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·
: ¦ . _________ ________ _____________
_____¦ | · __ / : ___________/ _ \ \ __ _ /
| ____ : \_/ -A : \______ \ | \_ _: \_/ \_/
| \ ¦ | ¦ \_ ··D_ / / _/ | / ___/ \_
| : : | _______/ `N· _/ \ \_________/ | \________/
¦ _____ ¦ | : \__________/ \ ¦ \_
: : \__________ \___________/
. ·
. »»»» PRESENTS ««««
PHOTOGENICS
===========
TYPED BY SHARD - N&B
Credits
-------
Programming: Paul Nolan, Jolyon Ralph, Kriss Daniels, Keith Smith
Graphics, Artwork and typesetting: Mark Tipper
Photographs of 'Zebra', 'Portrait' and 'Sea-sky': Jane Knight
Manual: Keith Smith
Additional work: Dan Stopani
Thanks to
All our beta-testers - Dave Barnard, Eddy Carroll, Nigel Critten, Gary
Fenton, Andy Gould, Jim Hawkins, Paul Kelly, Steve Loughran, Mike Sage,
Toby Simpson, Jeff Walker, Mick Tinker, Richard Waspe.
And - Paul Ralph, Bea Ralph, Emma Ralph and Claire Tipper the model,
Neil Cartwright, Aaron Fothergill, John Findlay, Wouter van Oortmerssen,
Ian Greenaway.
Tom Lane and the Independant JPEG Group.
Photogenics is a trademark of Almathera Systems Ltd.
Photogenics is Copyright Paul Nolan 1993 - 1994. Portions Copyright
Almathera 1994. All Rights Reserved worldwide.
GIF is a trademark ot Compuserve Inc. OpalVision is a trademark at Opal
Technology Inc. PCX is a trademark of ZSoft Corporation. VLab is a
trademark of Macrosystem US, Inc.
Photographs of 'Zebra', 'Portrait' and 'Sea sky' are copyright images of
Jane Knight and are example images ONLY, any use af these pictures for
any use other than personal should be taken up with the author.
Other marks are trademarks of their respective holders.
Contents
--------
System Requirements and Recommendations
Installation
Introduction to Photogenics
Features
Tour for Beginners
Tour for Experienced Users
General Theory
.Transparency/Pressure
.Secondary Buffer
.Alpha Channels
.Compose
.Undo
Reference
.Toolbox
.Menus
.Images Window
.Supported Hardware
.Supported File Formats
.Brushes
.Paint Modes
Tutorials
.First steps
.Compose
.Rippling an image
.Creating text effects with alpha channels
.Artist's Tutorial
Appendix I - Introduction to 24-bit Graphics
Appendix II - Common Problems
Appendix III - Hints and Tips
Appendix IV - Keyboard shortcuts
Appendix V - Font examples
Index
Quick reference guide
System Requirements/Recommendations
-----------------------------------
Minimum System: Kickstart 3.0 and 2Mb RAM.
Recommended System: AGA or graphics display card, 4Mb RAM and a Hard
Drive.
Users with only 2 Megabytes of RAM should be aware that memory will be
very tight when running Photogenics. Picture size and number of open
images will be severly limited and render some operations impossible.
Installation
------------
Floppy disk users
1. Boot from your Workbench 3.0 disk and insert the Photogenics
Program disk.
2. Open the disk icon and double-click on the "Photogenics" icon.
Photogenics will now load. Please note that this may require several
disk swops depending on whether there is an external drive present.
Hard disk users
1. Open the disk icon ond double-click on the "Install Photogenics"
icon.
2. Follow the instructions given on screen.
Included with the installation is a last minute changes file that
documents any features that were implemented at the last minute and did
not make it to this manual. Please read this as it may also include
essential information.
Introduction to Photogenics
---------------------------
Photogenics is the first full 24-bit painting program allowing the user
to spray special effects onto images. Many other packages are limited
to applying effects to the whole screen - not to selected areas with
such versatility and subtlety. An image might be perfect except for a
section that needs sharpening or darkening for example.With Photogenics
this operation is simple - just select the desired effect and spray on
with the airbrush, draw with pencil or chalk pastel.
Photogenics provides many different drawing tools to give your
compositions a real life look and feel. If you are unhappy with the
result then change the effect or the colour - Photogenics will "redo"
your image ond you can see your changes immediately. If you have found
that you have overdone the painting you can "spray back" to the original
image using the right mouse button easily removing the "paint".
An explanation of 24-bit graphics and image processing is given in
Appendix 1. This is suggested reading for users who are not familiar
with computer graphics.
Features
.Natural paint tools - airbrush, pencil, chalkpastel and more
.Edit multiple images simultaneously - each in a resizeable window
.Powerful Undo/Redo
.Preview any effect - instantly
.Support for multiple file formats: IFF, JPEG, GIF, BMP, PCX, ascii-art,
PBM, QRT, Raw, RGB8, RGBN
.Paint in 24-bit with real time HAM-8 preview
.No 24-bit graphics card necessary (With AGA machine)
.Support for additional hardware - OpalVision, Picasso-II, VLab etc.
.Easy to use alpha-channel support
.Open architecture - add new loaders, savers, paint modes, brushes
.Drag-&-Drop user interface
.Dozens of effects:
AddDust, AddNoise, AlterHue, Antique, Balance, Blur, Brightness, Cloner,
Contrast, DeInterlace, DisplaceMap, Emboss, FalseColour, Flip-X, Flip-Y,
GradientTint, Greyscale, HeavyBlur, Highlights, HueMap, LimitMax,
LimitMin, LineArt, LowLights, MaskingPaint, Matrix Mix-,Diff,Or,Sub,XOR,
Monochrome, MotionBlur, Negative, NegBright, Paint, Pixelise, Posterise,
Randomise, RubThru, RubMix, Saturation, Sharpen, ShiftHue, ShiftRGB,
Solorize, Tile and Tint.
Tour for Beginners
------------------
This tour is intended for Amiga beginners and casual users.
Experienced Amiga users should skip to the Tour for Experienced Users in
the next chapter which is essentially the same as this chapter but there
is no extra explanatory text.
Some things may be a little unusal at first - if you find anything that
you don't understand then please read the 'common problems' section in
the back of this manual.
Upon starting Photogenics, the program will open it's own screen with an
about information window. Click the left mouse button to enter the
program.
Let's create a picture within the program:
1. Select the "Open as/Other" option which appears under the Project
menu or hold down the right Amiga key and press 'L'.
A list will open showing the many different types of loaders that
Photogenics can use.
2. Click on the "Plasma" item in the list.
The Photogenics size requester will appear. From this you can select
the size of Plasma to create. Lets create a small one for now -
3. Move the sliders by holding down the left mouse button when the
pointer is over the "knob" in the slider and moving the mouse. Make the
X and Y numbers indicate approximately 100.
4. Click on OK and a progress indicator will appear showing how long
the loader will take to complete. This can be interrupted by clicking
on CANCEL - let's allow this one to finish.
When complete you should see your first Photogenics image appear in a
window - a 24 bit colour plasma.
You hove seen just one of the powerful features of Photogenics which
allows you to create the program with no effort at all.
There are a number of similar loaders to Plasma which create images
rather than load them from disk. These can be used to generate images
in their own right or as ways to add special effects to other images.
We can paint on your plasma by holding down the left mouse button and
drawing over the window. The colour shown in the Toolbox will be
applied with the default drawing tool - Airbrush. The Airbrush applies
your colour in the same way as a real airbrush does - a smooth flow of
paint that increases the longer you hold it. It also has smooth edges
so you can blend colours into each other. Using the right mouse button
we can "un-spray". This can be used to remove any paint we have added.
Another powerful feature is the ability to change the colour of the area
we have just painted. Open the Palette by clicking on the colourbox in
the Toolbox or selecting it from the Windows menu. Here we choose the
colour to paint with.
Colours can be chosen using RGB (Red, Green, Blue), HSB (Hue,
Saturation, Brightness) or CMY (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow) colour models -
dont worry about these for the moment because you have a large list of
colours to choose from and a colour wheel where you can see the colour
you want. Spray some colour onto your image. Now select a different
colour and click on the Use button in the Palette window. You should
see the area you painted change to the new colour.
When you are happy with the paint you have applied then clicking on the
FIX button in the toolbox will make our changes permanent. You can now
choose a different colour and paint with that over the first colour.
Please note that after FIXing, we cannot remove paint with the right
mouse button or change the colour of that paint.
Close the plasma image by clicking on the top left of the window.
Let's load a picture from disk:
1. Select Open from the Project menu.
2. Choose the Girl.JPG image from the list that appears.
3. Click on OK.
4. Photogenics will load the image and you will see a face appear in a
window.
5. Apply some paint to the face with the left mouse button.
Don't forget we can remove paint with the right mouse button.
Let's change the way that the paint is applied to the image:
6. Click on the Mode button in the Toolbox.
A window will appear showing all the different ways that paint can
affect your image.
7. Choose Negative.
This works just like a photographic negative, making all your colours
"opposite" - blue becomes yellow, green becomes magenta etc.
8. Add or remove more paint.
9. Click on the Mode button again and choose Tint.
Every time we change the Mode, Photogenics will "redo" the paint we have
applied with the new effect. Tint has a kind of transparency that
allows us to see the original image under the paint we have applied.
This tour is finished now. You may continue adding/removing paint and
changing the mode. Experiment - some things may look better than
others. Remember that once you are happy with an effect then you must
FIX it. Then you can add some more paint and a different effect.
Tour for Experienced Users
--------------------------
This quick tour will give experienced users a brief overview of some of
the features of Photogenics.
Some things may be a little unusal at first- if you find anything that
you don't understand then please read the 'common problems' section in
the back of this manual.
Start Photogenics and we'll begin by creating a picture within the
program.
1. Select the Loaders option which appears under the Windows menu.
2. Click on the Plasma loader.
3. Move the sliders in the size requester so both the X ond Y numbers
indicate opproximately 100.
4. Click on OK.
When complete you should see your first Photogenics image appear in a
window - a 24-bit colour plasma.
You have seen just one of the powerful features of Photogenics which
allows you to create images within the program with no effect at all.
There are a number of loaders similar to Plasma which create images
rather than load them. These can be used to generate images in their
own right or as ways to add special effects to other images.
Paint can be applied to the plasma image with the left mouse button and
removed with the right button. The colour shown in the Toolbox will be
applied with the default drawing tool airbrush. The Airbrush applies
your colour in the same way as a real airbrush does - a smooth flow of
paint that increases the longer you hold it. It also has smooth edges
so you can blend colours into each other.
Another powerful feature is the ability to change the colour of the area
we have just painted. Open the Palette by clicking on the colourbox in
the Toolbox or selecting it from the Windows menu. Here we choose the
colour to paint with. Colours can be chosen using RGB (Red, Green,
Blue) or HSB (Hue, Saturation, Brightness) colour models. Spray some
colour onto your image. Now select a different colour and click on the
Use button in the Toolbox. You should see the area you painted change
to the new colour.
When you are happy with the paint you have applied then clicking on the
FIX button in the toolbox will make our changes permanent. You can now
choose a different colour and paint with that over the first colour.
Please note that after FIXing, we cannot remove paint with the right
mouse button or change the colour of that paint.
Close the plasma image and we will load a picture from disk:
1. Select Open from the Project menu.
2. Choose the Girl.JPG image from the list that appears.
3. Apply some paint to the face with the left mouse button.
Let's change the way that the paint is applied to the image :
4. Click on the Mode button in the Toolbox.
5. Choose Negative.
6. Add or remove more paint.
Note that we are now applying a different sort of paint that is making
the image Negative.
7. Choose Tint.
Every time we change the Mode, Photogenics will "redo" the paint we have
applied with the new effect. Tint has a kind of transparency that
allows us to see the original image under the point we have applied.
This tour is finished now. You may continue adding/removing paint and
changing the mode. Experiment - some things may look better than
others. Remember that once you are happy with an effect then you must
FIX it. Then you can add some more paint and a different effect.
General Theory
--------------
Photogenics works a little differently to conventional paint and image
processing programs. When you apply paint to an image it is drawn into
a separate "paint layer" that is then combined with the image to give
the image you see on screen. To permanently combine this layer with the
image you need to FIX your changes making them permanent and clearing
the layer so you can apply more effects. This system gives great
flexibility for applying and removing paint and changing the
effect/colour of the paint to see what the final result will look like.
To give an example, you may wish to alter the skin tone of a digitised
image of a friend. You could start by selecting a dark tone and drawing
over the face with the Tint effect. The affected area can be constantly
revised by adding/removing paint with the left and right mouse button.
After covering the whole face you may find that the tone is too dark.
At this point, before FIXing, you can alter the chosen colour or effect
to give different results. You may wish to try some of the special
effects such as Solorize to see what that would look like. All this is
possible with Photogenics. Once a satisfactory effect has been achieved
then the changes can be FIXed.
Transparency/Pressure
When applying paint, some effects can be too conspicuous. This can be
lessened by increasing the level of transparency allowing some of the
original image to be seen underneath the new paint.
Secondary Buffer
Some effects require you to have a picture in the secondary buffer. The
obvious example of this is Rub-Thru. This enables you to paint through
from your selected image to the image in the secondary buffer.
Alpha Channels
An Alpha channels is a mask that sits over your image. Any paint or
effects you apply will only affect the parts of the image not covered by
the alpha channel. Paint will affect the current image in proportion to
the brightness of the alpha channel.
See the tutorials section for information on how to use alpha channels.
Compose
Photo_montage can be easily achieved with the Compose function. The
following procedure should be used when composing:
1. Put image to be pasted from into secondory buffer by selecting Use
As Secondary from the Options menu, or by moving the images icon
into the Secondary box on the Images window.
2. Select the image to paste onto by clicking in the title bar or by
clicking on its icon.
3. Select Compose from the Windows menu.
A window will appear with two radio buttons and OK/Abort. The image in
the secondary buffer will appear over the primary image with handles on
each of the corners and in the centre. The image can be resized with
the corner handles and moved with the centre one.
When the image to be posted is in the desired place:
4. Click on Fade In/Out.
5. Activate the picture window by clicking on its title bar with the
left mouse button.
6. Use the right mouse button to reveal the old image underneath.
At any time during Compose, the mode can be swapped between Edit Points
and Fade In/Out but any fading will be lost once the image is resized or
moved.
When the desired effect has been achieved, click on OK in the Compose
window. Abort will clear the image and end Compose.
Undo
Photogenics has an undo feature which allows the removal of previous
FIXed changes. Selecting Undo a second time will replace the changes.
Please note that this option has no effect on the paint layer!
Reference
---------
Almathera has tried to make Photogenics adhere to the Amiga Style Guide
dictated by Commodore. This enforces a standard user interface for all
programs making learning a new package as easy as possible. All menu
options with three periods after the name indicate that a requester will
open. An absence of the periods indicates that the operation will
happen with no further input from the user.
ToolBox
-------------
Selected Colour | |
-------------
Dotted Freehand | | | Continuous Freehand
-------------
Line | | | Filled Freehand
-------------
Rectangle | | | Polygon
-------------
Circle | | | Ellipse
-------------
Zoom In | | | Zoom Out
-------------
Cut | | | Fill
-------------
Mode | | | Mode Options
-------------
Brush | | | Brush Options
-------------
Fill Paint Layer | | | Clear Paint Layer
-------------
Fix | |
-------------
Dotted Freehand
Freehand drawing. Allows for fast freehand drawing.
Continuous Freehand
Continuous drawing. Lines will be drawn with no gaps.
Line
Line drawing. Hold mouse button at start of line, move mouse, and
release at end. Left or right button can be used to add/remove paint.
Filled Freehand
Use the left or right mouse button to draw a shape. After releasing a
button, the shape will be closed and paint added or removed according to
which mouse button was used.
Rectangle
Hold left or right mouse button at corner of shape to be drawn and move
mouse to opposite corner.
Filled Rectangle
Can be selected by clicking on the icon a second time.
Polygon
Click left or right mouse button start of polygon and release, move
mouse to next point. Clicking same mouse button will add another point,
clicking other button will close shape.
Filled polygon
Can be selected by clicking on the icon a second time.
Circle
Press left or right mouse button in the position to be the centre of the
circle and move mouse to desired size.
Filled Circle
Can be selected by clicking on the icon a second time.
Ellipse
Press left or right mouse button in the position to be the centre of the
ellipse and move mouse to desired size.
Filled ellipse
Can be selected by clicking on the icon a second time.
Zoom In
Click in middle of the area to be zoomed in on.
Zoom Out
Picture will be be shown in full with no zoom.
Cut
Use left mouse button to drag a rectangle to cut. The area will be
copied into a new image.
Fill
Fill area. Clicking on the icon a second time shows the current
tolerance and smoothness settings. A tolerance can be given to fill
surrounding pixels based on their "closeness" to the colour of the pixel
clicked on, Smoothness will use this "closeness" to alter the intensity
of the fill.
Mode
Unless already open, the Modes window is opened allowing selection of a
new effect. Once the new effect is chosen the window will close.
Mode Options
Many modes have options giving control of how the effect is applied.
This button allows access to those options. See the section on modes
for descriptions of effect options.
Brush
The brush window is opened allowing selection of a new brush mode. Once
the new brush is chosen the window will close.
Brush Options
The Brush options window is opened. Size, pressure, and transparency
can be altered to give the desired effect. This window may be left
open.
Fill Paint Layer
The paint layer is filled completely. This has the effect of applying
the current colour and mode to the entire image. Care must be taken
when using this icon as it will obscure any painting not FIXed.
Clear Paint Layer
The paint layer is cleared. Care must be taken when using this icon as
it will clear any painting not FIXed.
FIX
The current changes are permanently fixed onto the image.
Menus
-----
Project Menu
NEW
Black Page
Opens requester asking for size and opens a blank image coloured black.
White Page
Opens requester asking for size and opens a blank image coloured white.
Soft White
Opens requester asking for size and opens a blank image coloured soft
white.
Select colour
Opens requester asking for size and opens a blank image coloured in the
current selected colour.
OPEN
File load
File type will automatically be detected by the program where possible.
OPEN AS
Secondary
File load. File is automatically selected as secondary image.
Alpha Channel
File load. File is automatically selected as alpha channel.
Hidden
File load. File is loaded but no window is opened. Icon will appear in
Images window.
Other
Loaders window is opened. Can be used to explicitly specify loader
format or to select special loaders such as Plasma and digitisers.
SAVE
IFF-DEEP
Save active image as IFF-DEEP format.
IFF-24
Save active image as IFF 24 format.
JPEG
Save active image as JPEG format.
Other
Savers window is opened. Can be used to explicitly specify savers such
as 24-bit graphic card displayers.
Clone
Makes a clone of the currently active image.
Rename
Asks for name to call currently active image.
Close
Close current image.
Close All
After asking for confirmation, will close all images.
About
Progrom and memory information.
Quit
Asks for confirmation and quits program.
Options Menu
Undo/Redo
Undoes last permanent changes. Option is ghosted (not available) if the
active image has not had any changes FIXed.
Discard Undo
Releases the Undo buffer of the active image to free memory. Option is
ghosted if the active image has not had any changes FIXed.
Discard All Undos
Releases all the Undo buffers for all images.
Use as Image
Stops image being used as secondary or alpha channel.
Use as Secondary
Selects active image as secondary image.
Use as Alpha Channel
Selects active image as alpha channel.
Hide/Show Window
Hides window of active image. Can be reopened by double-clicking on
icon in images window or reselecting this option.
Restore Aspect
Restores correct aspect ratio of image.
Image Menu
Scale
Scale image to requested size. Option can be selected for smooth
scaling: More complex calculations are used to give a better resulting
image but the computation will take longer.
Rotate
90 degrees Rotates image 90 degrees clockwise.
180 degrees Rotates image 180 degrees clockwise.
270 degrees Rotates image 270 degrees clockwise.
Shear
Options are given to shear the image in X ond Y by sizes specified.
Clear to
Black Clear active image to block.
White Clear image to white.
Soft White Clear image to soft white.
Selected Colour Clear image to current selected colour.
Tolerance Fill
Fill the whole screen based on colour of pixel chosen. The tolerance
and smoothness settings are the same as Fill from the Toolbox.
Tolerance Fill operates in a similar way to the Fill tool but no
boundary checking is done - the whole screen is filled according to the
tolerance and smoothness settings.
Fill Options
When the Tolerance Fill is selected, the Fill Options requester is
opened. This allows editing of the Tolerance and Smoothness parameters.
This menu option give access to those parameters for further editing.
Gaussian Blur
A smooth Gaussian blur is applied to the whole screen. Warning : This
operation may take a long period of time to complete.
Channels
It is possible to paint on only one of the red, green, or blue channels.
To only paint on the red channel, ensure only the Red box is ticked.
Test will apply this to the current point to give a preview of the
effect. Each image remembers whether its red, green, or blue channels
are active. An indication of the channels for the active image is given
in the title bar.
Compose
Please refer to the special section on Compose.
Brush Menu
Choose Brush
Open brush list. Changing between some brushes will require the image
to be FIXed. This is a necessary inconvenience due to the way the
brushes work.
Brush Settings
Open brush settings window. Size is relative to the resolution of the
picture. Editing a very large picture will result in a small brush so
it should be increased using the size slider. The pressure slider
indicates the speed at which point will be applied. A higher value will
result in large amounts of point applied very quickly. Smaller values
will give more subtle results. The transparency slider is a global
setting for the point layer. Altering the value of the transparency
will immediately update the paint layer.
Pick Colour
The mouse pointer will change to a colour selector pointer allowing the
current drawing colour to be changed to the colour under the pointer
when the left button is clicked.
Alpha/Paint Layer Menu
Move Paint Layer to Alpha
The opposite of Move alpha to Paint layer. The changes in the paint
layer are moved into a new image that is designated as the alpha
channel.
Invert Alpha
The alpha channel image is inverted - light areas become dark and dark
areas become light.
Move Alpha to Paint Layer
The opposite of Move Point Layer to alpha. The image designated as the
alpha channel is moved into the paint layer applying the current colour
and effect. Dark areas will be transparent, light areas will be opaque.
Invert Paint Layer
The paint layer is inverted - opaque areas will become transparent,
transparent areas will become opaque.
Fix Paint Layer
Same as FIX on Toolbox. The paint layer is FIXed to the image and
cleared.
Fix & Keep Paint Layer
The paint layer is FIXed to the image and kept. Use this operation to
build up effects on selected areas of an image.
Clear Paint Layer
Same as clear icon on Toolbox. The paint layer is cleared.
Windows Menu
Loaders
Opens the Loaders list. Loaders are listed here to allow the generation
images within the program : Plasma, Streaks, Interference all generate
patterns that can be used as images themselves or for interesting
alpha-channels and secondary images for DisplaceMaps for example.
Digitising hardware is accessed from this list by clicking on the
appropriate loader.
Savers
Opens the Savers list. Photogenics can save images in a wide variety of
different formats they can all be selected from this list. Graphics
cards are supported in the form of Photogenics savers. It is possible
to utilise a supported display card by "saving" the image to the card
for viewing in full 24-bit.
Modes
Opens the Modes window. When painting, there are numerous modes that
can be used to affect the picture in different ways. These range from
the standard colour painting to making a picture brighter, darker, or
special effects such as negative and pixelise.
The mode can also be changed from the Toolbox by clicking on Mode. The
Modes window is opened allowing selected of a new effect. The Modes
window is immediately closed. The Modes window will stay open until
closed with the close gadget, if opened from the menu option.
Please see reference section on Modes.
Toolbox
Opens the Toolbox window.
Palette
Opens the Palette window. Can also be opened by clicking on the current
colour in the Toolbox.
Co-ords
Opens the Co-ords window.
Settings Menu
Screen Mode
Requests a new screenmode to run in.
Preview Mode
Allows switching between HAM8, 256 colour and greyscale display when
possible.
Undo Enabled
On low memory systems it may be necessary to disable the undo feature.
This will free memory for loading more/larger images but the undo
feature will not be available.
Save Settings
Settings will be saved to disk.
Images Window
The Images window shows all current loaded images. Images are show in
the main area, alpha channel, or secondary buffer. Images may be moved
into the alpha channel or secondary buffer by moving their icon into the
appropriate slot. Only one image may bein each of the alpha channel and
secondary buffer.
Supported Hardware
The programmers have tried to incorporate as much support for third
party hardware as is possible. This list is constantly being updated so
if something is not already here then ring almathera and we will try our
best to help. We would request hardware manufacturer to send us details
so that we may include their products in the support list.
Graphics Boards
OpalVision from Centaur
The OpalVision card is accessed from the Savers list.
Picasso-II from VilageTronics
Photogenics can be run in 256 colours on the Picasso II card by
selecting a Picasso mode from the Screen Mode list. For fastest
operation the CHUNKY tooltype MUST be set in the Picasso monitor icon.
The Picasso card can be used to view images in full 24 bit by using the
Picasso saver.
Digitisers
VLab MacroSystems
The V Lab card is accessed from the Loaders list.
Supported File Formats
GIO stands for Graphics Input/Output. A .GIO file contains code to
handle loading and saving images from Photogenics. As these are
external files and not part of the main program other programmers can
write .GIO files for other formats that Photogenics does not directly
support. Some of these new .GIO files may become available through
Public Domain libraries or magazine cover-disks, others will be
available on upgrades from almathera. Simply copy new .GIO files into
your Photogenics/data/GIO directory and Photogenics will automatically
use them the next time it is run.
Some GIOs have the ability to autodetect a file. When the 'Open...'
option is chosen from the Photogenics menu it will try and detect what
sort of file it is loading. Other GIOs do not support autodetect (some
files are impossible to identify - they do not carry a unique
'signature' to determine them from other possible filetypes). To lood a
file which is in one of these formats you will need to select the 'Open
as/other...' menu option and select the file type from the list
manually.
Other GIOs do not use files at all. For example, the V-Lab GIO controls
the V Lab Video Digitizer to create new images, and the Opalvision GIO
'saves' images by displaying them on the Opalvision graphics card (both
of these require extra hardware). For these autodetect is irrelevent
and they must always be called from the Loaders and Savers lists (opened
by 'Open as/other...' and 'Save as/other..')
The following GIO files are included as standard with Photogenics:
ACBM
Format: ACBM (Amiga Contiguous BitMap)
Loads: Yes
Saves: No
Autodetect: Yes
The ACBM format is a very old Amiga graphics format, first used with the
Amiga Graphicraft paint program (published by Commodore). It become
popular for use with Amiga Basic, which had routines to load ACBM format
files.
Save is not supported as IFF has totally replaced it for modern use.
AmigaScreen
Format: Grabs an Amiga screen display
Loads: Yes
Saves: No
Autodetect: Not a file
A requester opens offering you the choice of Left Mouse button or
Joystick Fire button to activate. If you use the left mouse button
option click on the quickly and carefully otherwise it will immediately
grab the Photogenics screen!
Arrange your screens with the Amiga screen you want to grab at the front
and top of your display (all other screens should be hidden behind it).
Then press the button (left mouse or joystick) that you selected. The
screen will be loaded into Photogenics as a new buffer. This can be
used as a simple way of transfering images from another graphics
program, for example Deluxe Paint IV (remembering to press F10 in Deluxe
Paint to hide the menus and toolbar)
Unlike other screengrabbers this should work fine with any screenmode,
including third-party display cards (Picasso II, Retina, Rainbow III,
etc)
Ascii Art
Format: Ascii Text
Loads: No
Saves: Yes
Autodetect: Does not load.
Saves an image as a picture made up of text characters (as if it had
been 'typed' on a typewriter, although almost totally useless, this
loader is quite fun and can be used to create interesting ASCII art to
use on BBS (Bulletin Board Systems) or in Desk-Top Publishing.
Backdrop
Format: Creates a new image
Loads: Yes
Saves: No
Autodetect: Not a file
Backdrop creates gradiated backdrops that are suitable backgrounds for
composing images or text onto.
When selected the requester gives you two choices - Horizontal or
Vertical. With a Horizontal gradient the colour changes from left to
right, with a vertical gradient the colour changes from top to bottom.
Once you have selected the type you must load in an IFF palette file.
The IFF palette contains 256 colours which are spread over the picture
to create the gradient. You can create new palettes simply with the
Colours window (opened from the Palette requester) in Photogenics.
BMP
Format: Windows BMP (BitMaP)
Lood: Yes (1,4,8 and 24 bit Windows BMP)
Save: Yes (24 bit Windows BMP)
Autodetect: Yes
Windows BMP is the native format of Microsoft Windows 3. As it is an
uncompressed format BMP files can be quite large.
CDXL
Format: PAN format CDXL video stream
Load: Yes (one frame at a time)
Save: No
Autodetect: Yes
PAN format CDXL is the video format used by many CDTV and Amiga CD32
titles to store animation sequences. When loading a requester asks you
to select which frame of the animation you wish to load.
ColourNoise
Format: Create a new image
Load: Yes
Save: No
Autodetect: Not a file
This creates a new image of random pixels (you specify the size of the
image you want). The resulting image can be used as the basis of many
textures and effects.
GIF
Format: Compuserve GIF87, GIF89a (Graphics Interchange Format)
Load: Yes
Save: No
Autodetect: Yes
The GIF format is popular on the PC and other computer systems. It is
well defined and well compressed, but it is limited to only 256 colours
so other formats (mainly JPEG) are now replacing it in common use.
HAM8
Format: Amiga IFF-ILBM HAM-8 files
Load: No (but HAM-8 files are automatically loaded by the ILBM loader)
Save: Yes
Autodetect: Does not load.
To save files that other Amiga paint programs can easily use, or for
fast display on an AGA Amiga, the HAM8 saver is good. It creates a
HAM-8 version of the image (note that this results in a little loss of
quality so make sure you do not save over your 24 bit original files
with HAM 8), displays it if possible and saves it to disk.
IFFDeep
Format: IFF DEEP (uncompressed)
Load: Yes
Save: Yes
Autodetect: Yes
IFF Deep was developed as a replacement for the Commodore IFF-24 format
(which is very inefficient and slow). Although it has not gained
massive popularity it is a good format, and although it is uncompressed
(and therefore takes up lots of hard disk space) it is the fastest way
to work with 24-bit files in Photogenics.
ILBM
Format: IFF ILBM (InterLeaved BitMap)
Load: Yes (2-256 colour, Extra-Halfbrite, HAM, HAM8 & IFF-24)
Save: Yes (IFF-24 compressed and uncompressed)
Autodetect: Yes
IFF-ILBM is the standard graphics file format of the Amiga. While it is
not ideally suited for 24-bit graphics it is supported by almost every
Amiga application that can create or use graphics. If you want to load
in a graphics file created by another Amiga program, chances are it will
be an IFF-ILBM file of some sort.
Only 24-bit IFFs are saved by this loader. There is also a HAM8 saver
that will create and save HAM-8 pictures.
IMG
Format: Gem IMG (Image)
Load: Yes (only tested with monochrome colour images)
Save: No
Autodetect: No
Gem IMG is the standard clip-art format for the Atari ST computer
JPEG
Format: JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) JFIF
Load: Yes
Save: Yes
Autodetect: Yes
JPEG is the most popular format currently for 24-bit graphics. It
compresses images by applying 'lossy' compression (it cuts down detail
in the image). Because of this you will not get an exact copy of the
image you created, but it will be very close and only a fraction of the
size it would be when saved with IFF Deep, for example.
When saving an image you are asked for a Quality level. At 100 the
image is stored as well as JPEG can, at lower rates it tries to compress
the image down more, so the quality of your saved image is lower.
Always save images at 100% quality if you intend to continue working on
them (or use a non-lossy saver like IFF Deep).
OPALVISION
Format: Display image on Opalvision
Loads: No
Saves: Yes (requires OpalVision card)
Autodetect: Not a file.
This saver will display the currently selected image as a 24-bit image
on an OpalVision card, if fitted.
PBM
Format: PBM (Portable BitMap)/PGM (Portable Grey Map)/PPM (Portable Pixel Map)
Loads: Yes (1-bit PBM/8-bit PGM/24-bit PPM), Binary formats only
Saves: Yes (24-bit PPM binary format)
Autodetect: Yes
The PBM/PGM/PPM formats were defined for the PBM image manipulation
utilities (PBMPlus, NetPBM) available for many computer systems. Many
programs exist that create images in the PBM formats.
Picasso II
Format: Display image on Picasso II
Loads: No
Saves: Yes (requires Picasso II card)
Autodetect: Not a file.
This saver will display the currently selected image as a 24 bit image
on a Picasso II card, if fitted.
PLASMA
Format: Create a new image
Loads: Yes
Saves: No
Autodetect: Not a file.
This creates a 24 bit 'plasma' pattern.
QRT
Format: QRT (Quick Ray Trace)
Loads: Yes
Saves: Yes
Autodetect: No
This loads and saves files used by the QRT raytracing and other similar
packages.
QUADANIM
Format: .Qa Quadanim
Loads: Yes
Saves: No
Autodetect: Yes
This loads a single 80x64 frame from a Video Creator Quad Anim. Video
Creator is a CD32 title developed by Almathera that allows you to create
your own music videos.
RAW
Format: Raw 24 bit image data
Loads: Yes
Saves: Yes
Autodetect: No
This loads and saves raw 24-bit image data. It can be used to transfer
data across to other computer platforms that do not understand the other
file formats.
You have an option of adding a 'pad-byte' to the file. This is an extra
zero byte that some systems will require.
RGB8
Format: Impulse RGB8
Loads: Yes
Saves: No
Autodetect: Yes
This is a format used by TurboSilver and Imagine raytracers
RGBN
Format: Impulse RGBN
Loads: Yes
Saves: No
Autodetect: Yes
This is another format used by TurboSilver and Imagine raytracers
RIPPLES
Format: Creates a new image
Loads: Yes
Saves: No
Autodetect: Not a file
Ripples creates a new image of concentric circles (ripples). You can
specify the size of the final image and the centre point for the
circles. The files created are ideal for use with the DisplaceMap
operator (see tutorial)
SCULPT
Format:Raw R,G,B files
Loads: No
Saves: Yes
Autodetect: Does not load
The 'sculpt' format (originally used by the Sculpt 3d/4d raytracer)
saves data as 3 seperate R G and B planes of raw data. This format can
be very useful for transfering raw data to other systems.
SHOWHAM8
Format: Display a HAM-8 image
Loads: No
Saves: Yes
Autodetect: Does not load
If you have the AGA chipset fitted to your machine, you can use this
saver to display the current image on a HAM8 screen at full size. This
is useful if you are editing a large image in a small window. You can
scroll around large images using the mouse.
STREAKS
Format: Create a new image
Loads: Yes
Saves: No
Autodetect: Not a file
Streaks generotes a new image of a given size containing a random
streaked and textured background.
TEXT
Format: Create a new image from given text
Loads: Yes
Saves: No
Autodetect: Not a file
After selecting a font from the standard system font requester and
entering some text, a new buffer is created with your chosen text
rendered in the selected font. This supports standard fonts,
compugraphic fonts and colour fonts.
For overlaying text over pictures load text into a new buffer and use
the Compose function (with brightness key enabled). This works best
with anti aliased colourfonts (see examples on disk 3), or if the text
is slightly blurred before composing.
Over 200 good quality anti-aliased colourfonts are available on CD-ROM
from almathera (on the Amiga Desktop Video CD-ROM) which are ideal for
use with Photogenics.
V-Lab
Format: Digitise image from VLab card.
Loads: Yes
Saves: No
Autodetect: Not a file
Grab a frame from the Macrosystems VLab digitiser card. Options are
selectable for the image resolution and which VLab input to use.
WhiteNoise
Format: Create a new image
Load: Yes
Save: No
Autodetect: Not a file
This creates a new image of random grey pixels (you specify the size of
the image you want). The resulting image can be used as the basis of
many textures and effects.
Brushes
Photogenics comes with a variety of realistic brush types. Different
brushes allow you to choose how your chosen colour and effect is applied
to the image. Airbrush gives a smooth flow of paint with soft edges,
others give different textures to your painting like a chalk pastel.
Airbrush
The Airbrush is selected by default when you start Photogenics, and is
usually the best brush to use for image processing. By default, it is
set up to provide a fast flow of paint, which is no good when trying to
do smooth shading. The example picture shows the different effects you
can easily acheive by changing the brush settings. The left image shows
the default settings. You will find that going over what you have
already done will quickly cover what was underneath. On the right is
the kind of shading you can do with the pressure set low (about 5 - 15%)
and the size around 50. Note that the faster your computer is, then the
better you can paint with the larger brush sizes.
Pencil
Pencil is one of most realistic of the artists tools in Photogenics.
Altering its pressure can give a good deal of control over what you
draw. For instance, if you were drawing a picture you might do a rough
outline with the pressure set to 20% and the size set to 1 or 2 To
subtly shade in a picture, you should set the size to 3 or 4, and the
pressure to 3-5 % . However, if you want to do something like cross
hatching, then reduce the size to 1 or 2 and the pressure to 1 - 15%.
From left to right, the example picture show what you can do with the
pressure set to 4%, and the size set to from 1 to 8. Note that like in
real life, pencils work best on white background, although there is
nothing to stop you experimenting with other colours.
Chalk Pastel
Chalk Pastel is best for shading in quite large areas, and works best
with a large brush size and a pressure of about 20%. The example
picture illustrates chalk pastel with a pressure of 20% and a size of
20, 30, and 40. Chalk pastels are usually used with black paper, but
also work well with other colours. This brush is very good at blending
colours together, as the colour builds up gradually as you move the
mouse, (unlike the airbrush which builds up colour as you press the
mouse button)
WaterColour
WaterColour, like the real thing builds up colour so that it doesnt
quite obscure what you are drawing over. For best results, start
shading with lighter colours and gradually build up the amount of
colour. Also, with large brush sizes move the mouse slowly, at around
the same speed you would use a normal paint brush. The example picture
shows what you can acheive with pressure at 2%, and size set to 10, 20,
30 and 40.
Note that this works best on a very fast machine, due to the large brush
size needed. Also note that this brush subdues whatever paint mode is
in operation, as if you had set the Transparency to 50%, so some image
processing modes may not work as they would do with other brushes.
Felt Tip
Felt tip may not be the most used artistic medium, but Photogenics will
do a good rendition of one anyway. Like the real thing, if you go over
a dark colour with a lighter colour, nothing will happen. This means
that it will only work on a light coloured background. Also, if you go
over one colour with another colour, the colours will mix like real ink.
For example if you go over orange with magenta you will get red, and if
you go over yellow with cyan then you will get green. If however you go
over a colour with one that doesn't mix, then you will get black, ie
going over red with blue.
The example show what affect the pressure has on the brush, here at a
size of 6. From left to right the pressures are 2%, 6%, 10%, 15%, 30%
and finally 100%. Note that this brush will not work well with some
image processing modes.
Crayon
The example picture illustrates the kind of effect that using crayon
gives. Changing the pressure or size loses the impact of the crayon.
Sponge
Sponge is a useful medium for covering large areas with an interesting
texture. You can create nice clouds and landscapes using it. It works
just as well when used on a dark background.
The example shown shows sponge with the size set to 30, and pressure at
10%, then size kept the same but pressure set to 4%. Below it shows the
size set to 50 with pressure at 4%, and next to it the size was kept the
same but pressure increased to 10%.
Cloth
Cloth is a nice media for covering large areas. Cloth is unusual in
that its results can be changed drastically depending on whether you are
in the dotted line mode or in continuous line mode. In dotted mode you
get the effect of dabbing a cloth over you image, and in continuous mode
it has the effect of wiping a damp cloth with a little paint on it over
the image. Unfortunately cloth in continuous mode requires a very
powerful machine such as an Amiga 4000/040, so by default it is set to
dotted mode.
The first picture illustrates cloth in dotted line mode. Top left is
with a size of 30 and pressure at 20%, then size kept the same but
pressure reduced to 6%. Below it shows the size set to 100 and pressure
to 6%, and then finally size set to 50 and pressure at 8%.
The second example picture shows cloth in continuous line mode. On the
left it has a size of 40, and a pressure of 3%, and below it with a size
of 25 and a pressure of 3%. The effect on the left was achieved by
going over an area several times but with the strokes in different
directions.
Neon
This brush produces glowing strokes of light. It is most used for text
or decoration, and works best with contrasting colours such as yellow on
black or blue on white. Note that if you increase the size then you may
wish to alter the pressure to keep the glow effect. The straight line
draw mode works particularly well with neon.
Paint Modes
Definitions
Secondary
Whether the effect requires a picture in the secondary buffer
Uses Colour
Whether the effect uses the currently selected colour
Options
Variable parameters that can be changed with the Mode Option button (not
all modes have options that can be changed)
Remember
All these modes can be painted on with any brush type with variable
transparency.
AddDust
Secondary: No
Uses Colour: No
Options: Dust Amount (Percentage)
Description: Adds a layer of dust to the image, by randomly altering the
brightness of each pixel.
AddNoise
Secondary: No
Uses Colour: No
Options: Noise Amount (Percentage)
Description: Add multicolour noise. Adds 'noise' to an image (to
simulate bad TV reception or a grainy image). 100% is full noise, which
is identical to creating a new buffer with the 'ColourNoise' loader.
Nice 'stone' effects can be created by using AddNoise followed by Blur.
AlterHue
Secondary: No
Uses colour: Yes
Options: None
Description: Change hue to current colour. A powerful type of Tint
operation that changes the hue (or colour) of an image without changing
the brightness or saturation (so coloured pixels change but grey pixels
remain grey). Compare with Tint.
Antique
Secondary: No
Uses colour: No
Options: None
Description: Tints a picture with a sepia tint to simulate an old faded
photograph. Best used in combination with AddDust, AddNoise and Blur.
Balance
Secondary: No
Uses colour: No
Options: -256 to 256 for Red, Green and Blue channels.
Description: Allows individual adjustment of the brightness of each of
the three colour components - Red, Green and Blue to adjust the tone of
an image to correct it or to add a new colour scheme.
Blur
Secondary: No
Uses colour: No
Options: None
Description: Blurs an image by averaging the values of each pixel with
its surrounding pixels. More subtle than HeavyBlur and good for
smoothing a harsh-edged picture without losing too much detail.
Brightness
Secondary: No
Uses colour: No
Options: Brightness level -256 to 256
Description: Affects the brightness of the selected area. Option values
above zero will brighten an image, values below zero will darken an
image.
Cloner
Secondary: No
Uses colour: No
Options: Line to select offset.
Description: Cloner is one of the most useful features of Photogenics.
Selecting the cloner allows you to duplicate features from one part of
an image to another. Use this to copy a feature (a cloud, tree, house,
person) seamlessly to another part of the picture, or clone the
background to remove features from photographs.
Contrast
Secondary: No
Uses colour: No
Options: Contrast level -256 to 256
Description: Adjust the contrast level of the image in a similar way to
the contrast settings on a televison or monitor. -256 is no contrast
(image goes completely grey) and +256 is full contrast.
Deinterlace
Secondary: No
Uses colour: No
Options: Odd field/Even field
Description: This effect is designed to help clean up interlaced video
frame grabs from devices like the V-Lab Video Digitizer, but can also
work with other images (such as high resolution pictures intended for
display on interlaced computer screens).
Interlaced frames may appear to "jitter". Deinterlace will remove this
error. This option controls whether the 'odd' or 'even' field will be
kept in the area (each video frame contains two fields, odd and even.
It is differences between these fields that cause the flicker with
interlaced pictures)
DisplaceMap
Secondary: Yes
Uses colour: No
Options: None
Description: Displace pixel according to intensity of the pixel in the
secondary picture. This can distort pixels in a variety of unusual ways
to create waves, ripples, squashed, stretched and other images. This is
a very powerful feature, see the tutorial on how to create a rippled
picture with DisplaceMap.
Emboss
Secondary: No
Uses colour: No
Options: Colour/Greyscale
Description: Embosses an image by creating a grey image with the
appearance of the image pressed into it. Normally this can maintain
some of the original colour of the image, but it can be switched to
greyscale (which looks better in some cases).
False Colour
Secondary: No
Uses colour: No
Options: Load an IFF Palette file
Description: Every pixel is converted to one of 256 colours in the
palette you select from disk. Dark colours are chosen from the
beginning of the list, light colours from the end. This provides a huge
variety of ways to remap pictures to different colour schemes. Many
example palettes are provided.
FlipX
Secondary: No
Uses colour: No
Options: None
Description: Flips the selected area around the vertical axis running
down the centre of the image.
FlipY
Secondary: No
Uses colour: No
Options: None
Description: Flips the selected area around the horizontal axis running
across the centre of the image.
GradientTint
Secondary: No
Uses colour: Yes
Options: Position (Percent), Smoothness (Percent)
Description: Simulates the two-tone filters produced for photography
that are coloured on one half of the filter and clear on the other half.
These are often used to give skies deep colours (simulating a sunset or
making a light sky a deep blue) without tinting the rest of the
landscape. This paint mode is very powerful as you can specify both the
position of the half-way mark (the boundary between the coloured portion
and the clear portion) and the smoothness of the join - at 0% it is a
sharp transition between coloured and clear, at 100% the transition is
totally smooth.
GreyScale
Secondary: No
Uses colour: No
Options: Video Levels/Simple Average
Description: Convert to greyscale. There are two different algorithms
used to create Greyscale. The default is based on the different
brightness of the Red, Green ond Blue components of light to give a more
accurate conversion, there is also a simple average [(R+G+B)/3]
algorithm which can sometimes give better results.
HeavyBlur
Secondary: No
Uses colour: No
Options: None
Description: Apply a heavy blur to the picture. This uses a different
blur matrix to provide a heavier blur to the image than with normal
Blur. Use this in certain cases when Blur is not enough. If HeavyBlur
is not enough to smooth out your image then either use several 'coats'
(by Fixing and reapplying blur) or use the Gaussion Blur option from the
menu (which is a lot slower but very powerful).
Highlights
Secondary: No
Uses colour: No
Options: None
Description: Any pixel darker than mid-grey is set to black. Other
pixels are mapped to different greyscales depending on their brightness.
This, with Lowlights, is very useful for creating Alpha Channels.
HueMap
Secondary: Yes
Uses colour: No
Options: None
Description: Change colour according to intensity of the pixel in the
secondary picture. Can create unusual 'rainbow' patterns on an image.
With no secondary selected the current image will be used as a HueMap on
itself, which can sometimes give very interesting false colour effects.
LimitMax
Secondary: No
Uses colour: Yes
Options: None
Description: Limits the maximum colour range in the picture to the
colour you have selected. If a colour is brighter in either the Red,
Green or Blue levels to your selected colour then the components are
rounded off to the level of the colour selected (so if medium grey was
selected, no pixel brighter than medium grey would remain).
LimitMin
Secondary: No
Uses colour: Yes
Options: None
Description: Limits the minimum colour range in the picture to the
colour you have selected. If a colour is darker in either the Red,
Green or Blue levels to your selected colour then the components are
raised to the level of the colour selected (so if a medium grey was
selected, no pixel darker than medium grey would remain).
LineArt
Secondary: No
Uses colour: No
Options: Colour/Greyscale
Description: Simulates a line-art drawing of the image by detecting the
borders of an image. Very effective with photographs. You may want to
change the contrast levels of a picture before or after using LineArt to
enhance the effect. You can limit lineart to using greyscales by
selecting greyscale in the mode options.
Lowlights
Secondary: No
Uses colour: No
Options: None
Description: Any pixel lighter than mid-grey is set to black. Other
pixels are mapped to different greyscales depending on their darkness.
Masking Paint
Secondary: No
Uses Colour: Yes
Options: None
Description: This paintmode is a very simple paint with 20% transparency
to show the original picture underneath. It is not meant to be used as
a paint mode in its own right, but it is very useful for accurately
selecting areas to then process with a different paintmode.
Matrix
Secondary: No
Uses colour: No
Options: Create matrix (9 input boxes), Load and Save Matrix.
Description: Matrices are very powerful image manipulation tools. They
work by combining the pixel with the value of its neighbours in various
ways. You can load in a variety of pre-defined matrices and save out
new ones from the mode options.
Maximum
Secondary: No
Uses colour: No
Options: None
Description: Sets the current pixel to the value of the brightest Red,
Green and Blue values from the surrounding 8 pixels. Makes bright
objects 'expand' into darker areas.
Minimum
Secondary: No
Uses colour: No
Options: None
Description: The reverse of Maximum. Dark areas expand into brighter
areas.
Mix
Secondary: No
Uses colour: Yes
Options: Add, Sub, Or, Xor, Diff,
Description: Mixes the pixel colour with the selected colour using a
variety of different logical operations:
ADD: The colour is added to the pixel.
SUB: The colour is subtracted from the pixel.
AND: The colour is logical ANDed with the pixel.
OR: The colour is logical ORed with the pixel.
XOR: The colour is logical XORed with the pixel.
DIFF. The pixel is set to the difference between the new colour and the
current pixel colour.
Monochrome
Secondary: No
Uses colour: Yes
Options: None
Description: Convert to a purely black and white (2 colour) image. All
pixels darker than the selected colour are turned black, others turn
white. This works best if the selected colour is Mid Grey, but you can
change the colour and Use to find the best value. This can produce
excellent Alpha Channels (remember to Blur the image after fixing it!).
MotionBlur
Secondary: No
Uses colour: No
Options: Length (2 to 50) and Angle (degrees)
Description: This powerful (and slow on high lengths) effect blurs an
image as if it is a photograph of the object moving in the chosen
direction. It is useful for giving an object in an image the impression
of movement.
Negative
Secondary: No
Uses colour: No
Options: None
Description: Inverts the selected pixels. The following table will help
you understand what the inverse of colours will be:
Red goes to Cyan
Yellow goes to Blue
Green goes to Magenta
Cyan goes to Red
Blue goes to Yellow
Magenta goes to Green
Black goes to White
White goes to Black.
NegBright
Secondary: No
Uses colour: No
Options: None
Description: Inverts brightness but leaves the colour of an image the
same, so red pixels stay red, but dark red pixels turn to light red
pixels and vice versa, black turns white and white turns black. Can
produce quite unusual ghostly images when applied to photographs of
people.
Paint
Secondary: No
Uses colour: Yes
Options: None
Description: Simple paint. The current selected area is replaced with
the selected colour, EXCEPT that certain brushes can work in a different
way. Some paint tools (Marker pen, for example) mix paint in a
different way, so when a light colour goes over a darker colour the
darker colour shows through.
Pixelise
Secondary: No
Uses colour: No
Options: Width ond height of pixeIs
Description: Converts the selected area to a 'blocky' image, this effect
is often used to hide the identity of people on TV police programmes.
Posterise
Secondary: No
Uses colour: No
Options: Colour levels
Description : Creates a version of the image using only a few shades
(based on the colour levels setting). This produces an effect not
dissimilar to the images from 1960s 'pop art' posters.
Randomise
Secondary: No
Uses colour: No
Options: Maximum displacement
Description: Randomly shifts the pixels in an image up to a chosen
distance from their current location. This can make pictures 'explode'
into a cloud of pixels (at a high setting), or merely give images a
fuzzy, grainy look (at a low setting, best Blurred afterwards).
Roll
Secondary: No
UsesPaint: No
Options: X and Y offset
Description: Rolls the picture (or selected area) through a set pixel
offset. The picture wraps round at the edges.
RubThru
Secondary: Yes
UsesPaint: No
Options: None
Description: Rub through to the secondary image. Pixels are replaced
with the equivalant pixel on the secondary image.
RubMix
Secondary: Yes
UsesPaint: No
Options: Mode- Thru, add, Sub, Or, Xor, Diff
Description: Mixes the pixel colour with the equivalant pixel from the
secondary image using a variety of different logical operations.
ADD: The secondary pixel is added to the pixel.
SUB: The secondary pixel is subtracted from the pixel.
AND: The secondary pixel is logical ANDed with the pixel.
OR: The secondary pixel is logical ORed with the pixel.
XOR: The secondary pixel is logical XORed with the pixel.
DIFF. The pixel is set to the difference between the secondary and
primary pixel colours.
RubTint
Secondary: Yes
UsesPaint: No
Options: None
Description: Tints the current picture using the colour of the secondary
picture behind, leaving the texture of the original picture.
Rub Texture
Secondary: Yes
UsesPaint: No
Options: None
Description: This is the opposite of RubTint, the colour from the
current picture is kept and only the texture is rubbed through.
Saturation
Secondary: No
UsesPoint: No
Options: -256 to 256
Description: Raise or lower the saturation of a selected part of the
image. Colours get stronger with higher saturation (at very high
saturation colours turn white) and weaker with low saturation.
Sharpen
Secondary: No
UsesPaint: No
Options: None
Description: Edges in the current picture are detected and sharpened to
enhance the image. This is quite powerful, so you may need to turn up
the transparency to get the desired level of change.
ShiftHue
Secondary: No
UsesPoint: No
Options: Shift amount (degrees)
Description: Any colour can be described as a combination of three
components - Hue, Saturation and Value. Shifting the hue can be used to
alter the colour component only.
ShiftRGB
Secondary: No
UsesPaint: No
Options: Backwards Yes/No
Description: Photogenics images are stored as RGB (Red, Green, Blue)
data. By swapping the R, G and B values different false- colour effects
can be produced. Default is R goes to G, G goes to B and B goes to R.
This direction can be reversed with the Backwards option.
Solarize
Secondary: No
UsesPaint: No
Options: None
Description: This simulates a classical photographic trick, deliberately
exposing a negative before developing to produce unusual colouring and
shading. This will enhance the darker colours but invert the brighter
colours.
Tile
Secondary: No
UsesPaint: No
Options: Width and height of tiIe
Description: This fills the selected area with tiles, each tile being a
miniature copy of the full screen. You can select the width and height
of the tiles.
TileBrick
Secondary: No
UsesPaint: No
Options: Width ond height of tile
Description: This works like Tile, except the tiles are arranged in a
brickwork pattern with every other row of tiles offset horizontally by
half a tile.
Tint
Secondary: No
UsesPaint: Yes
Options: None
Description: This replaces the colour of the selected area with the
chosen colour while retaining the brightness of the original pixels so
the detail (features in the original picture) remain, but tinted to a
new colour.
Tutorials
---------
These tutorials have been written to explain some of the more complex
features of Photogenics. Some are here to give you ideas for using the
package more creatively.
Tutorial: First steps.
This tutorial will give you a few ideas for making interesting and
colourful backgrounds. The easiest way to create a nice looking
background is to use the plasma loader.
Firstly, you must open the loaders window by selecting Loaders from the
Windows pull down menu. Select the plasma loader by clicking on the
word Plasma. You will then be presented with a screen size requester.
Select a screen size of 320 x 256 by clicking on the appropriate box or
by using the sliders. The plasma will take a little time to generate
and once it has finished you will be presented with an image full of
nicely blended colours.
An effect that works well with plasma images is Sharpen. To add this
effect open the Modes window by selecting Mode from the Windows pull
down menu. Now select Sharpen by clicking on the word Sharpen Once
Sharpen is highlighted click on the Fill Screen button in the tool box
(located in the left column above the Fix button). The Fill Screen
button will fill the screen with the selected mode, in this case it will
Sharpen the whole image. Once the image has been sharpened fix it using
the Fix button in the tool box.
The plasma will now have much greater definition. From this image you
can create a stoney looking texture by using the Emboss mode. Select
Emboss from the modes window and turn the greyscale option on. You can
do this by clicking on the Mode Options button located to the right of
the Mode button in the tool box. A box will now open with the word
greyscale in it, click on the button and then click OK. Now Emboss the
whole screen by clicking on the fill screen button and then fix the
image.
You will now have Grey stony texture. If you wish to make the texture
stand out, then you can sharpen it in the same way you sharpened the
original plasma image. You can also change the colour of the texture to
any colour of your choice.
To do this select the Tint mode from the Modes window. Next you must
open the palette window by clicking on the colour block at the top of
the Toolbox. By clicking anywhere on the colour wheel you can select
your desired colour, or you could select one of the preset colours in
the list on the right of the palette window. The colour block in the
palette window shows your currently selected colour. Once you have
found the colour that you want to use click on the "Use" button in the
palette window. Don't forget to FIX after the desired effect has been
achieved.
Plasma Text: This effect uses the RubThru mode to fill text with plasma
colours.
Select Text from the loaders window and you will the be presented with a
font requester. Click on the Diamond font in the fonts list and select
a font size of sixty by clicking on box at the bottom of the sizes list,
typing the number 60 and pressing return. Now click on the OK button.
A box will appear with the word Text in it. Click on the word text and
delete it, type in your own text and press return. Click on the OK
button and after a few seconds the text you typed will appear. Select
Blur mode and use it to fill the whole screen and then fix the image.
Using the Clone option from the Project pull down menu make a copy of
your text image. Put the copy of the image into the alpha channel by
selecting the 'Use as Alpha Channel' option from the options menu when
the copy is selected. Now select the plasma loader and choose the same
height and width as your text image. Once the plasma has been generated
make it the secondary imoge by selecting 'Use as secondary' from the
options menu.
Select your original text image and change the mode to RubThru. Fill
the screen. Finally fix the image and you will see that the text has
changed from white to plasma.
Blue Sky: A quick way to create a sky like background is to create a
plasma then select the antique mode and fill the screen. After fixing
the image select the negative mode and fill the screen again. This
should leave you with a nice pastel blue and white image.
Ripple: Nice backgrounds can also be created by using the ripple loader.
These look especsially good when used with the displace map mode. To
create this effect select Ripples from the loaders window and select a
screen size. Select Use As Secondary from the Options menu.
Load an image, and select DisplaceMap from the modes window. Fill the
image. The ripples will displace the new image giving a very pleasant
effect.
Tutorial - Compose:
This tutorial will show you some of the power of the Compose function,
which allows you to easily combine any images inside Photogenics.
First load a background image. We will be using SeaSky.jpg from the
tutorial directory on disk 2.
Now, choose an image for the foreground. We will use the portrait.jpg
file. Load this with the 'Open as/secondary..." menu option, it will
load straight into the secondary buffer and will not open a window (you
will see a new picture icon in the secondary box in the images window).
Select the seasky image again by clicking on its window titlebar Go to
the image menu and select 'Compose...'
The second image (the portrait) will now appear in a box on top of the
first image. With compose you can size this box and position the image
whereever you want.
Hold down the left mouse button with the pointer over the positioning
box (the small box in the center of the new image). While keeping the
left mouse button held down move the mouse. When you are happy with the
new position let go.
The boxes at each corner of the image are for stretching the image. Do
the same procedure as you did for moving the image, except now it will
resize the image instead of moving it.
Move and resize the image until you are happy with the position, and
then go back to the compose window (you may have to click on the depth
gadget in the top right hand corner of the compose window to bring the
compose window into view) Note that the boxes at the bottom of the
compose window allow you to enter co-ordinates manually for the image
width and height.
Click on the little button marked 'Blend In/Out'. This will enter blend
mode. In blend mode you can blend the image smoothly into the
background. Simply use the right mouse button to paint-out the image
and the left mouse button to reapply it in exactly the same way as you
normally paint. You can even use different brushes to apply a rougher
texture to the blends.
For now keep the standard Airbrush and use the right mouse button to
erase the background of the portrait. If you accidentally erase some of
the face then simply use the left mouse button to reapply the image.
Once you are happy with your composition, click on the OK gadget in the
Compose window and it's finished!
Tutuorial - Rippling an Image.
One of the most powerful features of Photogenics is the DisplaceMap
paintmode. With this you can distort one picture, using another
picture, selected as the secondary buffer, as a 'map'. You can use any
picture as a displacement map, but it works best with pictures that are
primarily greys, and it is best if the background is set to a mid grey.
Pictures created with the Emboss paintmode can work particularly well.
Here are a few tricks you can do with DisplaceMap...
Step 1.
Open an example picture, we will use "tutorials/Girl.jpg" for this one.
Step 2.
Create a displacement map: Do 'open as/other.' ond select "Ripples" from
the list. Change the width and height in the requester to match the
width and height of the picture you loaded (200 wide and 256 high for
the girl.jpg example) and select OK. For the next requester (centre
co-ordinates) just press OK.
Step 3.
The concentric circles image you have just created will be an ideal
Displace Map. Select the image (by clicking on the title bar of the
image) and select 'Options/Use as Secondary' from the menu (or drag it
into the S box on the Images window. It should now disappear.
Step 4.
Select the main image again. Click on the MODE button in the toolbar
and select "DisplaceMap" from the list.
Step 5.
Fill the screen (with the white button above FIX in the toolbar) for
instant ripples! You can mess around with the strength of the ripples
by changing the mode options for DisplaceMap (the button to the right of
the MODE button in the toolbar). Try different combinations of large
and small values for X and Y for different effects.
Tutorial - Creating special text effects - using Alpha Channels
This tutorial requires the special anti-aliased fonts from disk 3 of
Photogenics. To use these fonts Photogenics must be installed on a Hard
drive.
Alpha channels allow very powerful image manipulations. Here we will
show you how to create some different fancy text effects starting from a
simple plain font (or for better results an anti-aliased colourfont)
The first step is to enter some text. Select "Open as/Other..." from
the menu and click on the TEXT loader. Select a font. You can use any
font for this, but the larger the font the better the results will look.
Choose the Bodocious font (if you have installed it to your hard drive)
and select the size 85 from the right hand column. Then click on the OK
button.
Enter some text now, we will type "Amiga" into the Gadget.
A new buffer is created, called Unnamed, with the Amiga text in a plain
white font on a black background. If you zoom in with the magnify tool
you can see that the edges of the letters are not sharp they have a
blurred outline (called anti-aliasing). This makes the font look
smoother than other standard fonts. Zoom out again by clicking on the
button to the right of the magnify button.
If you are using a standard font (not a colourfont) you can blur the
edges and smooth it out by using the Blur or Heavy Blur paint modes.
The next step is to clone the buffer. Select the Clone option from the
Project menu. You will now have two identical pictures. Move the
window for the new image to the bottom of the screen so you can see both
buffers (they may be overlapped slightly on some systems - do not
worry!)
Select the second buffer (marked Copy of unnamed) by clicking in the
window titlebar (the window border will turn blue). Go to the image
menu and choose Gaussian Blur Select a Blur radius of 4 and click on OK.
Warning! This may take a long time to complete. Gaussian Blur is a
very powerful and complex operator.
We are making a heavily blurred version of the text to use as the
starting point for our text effects.
Once it has finished, select the original text (the buffer you did not
blur) and press key '3' to use it as an alpha-channel. Select the
blurred buffer again, chose 'Emboss' from the paintmode list (the MODE
button on the toolbar), and click on the Fill Screen gadget (the white
square above the FIX gadget).
Now we have some text that appears to be a raised, embossed text. It
looks quite nice as it is, but we can play around some more and try some
different tricks...
First click on the FIX gadget to make this change permanent. Now try
some different paintmodes. Fill the screen again and open the Modes
window from the Windows menu (or press Amiga-M) so the window stays
open. Click on different modes to experiment - you can see how
different modes provide different effects.
AddDust and AddNoise turn the boring grey text into a more stone like
grainy texture.
Monochrome (assuming you haven't changed the current colour) turns the
inside of the text dark leaving the outer glow of the letters. Point
leaves the glow but fills the inside of the letters with the selected
colour. Tint changes the colour inside, but leaves the nice embossed
texture.
We will do a combination of different effects. First we will select
AddDust and click on Fix.
Now select GradientTint from the modes list, click on the Fill Screen
button and fix again.
Now we want to change the outer glow to a different colour. To do this
we have to invert the Alpha Channel (the alpha channel determines which
bits of the picture are altered. So far we have only been altering the
inside of the letters, now we only want to alter the outside). Select
Invert Alpha from the Alpha/Paint Layer menu.
Now fill the screen again and set the paint mode to tint. The outer
glow changes colour to yellow, which was the colour we had previously
set. Open the palette requester (click on the Yellow box in the toolbar
or press the 'p' key). Select a new colour, try Blue from the list on
the right. Then click on the 'Use' button. It's too dork. So we can
change it with the sliders. Change the hue slider (H) by moving it to
the left until you get a value of around 138. You should now see a
brighter, more cyan, shade of blue. Click on Use again.
Close the palette requester and click on FIX to apply this change. Now,
the outer glow isn't big enough. Simple. Choose the 'Maximum'
paintmode and fill the screen again. Now the glow will expand into the
dark background. Fix it and fill and fix again.
And that's it. A nice colourful logo created in a few minutes. And
it's so easy to change this procedure, apply a few Negatives, blurs,
different tints or filters to create totally different effects.
Artists Tutorial
----------------
This tutorial will teach you how to use the Airbrush more artistically.
You will be drawing a nice and shiny red ball, complete with a
convincing shadow.
Starting from scratch, create a new, white 320 by 256 buffer (you can
create new buffers by selecting from the Project Menu/New).
Open up the brush setting window by clicking on its icon on the
Tool-Box. Set the brush size to around 25, and the pressure to about
20%. Open the Palette by clicking on the coloured box at the top of the
Toolbox. Change the colour to black by finding the Black entry in the
Presets list on the right of the Palette.
You will now create a mask (another term for Alpha Channel) for you to
draw through. Draw an unfilled circle in the middle of your buffer, so
that it is about a third of the heiqht of the buffer. Fill the inside
of this circle by using the filled circle tool. This gives a solid
circle with very smooth edges.
Now select the menu Alpha/Paint Layer/Move Paint Layer to Alpha. After
a short delay, your mask will have been moved to the Alpha Channel.
You will find that you picture will be cleared, but dont be alarmed. If
you now try and draw on your buffer, you will find that you can only
draw in the parts of the picture that you originally drew the circle in.
To get a better idea of the area you can draw on, clear the buffer, set
the colour to red and fill the screen. To create a guide, set the
transparency to around 90%, and fix the picture. Reset the transparency
to 0% before you proceed.
Set your brush size to around 50, and the pressure to about 10%
(Remember, the lower the pressure, the greater the control you have)
Starting from the bottom left edge of the circle, gently draw with the
mouse around the outline of the circle, decreasing the amount you rub as
you get near the highlights. Remember, if you go wrong, you can always
rub mistakes out with the right mouse button.
FIX to store your changes. Now darken the red using moving the
brightness slider in the palette to the half way setting. Repeat what
you did before, but be more sparing with your paint. Fix the image.
Darken the red a bit more, so its about twice as dark as before, and
then just sparingly draw softly around the bottom right. Fix the image
of the sphere.
We will now give the sphere a shadow. As the Alpha Channel is set up to
only let us draw on the sphere, you will need to select Alpha/Paint
Layer/Invert-Alpha
Set the colour to black. Now lightly draw the shadow as shown. Fix the
image, and save your masterpiece!
Appendix I - Introduction to 24-bit Graphics
--------------------------------------------
The human eye has the ability to distinguish over 16 million different
shades and colours. A computer that can display this many colours is
said to have true colour capability (or photo-realistic graphics). In
technical terms, each pixel or dot on the computer screen needs to have
24 bits (Binary digits) to represent each colour. 24 bit computer
graphics are the ultimate in representing photogrophs and images of the
real world.
Although the Amiga 1200 and 4000 do not posess a real 24-bit display
they come very close with the HAM-8 (Hold and Modify - 8 bitplanes)
display mode. This is used for the main Photogenics display to provide
photo realistic displays while editing images.
Image Processing
When scanning photographs into a computer, combining images into a
collage, or putting together graphics for a presentation, it is often
necessary to edit the source material into a form more suitable for the
selected application. In it's simplest format this can be the
conversion of a picture from a foreign graphics file format into another
which can be loaded by the chosen application program. In a more
complex situation we might need to sharpen a photograph or make it
brighter.
Appendix II - Common Problems
-----------------------------
Q. When I change the colour in the Palette box and try to paint the
colour stays the same. Why?
A. When you have decided on a new colour then you must click on either
the "Use" or "Fix and Use" button in the Palette box.
This is one of the powerful features of Photogenics, allowing you to
alter the colour or mode of any paint you have applied to achieve a
pleasant effect. If you have applied some paint you are happy with then
FIX the image. You may then change the colour and add some more paint.
Q. Why is there no "smoothing" option when loading JPEG picture.
A. The smoothing operation is no longer supported in code from the
Independant JPEG Group. Better smoothing can be applied using the Blur
and Heavy Blur PhotoGenics paint modes or the Gaussic Blur menu item.
Transparency can be increased to give more subtle Blurs and Heavy Blurs.
Q. What is the advantage of the JPEG saver?
A. The JPEG format compresses the image using clever algorithms that
give a much smaller filesize on disk. However, this compression can
lose detail from an image (see below), so use IFF Deep or IFF-24 if you
need to keep an EXACT copy of your image.
Q. What effect does the quality setting on the JPEG saver mean?
A. JPEG is what is know as a "lossy" image format. This means that
some picture information is lost when the image is saved. Setting a
higher quality will result in a saved image that is more true to the
original. Higher quality increases the filesize. Small filesizes can
be obtained with lower quality settings but some quality will be lost.
Q. What is IFF-Deep format, and why is IFF 24 not the default save
format?
A. IFF 24 was the first 24-bit file format for the Amiga, developed
long before AGA and before 24-bit graphic cards became available. It is
badly designed for storing 24-bit Graphics and converting to and from
this file format is a slow process. IFF-Deep is a much faster format to
work with, although the files are larger. IFF 24 is still provided so
you can import and export files for other older Amiga applications.
Q. How can I save out pictures that I can use in other Amiga programs?
A. Most Amiga programs use the IFF format for loading and saving
pictures. Photogenics can save two different standard IFF formats -
HAM8 (with the HAM8 saver) and IFF-24. Most modern Amiga packages will
be able to load one or both of these formats.
Q. When I draw a line, I cannot undo it with the Undo menu item - why?
A. The Undo menu item only affects the lost FIXed chonges. To clear
the line you just drew use the Clear Paint Layer button on the Toolbox.
Q. How do I draw thin lines, boxes or circles? Every time I draw one
it uses the spraycan to produce big, blurred lines.
A. You need to change the size and pressure of the brush. Set the size
to the minimum (1 pixel) and set the pressure to maximum (100%). You
may find this is not clear enough, if so try a size of 2 pixels.
Q. Why does Photogenics seem to run slower on the new DBIPal and
DBINTSC screen modes?
A. The new double scan screenmodes have greater system overheads than
the old PAL and NTSC modes. Running Photogenics in Pal or NTSC will
give faster operation.
Q. How do I add text onto a picture? I can only seem to create text
into a new image.
A. Create text into a new buffer and use Compose with the Brightness
Key option selected to smoothly combine text over an image.
Appendix III - Hints & Tips
---------------------------
Photogenics will paint faster on smaller image windows. Try working on
smaller windows.
If the painting speed is slow then try reducing the size of the brush
and maybe increasing the pressure.
When composing it is often useful to turn up transparency so the
original image can be seen underneath. This gives a more visual
indication of the position of the composition.
The Palette window can be made smaller by clicking on the resize gadget
(the one next the front-to-back gadget, top right). The colours list
will be hidden. Clicking on the gadget again will bring back the
colours list.
It is easier choosing colours with HSB (Hue, Saturation, Brightness)
than with the standard RGB colour system. HSB uses three sliders. Hue
determines the base colour or tone of the colour, Saturation is how
saturated the colour is (zero saturation is white, full saturation is
the colour at full intensity) and Brightness varies from Block at zero
to the full brightness of the colour at the other end of the scale.
When shading images you often only need to change the brightness or
saturation sliders.
Make sure you return your registration card! Not only will this entitle
you to technical support and notification of the latest updates, but you
will also be mailed with special offers on add-ons for Photogenics and
other products that you won't want to miss.
We are always happy to hear your suggestions on how we can improve this
program, please send any comments to the any of the contact points
listed on your registration card.
Appendix IV - Key Shortcuts
---------------------------
Amiga Q Quit
Amiga N Create new image
Amiga O Open new image
Amiga J Save JPEG image
Amiga D Save IFF Deep image
Amiga S Save ILBM image
Amiga A Save as other image type
Amiga C Clone buffer
Amiga ~ Erase all undo buffers
Amiga L Open Loaders window
Amiga B Choose brush
Amiga G Open brush settings/transparency window
Shift < Zoom out
Shift > Zoom in
1 Move buffer to images
(cancel secondary/alpha channel settings)
2 Move buffer to secondary
3 Move buffer to alpha channel
p Open/close palette window
' Pick a colour from the screen
m Choose a new paint mode
Shift-M Change paintmode options
k Clear the paint layer
r Draw rectangle
Shift-R Draw filled rectangle
c Draw circle
Shift-C Draw filled circle
e Draw elipse
Shift-E Draw filled elipse
b Cut out rectangle
Shift-B Cut out with freehand knife tool
\ Open/close brush options/transparency window
s Select freehand mode
d Select continuous freehand line mode
v Draw line
f Select fill option
Shift-F Set fill parameters
Return Fix changes
u Undo/Redo last permanent change
+ Increase brush size by 1
- Decrease brush size by 1
Shift + Increase brush size by 5
Shift - Decrease brush size by 5
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| ____ : \_/ -A : \______ \ | \_ _: \_/ \_/
| \ ¦ | ¦ \_ ··D_ / / _/ | / ___/ \_
| : : | _______/ `N· _/ \ \_________/ | \________/
¦ _____ ¦ | : \__________/ \ ¦ \_
: : \__________ \___________/
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ANOtHER ONE 4 tHE COllECtION!