Importing Images

Since AniTuner does not feature its own image editor, it is able to import existing image files and transform them into animated cursor frames.

You can import images by clicking on "Import Image(s)" in the "Edit cursor frames" page or in the "Edit frame" dialog.

To make up for the lack of an image editor, AniTuner recognizes the following image formats:

  • Bitmap (.bmp).
  • JPEG (.jpg).
  • PNG (.png) including their alpha channel if any (see below).
  • GIF (.gif) - static or animated. Multiple images (frames).
  • Adobe Photoshop (.psd) (all layers are merged).
  • cursor (.cur) static Windows cursors. Multiple images.
  • icon (.ico). Multiple images.
  • animated cursor (.ani). Multiple images (frames).
  • Video for Windows (.avi). Multiple images (frames).

First select the image file you want to import and AniTuner then shows you the following dialog.
Note that if you select several image files, the "Import image" dialog will be displayed for each image.

  • If the imported image file contains several sub-images (this is the case for icons, cursors, AVI, animated GIF), you can select the frame to import using "View Frame" as shown on this screenshot.
  • If the imported image format supports transparency (like GIF, icons, cursors, Photoshop files), the background is filled with the transparent color (on this screenshot this is fuchsia).

All images do not generally fit the frame size of the animated cursor, so you need to indicate AniTuner which part of the image you want to import as the new frame.
Use the red rectangle and its eight boxes to select the part of the image, or directly enter the coordinates (Left-Top-Right-Bottom) in the four corresponding fields for the selection rectangle.

If the selection does not fit the current animated cursor size, AniTuner will prompt you for the resizing method it should use to correct this:

  • Resize image to fit the new size: this will resample the old image to fit the cursor frame.
  • Center image: the frame background will be first resized to the new size and the old image will then be drawn as centered in the new frame. Recommended.
  • Crop image: the frame background will be first resized to the new size and the old image will then be drawn at the top-left corner of the new frame.

Make your choice and press OK to continue.

A magnifying glass is available on the right: it shows a zoomed version of the pixels near your mouse pointer. This may be useful when you make the selection using the mouse.

About color format:

Imported images may not have the same color format as the animated cursor. In this case AniTuner always first converts the imported image to the animated cursor's color format before creating the frame. For instance, if your imported image is 24bpp (true colors) and your cursor is 8bpp only, AniTuner will perform a color reduction from 24-bit to 8-bit (a color reduction generally leads to a quality loss).

Image transparency:

The transparent color is used to represent the regions that appear as transparent in the animated cursor. When creating the animated cursor's frames, AniTuner generates a mask and uses this transparent color to determine the parts of the image that need to be masked (i.e. transparent).
You can visually select the color to set as transparent using the dropper tool:. Click on the pixel of the image you want its color to become the transparent one.

You may also set no transparent color for this image but this is not recommended as the frame will not be transparent at all (animated cursors should always have a transparent area). To set no transparency, uncheck "Set this color as transparent" option.

Special description for 32-bit cursors:

32-bit animated cursors contains an alpha channel which plays the role of the mask. It specifies how the pixel's colors should be merged with another pixel when the two are overlaid, one on top of the other.

If you import a picture that is not already in the 32-bit format, AniTuner creates a blank alpha channel that you can then modify using the tools in the "Edit frame" dialog. Otherwise for PNG, icon, cursor and Photoshop PSD, the alpha channel is recognized by AniTuner.
In this case the "Keep alpha channel" option will be enabled: leave it checked and the alpha channel will be imported too when creating the frame. Otherwise the alpha channel will be blank like for other image formats.