/Paint Layer menu called 'Blur Paint Layer'. This option will 'blur' the edges of the selected paint (without needing to fix it). If you draw a solid shape like a filled circle it normally has sharp, unnatural edges. By choosing this option the edges of this (and any other unfixed paint) are blurred so they will blend into the background. PCD.gio ------- You can now load Photo .PCD files directly into Photogenics (you will obviously need a CD-ROM drive to read the CDs). Only the lowest three resolutions in .PCD (192x128, 384x256, and 768x512) are currently supported. You can get your own photos put onto CD quite cheaply at most photographic stores. This .GIO file loads and can automatically detect .PCD files (see GIO section in the manual) Close Workbench --------------- We have added a new option to the settings menu to allow you to close workbench (primarily to free up extra memory on 2Mb machines). Select 'Close Workbench' if you are running short of memory. Tolerance Fill -------------- This has been renamed 'Fill Similar', but apart from that works exactly as described in the manual. Colours Window -------------- If you press the 'Colours' button in the palette requester, you can now access the Colours window. This lets you create spreads of colour, and also lets you see what palettes were saved with any images you may have loaded. The main work area is the large grid of 256 coloured boxes, to select one just click on it. While this is selected, you can edit the colour with the palette window. If you want to create a spread of colours, choose the start colour, press the 'Spread' button and click on the destination colour. To copy colours, select the one you wish to copy, press 'Store', and then select the destination and press 'Paste'. The 'load' and 'save' buttons deal only with colour information, so to load in another picture's palette without loading in the whole picture just press 'Load' and select the picture. 'Save' creates a palette, which can also be used for the False Colour paint mode or in the 'Backdrop' loader. The 'Pick' button lets you select a colour from an image, click once on 'Pick', then once on the point of the image you wish to get the colour from. It is the equivalent of pressing ',' or clicking on the colour picker tool in the toolbar. The listview on the right hand side of the window lists all the buffers in memory, click on one to grab its palette. Note that not all file formats save out palettes, so it may turn all the colours to black. Greyscale --------- The greyscale paintmode now has more options. Previously it had two different methods of calculating a greyscale picture. Now it has no less than eleven! Video Weighted : Default. Calculated on aproximation of what image would look like on monochrome screen Simple Average : Based on a simple average of Grey = (R+G+B)/3 Brightest : The Grey level is the brightest of the Red, Green and Blue components Darkest : The Grey level is the darkest of the Red, Green and Blue components. Median : The Grey level is the median of the Red, Green and Blue components. Red Filter Green Filter Blue Filter Cyan Filter Magenta Filter Yellow Filter : The image is converted to greyscale as if the original image had been photographed using black & white film with a coloured lens. This cuts out certain colours during the conversion to enhance others (Try a red filter when converting landscape photographs, for example) Brushes ------- Four new brush types have been added to the program: BallPen : Simulates a ballpoint ink pen. Like real pens the colours mix differently to normal paint (you can't draw on black for example) Calligraphy : A simple angled nib calligraphy marker. MarkerPen : Simulates a thick marker pen. Colour mixing works in a similar way to BallPen. SprayCan : Spray can works like the airbrush but has a higher pressure and defaults to continuous mode. Useful for highlighting areas for image processing. Clock and Memory Display ------------------------ You can now display a memory indication and the current time in the titlebar.You may wish to turn off the clock if you do not have a realtime clock fitted in your machine. Opalvision ---------- There are now two Opalvision displayers included Opal_Low and Opal_High. These replace the single displayer mentioned in the manual. You have a choice of displaying your image on a low resolution or high resolution Opalvision display. This avoids a requester that would be needed if only one displayer was used. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Problems running the program? ============================= Why are some loaders (Picasso, Opalvision, etc?) missing? --------------------------------------------------------- They are not missing. Due to space and memory reasons only essential loaders are available for floppy disk users. When you install to hard drive you can install the other optional loaders. "Could not open V39 asl.library" -------------------------------- Some badly-written software installers copy over old versions of files to your hard drive. One common problem is overwriting the latest V39/V40 version of the asl.library with older V37/V38 versions. This will prevent Photogenics from loading. If you get this (or problems opening other libraries) then it is highly likely you will need to reinstall all Workbench 3.0/3.1 system files onto your hard drive to ensure you have correct operating system files. The Photogenics installer will now update your ASL library during installation if an old version is detected. "Not enough memory to open Window." ----------------------------------- If you are running low on chip memory you may still be able to load in images but not display them. Try freeing some memory if possible (by quiting other software running, closing Workbench, or using the 'Discard All Undos..." option from the menu if available), or better still invest in some (more) 32-bit fast ram for your Amiga. "Not enough memory to apply changes in this mode." -------------------------------------------------- Some paintmodes require extra memory to apply (fix) changes (eg. Matrix, Blur, DisplaceMap). If you do not have enough free memory, you will get this error when trying to fix the mode. Follow the directions above to free up memory. How do I use the colourfonts? ----------------------------- If you have installed the colourfonts you may not realise how to use them. See the 'text' tutorial in the Manual for full details. Remember - these fonts will work with ANY Amiga applications that support standard colourfonts (DPaint, Scala, etc.) Why won't my window magnify any further --------------------------------------- If you have a small window the maximum magnification is calculated as if the window takes up the full size of the screen. If you want to get the highest magnification resize your window to the full screen size. Why don't my .IMG files load? ----------------------------- We have had problems reported with the IMG loader loading certain files. Unfortunately we were not able to verify this before release. If the IMG loader does prove to cause problems we will provide a fixed version on the next update disk (or via our online support systems) Your graphics board is not supported ------------------------------------ If you have a graphics board that is not supported, call Almathera. We are adding support for new boards all the time, and drivers for boards that we support will be available free of charge (except for postage and disk cost) or can be downloaded from CIX or the Almathera BBS. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Hints and Tips ============== Pixel-perfect Editing --------------------- In HAM-8 preview you will need to zoom in (magnify) an area to allow pixel perfect editing. This is best done if you select the airbrush, set the size to 1 and pressure to 100. You can now alter the individual pixels of a 24-bit picture directly for fine adjustments. Virtual Memory -------------- Photogenics works well with the Public Domain VMEM Virtual Memory system. You need a processor with a memory management unit (MMU) to use such Virtual Memory systems. Make sure you insist on an MMU when you upgrade your processor. Future versions of Photogenics are highly likely to support Virtual Memory on any Amiga, but a MMU allows real Virtual Memory with all applications. ClickToFront ------------ You may find the ClickToFront commodity (provided with Workbench) makes working with multiple windows easier. See your Workbench manuals for instructions on how to use ClickToFront. Note that for best use you need to set the qualifier to NONE! --------------------------- Thank you for taking the time to read this. We hope you enjoy using this product and look forward to hearing your suggestions for future updates. Make sure you send in your registration card to be eligable for technical support and cheap upgrades. Special thanks to our Marketing Manager - Bruno Sajno. =================================================================== V1.1 additions. Congratulations - you now have version 1.1 of Photogenics. Here are the main changes to this version. Alpha channel compose --------------------- You can now use an alpha channel (which is scaled to match the secondary image) during compose operations. Faster AirBrush --------------- Airbrush code has been optimised and considerably speeded up. AppIcon and AppMenu ------------------- Photogenics now opens an AppIcon on the Workbench ("Drop files here"). You can drag picture icons from workbench and drop them on the Photogenics AppIcon to load them into Photogenics. There is also a "Switch to Photogenics" menu item in the Tools menu which will bring Photogenics to the front of your display. Rotate ------ A new option has been added to allow rotate through any angle, not just limited to 90,180 and 270 degrees as before. NOTE: This rotate allocates an undo buffer if possible. The standard rotate directions do not (as they can be undone by a simple rotate). Blur ---- A new (slightly faster) blur has been added to complement gaussian blur - it's a simple blur again with adjustable size. This can be chosen from the Image menu. ILBM.gio -------- 24-bit output files can now load into Dpaint AGA correctly Blur paintmode -------------- Now has several new options for the following blurs Simple 3x3 (Simple blur - quite effective and fast) Cross 3x3 (Fast and subtle blur - default) Cross 5x5 (Not so fast but smoother) Small Gaussian 3x3 (Smooth and fairly fast) Large Gaussian 5x5 (Nice, but fairly slow) Star 5x5 (Removes dithering without losing too much sharpness) HeavyBlur paintmode ------------------- Removed (now built into Blur) Median filter paintmode ----------------------- New paintmode. Finds the median value of the pixel and its eight direct neighbours. Can be used to give 'oil painting' type effects. Matrix paintmode ---------------- Bug with negative divisors fixed. Divisor now automatically calculated and 'offset' option removed (Previously unused) Stellate paintmode ------------------ New paintmode. Turns pictures into bright pattern of stars. Works best on images which are not heavily blurred. Refract paintmode ----------------- New paintmode. Splits an image into four copies and merges them back together at a set offset. Flip paintmode -------------- Flip-X and Flip-Y paintmodes merged into one. Options select direction. Limit paintmode --------------- LimitMin and LimitMax paintmodes merged into one. Lineart paintmode ----------------- Two new options added to LineArt for inverse lineart. Emboss paintmode ---------------- Two new options added to Emboss for emboss 'in' ShiftRGB paintmode ------------------ ShiftRGB - Options added for different shifts/swaps (RGB->GBR,BRG,RBG,GRB,BGR) Targa.gio --------- Support for Truevision® Targa files added - Loads 16-bit to 32-bit targa files. Saves 16 bit or 24-bit. Files must have .tga or .targa suffix. Defocus paintmode ----------------- New paint mode added to alter the focus of an image. RubThru paintmode ----------------- Added offset options to RubThru paintmode. Similar to the options for Roll. Bugs fixed ---------- All reported bugs fixed. NOT INCLUDED IN THIS RELEASE ---------------------------- Due to space restrictions the following files have been changed but are NOT included in this release: AmigaScreen.gio - More system friendly - does not freeze system Opal_Hires.gio - no longer crashes if no Opalvision fitted Opal_Lores.gio - no longer crashes if no Opalvision fitted QRT.gio - Can now automatically recognise QRT files V-Lab.gio - Does not open debug window now. These files are available on request from Almathera or for download from our BBS (due in operation soon) or from the Photogenics conference on CIX.