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- ART DEPARTMENT PROFESSIONAL
-
- SOFTWARE & MANUAL BY ASDG INCORPORATED
-
- DECEMBER 1, 1990
-
- i
- CONTENTS
-
- I INTRODUCTION 3
-
- 1. NOTICES 5
- 1.1 COPYRIGHTS 5
- 1.2 TRADEMARKS 5
- 1.3 DISCLAIMER 6
- 1.4 LICENSE 7
- 1.5 SPECIFIC RESTRICTIONS 8
-
- 2. REGISTRATION,SUPPORT AND UPGRADES 9
-
- 3. WELCOME TO ADPRO 11
- 3.1 HOW ADPRO DIFFERS FROM TAD 12
- 3.2 SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS 14
- 3.3 INSTALLING ADPRO 14
- 3.4 HOW ADPRO IS DOCUMENTED 16
- 3.5 HOW THIS MANUAL WAS PRODUCED 17
- 3.6 ABOUT ADPRO 17
- 3.7 ABOUTS ASDG 18
-
- ii
-
- 4. ADPRO INTERNALS 20
- 4.1 ADPRO'S INTERNAL DATA TYPES 20
- 4.2 MEMORY REQUIREMENTS 22
- 4.3 LIMITING MEMORY USAGE 23
- 4.4 REDUCING MEMORY USAGE 24
- 4.5 ADPRO'S BUILDING BLOCKS 25
- 4.6 SAVING YOUR SETTINGS 26
-
- 5. LOADING AN IMAGE 27
- 5.1 INSTALLING NEW LOADERS 28
- 5.2 SELECTING A LOAD FORMAT 28
- 5.3 SELECTING A LOAD ORIENTATION 29
- 5.4 SELECTING IMAGE COMPOSTING 30
- 5.5 THE IMAGE COMPOSITING CONTROL PANEL 31
-
- 6. SAVING AN IMAGE 35
- 6.1 INSTALLING NEW SAVERS 36
- 6.2 SELECTING A SAVE FORMAT 36
- 6.3 SELECTING TYPE OF DATA TO BE SAVED 37
-
- 7. OPERATING UPON AN IMAGE 38
- 7.1 INSTALLING NEW OPERATORS 39
- 7.2 SELECTING AN OPERATOR 40
-
- 8. COLOR CONTROLS 42
- 8.1 BALANCING 42
- 8.1.1 BRIGHTNESS 43
-
- iii
-
- 8.1.2 Contrast 45
- 8.1.3 Gamma 47
- 8.1.4 Red,Green,And Blue Adjustments 47
- 8.1.5 About the Balancing Control Panel 48
- 8.1.6 Saving And Loading Balance Settings 50
-
- 8.2 Dithering 51
-
- 8.3 Palette 53
- 8.3.1 When Are The Palette Controls Used? 53
- 8.3.2 Palette Status 54
- 8.3.3 Palette Accuracy 55
- 8.3.4 Colors(Total) 56
- 8.3.5 Colors(Used) 57
- 8.3.6 Offset Color Zero 58
- 8.3.7 Sort Direction 59
- 8.3.8 Edit 59
- 8.3.9 Load 61
- 8.3.10 Save 62
- 8.3.11 Get WB 62
-
- 9 Screen Controls 64
- 9.1 Horizontal Size 64
- 9.2 Vertical Size 65
- 9.3 Number of colors 65
-
- iv
-
- 9.4 What Are A-RES and A-HAM? 67
- 9.5 Other Overscan Sizes 69
-
- 10 Other Commands 70
- 10.1 About 70
- 10.2 Save 70
- 10.3 ReDisplay 70
- 10.4 Orientation 71
- 10.5 Load 71
- 10.6 Exit 73
- 10.7 Separate 73
- 10.7.1 Using ADPro Separations With
- Professional Page 77
- 10.8 Execute 78
-
- 11 The File Requester 79
- 11.1 What Am I Here? 79
- 11.2 Quitting The File Requester Without Selecting
- A File 80
- 11.3 The File List 81
- 11.3.1 When The File List Is Being Created 81
- 11.3.2 Hidden Versus Visible Files 82
- 11.3.3 Scrolling The File List 83
- 11.3.4 Refreshing The File List 84
- 11.4 The Device List 84
- 11.5 The Current Directory Or Drawer 85
-
- v
-
- 11.5.1 Setting The Current Directory Via
- Keyboard 86
- 11.5.2 Setting The Current Directory With
- The Mouse 87
- 11.5.3 Changing The Current Directory To
- Its Parent 87
- 11.6 Selecting A File 87
- 11.7 The Hide And Show Gadgets 88
- 11.7.1 Toggling Between Hide And Show 89
- 11.7.2 Toggling Between Hide/Show and
- Drawer/File 89
- 11.7.3 Pattern Matching In The Hide And
- Show Gadgets 90
-
- 12 Tips And Tricks 91
- 12.1 Turn One bit Monochrome Images Into Gray Scale 91
- 12.2 Turn Low Color Images Into Higher Res Gray
- Scale 92
- 12.3 Gray Scale Balancing 92
- 12.4 Approximating Charcoal Drawings 93
- 12.5 Mixing Picked And Computed Drawings 93
- 12.6 Eliminating Stray Dots 94
- 12.7 Creating Better Gradated Fills 95
- 12.8 Creating A Solarization 96
- 12.9 Merging A Color Image Into A Gray Scale Image 96
- 12.10 Creating Drop Shadows 97
-
- vi
-
- 12.11 Focused Color Picking 98
- 12.12 Tips For Compositing 99
- 12.13 Creating An Embossed Look 101
-
- II STANDARD LOADERS 103
-
- 13 Standard Loaders 105
- 13.1 DPIIE 105
- 13.2 DV21 106
- 13.3 BACKFROP 106
- 13.4 GIF 109
- 13.5 IFF 109
- 13.6 IMPULSE 111
- 13.7 PCX 112
- 13.8 SCREEN 112
- 13.9 SCULPT 114
-
- III STANDARD SAVERS 117
-
- 14 Standard Savers 119
- 14.1 DPIIE 120
- 14.2 FRAMEBUFFERS 121
- 14.3 GIF 122
- 14.4 IFF 122
- 14.5 IMPULSE 124
- 14.6 PCX 124
-
- vii
-
- 14.7 POSTSCRIPT 125
- 14.8 SCULPT 134
-
- IV STANDARD OPERATORS 135
-
- 15 Standard Operators 137
- 15.1 Apply Map 137
- 15.2 Color To Gray 138
- 15.3 Cropping 139
- 15.4 Dynamic Range 140
- 15.5 Gray To Color 140
- 15.6 Horizontal Flip 141
- 15.7 Line Art 141
- 15.8 Negative 143
- 15.9 Rectangle 143
- 15.10 Remove Isolated Pixels 144
- 15.11 Scaling 145
- 15.11.1 Pixel Aspect 148
- 15.12 Transport Controller 149
- 15.13 Vertical Flip 149
-
- V AREXX INTERFACE 151
-
- 16 ARexx Interface 153
- 16.1 Addressing ADPro 153
- 16.2 Results 154
-
- viii
-
- 16.3 Opening ADPro Behind Other Screens 155
- 16.4 Launching ARexx Programs 156
- 16.5 General Syntax 157
- 16.6 ARexx Command Descriptions 158
- 16.6.1 Load And Save Format Specification 158
- 16.6.2 Calling A Loader 160
- 16.6.3 Calling A Saver 165
- 16.6.4 Balancing Commands 166
- 16.6.5 Dither Selection 171
- 16.6.6 Palette Control Commands 172
- 16.6.7 Scaling 180
- 16.6.8 Operators 181
- 16.6.9 Color Separation Commands 188
- 16.6.10 Execute 194
- 16.6.11 Render Type 194
- 16.6.12 Exiting ADPro 195
- 16.6.13 Screen Type 195
- 16.6.14 Load Orientation 196
- 16.6.15 Additionl ARexx Commands 197
- 16.7 Starting ADPro Via ARexx 205
-
- VI INDEX 209
-
- ix
-
- LIST OF FIGURES
-
- 4.1 ADPro's Building Blocks 25
- 5.1 The image compositing control panel 31
- 7.1 The Image Operator box,showing the operator and
- execute op buttons 40
- 8.1 Data flow within ADPro 43
- 8.2 A linear(or neutral)color map 44
- 8.3 A color map showing an increase in brightness 45
- 8.4 A color map showing a decrease in contrast 46
- 8.5 A color map showing an example of gamma correction 48
- 8.6 The Balance control panel 49
- 8.7 The Palette control panel 54
- 10.1 The Separation control panel 74
- 11.1 The file requester used in ADPro 80
-
- x
-
- 13.1 The BACKDROP loader control panel 107
- 14.1 The primary PostScript saver control panel 126
- 14.2 Various PostScript metrics 128
- 14.3 The second PostScript saver control panel 129
- 14.4 The third and final PostScript saver control panel 132
- 15.1 The Rectangle control panel 144
- 15.2 The Scaling control panel 147
-
- xi
-
- LIST OF TABLES
-
- 5.1 What types of images can be merged into what types
- of previously defined raw image data 32
- 5.2 Example mix levels and their effect 33
- 9.1 The horizontal resolutions supported by ADPro 65
- 9.2 The vertical resolutions supported by ADPro 66
- 9.3 Color modes and other information 66
- 16.1 Dither methods and their identifiers 171
- 16.2 Mask values for setting the screen type 195
-
- 1
-
- (PAGES 2-10 NOT TYPED AS THEY CONTAIN INFO THAT PIRATES AREN'T INTERESTED IN)
-
-
- CHAPTER 3 - WELCOME TO ADPRO
-
- Art Department Professional(ADPro)is an integrated set of powerful image
- processing tools which facilitate the creation of high quality pictures on the
- Commodore Amiga personal computer. Examples of the intended users of ADPro
- include:
-
- ADPro can be used to convert images between diverse input file formats. ADPro
- uses external programs to actually load and save images. As a result,ADPro can
- be extended to read and write new of diffeent formats just by adding additional
- modules.
- ADPro can be used as a high quality rendering engine for Amiga video use. That
- is,any image data loaded into ADPro can be rendered in any Amiga video format
- using ASDG's acclaimed rendering technology. ADPro has many applications in
- animation and Desktop presentation.
- ADPro supports image compositioning in full 24 bit-plane color. This affords
- fantastic new power to the print and video user.
-
- 11
-
- ADPro can be used as a source of high quality color separations for Desktop
- publishing applications. ADPro can produce separations in both 12 and 24bit-
- planes with excellent print quality.
- ADPro can be used to render images to be used for heat-transfer onto materials
- such as cotton shirts. Using ADPro's separation capabilities,films may be
- prepared for three and four color silk screening.
- ADPro may be used to augment the quality of the output from many 3D modelling
- packages since ADPro can render images from 24 bit-planes faster and better
- than most 3D packages can perform this function themselves.
-
- 3.1 HOW ADPRO DIFFERS FROM TAD
- ADPro represents a quantum leap over the original Art Department in terms of
- its power and flexibility. The Art Department(TAD)continues to be sold and
- represents ASDG's entry level image processing system for the Commodore Amiga.
- ADPro,on the other hand,represents a high end tool for the professional or
- power user.
- Some of the differences between ADPro and TAD are highlighted below:
- ADPro can save in multiple formats using run-time loadable Saver modules. This
-
- 12
-
- means that ADPro can be used for completely generalized image format
- conversion. This new feature also allows ADPro to be used as a general purpose
- front-end for image input,output and display hardware such as scanners and
- display boards.
- Many of the image processing functions built into TAD are now run-time
- loadable. These modules are called Operators. Because Operators are run-time
- loadable,ASDG can release additional Operators from time to time without
- requiring an upgrade to the main program.
- ADPro offers true color image compositing which TAD did not. Image compositing
- allows you to actually edit 24 bit-lane images even if you do not have a 24 bit
- display board or paint program.
- ADPro can be controlled via ARexx making it a powerful automated image
- processing engine for batch,bulk,or network applications.
- ADPro allows the user to choose between standard Amiga palette support and a
- more accurate enhanced palette mode. The enhanced palette mode yeilds higher
- quality when producing images for display upon such hardware as IBM compatible
- VGA and Super-VGA displays and the Commodore Hi-Res Graphics Adapter.
- ADPro comes with many additional Loaders,Savers,and Operators as compared to
- TAD.
-
- 13
-
- 3.2 SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
- ADPro is compatible with the entire family of Amiga computers. These include
- the A500,A1000,A2000,A2500,A2500/30 and A3000 Amiga computers. ADPro was
- designed to run under KickStart versions 1.2,1.3,and 2.0.
- By its very nature,ADPro requires a lot of memory. In fact,ADPro can utilize as
- much contiguous memory as you have on your machine. While it can run in as
- little as one megabyte of memory,we suggest a minimum of four megabytes of
- expansion memory in order to get any substantial work accomplished.
- If your expansion memory is spread over multiple boards,be sure to invoke the
- Commodore supplied command Mergemem in your Startup-Sequence if you don't
- already do so.
- If Mergemem is not run,you will not get the full benefit of your expanded
- memory.
- Remember that fast memory must be contiguous for ADPro to make full use of it.
- For more information about ADPro's memory requirements and for a greater
- understanding of how ADPro internally stores image data,please refer to Chapter
- 4.
-
- 3.3 INSTALLING ADPRO
- We anticipate that most of ADPro will want to install the program on a hard
- disk drive. To do so,simply double click on the Install icon found in the main
- drawer of the ADPro distribution disk. The Install program performs the
- following tasks for you:
- 1. It will copy the Dawson/Fox requester library found in the LIBS directory on
- the ADPro distribution disk to your LIBS: directory. This library must be
- present in your LIBS: directory in order for ADPro to operate.
- 2. It will ask you to select a directory in which to install ADPro. You should
- select a directory which is accessible from the WorkBench. Once you have made
- that selection,the Install program will copy the ADPro program and its icon to
- the directory you've selected.
- 3. It will then create directories for the Loaders,Savers,and Operators which
- come with ADPro and copy these from the distribution disk to the newly created
- directories.
- If you don't have a hard disk drive,you may want to create a bootable WorkBench
- floppy with the ADPro program on it,or you might choose to boot from a standard
- floppy and run ADPro from a copy of its distribution disk.
- In either case,remember that the requester library used by ADPro must be copied
- into your LIBS: directory. This can be done for you by the Install program.
- If you choose not to install ADPro on your system floppy,simply terminate the
- Install program after it has copied the requester library to your system disk.
- If you intend to run ADPro only from the WorkBench,then you need to do nothing
- else.
-
- 15
-
- However,if you wish to run ADPro from the CLI,you will also need to add an
- ASSIGN to your Startup-Sequence. For example,if you select the directory
- DH1:Foo/Bar to contain ADPro,then the following line should appear in your
- Startup-Sequence.
-
- assign ADPro: DH1:Foo/Bar
-
- 3.4 HOW ADPRO IS DOCUMENTED
- ADPro is a very easy program to use. However,its use does require at least a
- passing familiarity with general Amiga usage and practices. This manual assumes
- that thr eader has such a familiarity. If more basic information is required
- about operating your Amiga than is provided in this manual,please consult the
- introductory texts that cam with your machine. We also stongly suggest that new
- Amiga owners contact their local Amiga user groups for basic training and help.
- The documentation for ADPro is divided into several logical parts. These are:
- Part 1 - Contains background and general information about the usage of ADPro.
- Also contained in this part are numberous tips and tricks for advanced use of
- ADPro.
- Part 2 - Contains a detailed discussion of each of the standard Loaders.
- Part 3 - Contains a detailed discussion of each of the standard Savers.
- Part 4 - Contains a detailed discussion of each of the standard Operators.
- Part 5 - Contains a dettailed discussion of how ADPro is controlled from ARexx.
- Part 6 - Contains an index for the manual.
-
- 3.5 HOW THIS MANUAL WAS PRODUCED
- This manual was created and typeset on a Commodore Amiga A2000 personal
- computer using AmigaTeX from Radical Eye Software. The text itself was created
- using ASDG's CygnusEd Professional Release 2. The master was printed full size,
- two-up,on an Apple LaserWriter II driven at 57,600 baud by an ASDG Dual Serial
- Board.
- In order to produce the best product possible,ASDG routinely updates the
- content of their manuals each time a print run is required. If you should find
- any technical,typographical,grammatical or any other type of error in your
- manual,please relay this information to ASDG so that we can correct future
- print runs.
-
- 3.6 ABOUT ADPRO
- ADPro represents the accumulated color processing technology developed at ASDG
- Incorporated. ADPro borrows heavily from the work done in creating ASDG's color
- scanner products(ScanLab/100 and Professional ScanLab)and in creating The Art
- Department(TAD).
-
- 17
-
- ASDG has been assisted by its beta testers and those you who have sent in
- manual corrections and program suggestions. To all of you,we extend our
- appreciation. We would also like to thank those of you who have supported our
- company's efforts by not pirating our software.
-
- 3.7 ABOUT ASDG
- ASDG Incorporated has been a leader in technological innovation and quality
- since the Amiga premiered in 1985. The company has created a number of first in
- the Amiga market place including the first recoverable ram disk,memory boards
- for the A2000,floppy accelerator,IEEE-488 interface,expansion serial board,and
- the first 24 bit-plane color image processing system.
- In addition,the company has been honored by being the first inductee into
- Commodore Magazine's "the Amiga Public Domain Hall of Fame",and the company
- president Perry Kivolowitz,was given the first Amiga Community Service Award by
- Amazing Computing Magazine.
- In recent years we have refined our focus to be the input,processing and output
- of color images. In this area,we're always looking for quality products which
- will enhance our product line. Please feel free to contact us concerning our
- possible publishing or marketing of your product.
- We can be reached at:
-
- 18
-
- ASDG INCORPORATED
- 925 STEWART SREET
- MADISON, WISCONSIN 53713
- (608)273-6585(voice)
-
- 19
-
- CHAPTER 4 - ADPRO INTERNALS
-
- This chapter describes how ADPro internally stores and manages image data in
- memory. This information is critical to understanding ADPro's memory
- requirements as well as providing insight into the internal operation of ADPro.
-
- 4.1 ADPRO'S INTERNAL DATA TYPES
- Internally to ADPro,image data can be only one of several types. Understanding
- the differences between these data types will help you understand how and why
- ADPro works the way it does.
- The first distinction between image data types is that of between raw and
- rendered image data. Rendered image data is data which contains color mapped
- information. Images such as those which are displayable on the Amiga's screen
- are examples of rendered image data. An IFF file(for example) which contains a
-
- 20
-
- 16 color image and can be displayed with any viewing program contains a color
- map describing what actual color each value in the image should be displayed
- as. Without the color map information,the image data can be unregnizable.
- ADPro can create,read,process,or write rendered data with up to 256 color
- mapped colors. A 256 color rendered image contains 8 bit-planes. Therefore,
- ADPro can create,read,process or write rendered data with up to 8 bit-planes.
- Raw image data is divided into color and gray scale types. Common to both types
- of raw image data is that a color map is not required in order to make the
- image data recognizable. Gray scale raw image data is stored internally in
- ADPro in 8 bit-planes or 256 shades of gray. Color raw image data is stored
- internally in ADPro in 24 bit-planes or 16.7 million shades of color.
- Memory permitting,ADPro always converts rendered image data into raw image data
- during a load operation. The color map of a rendered image file is examined. if
- it contains only shades of gray,the rendered image data is converted into an 8
- bit-plane raw gray image. If any non-gray colors are detected,the image is
- converted into a 24 bit-plane raw color image.
- The execute button causes ADPro to process raw image data into rendered image
- data.
- Nearly all of the functions which ADPro can perform require the presence of raw
- image data. Only one of color or gray raw image data. Only one of color or gray
- raw image data can be processed at one time. Operators are provided to convert
- between the internal formats of color and gray raw image data.
- Some functions of ADPro require rendered image data,and some require only one
-
- 21
-
- type of raw image data but not the other. ADPro will tell you anytime you
- request an operation for which the appropriate type of data is not currently
- available.
- While you cannot process both raw color and raw gray scale image data at the
- same time,ADPro does permit one of these types of image data to be resident in
- memory along with rendered image data.
-
- 4.2 MEMORY REQUIREMENTS
- ADPro can use all of the contiguous fast memory available on your system. The
- more contiguous fast memory you have,the larger the bit-maps(images)you will be
- able to process.
- Ignoring the differences between the different file formats that ADPro can
- process,ADPro really loads only two types of images:color and gray scale.
- ADPro defines a gray scale image to be any image in which every color in the
- image's palette is a shade of gray(i.e.:the red,green,and blue content of each
- color are equal). ADPro considers anything which is not a gray scale image
- under this definition to be a color image.
- To calculate how much memory would be required for a given color image,you can
- use the following formula as a guide:
-
- Minimum Bytes Needed =
- color
- Width * Height *4
- pixels pixels
-
- This guide will tell you the approximate minimum amount of contiguous fast
- memory(in bytes)required to process a color image of a given size. The multi-
-
- 22
-
- plication by 4 to give the number of bytes required is actually a short hand
- for 32/8. The 32 is the number of bit-planes that ADPro uses for all of its
- processing. The division by 8 turns the number of bits into bytes(8 bits in a
- byte).
- Take as example,an image measuring 640 by 400 pixels in size. This would
- require a minimum of 1024000 bytes of contiguous available memory to be able to
- take advantage of all of ADPro's processing capabilities. Of this space,three
- quarters will be used for 24 bit-plane raw image data. The remaining quarter is
- used to hold rendered display data.
- ADPro converts all color images into 24 bit-plane data when the image is
- loaded. Gray scale image data is converted into 8 bit-planes rather than 24.
- This produces a memory requirement rule-of-thumb as follows:
-
- Minimum Bytes Needed =
- gray
- Width * Height * 2
- pixels pixels
-
- The same 640 by 400 pixel image(as in the previous example)would require a
- minimum of 512000 bytes of contiguous memory if it were a gray scale image
- rather than color.
-
- 4.3 LIMITING MEMORY USAGE
- On systems with a great deal of memory,you can limit the amount of fast memory
- which ADPro will allocate. By default,ADPro will allocate 128K less than the
- largest fast memory block which is available. If you wish ADPro to use less
-
- 23
-
- memory than this default amount,you can specify this in two ways.
- From the WorkBench,you can set a tool type called MAXMEM to the number of bytes
- to which you wish to limit ADPro's primary image buffer. For example,specifying
- MAXMEM=3000000 will limit ADPro's primary image buffer to 3,000,000 bytes even
- if you have 8 megabytes of free contiguous fast memory available.
- Tool types can be set from the WorkBench using the WorkBench Info command. For
- more information about how this is done,please consult your introductory Amiga
- texts.
- From the CLI,you may specify a command line option of -m BYTES. For example,
- specifying ADPRO -m 3000000 will have the same effect as above.
- The amount of fast memory used will be slightly larger than the amount
- specified as a memory limit. This extra space is used to hold the program's
- code in memory as well as some small data structures.
-
- 4.4 REDUCING MEMORY USAGE
- ADPro's enhanced palette support consumes as much as 300,000 bytes of memory.
- If you know that you will not make use of this feature,you can disable it and
- reclaim the memory it would have used.
- From the command line,if you include the -3 option,enhanced palette operation
- will be disabled.
- From the WorkBench,you can specify a tool type called NOENHANCED which must(if
- present)be set to eith a zero or non-zero value. If set to a non-zero value,en-
-
- 24
-
-
- FIGURE 4.1:ADPRO'S BULDING BLOCKS
-
- hanced palette operations are disabled. For example,specifying NOENHANCED=0
- permits enhanced palette operations while NOENHANCED=1 disables enhanced
- palette operations.
- See section 8.3.3 for more information about enhanced palette operations.
-
- 4.5 ADPRO'S BUILDING BLOCKS
- Modules called Loaders,Savers,and Operators have already been mentioned many
- times. Figure 4.1 indicates how these modules interact within ADPro.
- As you can see,Loaders are a source of image data. In general,Loaders are
- programs which read and interpret diverse image file formats from disk. However
- Loaders can read or generate their data from many other sources besides simply
- reading data from a disk drive. For example,a Loader can be written which
- controls a video digitizer allowing ADPro to seamlessly load images directly
- from the digitizer.
- Savers are used as a destination for image data. Savers generally encode raw or
-
- 25
-
- rendered image data into a particular image file format for writing to a hard
- disk drive. However,Savers can also be used for controlling devices which are
- output in nature. For example,a Saver can be written which controls a
- particular frame buffer. The act of "saving" an image to such a device would
- cause the raw or rendered image data to be transferred to,and displayed upon,
- the fram buffer.
- Finally,Operators are general purpose processing modules which are used to
- perform the various image processing functions which ADPro supports. Operators
- are extremely flexible since they allow input,processing and output of either
- raw or rendered image data.
-
- 4.6 SAVING YOUR SETTINGS
- When each of the loaders,savers,and operators are considered,along with ADPro
- itself,there are hundred of individual settings which may be made. As a
- convenience,ADPro will store most of these settings in a file called
- ADProDefaults.
- When ADPro is exited,these settings will be updated. The next time ADPro is
- executed,these settings will be restored.
-
- 26
-
- CHAPTER 5 - LOADING AN IMAGE
-
- This chapter discusses the general nature of loading an image into ADPro.
- Specific information about individual Loaders is contained in Part 2 of this
- manual. Also,most Loaders make use of the Dawson/Fox file requester included
- with ADPro. For more information about the file requester,please turn to
- Chapter 11.
- One of the design goals of ADPro was to allow it to work with as many diverse
- file formats as possible. ADPro was designed with a modular Loader interface so
- that diverse formats could be added as they became available without requiring
- any change to ADPro.
- As has been said,Loaders are separate programs which are run by ADPro when you
- select the load command. These programs must reside in a specific directory so
- that ADPro can locate them at run time. The Install program that comes with
- ADPro automatically creates a directory called Loaders2 in the same directory
- in which ADPro is installed.
- If you execute ADPro from the WorkBench,ADPro can automatically locate the
- Loaders2 directory because it is in the same directory as ADPro.
-
- 27
-
- However,if you want to execute ADPro from the CLI,you must first execute an
- ASSIGN of ADPro: to the directory in which ADPro is located. Preferably,the
- ASSIGN should be done in your startup-sequence. For an example of this,please
- see the section Installing ADPro.
-
- 5.1 INSTALLING NEW LOADERS
- Should you purchase additional Module Packs in the future,they can be installed
- using the installation procedures which they contain. Please consult the manual
- which accompanies each Module Pack for more information.
-
- 5.2 SELECING A LOAD FORMAT
- In the upper left corner of the ADPro screen,you'll see the word Load. Next to
- this word there is a button which(upon entering ADPro for the first time)is
- labeled IFf. This button is called the load format button. Repeatedly selecting
- the load format button(by clicking the left mouse button when the mouse cursor
- is located over the load format button)causes ADPro to cycle through the
- Loaders which are currently installed.
- Since there may be many Loaders installed,the sequence in which they will be
- successively displayed in the load format button can become quite lengthy. As a
- convenience,the load format button is logically divided into two halves. If you
-
- 28
-
- click on the left half of the button,the order in which it sequences through
- the installed Loaders will be the opposite of that which is displayed if you
- click upon the right half of the button.
- Thus,if you successively click on the right half of the button but accidentally
- advance too far,click on the left half of the button to quickly return to the
- load format you want.
- notice that the loaders are sorted alphabetically.
- once you have selected the load format you wish to employ,selecting the load
- button will cause the selected Loader to execute.
-
- 5.3 SELECTING A LOAD ORIENTATION
- ADPro can perform a 90 degree counter-clockwise rotation of the image data
- during a load operation. This is accomplished using the orientation button
- which is immediately to the left of the load button.
- Note that the orientation button affects data only during a load operation.
- Using a combination of the vertical and horizontal flip operators and the
- orientation button,ADPro can produce 90 degree rotations through 0,90,180 and
- 270 degrees.
- These can be performed as follows:
- 0 Defrees - Load the image in the Port or portrait orientation.
-
- 29
-
- 180 Degress - Load the image in the Port or portrait orientation and then
- perform both a horizontal and vertical flip. The resulting data will be rotated
- 180 degrees with resepct to the data loaded from disk.
- 270 Degrees - Load the image in the Land or landscape orientation. The
- resulting image will be rotated 270 degrees with respect to the data residing
- on disk.
- 90 Degrees - Load the image in Land or landscape orientation and then perform
- both a horizontal and vertical flip. The resulting data will be rotated 90
- degrees with respect to the data loaded from disk.
-
- 5.4 SELECTING IMAGE COMPOSITING
- ADPro supports a very powerful image compositing feature which can be enabled
- by setting the compositing button to Comp. The default value for this button is
- to disable image compositing. In this case,the button will be marked Replc.
- When the compositing button is in the Comp setting,and a load operation is
- performed,you will be presented with the image compositing control panel if the
- currently selected Loader supports image compositing. If the currently selected
- Loader does not support image compositing,the setting of this button has no
- effect.
-
- 30
-
- FIGURE 5.1:THE IMAGE COMPOSITING CONTROL PANEL.
-
- 5.5 THE IMAGE COMPOSITING CONTROL PANEL
- If a loader supports image compositing,and compositing is enabled,after you
- select a file to be loaded the loader will display the image compositing
- control panel. This panel is shown in Figure 5.1.
- When performing a non-compositing load operation,the loader discards the
- previous raw and rendered data before loading new data. When compositing,the
- loader merges the previously defined raw data with the new image being loaded.
- The exact balance of the merging operation is under your control.
- A file containing a gray scale image can be merged(composited)into gray scale
- or color raw image data. A color image may not be directly merged into gray
-
- 31
-
- CONTENTS TYPE OF RAW DATA IN MEMORY
- FILE GRAY COLOR
- GRAY YES YES
- COLOR NO YES
-
- TABLE 5.1: WHAT TYPES OF IMAGES CAN BE MERGED INTO WHAT TYPES OF PREVIOUSLY
- DEFINED RAW IMAGE DATA.
-
- scale raw image data. Table 5.1 summariezes this restriction.
- To merge a color image into a gray scale image,first convert the logical
- structure of the gray scale image into that of a color image using the gray to
- color operator described in section 15.5.
- In the compositing control panel shown in Figure 5.1,the destination sizes
- correspond to the width and height of the previously defined raw image into
- which the file to be loaded will be merged.
- The Source width and height denotes the full size of the image to be loaded.
- The offsets(x and y)give the position of the top left corner of the image to be
- loaded relative to the top left corner of the destination image. An offset of
- 0,0 means that the top left corner of both the source and the destination will
- coincide.
- Typing offsets into the supplied gadgets can be used to set the offset of the
- top left-hand corner of the image to be merged relative to the top left-hand
- corner of the original image. Note that negative offsets are perfectly
- acceptable.
- The mix level,which can range from 0 to 100,can be set by typing the desired
- value to be used in the supplied gadget. It represents what weighting the
- pixels in the new image should have when being averaged with pixels from the
-
- 32
-
- MIX WEIGHT OF PIXELS WEIGHT OF PIXELS
- LEVEL FROM LOADED IMAGE FROM PREVIOUS IMAGE
- 100 100 0
- 50 50 50
- 25 25 75
-
- TABLE 5.2:EXAMPLE MIX LEVELS AND THEIR EFFECT.
-
- destination image. Table 5.2 shows how various mix levels affect the weighted
- average between the new and old images.
- So,for example,a mix level of 100 means that the new image data is given a
- weighting of 100 percent. Thus,the new pixel completely replaces the old pixel
- where the new image and the old image overlap. A mix level of 50 means that you
- will get a straight arithmetic average between new and old pixels.
- The gadgets marked R,G and B are used to specify a 24 bit color value which
- will be regarded as completely transparant during the image compositing
- operation. One hundred percent of the old image data will be preserved for each
- pixel in the newly loaded data which matches the color specified in these
- gadgets.
- When compositing a gray scale image,the value of the gadget marked R is used
- for the transparancy operation. A value of -1 in any of the gadgets disables
- the transparancy check.
- The button marked OK will merge the specified image into the currently defined
- raw image. The button marked CANCEL will abort the compositing as well as the
-
- 33
-
- load operation.
- The button marked No Comp will continue with the load operation but not perform
- compositing. This will cause the raw image to be completely replaced by the
- newly loaded data as if you had disabled image compositing.
- Typing SHIFT-RETURN is equivalent to selecting the OK button. Typing RETURN
- while cursor is in either of the offset gadgets will cause you to alternate to
- the other gadget. Typing RETURN while the cursor is in any of the transparancy
- gadgets or the mix gadget will cause the cursor to apear in the next gadget in
- sequence. Typing ALT-RETURN causes the cursor to alternate between the offset
- gadgets and the mix and transparancy gadgets.
- With creative use of the image compositing capability,a myriad of special
- effects can be performed. For example,you can use a combination of a standard
- Amiga paint package and the image compositing function in ADPro to perform true
- color(24 bit-plane)image masking. Specifically,you can do things such as remove
- just one person from a scan of a group photo and place that person into the
- middle of a 24 bit-plane ray tracing.
-
- 34
-
- CHAPTER 6 - SAVING AN IMAGE
-
- This chapter discusses the general nature of saving an image from ADPro.
- Specific information about individual Savers is contained in Part 3 of this
- manual. Also,most Savers make use of the Dawson/Fox file requester included
- with ADPro. For more information specifically about the file requester,please
- turn to Chapter 11.
- As mentioned previously,a design goal of ADPro was to allow it to work with as
- many diverse file formats as possible. ADPro was designed with a modular Saver
- interface so that diverse formats could be added as they because available
- without requiring any change to ADPro.
- Savers are separate programs which are run by ADPro when you select the save
- command. These programs must reside in a specific directory so that ADPro can
- locate them at run time. The Install program that comes with ADPro
- automatically creates a directory called Savers2 in the same directory in which
- ADPro is installed.
-
- 35
-
- If you execute ADPro from the WorkBench,ADPro can automatically locate the
- Savers2 directory because it is in the same directory as ADPro.
- However,if you execute ADPro from the CLI,you must first execute an ASSIGN
- (preferably from your startup-sequence)of ADPro: to the directory in which
- ADPro is located. For an example of this,please see the section Installing
- ADPro.
-
- 6.1 INSTALLING NEW SAVERS
- Should you purchase additional Module Packs in the future,they can be installed
- using the installation procedures which they contain. Please consult the manual
- which accompanies each Module Pack for more information.
-
- 6.2 SELECTING A SAVE FORMAT
- In the upper left corner of the ADPro screen,you'll see the word Save. Next to
- this word there is a button which(upon entering ADPro for the first tme)is
- labeled IFF. This button is called the save format button. Repeatedly selecting
- the save format button(by clicking the left mouse button when the mouse cursor
- is located over the button)causes ADPro to cycle throught the Savers which are
- currently installed.
- Since there may be many Savers installed,the sequence in which they will be
- successively displayed in the save format button can become quite lengthy. As a
- convenience,the save format button is logically divided into two halves. If you
-
- 36
-
- click on the left half of the button,the order in which it sequences through
- the installed Savers will be the opposite of that which is displayed if you
- click upon the right half of the button.
- Thus,if you successively click on the right half of the button but accidentally
- advance too far,click on the left half of the button to quickly return to the
- format you want.
- Notice that the savers are presented in alphabetical order.
- Once you have selected the format you wish to employ,selecting the save button
- will cause the selected Saver to execute.
-
- 6.3 SELECTING TYPE OF DATA TO BE SAVED
- Recall from Chapter 4 that ADPro can maintain up to two different types of
- image data internally,rendered and raw. Most Savers will give you an
- opportunity to select which type of image data it will accept. If you do not
- have the appropriate type of data available at the time the Saver is executed,
- it will alert you to this deficiency.
-
- 37
-
- CHAPTER 7 - OPERATING UPON AN IMAGE
-
- This chapter discusses the general nature of Operators within ADPro,
- interrupting an Operator in mid-operation will leave partially operated-upon
- data in memory or may in some cases cause all data to be lost(if interrupted).
- Operators are separate programs which are run by ADPro when you select the
- execute op button located in the Image Operator area of the ADPro screen. These
- programs must reside in a specific directory so that ADPro can locate them at
- run time. The Install program that comes with ADPro automatically creates a
- directory called Operators2 in the same directory in which ADPro is installed.
- If you execute ADPro from the WorkBench,ADPro can automatically locate the
- Operators2 directory because it is in the same directory as ADPro.
- However,if you want to execute ADPro from the CLI,you must first execute an
- ASSIGN of ADPro: to the directory in which ADPro is located. For an example of
- this,please see the section Installing ADPro.
-
- 7.1 INSTALLING NEW OPERATORS
- Should you purchase additional Module Packs in the future,they can be installed
- using the installation procedures which they contain. Please consult the manual
- which accompanies each Module Pack for more information.
-
- 39
-
- IMAGE OPERATORS
- COLOR_TO_GRAY
- EXECUTE OP
- SCALE
- IMAGE SIZE
- W: 0 H: 0
-
- FIGURE 7.1:THE IMAGE OPERATOR BOX,SHOWING THE OPERATOR AND EXECUTE OP BUTTONS.
-
- 7.2 SELECTING AN OPERATOR
- In the lower left corner of the ADPro screen,you'll see the box marked Image
- Operators. This box is depicted in Figure 7.1. In this box there are three
- buttons(with the middle one being marked Execute Op. The button above the one
- marked Execute Op is used to select which Operator will be invoked when the
- execute op button is depressed.
- For convenience,the scale operator has a button of its own located beneath the
- Execute Op button.
- Repeatedly selecting the Operator button(by clicking the left mouse button when
- the mouse cursor is located over the button)causes ADPro to cycle through the
- Operators which are currently installed.
- Since there may be many operators installed,the sequence in which they will be
-
- 40
-
- successively displayed in the operator button can become quite lengthy. As a
- convenience,the operator button is logically divided into two halves. If you
- click on the left half of the button,the order in which it sequences through
- the installed Operators will be the opposite of that which is displayed if you
- click upon the right half of the button.
- Thus,if you successively click on the right half of the button but accidentally
- advance too far,click on the left half of the button to quickly return to the
- format you want.
- Once you have selected the Operator you wish to employ,selecting the execute op
- button immediately below the operator button will cause the selected Operator
- to execute.
-
- 41
-
- CHAPTER 8 - COLOR CONTROLS
-
- This chapter describes the functions located in the Color Controls area of
- ADPro. Each of the functions located in this area contributes to or affects the
- choice of colors which will be used in the rendering calculation.
- Figure 8.1 depicts how these controls fit in to the flow of data through ADPro.
- Notice that the color controls merely filter but do not actually modify the raw
- data. Therefore,you can always undo a change made to a color control and get
- back to the original rendered image.
-
- 8.1 BALANCING
- Whenever ADPro renders an image,it passes all of the raw color or gray scale
- data through a series of adjustments before actually using them in the
- rendering calculation. Before discussing the color balancing features of ADPro,
- let's first give some background information about how the adjustments are
-
- 42
-
- Raw Color Final
- Data Adjustments Dithering Rendering Image
-
- Color
- Palette
-
- FIGURE 8.1:DATA FLOW WITHIN ADPRO
-
- applied.
- ADPro stores each pixel of a color image as 3 values(one each for red,green and
- blue)each of which can range from 0 to 255. Gray scale pixels are stored as a
- single value which can range from 0 to 255.
- Figure 8.2 shows a linear or neutral color map. A color map is a relationship
- between input intensities and output intensities. Internally,ADPro maintains a
- color map for each of the red,green,and blue components of colored data,and a
- gray scale map for gray data.
- The color map shown in Figure 8.2 is said to be linear or neutral because it is
- a single straight line going from corner to corner in the color map. Notice
- that an incoming intensity of 128 is output unchanged as 128. The same is true
- for all intensities from 0 to 255,that is,they are output unchanged.
-
- 8.1.1 BRIGHTNESS
- The brightness adjustment globally modifies the general brightness of an image.
- It does this by uniformly shifting the color map upwards or downwards. This is
-
- 43
-
- FIGURE 8.2:A LINEAR(OR NEUTRAL) COLOR MAP.
-
- shown in Figure 8.3. Here,the two input intensities are 128 and 160(a
- difference of 32 intensity levels). Notice that they are output as 192 and 224
- (with exactly the same difference in intensity levels). Similarly,all input
- intensities will be shifted upwards(or made brighter)by the color map shown in
- Figure 8.3.
- The brightness adjustment is not without its drawbacks. Notice that an input
- value of 0(in the color map shown in Figure 8.3)is output as 64. This means
- that the darkest intensity in the image will have an intensity of at least 64
- which may not be acceptable. Also,note that all values from 192 to 255 all map
- to the same value,255. This means all details which had intensity levels in
- that range will become lost.
- The brightness control in ADPro ranges from -50 to 50 with 0 being the neutral
- value. Setting the brightness control to a positive value uniformly shifts the
-
- 44
-
- FIGURE 8.3:A COLOR MAP SHOWING AN INCREASE IN BRIGHTNESS.
-
- color map upward(towards a brighter image). Similarly,a negative value causes
- the image to be shifted towards darkness.
-
- 8.1.2 CONTRAST
- The contrast control globally modifies the contrast of an image. Contrast
- adjustments can be visualized by thinking of the neutral color map being
- pivoted around its center point. At one extreme,the color map becomes flat
- which means that all input intensities map to the same output intensity(no
- contrast). The other extreme is a vertical line for a color map. This produces
- an image with exactly two intensities(maximum contrast).
- Figure 8.4 shows how input intensities 128 and 160(a differnce of 32 intensity
-
- 45
-
- FIGURE 8.4:A COLOR MAP SHOWING A DEVEASE IN CONTRAST.
-
- levels)are mapped to output intensities 128 and 144(a differnece of only 16
- intensity levels). Notice that the difference between two input intensities has
- been reduced. This produces a commensurate decrease in visible contrast.
- Notice,again,that contrast loses some amount of visual detail just as the
- brightness adjustment. Specifically,you note that in the color map shown in
- Figure 8.4 input intensities which could have ranged from 0 to 255 are now
- restricted to the range of 64 to 192. This may or may not be acceptable for any
- given image.
- The contrast control in ADPro ranges from -50 to 50 with 0 being the neutral
- value. Setting the contrast control to a positive value uniformly pivots the
- color map around its center in counter-clockwise direction(toward the vertical)
- which increases visible contrast.
-
- 46
-
- 8.1.3 GAMMA
- The gamma adjustment provides a way to significantly brighten an image without
- losing much detail. It does this by introducing a curve into the color map
- whereby the color map is shifted upwards(made brighter)but no portion of the
- color map gets clipped to the maximum or minimum values.
- Figure 8.5 shows an example color map which has a gamma adjustment. Notice that
- the two input intensities,128 and 160 are output as intensities 192 and 216.
- They are,therefore,brighter.
- The gamma adjustment also effects the contrast of the image. In the darker part
- of the spectrum,contrast is increased. However,in the lighter part of the
- spectrum,contrast is decreased.
- The gamma control in ADPro ranges from 0 to 100 where 0 represents no gamma
- adjustments. The overall effect of the gamma adjustment is usually quite
- satisfactory and we recommend its libral use.
-
- 8.1.4 RED,GREEN AND BLUE ADJUSTMENTS
- In addition to the previously described methods of color adjustments,ADPro also
- offers control over the individual brightness of the red,green,and blue data.
- Gray scale brightness is directly controled by the main brightness control so
- no additional control is necessary.
- Having this individual control allows for simple global color balancing
- changes. For example,an image which has far too much red can be balanced by
-
- 47
-
- FIGURE 8.5:A COLOR MAP SHOWING AN EXAMPLE OF GAMMA CORRECTION.
-
- decreasing the global brightness of all of the red data in the image.
- Note that the individual brightness controls suffer from the same drawback as
- the main brightness control. That is,the more heavily they are used,the more
- detail will be lost due to the color map being clipped against its minimum and
- maximum values.
- The red,green,and blue adjustments in ADPro all range from -50 to 50 with 0
- being the neutral value.
-
- 8.1.5 ABOUT THE BALANCING CONTROL PANEL
- The panel which appears when you select the balance button(shown in Figure 8.6)
- contains the 6 color adjustments described above. Each is laid out as a
- horizontal sliding gadget. You can use the left mouse button to select anywhere
-
- 48
-
- FIGURE 8.6:THE BALANCE CONTROL PANEL.
-
- within each gadget to change that gadget's value.
- You can also use the left mouse button to select the "knob" within a gadget and
- drag it to a new position. As you drag the knob,the value of the gadget will be
- updated in real-time in the integer gadget immediately to the right of the
- slider.
- If you prefer to directly type in the value of any one of the color controls,
- simply click the left mouse button within the integer gadget to the right of
- the desired control. Be sure to press the return key after entering a new
- value.
- At the bottom of the panel you'll find three buttons which will either accept,
- reset,or cancel any of the changes you've made to the color controls.
- Additionally,depressing either SHIFT-RETURN or ALT-RETURN from the keyboard
-
- 49
-
- will also accept any new values entered into the control panel.
-
- 8.1.6 SAVING AND LOADING BALANCE SETTINGS
- Whenever raw image data is saved in the IFF format,ADPro will include the
- current locations of each of the balance settings. The positions of each
- balance setting will be restored whenever an 8 or 24 bit-plane IFf file is
- loaded which contains stored settings.
- The saving and restoring of the positions of the balance settings are not
- supported in any other format other than the IFF format. However,the effect of
- the balance settings will be preserved whenever raw image data is saved
- regardless of format.
- After loading a raw image(an image which is not color mapped),you may be
- presented with a panel which states that the "current balance settings do not
- correspond to actual data" when attempting to enter the balancing control
- panel. This means that the image which was loaded did not contain ADPro
- specific information about where to place the knobs in the balancing control
- panel.
- If the loaded data contained a color look-up table(such as in some TIFF images)
- that color look-up table will be loaded and effective until balance settings
- are "accepted". So,should you wish to use the color look-up table actually
- contained in a raw image,do not perform an "accept" in the balancing control
- panel. If you should enter the balancing control panel,depress "cancel" to
- preserve the color look-up table loaded from the file.
-
- 50
-
- "Accepting" a set of balancing controls has the effect of completely
- overwritting any color look-up table which might have been loaded with image
- data.
-
- 8.2 DITHERING
- Dithering is a technique for achieving greater color fidelity at the expense of
- spatial fidelity(image sharpness). ADPro supports six dithering types. These
- are:none,Floyd-Steinberg,Burkes,Sierra,Jarvis,Stucki,and Random dithers.
- With the exception of the random dither,the dithers are presented in the order
- of greatest to least effect on the image. However,counter to intuition,they
- range from fastest to slowest.
- Floyd-Steinberg(1)is the tightest of the dithers and produces good results for
- all video modes. The Stucki(5)dither is the sparest(and most time consuming to
- compute)and produces good results where just a little dithering is desired.
- Dithers 1 through 5 are each "error diffusion" dithers. The added computation
- time of the higher numbered dithers results from incorporating a greater number
- of pixels into each dithering computation. This also accounts for why the
- higher numbered dithers affect the image less. That is,the error diffusion is
- spread over a larger number of pixels(thus affecting each pixel less).
- The random dither is useful in the preparation of successive images which will
- become part of an animation. While the other dithering techniques produce
- superior results,they may also produce an undesired flickering when multiple
- images are animated. The random dither does not have this problem when
-
- 51
-
- animating.
- After selecting the dithering style of your choice,and any other modifications
- to the image using ADPro's other image processing capabilities,select the
- execute button(located in the lower right hand corner of the screen)to render
- the image.
- The sequence of dithers which will be successively displayed in the dither
- button is quite lengthy. As a convenience,the dither button is logically
- divided into two halves. If you click on the left half of the button,the order
- in which it sequences through the dithers will be the opposite of that which is
- displayed if you click upon the right half of the button.
- Thus,if you suceessively click on the right half of the button but accidentally
- advance too far,click on the left half of the button to quickly return to the
- dither you want.
- Dithering is applied during rendering and has no effect on the raw 8 bit-plane
- gray scale data or 24 bit-plane color data. Therefore,you may change and
- rechange the dithering setting at will without affecting the original data.
- Dithering gives its best results when displayed in the high resolution video
- modes. Dithering provides a benefit in the HAM modes but can slightly increase
- the amount of HAM fringing present in the rendered image. Of the dithering
- choices available,the random dither is the least likely to introduce HAM
- fringing. Dithering is not recommended in the A-RES modes.
-
- 52
-
- 8.3 PALETTE
- ADPro provides very flexible and powerful palette controls. The palette control
- panel is shown in Figure 8.7 and is described in this section. We'd like to
- mention that because the palette controls are so flexible and powerful,we
- cannot envision all the different effects and uses they may have. This section
- will describe the basic operation of the palette controls. We encourage you to
- experiment with the palette controls to discover new uses.
-
- 8.3.1 WHEN ARE THE PALETTE CONTROLS USED?
- In general,the palette controls are used in the rendering calculation only when
- the number of colors button(one of the screen controls)is set to CUST.
- If this button is not set to CUST,changes to the palette controls will not be
- honored except for the palette's status and depth.
- As described in the next section,a palette's status can be Locked or Unlocked.
- When locked,the palette is "write-protected" which means that ADPro's own color
- picking tenchology is disabled. The effect of a Locked palette is in force
- regardless of the setting of the number of color button.
- As described in section 8.3.3,when ADPro selects colors,it can do so at two
- levels of accuracy. For typical applications,an accuracy of 12 bits is
- appropriate. However,some applications such as creating imagery for display on
-
- 53
-
- FIGURE 8.7: THE PALETTE CONTROL PANEL
-
- non-Amiga computers,may benefit from the ability to choose colors at a 15 bit
- accuracy. The palette depth selection is in force any time ADPro selects a
- color on its own.
-
- 8.3.2 PALETTE STATUS
- The palette status button can be set to one of two values:Locked and Unlocked.
- This defines whether or not ADPro will execute its color choosing routines
- prior to rendering or will skip directly to rendering using the pre-existing
- palette contents.
- When the palette is Unlocked,ADPro will analyze the raw image data and
- catalogue various statistics about the colors it contains. It will then
- optimally choose a set of colors which best approximates the entire image.
- When the palette is Locked,ADPro will use the prior contents of the palette and
- will not choose a new one.
-
- 54
-
- Each pixel in the image will be rendered in the color chosen from the palette
- which best matches the intended color.
- Referring to Figure 8.1,you can see that color adjustments and dithering still
- affect the final image even when the palette is Locked.
- The palette Locked condition can also affect image loading. If the palette is
- in the Locked state and the image you wish to load contains a palette,ADPro
- will ask you if you wish to load the palette from the file or keep the
- previously defined palette. This will occur whether or not the number of colors
- button is set to CUST.
-
- 8.3.3 PALETTE ACCURACY
- When ADPro selects colors,it can do so at two levels of accuracy. Typically,the
- standard palette accuracy is sufficient for nearly all imagery intended for use
- on an Amiga based computer.
- Other computer systems or display technologies can take advantage of more
- accurate color palettes. For example,VGA systems can display up to 256 colors
- simultaneously chosen from an 18 bit-wide palette. Commodore's Hi-Res graphics
- card can display up to 256 colors chosen from a palette 24 bits wide.
- Consider the difference between a palette's depth and its width(accuracy).
- Palette depth can be thought of as the number of colors which can be
- simultaneously displayed. In the case of VGA,this is 8 bits deep(256 colors).
- The width of the palette can be though of as the precision with which each
- color can be chosen. In the case of VGA,this is 18 bits wide.
-
- 55
-
- A 32 color image can be displayed on both the Amiga's own screen and on
- Commodore's A2410 Hi-Res graphics card. For display on the Amiga's own screen,
- the 32 colors are chosen from a total spectrum of 4096 choices. For display on
- Commodore's Hi-Res graphics card,the 32 colors can be chosen from a spectrum of
- 16.7 million choices.
- By offering selectable palette accuracy,ADPro makes it possible to prepare high
- quality imagery for nearly any computer display hardware. The enhanced palette
- mode,while taking longer to computer,provides exceedingly smooth shading for
- images to be displayed on non-Amiga standard display devices.
- In the enhanced palette mode,renderings in Amiga specific formats such as HAM,
- EHB and the ARES modes are not supported. The enhanced palette can slightly
- improve 2 through 32 color renderings which are displayable on the Amiga.
- However,this benefit may not be noticeable enough to warrant the extra
- computation time.
-
- 8.3.4 COLORS(TOTAL)
- If you set the number of colors button to CUST,the total colors button takes
- over the function of the number of colors button in deciding what format the
- image will be rendered in. The choices include:2,4,8,16,128,and 256 colors,as
- well as EHB and HAM.
- The choice you make here determines how many colors can occupy the image's
- palette. Therefore,the total colors button directly effects the colors used and
- offset color zero values.
-
- 56
-
- 8.3.5 COLORS(USED)
- The colors used gadget allows you to enter a number which ranges from 2 to the
- total number of colors chosen. Normally,the number of colors used would be set
- to the maximum number possible for a given screen format. However,there are
- many situations where it is necessary to render in fewer colors than the screen
- format will permit.
- For example,Amiga based genlocks show full color video through regions of the
- screen which are set to color 0. If a bit map were to be rendered including
- color 0 and then genlocked,bits of genlocked video would poke through the bit
- map anywhere a pixel with color 0 is found.
- To create an image which will appear solid when used with a genlock,simply
- don't use color 0 anywhere in the image. This can be accomplished by
- instructing ADPro to use one fewer color than is available. Then specify a
- value of 1 in the offset color zero gadget. This will instruct ADPro to start
- filling in colors starting at color 1 rather than at 0. The result will be an
- image which contains n - 1(where n is the total number of colors possible)
- colors starting at color 1.
- As another example,suppose you are reuired to use a specific 16 color palette
- and have to render an image with 4 colors(but in 4 rather than 2 bit-planes).
- This sort of example is a common requirement for animators. To do this,load and
- lock the required palette. Select a total number of colors of 16 but a number
- of colors to be used as 4. Specify a value in offset color zero which will
- offset the colors used to the first of the 4 colors you wish to use. Note that
- this requires the 4 colors you wish to use to be stored contiguously in the
-
- 57
-
- palette.
- The number of colors used cannot exceed the total number of colors. Also,the
- sum of colors used and offset color zero cannot exceed the total number of
- colors.
-
- 8.3.6 OFFSET COLOR ZERO
- The value in the offset color zero gadget is interpreted in different ways at
- different times. For example:
- When rendering and the palette is Unlocked,offset color zero defines where in
- the palette ADPro will begin its choosing of new colors. For example,if offset
- color zero is set to 4,colors 0 through 3 will not be changed and ADPro will
- start choosing new colors beginning at color 4.
- When rendering and the palette is Locked,offset color zero defines where in the
- palette ADPro begins fetching colors for the rendering calculation. For
- example,if you wanted ro render a 16 color screen with only 15 colors,you can
- either render with the first 15 colors or the last 15 colors. Setting offset
- color zero to 0 will render with the first 15 colors while setting offset color
- zero to 1 will render with the last 15 colors.
- When loading a color palette,offset color zero defines where in the palette
- ADPro will begin storing the loaded values. For example,to create a 16 color
-
- 58
-
- palette from two 8 color palettes,load the first 8 color palette with offset
- color zero set to 0. Load the second 8 color palette with offset color zero set
- to 8. Then,lock the palette,and you're ready to render.
- The value in offset color zero can be in the range of 0 to the total number of
- colors minus 2. Also,the sum of colors used and offset color zero cannot exceed
- the total number of colors.
-
- 8.3.7 SORT DIRECTION
- When ADPro chooses colors and places them into the palette,it can sort them by
- increasing or decreasing brightness. Thus button is a toggle which controls the
- sort direction. Of particular note is that color 0 is the color which will be
- shown as a border around non-overscanned images. In general,you'd like this to
- be as dark as possible(Darkest To Lightest)so as not to be distracting.
- However,this can be overridden by selecting Lightest To Darkest.
-
- 8.3.8 EDIT
- Selecting the Edit button will bring up a standard color requester.
- You may manipulate one color at a time,chosen by clicking the left mouse button
- over one of the colored boxes at the right hand top of the color requester.
- These boxes represent the colors contained in each color register. The number
- of boxes displayed will correspond to the number of user definable colors in
-
- 59
-
- the screen mode you have selected in the number of colors button.
- The color which you have chosen to manipulate will be rendered in a rectangular
- area in the left hand top of the color requester.
- Along the left hand edge of the color requester,three sliding gadgets can be
- found which correspond to the red,green,and blue composition of the color being
- modified.
- Below the color boxes(at the right middle of the color requester)are four
- command gadgets. These are:
- Copy - After selecting the Copy command,the current color values will be copied
- to the next color register you click the left mouse button in. This will cause
- the two color registers to have the same value.
- The current color register will become the register you copied to.
- Swap - After selecting the Swap command the contents of the current color
- register will be swapped with the contents of the next color register you
- select with the left mouse button.
- The current color register will become the register you swapped to.
- Undo - After selecting the Undo command the previous Swap,Copy or Spread
- command will be undone.
- The current register is unchanged.
-
- 60
-
- Spread - After selecting a color register to begin spreading from,select the
- Spread command with your left mouse button. Then select another color register
- to spread to.
- The color registers you select become end points. Any color registers in
- between them are changed to a color in between the two end points.
- After editing,the effect of the new palette is immediately viewable by
- selecting the redisplay button in the commands area. However,the image which
- will be displayed will simply be the previously rendered image with a new set
- of colors. To rerender the image(that is,go through the entire data flow as
- shown in Figure 8.1)you can select the execute button.
- Editing the palette is not permitted while in the enhanced palette mode.
-
- 8.3.9 LOAD
- Selecting the load button causes the file requester to appear. Using it,you can
- select a file from which ADPro will attempt to read a palette. All Amiga format
- images such as 2,4,8,and 16 color images have color palettes. However,raw image
- data such as 18,21 or 24 bit-plane files do not. Palettes can also be loaded
- from IFF "brush" files as well.
- Palette loading is affected by several other factors in the palette control
- panel. Specifically,if the number of colors in the palette to be loaded exceeds
- the number of colors available to be loaded into,the excss colors will be
- ignored.
-
- 61
-
- For example,if the total number of colors permissable at the time load is
- selected(as defined by the value in the colors used button)is 15,and the
- palette to be loaded contains 32 colors,no more than the first 15 will be
- loaded.
- In fact,if the value in offset color zero is non-zero at the time load is
- selected,then the number of colors which will be loaded(in the example cited in
- the previous paragraph)will be lower than 16.
- Note that a loaded palette will be overwritten if the palette is not in a
- Locked condition and you select the execute button to render an image.
-
- 8.3.10 SAVE
- The currently defined palette can be saved to a file by selecting the save
- button. Upondoing so,the file requester will appear. After selecting a file
- name,the palette will be stored to disk.
- Note that the saved file will contain only a palette. It will not contain any
- image data. Therefore,use caution when selecting a pre-existing file to store
- the palette,as that file will be overwritten with palette information. Its
- previous contents will be lost.
-
- 8.3.11 GET WB
- This command is very useful for creating imagery which will be displayed on the
- Amiga WorkBench. Selecting this command will cause ADPro to load the currently
- defined WorkBench colors into the palette starting at the color defined by
- offset color zero.
-
- 62
-
- This command fetches the up to four colors found in the Preferences structure.
- Operating system 2.0 allows the WorkBench to contain more than four colors.
- However,these colors are not found in the Preferences structure as defined by
- earlier versions of the operating system.
- Therefore,consider the GETWB command as a short hand for loading only the first
- four colors of the WorkBench. Should you require access to the palette of a
- more than four colored WorkBench(possible only under Version 2.0 or later),use
- the palette loading facility to load a palette from ENV:SYS/PALETTE.
-
- 63
-
- CHAPTER 9 - SCREEN CONTROLS
-
- ADPro's screen controls offer a selection of 208 possible video modes,as many
- or more than any other Amiga program at this time. Once an image has been fully
- rendered,many of the changes from one screen mode to another are instantaneous.
- Note that changes to any of the screen controls do not affect the raw or
- rendered data in any way. Therefore,such changes can be quickly undone.
-
- 9.1 HORIZONTAL SIZE
- The various horizontal sizes are shown in Table 9.1. Note that some color modes
- preclude some horizontal sizes. These limitations are shown in Table 9.3.
- Given a fully rendered image,changes from low resolution to high resolution
- will be instantaneous if the color mode chosen is allowed in both low and high
- resolution.
-
- 64
-
- MODE WIDTH
- Low Res 320
- Low Res/OverScan 368
- Hi Res 640
- Hi Res/OverScan 736
-
- TABLE 9.1: THE HORIZONTAL RESOLUTIONS SUPPORTED BY ADPRO.
-
- 9.2 VERTICAL SIZE
- The various vertical sizes are shown in Table 9.2. All color modes are
- supported in all vertical sizes. Selecting an NTSC vertical size on a PAL
- machine simply truncates the screen size at the NTSC lower boundary. Selecting
- a PAL vertical size on an NTSC machine simply extends the screen size below the
- visible lower border of your NTSC screen.
- Given a fully rendered image,changes from one vertical size to another are
- instantaneous. Aspect correction for changing between interlaced and non-
- interlaced screens can be accomplished using the digital scaling capability of
- ADPro.
-
- 9.3 NUMBER OF COLORS
- The various choices of color mode are given in Table 9.3. This table also
- indicates the restrictions that the choice of color mode places on the
- horizontal size.
- The color mode is selected using the number of colors button. Since the number
- of choices for this button is large,the order in which the choices are selected
-
- 65
-
- MODE HEIGHT
- NTSC 200
- NTSC/OVERSCAN 240
- NTSC/LACED 400
- NTSC/LACED/OVERSCAN 480
- PAL 256
- PAL/OVERSCAN 296
- PAL/LACED 512
- PAL/LACED/OVERSCAN 592
-
- TABLE 9.2: THE VERTICAL RESOLUTIONS SUPPORTED BY ADPRO.
-
- SETTING COLORS BITPLANES LOW RES HI RES
- 2 2 1 Y Y
- 4 4 5 Y Y
- 8 8 3 Y Y
- 16 16 4 Y Y
- 32 32 5 Y N
- 64 64 6 N N
- 128 128 7 N N
- 256 256 8 N N
- EHB 64 6 Y N
- HAM 4096 6 Y N
- AHAM 4096 6 Y N
- ARZ0 4096 4 N Y
- ARZ1 4096 4 N Y
-
- TABLE 9.3: COLOR MODES AND OTHER INFORMATION.
-
- 66
-
- can be reversed. Clicking on the right half of the button sequences through the
- list in ascending order while clicking on the left half of the button sequences
- through the list in the opposite order.
- Notice that some entries in Table 9.3 indicate that that particular mode will
- not work in either low or high resolution Amiga screen modes. This indicates a
- number of colors which is not supported by the Amiga's own display
- capabilities. When rendering an image in 64 to 256 colors,no image will be
- displayable on the Amiga's screen. Rendered image data is still available,
- however,for display on non-standard display devices such as the Commodore A2410
- Hi-Res graphics card or for saving using a Saver which supports that particular
- number of colors.
- For a detailed description of the CUST setting,please see sections 8.3.1 and
- 8.3.4.
-
- 9.4 WHAT ARE A-RES AND A-HAM?
- The A-HAM data format is a variation on Sliced HAM(SHAM)popularized by Rhett
- Anderson formerly of Compute Magazine. In A-HAM,a new set of 16 base color
- registers is chosen for each line in the image. This increases the color
- fidelity of a HAM image at the expense of increased machine and display
- overhead.
- Rendering an A-HAM from image data which contained fewer than 4096 colors to
- start with will probably not produce any better results than a normal HAM
- rendering.
-
- 67
-
- ADPro will read and write A-HAM images in the same file format(as registered
- with Commodore Amiga Technical Support)used by Newtek's Dynamic HAM image
- files.
- The A-RES modes are 16 color hi-res variants developed by ASDG Incorporated.
- The A-RES file format was designed to be backwards compatible with Newtek's
- Dynamic Hi-Res format as registed with Commodore Amiga Technical Support.
- A-RES allows all 4096 colors supported by the Amiga to be present on one hi-res
- screen at the expense of extreme processor overhead while an A-RES image is
- being displayed.
- Do not think the A-RES modes are as general purpose as the standard Amiga
- display modes. There are many limitations to what can be done while displaying
- an A-RES image and not all images lend themselves to rendering in this mode. As
- such,think of A-RES as a tool which can only sometimes prove useful.
- A-RES images can be generated in one of two variations.
- ARZ0 allows all 16 color registers to change on each line. The advantage of
- ARZ0 is that it is the better looking of the two A-RES variants. The down-side
- of ARZ0 is that changes in color register 0 will be visible in the border of
- non-horizontally overscanned images.
- ARZ1 allows at most 15 color registers to change from line to line and always
- clamps color register to 0 to black. This advantage of ARZ1 is that non-
- overscanned images have a solid black border. The disadvantage is that ARZ1
- images make use of one less color register than ARZ0 images. This may make some
-
- 68
-
- images appear less attractive than the same image rendered in ARZ0.
- Images displayed in the A-RES or A-HAM modes cannot be scrolled or used with
- MicroIllusions' Transport Controller. Also,after displaying an A-RES or A-HAM
- image,ADPro will cause each of your floppy drives to be re-examined for the
- possibility of disk changes. The drive gronking you hear is normal.
- A-RES and A-HAM are compatible with the Amiga 3000 when running version 2.02 of
- the operating system or later.
-
- 9.5 OTHER OVERSCAN SIZES
- Tables 9.1 and 9.2 provide the dimensions of the overscan screens directly
- supported by ADPro. These values were suggested by the hardware documentation
- provided by Commodore. However,the Amiga can produce horizontal and vertical
- overscans larger than the values directly supported by ADPro.
- If you wish to produce an image conforming to a different overscan size,simply
- render the image to the desired size(since ADPro will render at any size)and
- use a program other than ADPro for display purposes.
-
- 69
-
- CHAPTER 10 - OTHER COMMANDS
-
- 10.1 ABOUT
- Selecting this command(by depressing the HELP key)will display credits due to
- the authors of ADPro as well as the ADPro program's version ID.
-
- 10.2 SAVE
- Please refer to Chapter 6 for general information about how to save images with
- ADPro. Please refer to Part 3 for specific information about individual savers.
-
- 10.3 REDISPLAY
- Selecting the redisplay button will cause any Amiga compatible rendered image
- data to be displayed. No image will be displayed if there is no rendered image
-
- 70
-
- data available,or the available rendered image data is not in an Amiga
- compatible format.
- If you have made any changes to the color or screen controls and not hit the
- execute button,the image displayed after selecting redisplay will not show the
- effect of any of these changes.
- In all modes except the A-HAM and A-RES modes you can scroll about the image
- using the four arrow keys(provided that the image is larger than the screen).
- To return to the ADPro control screen,simply click the left mouse button
- anywhere in the image.
-
- 10.4 ORIENTATION
- The orientation button is described more fully in the chapter entitled Loading
- An Image. To summarize that information,the orientation button toggles between
- a portrait and landscape setting. The state of this button influences which
- orientation the next image to be loaded will have. Using this feature in
- conjunction with horizontal and vertical flips can produce 90 degree rotations
- through 0,90,180,270 degrees.
-
- 10.5 LOAD
- Aspects of the load function are described more fully in Chapter 5. To
- summarize that information,the load function in ADPro is actually implemented
- in separate programs called Loaders. All Loaders must be placed in a specific
- directory for ADPro to be able to find them.
-
- 71
-
- A specific Loader is selected by toggling the Load Format button until the
- desired format is displayed. Then,select the load button. This will actually
- cause the selected Loader to begin running. The Loader may request some
- additional information from you before actually displaying the file requester
- one or more times.
- Each file to be loaded is searched for a color map. If a color map is contained
- in the file,it will be loaded along with the image data provided that the ADPro
- palette is not in a Locked state. If the palette is Locked,ADPro will
- ultimately ask you if you really do wish to load the palette from the file.
- If found,the palette will be inspected to see if it contains only shades of
- gray. If it does,the file's data will be expanded out into an 8 bit-plane gray
- scale image. If not,the file will be expanded out into a 24 bit-plane color
- image.
- Depending upon the state of the orientation button,the image may be rotated 270
- degrees while it is being read from disk.
- The expansion into 8 or 24 bit-planes is usually performed after the file has
- been loaded. However,if you are loading an Amiga displayable file and there
- isn't enough memory to hold the displayable data,then it will be loaded without
- the conversion to 8 or 24 bit-planes. In this case,the image can be displayed
- but none of the processing commands which depend on having raw data around will
- function.
- When loading files which are already in an Amiga displayable format,the image
- is directly viewable immediately after loading by selecting the redisplay
- command.
-
- 72
-
- Depending on the load format,aborting a load while in progress may or may not
- produce displayable image data.
-
- 10.6 EXIT
- Selecting the exit button will cause ADPro to exit.
-
- 10.7 SEPARATE
- Selecting the separate button brings up ADPro's color separation control panel
- shown in Figure 10.1. Color separation is the process of turning red,green,and
- blue data appropriate for computer display into cyan,yellow,magenta and usually
- black data appropriate for print publication.
- In order to color separate,raw color data must be available in memory.
- ADPro supports 3 different types of color separations. These are:
- RGB separations allow you to split the current color image into its component
- red,green and blue planes. Each selected plan will be written to a separate
- file.
- Three color separations convert the current color image into cyan,yellow,and
- megenta planes without provisions for a black plane. Three color separations
- are sometimes less expensive to bring to press but will not produce true gray
- tones which might be part of the image.
-
- 73
-
- FIGURE 10.1:THE SEPARATION CONTROL PANEL
-
- Four color separations convert the current color image into cyan,yellow,
- magenta,and black planes. Four color separations are what are generally used in
- the printing industry today.
- Each of these different types of separations can be performed with an accuracy
- of 24 bit-planes or 12 bit-planes. A 24 bit-plane color separation can
- represent more than 16 million colors while a 12 bit-plane separation can
- represent only 4096 different colors.
- The disadvantage of 24 bit-plane separations is that they can be quite large
- (however,12 bit-plane separations can be quite large as well). The disadvantage
- of 12 bit-plane separations is that they can represent so few colors.
- The choice of which to use(12 or 24 bit-planes)can depend upon many things.
- Such as:
-
- 74
-
- 1. If your original image was an Amiga displayable format,the 24 bit-plane
- color data contains only 4096 colors(however,using ADPro's scaling feature to
- reduce the size of the image will introduce additional colors to better blend
- the image). Therefore,you may not get any additional benefit from a 24 bit-
- plane separation.
- 2. If your image contains many similar hues,such as the slowly changing colors
- in the human face in sunlight,then you may benefit from the dramatically
- greater dynamic range of a 24 bit separation. For example,a GIF image with 256
- colors may contain a large number of shades of flesh tone. A 12 bit-plane
- separation can only represent at most 16 similar shades while a 24 bit
- separation can represent at most 16 similar shades while a 24 bit separation
- can represent at most 256 similar shades.
- 3. If you plan on using a standard Amiga printer driver and program to output
- the separations,chances are that the program you will use will not be able to
- deal with the files a 24 bit-plane separation would produce. However,if you
- plan on outputing your separation to a PostScript device,you may use either the
- 12 or 24 bit-plane separations.
- Each plane of a 24 bit-plane separation contains 8 bitplanes. Each plane of a
- 12 bit-plane separation contains 4 bit-planes. You select between the two
- settings by clicking on the depth button.
- Using the type button you can select from among the three types of separation
- that ADPro supports.
- Within each type,you can select all possible planes or any one single plane by
- toggling the plane button.
-
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-
- When doing a four color(CYMK)separation,you can control the amount of UCR and
- GCR ADPro will perform. UCR or "Under Color Removal" defines what percentage of
- color will be removed in order to compensate for the addition of the black
- plane. GCR or "Gray Component Replacement" defines what percentage of the color
- removed will be added back in as black.
- A four color separation with 0 percent UCR reverts back into a three color
- separation(i.e.:there's no accomodation made for black). A four color
- separation made with 100 percent UCR will produce a color shifted image very
- similar in quality to early color photography.
- In addition to UCR and GCR controls,ADPro also offers the user complete control
- over its ink compensation function. Printer's inks are not completely pure
- materials. For example,there is some amount of yellow mixed into the magenta
- ink. And,there is some amount of magenta which unavoidably is found in the cyan
- ink. The ink compensation values will correct for these impurities.
- In general,leave the ink compensation values alone for best results. The ink
- compensation function can be completely disabled by turing it "off". You will
- notice that without ADPro's ink compensation function,a blue sky will print as
- purple. With the ink compensation function set at its default settings,blue
- skies are blue again.
- When entereing UCR/GCR or ink compensation values from the keyboard,the RETURN
- key toggles between UCR and GCR (when either of these two gadgets is active)or
- between the Yellow and Magenta compensations(when either of these two gadgets
- is active). ALT-RETURN can be used to toggle between the pairs.
-
- 76
-
- 10.7.1 USING ADPRO SEPARATIONS WITH PROFESSIONAL PAGE
- Gold Disk's Professional Page(versions prior to 2.0)cannot manipulate images
- with a higher color resolution than the Amiga currently supports(12 bit-planes
- or 4096 colors). ASDG developed a program called ReSEP that allows 24 bit-plane
- separations created by Professional ScanLab or The Art Department to be merged
- with documents created in Professional Page.
- Although the method is slightly circuitous,it works beautifully. Given below is
- the basic flow of operations:
- 1. In ADPro,perform any adjustments to the image you wish to make(for example
- any color balancing or changes in contrast).
- 2. Render the image in an any Amiga displayable format and save this rendering
- to disk. In the steps that follow,we'll refer to this file as the "Amiga
- displayable" version.
- 3. Execute a color separation of the same image data and save this to disk.
- 4. In Professional Page,construct the page as you wish placing text and image
- boxes where you wish them to go. Load the Amiga displayable version of the
- image(from the steps above)and place this image anywhere on the page as you
- would with any other Professional Page image box.
- You can scale,crop,or cover up this image in any way that you could with any
- other image box.
-
- 77
-
- 5. Execute a color separation from Professional Page,but save the results to
- disk.
- 6. In ReSEP,load the PostScript file generated in the previous step by
- Professional Page. ReSEP will identify all of the image boxes on the page.
- ReSEP will identify all of the image boxes on the page. Using ReSEP select the
- ADPro separated files to replace the Amiga displayable version of the same
- image.
- When done,press the Process button. The output of ReSEP is a second PostScript
- file identical to the first except that the selected images have had their 12
- bit separations replaced with 24 bit separations.
-
- 10.8 EXECUTE
- Select the execute button in order to cause any changes you might have made in
- the screen,color,or image controls areas to be put into effect.
- If the only change you've made is a change of screen width or height,selecting
- execute will usually cause an image to render instantaneously.
-
- 78
-
- CHAPTER 11 - THE FILE REQUESTER
-
- Anytime you save or load a file,ADPro invokes its file requester. This chapter
- describes how to use the file requester to specify the names of files to be
- saved or loaded. An example of the file requester is given in Figure 11.1.
-
- 11.1 WHY AM I HERE?
- Since the file requester can be invoked for many different reasons,the title
- bar of the file requester will give you an indication of why you are being
- asked to select a file name. For example,when loading a Sculpt 4D 24 bit-plane
- file,the title line of the file requester will tell you to select a red file,
- then a green file,and then finally,a blue file.
-
- 79
-
- FIGURE 11.1:THE FILE REQUESTER USED IN ADPRO.
-
- 11.1 QUITTING THE FILE REQUESTER WITHOUT SELECTING A FILE
- Before we discuss how you can select a file name,let's discuss how you can exit
- the file requester without selecting a file name. This can be done four ways.
- These include:
- 1. You can click the left mouse button over the file requester's close gadget.
- 2. You can erase the destination file name and hit return(in essence,selecting
- no file).
- 3. You can use the file requester Leave command. The Leave command has a
- keyboard binding of RIGHT-AMIGA-1
-
- 80
-
- 4. Finally,you can click the left mouse button over the gadget marked Forget
- it.
-
- 11.3 THE FILE LIST
- The most prominent feature of the file requester is its file list. The file
- list is the large rectangular area on the left of the file requester.
- Files names are listed in white with their sizes to the right. Directories are
- listed in black and have the text "(dir)" to their right.
- Each directory listed is a subdirectory of the file requester's current
- directory(which can be seen in the box to the right of the word Drawer).
-
- 11.3.1 WHEN THE FILE LIST IS BEING CREATED
- After you select a new current directory for the file requester(explained
- later),files from the new directory are added to the file list as they are
- found. While the file list is being prepared the file requester is still
- available for your use.
- This means that you may select a file as soon as it is displayed without having
- to wait for the completion of the file list.
- You will note that as the file list is being prepared,files are listed in the
- order in which they are encountered in the current directory. This order will
- almost certainly not be sorted. You will also note that once the displayable
- area of the file list becomes filled,no additional files will be displayed even
-
- 81
-
- though many more files may be present in the directory. This is a purposeful
- design choice to prevent files from moving around in the displayed file list.
- Should you wish the file list to be sorted alphabetically at any time,simply
- click the left mouse button on the slider to the right of the file list or upon
- the scroll arrows above or below the slider. This will instantly sort the
- contents of the file list. You can also accomplish this from the keyboard by
- depressing ALT-RETURN twice.
-
- 11.3.2 HIDDEN VERSUS VISIBLE FILES
- As the file list is prepared you will notice a line of text near the top of the
- file requester continuously updating. While the file list is still being read
- in,the text will have the form of N shown, M hidden....
- When the file list is complete,the form of this line of text will change to N
- shown,M hidden. Done.. This is your indication that the file list is complete.
- The file requester has the ability to use wild carding and pattern matching to
- show some files in the displayed portion of the file list and to exclude
- others.
-
- THE SHOWN/HIDDEN COUNT
- The N shown is a count of the number of files which have passed the user
- defined criteria for being displayed in the file list.
- The M hidden is a count of the number of files which do not meet the user
- defined criteria for being visible.
-
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-
- A non-zero value next to the word hidden means that there are more files in the
- current directory than are currently displayed in the file list.
-
- HIDDEN FILES ARE STILL ACCESSIBLE IN THE FILE LIST
- The criterion used to decide if a file is hidden or not is user defined.
- Therefore,what is hidden at one moment can be made visible in the next simply
- by changing the show or hide criteria.
-
- HIDING .INFO FILES
- The file requester has one built-in hide/show criteria. Namely,whether or not
- to show .info files. As you know,.info files are created for every file,volume
- or directory accessible from the WorkBench. Since these files are not useful to
- ADPro,.info files are automatically hidden from view.
-
- 11.3.3 SCROLLING THE FILE LIST
- The scroll bar to the right of the file list and the arrows above and below the
- scroll bar are used to scroll the file list when there are more files in the
- current directory than will fit in the display area on-screen.
- The file list can be scrolled at any time,even while the file list is being
- prepared.
- Selecting the scroll bar or the arrows above or below it will instantly cause
- the contents of the file list to be sorted alphabetically should they be out of
- order.
-
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-
- 11.3.4 REFRESHING THE FILE LIST
- The file requester has been designed to buffer the contents of the current
- directory in the file list so that the file list will not have to be recreated
- each time the requester is activated. As a result of this,it is possible for
- the file list to become out of date with respect to new additions to(or
- deletions from)the current directory.
- For this reason the file requester has the Get Dir gadget located in the bottom
- middle of the file requester. Selecting this gadget with the left mouse button
- will cause the current file list to be thrown away and a new one constructed.
-
- 11.4 THE DEVICE LIST
- To the right of the file list is a second scrollable area called the device
- list. The device list will contain an entry for each of the following types of
- entities:
- Mounted disk volumes such as DF0:,RAM: or VD0:.
- Logical disk names(the name by which each physical disk device is "labelled").
- Assigned names such as L:,FONTS: and LIBS:.
-
- Notice that the device list is always kept alphabetically sorted,and that the
- device list is automatically updated for any disk insertions or removals.
-
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-
- 11.5 THE CURRENT DIRECTORY OR DRAWER
- When the file requester appears,it will attempt to display the contents of some
- directory on your system. You can see which directory the file requester is
- currently displaying in the box to the right of the word drawer. The current
- drawer can be any of the following:
- Blank-this indicates that the current directory is the directory containing the
- ADPro program.
- Any directory from any of your disk devices. For example,DF0:s refers to the s
- directory on the disk currently in DF0:.
- Any logical name of any of your disk volumes followed by a colon. For example,
- if you had a disk named WorkBench1.3,the drawer string WorkBench1.3: would
- refer to the root directory of that disk.
- Any logical name created by any assigns you might have made,followed by a
- colon. For example,a drawer string with a value of Devs: would set the file
- requester's current directory to wherever your Devs: directory had been
- assigned.
- Finally,any subdirectory of any of the above. For example,the following string
- might set the file requester's current directory to a directory containing
- pictures of Emily: Work:Pictures/Emily. In this example,Work: is either an
- assigned name or the name of one of your disk drives. Pictures is a sub-
-
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-
- directory contained in the Pictures directory.
-
- 11.5.1 SETTING THE CURRENT DIRECTORY VIA KEYBOARD
- One way to set the current directory is to enter the directory you wish to
- examine directly into the Drawer gadget.
- Normally,the string gadget to the right of the word File is active. You can
- activate the Drawer gadget by clicking the left mouse button within its box.
- Alternatively,when the File gadget is active,you may hit SHIFT-RETURN. The text
- cursor indicating string gadget activity will shift to the drawer string.
- Since the Drawer gadget is a standard Amiga string gadget,you may use the
- standard AmigaDOS string gadget editing functions upon it. These functions
- include RIGHT-AMIXA-x to clear the string,RIGHT-AMIGA-q to restore the string
- to its original contents,and the shifted left or right arrow keys to move to
- the extreme left or right end of the string.
- When you have entered the path to the directory you wish to examine,hitting
- RETURN will cause the file requester to begin loading that directory. At any
- time you may cause the file list to scroll or be sorted by depressing the left
- mouse button on the file list scroll bar or scroll arrows. Should you see the
- file you wish to operate upon,you may select it while the file list is still
- being prepared.
-
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-
- 11.5.2 SETTING THE CURRENT DIRECTORY WITH THE MOUSE
- You can use the mouse to set the file requester's current directory by clicking
- on an entry in the requester's device list or a subdirectory of the current
- directory from its file list or from a combination of both.
-
- 11.5.3 CHANGING THE CURRENT DIRECTORY TO ITS PARENT
- So far we have discussed only how to traverse downward deeper into the Amiga's
- hierarchical file system structure. To go back upwards in the file system
- structure you can use the Parent gadget.
- If your current directory was disk:a/b/c then selecting the Parent gadget will
- change your current directory to disk:a/b. Selecting the Parent gadget again
- will change your current directory to disk:a.
- The Parent gadget has a keyboard binding of RIGH-AMIGA-p.
- Note that when your current directory is a disk,volume,or assigned name,
- selecting the Parent gadget will have no effect.
-
- 11.6 SELECTING A FILE
- At any time,even while the file list is being prepared,you may select a file.
- You can do this by either typing your selection into the File gadget or by
- selecting the desired file from the file list using the left mouse button (you
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-
- may have had to scroll the file list to cause the desired file to be visible).
- If you've selected a file by typing its name into the File gadget,the file
- requester will terminate as soon as you hit the carriage return key.
- The file requester may also be terminated using the mouse. This can be done by
- either selecting the OK gadget or by double clicking the left mouse button over
- a specific file in the file list.
-
- 11.7 THE HIDE AND SHOW GADGETS
- The file requester has a pattern matching facility which is intended to focus
- your attention on a desirable class of files while hiding all others. For
- example,if you were interested in only 18-bit color files,the file requester
- might be instructed to ignore all files except those ending in ".18"(assuming
- you had ended the name of each 18-bit color file saved with ".18").
- The Hide gadget holds a pattern which is applied to each file in the file list.
- If the pattern matches,then the file will not be displayed but will be kept in
- the file list. Files which are hidden can be made visible by changing the
- show/hide criteria.
- The Show gadget holds a pattern which is also applied to each file in the file
- list. If the Show pattern matches,the file will be included in the displayed
- part of the file list.
- Note that the Hide pattern is applied to the file list before the Show pattern.
- Thus,if you specified to hid a given class of files and also specified to show
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-
- the same class of files,that class would not be visible.
- You can decide how to make use of the two filters by thinking in the following
- terms: Is the class of desired files easier to define by exclusion or
- inclusion? If the answer is exclusion,the Hide gadget will make displaying the
- desired class of files easier. If the answer is inclusion,then the Show gadget
- will be more easily used.
-
- 11.7.1 TOGGLING BETWEEN HIDE AND SHOW
- Recall that when the File or Drawer gadgets are active,you can use SHIFT-RETURN
- to toggle between them. In the same way you can use SHIFT-RETURN to toggle
- between the Hide and Show gadgets.
-
- 11.7.2 TOGGLING BETWEEN HIDE/SHOW AND DRAWER/FILE
- You can toggle between the Hide and Show gadgets using SHIFT-RETURN. Likewise,
- the File and Drawer gadgets can be toggled between themselves using the same
- key sequence. You cn toggle between the two groups by using ALT-RETURN.
- For example,if the File gadget is active,pressing ALT-RETURN will cause the
- Show gadget to become active. Pressing again will cause the File gadget to
- become active. Similarly,if the Drawer gadget were active,pressing ALT-RETURN
- would cause the Hide gadget to become active.
-
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-
- 11.7.3 PATTERN MATCHING IN THE HIDE AND SHOW GADGETS
- The Hide and Show gadgets can accommodate strings conforming to a simple
- grammar. The grammar is sufficient to define nearly any combination of Hide and
- Show classes you might want.
- The best way to explain the file requester's use of wild cards and pattern
- matching for the Hide and Show gadgets is to plow right through the explanation
- and give examples. Here's the explanation:
- The grammar includes wild cards defined in either AmigaDOS or Unix format. This
- means that single character substitutions can be defines as "?" while multiple
- character substitutions can be defined as either "#?" or "*".
- Patterns may include the or-operator, "|". There is no need for an
- and-operator.
- And here are some examples:
- For the Show gadget to match all files ending in ".18" you would set it to:
- *.18 meaning "match anything followed by a '.18'".
- For the Show gadget to match all files ending in "18","ham","ares",and "pic"
- you would set the Show gadget to:
- *18|*ham|*ares|*pic
-
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-
- CHAPTER 12 - TIPS AND TRICKS
-
- This chapter is reserved for descriptions of Art Department tips and tricks. We
- cannot hope to discover all of the tips and tricks which you the user will
- discover. So,please send descriptions of new techniques or tricks which you
- might discover to us for inclusion in future revisions of the manual.
-
- 12.1 TURN ONE BIT MONOCHROME IMAGES INTO GRAY SCALE
- Many scanner systems provide only one bit-plane or monochrome data output.
- Also,limited computers such as the original Apple Macintosh operate on only one
- bit-plane monochrome image into gray scale using the following technique.
- Load the one bit-plane image using the appropriate Loader. The Loader will
-
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-
- recognize the image to be a one bit-plane image and convert it into an 8 bit-
- plane gray scale image internally. Next,reduce the width and height of the
- image by 50 or more percent. ADPro's scaling code will produce gray scales
- where there were none before. Now render the image with dithering and in 16
- shades of gray.
-
- 12.2 TURN LOW COLOR IMAGES INTO HIGHER RES GRAY SCALE
- Using a technique similar to the one previously outlined,you can take a 16
- color Amiga format image(for example)and turn it into a gray scale image with
- many more than 16 shades of gray.
- Load the low color image into ADPro. The ADPro Loader will detect that the
- image is colored and will pad it into 24 bit-planes. Reduce the width and
- height of the image by more than 50 percent. Then convert the image to gray
- scale. The resulting 8 bit-plane image will possess more than 16 gray scades.
-
- 12.3 GRAY SCALE BALANCING
- We have found that some very striking results can be had in gray scale by
- heavily increasing contrast and then adjusting brightness or gamma or both.
- While color images are best brightened using the gamma correction,we have found
- that adjusting the brightness of a gray scale image(using the brightness
- control)will give a more natural looking result.
-
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-
- 12.4 APPROXIMATING CHARCOAL DRAWINGS
- You can create a charcoal-like result by combining some of the features of
- ADPro. If you are starting from a color image,turn it into gray scale. Boost
- the contrast heavily and select the line art command. Next,select a 2 color
- screen and Floyd-Steinberg dithering and render the image. Finally,execute the
- Remove Isolated Pixels command. The resulting image should have a rubbed
- charcoal-like quality.
-
- 12.5 MIXING PICKED AND COMPUTED COLORS
- In some instances it might be desired to pick some of the screen's colors by
- hand and let the computer pick the rest. For example,you might want to ensure
- that several specific colors are present in the rendered image.
- Let's take a complicated example of a 32 color screen in which the following
- requirements are to be met:
- Color registers 0 through 7 are to be ignored completely.
- Color registers 8 through 15 will contain hand picked colors.
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-
- Color registers 16 through 31 are to be picked by the computer.
- This can be accomplished as follows:
- First,enter the Palette control panel and set the total number of colors to 32.
- Then set the number of colors to use to 16 and the offset of color zero to 16.
- Exit the Palette control panel.
- Second,select the CUST screen mode and hit the Execute button. The resulting
- image will have 16 computer picked colors in registers 16 through 31.
- Next,enter the Palette control panel again. Set the number of colors to use to
- 24 and set the offset zero value to 8. Edit the palette to place the hand
- picked colors into registers 8 through 15(this can be accomplished via palette
- loading as well).
- Set the palette to Locked and exit the Palette control panel.
- Finally,rerender the image with the screen mode still set to CUST. The
- resulting image will use all registers between 8 and 31 including the 8 which
- were hand picked and the 16 which were computer picked. It will avoid color
- registers 0 through 7 completely.
- Using this technique you can have enormous flexibility in color composition for
- vide titling,animation,or other video applications.
-
- 12.6 ELIMINATING STRAY DOTS
- As mentioned elsewhere in this manual,there are two principal methods for
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-
- eliminating stray dots which can crop up especially in dithered renderings.
- These are:
- 1. Increasing the contrast of the image very slightly will often eliminate hugh
- amounts of stray dots especially in dithered renderings. Increasing the
- contrast has the effect of decreasing the subtle variations in shading which
- the dithering routines are trying to represent when they produce seemingly
- stray dots.
- 2. The RIP function can also remove stray dots very effectively. This is in
- fact,the purpose for which it was designed. RIP is especially useful when
- working with line or drawn art.
- However,when working with scanned art be aware that applying RIP will remove
- isolated pixels in the entire image. This means that RIP will slightly degrade
- the quality of whatever dithering was used by removing some stray dots that
- were visually important.
- Therefore,when working with full color images we suggest that you first attempt
- to deal with stray dots by slightly increasing the contrast of the image before
- using RIP.
-
- 12.7 CREATING BETTER GRADATED FILLS
- For display upon the Amiga,here are some tips for creating smoother gradated
- fills. I you are using actual 24 or 8 bit-plane data(for example,driving a 24
- bit-plane film recorder or display board)then these tips are not as useful.
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-
- Where possible,vary only one primary color.
- If you vary only one primary color in a gradated fill,the resulting fill will
- appear much smoother than if more then one primary color varies. This is
- because of the limited color resolution of the Amiga. If you vary more then one
- primary color,the primaries will vary at different rates causing a strobing
- effect in the Amiga displayable image.
- Where possible,draw in an oversized bitmap.
- For example,if you wish to produce a 320 by 200 end product,you will get better
- results by creating a 640 by 400 bit-map and then scaling downward by 50
- percent. The larger the size of the bitmap,the more finely ADPro will create a
- gradated fill.
-
- 12.8 CREATING A SOLARIZATION
- Solarizations can be created quickly and easily using the dynamic range
- Operator twice. First,reduce the dynamic range of the image drastically(perhaps
- to a range of 0 to 2). Then re-expand the dynamic range back to 0 to 255. The
- resulting image is a solarization of the original.
-
- 12.9 MERGING A COLOR IMAGE INTO A GRAY SCALE IMAGE
- When merging a gray scale image into a color background,you are adding an 8
- bit-plane image to a 24 bi-plane background. However,to add a color image to a
-
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-
- gray scale background,you would need to add a 24 bit-plane image to an 8 bit-
- plane background. Since 24 bit-planes won't fit in 8,but the ability to add a
- color image to a gray scale background would be nice,the gray to color operator
- was defined.
- It takes 8 bit-plane raw image data and creates the equivalent gray scale data
- spread over 24 bit-lanes. It does this by making each primary color equal and,
- thereby,gray.
- To add a color image to a gray scale background you would first load the gray
- scale image which will become your background. Execute the gray to color
- operator. This causes ADPro to create 24 bit-plane data(which happens to be
- gray)from the original 8 bit-plane data.
- Now,you can directly merge a color image since 24 bit-planes are now available
- for ADPro's internal use.
-
- 12.10 CREATING DROP SHADOWS
- Drop shadows can be created using the rectangle operator and by using a
- combination of mixing and transparancy during image compositing. To create a
- drop shadow for a rectangular region,simply draw a filled black rectangle at a
- 50 percent mix. To create a drop shadow for a complex image,create a black and
- white mask where the black area is the area which will cast the shadow. Then,
- use image compositing to load in the mask at an offset and at a 50 percent mix
- with white being transparant.
- After the shadow has been created,load in the image which is supposed to cast
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-
- the shadow. Since this image is loaded after the shadow is drawn,it will
- obscure the appropriate areas to make a realistic looking shadow.
-
- 12.11 FOCUSED COLOR PICKING
- Sometimes,when rendering a 24 bit-image into a small number of colors,you might
- want to channel ADPro's color picking to give a small area of the total bit-map
- the best possible color choices(while sacrificing color quality elsewhere in
- the image).
- Left alone,ADPro will choose the color which best matches the entire image.
- However,using the crop operator you can channel ADPro's color picking to
- optimally pick colors based upon only a small subsection of the entire image.
- This can be done as follows:
- Save out the 24 bit-plane image because you will need to preserve it through
- the next steps.
- Using the crop operator,crop the area of focus for color picking.
- Have ADPro choose the desired number of colors based upon the cropped area.
- Lock the palette.
- Reload in the original image saved in the first step. Remember,the palette is
- locked.
- Render the entire image in the desired number of colors using the locked
- palette. Because you are using the locked palette based only upon the sub-
-
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-
- region,that region will have optimal color choices within the entire image.
-
- 12.12 TIPS FOR COMPOSITING
- ADPro's image compositing capabilities include the ability to select a specific
- color as being transparent. As an image is loaded during a compositing
- operation,each pixel is compared against the transparent color. If the pixel
- matches the transparent color,the new pixel is ignored and a pixel from the old
- image is left untouched.
- This capability can be used in a two step masking process to paste an arbitrary
- shape from one image into another.
- Suppose you had a 24 bit-plane scan of a full moon that you wish to place into
- a ray-tracing.
- First,load the scan of the moon into ADPro. Render the image(with dithering)in
- any Amiga display mode which is compatible with your favorite paint program. We
- recommend 32 colors,low resolution,non-interlaced. We suggest that this
- rendering be made with dithering on so that you can get the best impression of
- what the 24 bit-plane data looks like.
- Save this rendering under a different name from the original 24 bit-plane data.
- Do not overwrite the 24 bit-plane data as this will be needed later.
- Load the rendered data into your favorite paint program. For our example,we
- assume Deluxe Paint III. Bring up the image's palette. Make color register 0
- completely black,that is make its red green and blue components all zero. Also,
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-
- make the highest color register completely white(red,green,and blue all 15's).
- Select color register 0(completely black)as your pen color and trace around the
- perimeter of the moon. When this is done,fill the outside of the moon
- completely with color register 0. In Deluxe Paint III this an be done easily
- with ALT-FILL. Next,fill the inside of the moon with the completely white color
- register. Save this image(overwriting its former self is acceptable). This is
- your mask.
- Load the original 24 bit-plane moon image. Select the image compositing mode
- and then load the mask. When the image compositing control panel comes up
- specify that you wish white(255,255,255)to be the trasparent color. Specify an
- x and y offset of 0 so that the images completely overlap. Perform the load.
- What you should now have in memory is the 24 bit-plane moon left completely
- untouched. However,it's background should now be set completely and uniformly
- to black. Save this 24 bit-plane file for use later.
- To complete the process load the ray-tracing. Then,in compositing mode,load the
- 24 bit-plane image saved in the previous step. This time,specify black(0,0,0)to
- be the transparent color. This instructs ADPro to load just the moon into the
- ray-tracing since the background of that image is uniformly "transparent".
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-
- 12.13 CREATING AN EMBOSSED LOOK
- Using ADPro,it is trivial to create an embossed look. Embossing is a process of
- pressing an image into the paper to create a raised impression(or depression)of
- the image. The following ARexx program performs this effect on a specified
- image:
-
- /**/
- address "ADPro"
-
- options results
-
- getfile '"Select File To Be Embossed"'
- if RC ~=0 then exit
- TheFile = ADPRO_RESULT
-
- lformat "IFF"
- load TheFile
- if RC `= 0 then do
- okay1 "Error Loading" TheFile
- exit
-
- end
-
- operator "negative"
- load TheFile 1 1 50
- if RC ~= 0 then do
- okay1 "Error Reloading" TheFile
- exit
-
- end
-
- 101
-
- operator "color_to_gray"
- contrast 50
- execute
- adpro_display
-
- The embossed look is created by averaging a slightly offset image with the
- negative of itself. Notice how the ARexx program loads the image once then
- performs the negative operator and then loads the image in again slightly
- offset and with only a 50 percent mix. This instructs ADPro to take a straight
- average between the versions.
- Different embossing effects can be had by changing the offset at which the
- image is loaded the second time.
-
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-
- CHAPTER 13 - STANDARD LOADERS
-
- This chapter provides a detailed description on the use and operation of the
- loaders which are included with ADPro. General information about loaders,
- including how the image compositing control panel is operated,can be found in
- Chapter 5.
-
- 13.1 DPIIE
- The DPIIE format was defined by Electronic Arts for use in their produce
- "Deluxe Paint II Enhanced" for the IBM P.C. DPIIE images contain 256 colors.
- Deluxe Paint II Enhanced for the P.C. saves images with less than 256 colors in
- the standard Amiga IFF format.
- To read an image in the DPIIE format,select the DPIIE loader with the load
- format button. Then,select the load button to cause the file requester to
- appear. Use the file requester to select a file in the DPIIe format. After
- selecting a file,the image compositing control panel will appear if compositing
- is enabled.
-
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-
- The DPII3 loader fully supports image compositing. For more information about
- compositing,please refer to section 5.5.
-
- 13.2 DV21
- The DV21 loader can process the 21 bit-plane files saved by Newtek's Digi-View
- 3.0 only. A 21 bit-plane file saved by Digi-View must be read by the Super-IFF
- loader.
- Files loaded by this module are always considered to be color images. As the
- image is loaded it will be padded to a full 24 bit-planes.
- To load a 21 bit-plane file saved by Digi-View 3.0,select the DV21 loader with
- the load format button. After selecting a file,the image compositing control
- panel will appear if you are in image compositing mode.
- The DV21 loader fully supports image compositing. For more information about
- compositing,please refer to section 5.5.
-
- 13.3 BACKDROP
- Don't let the name,BACKDROP,fool you. The BACKDROP loader is one of the most
- important loaders provided with ADPro. Using it,you can create a "canvas" upon
- which you can add other images using ADPro's image compositing features.
- At the same time the BACKDROP loader creates an empty bit-map of some given
- size,you can aski it to fill the bit-map with a specific color or even a
-
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-
- FIGURE 13.1:THE BACKDROP LOADER CONTROL PANEL.
-
- gradation of colors. Gradated background fills are very common in presentation
- or business graphics.
- Figure 13.1 shows the user interface for the BACKDROP loader.
- The BACKDROP loader can prepare one of two different types of bit-maps. A 24
- bit-plane raw color bit-map can be prepared by selecting a setting of Colr
- which is shown in figure 13.1. Selecting this button causes it to toggle to its
- alternate state,Gray,which instructs the BACKDROP loader to prepare a 8 bit-
- plane gray scale bit-map.
- The size of the bit-map to be prepared is specified by the gadgets to the right
- of the markings W(for bit-map width)and H(for bit-map height).
- The button above the width and height gadgets determines how the resulting bit-
- map will be filled. If in the Grad setting as in figure 13.1,the bit-map will
-
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-
- be filled with a smooth shaded gradated fill. If set to Fill the bit-map will
- be set to one constant color.
- You may specify the nature of a gradated fill by selecting each of the four
- blank rectangular buttons in the upper half of the control panel. Each of these
- buttons represents the corresponding corner of the image. That is,the upper
- left hand button corresponds to the upper left hand corner of the image.
- These buttons are enabled whenever you have a gradated fill selected. If you
- were to toggle the fill type button to Fill,these buttons become disabled.
- A non-gradated color fill can be specified simply by setting the desired color
- into the red,green,and blue sliders or gadgets. When a gray scale bit-map is
- selected,the red and blue sliders/gadgets disappear leaving only a slider/
- gadget pair marked G for gray.
- As you can change the red,green,or blue(or just the gray)component of the color
- being entered,the numerical value of the color will be updated. The
- corresponding color will be displayed in a small rectangular area above the
- button marked copy. Remember,that you are entering color components with 24 bit
- accuracy. The color displayed above the copy button is only accurate to the 12
- bit limit of the Amiga's palette. Therefore,slight adjustments in the numerical
- value of the color may not be visible on-screen.
- When ADPro constructs a gradated fill,the color of each pixel is computed as a
- linear interpolation both horizontally and vertically.
- To copy the color of one corner to another,select the corner you wish to copy
- from,then select the Copy button and finally select the corner you wish to copy
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-
- to.
- The BACKDROP loader does not support image compositing. If you wish to composite
- a solid rectangle,then use the rectangle operator. If you wish to composite a
- gradated rectangle,then gradated area and save it as a 24 bit IFF file. Then
- composite with it as you would any IFF file.
-
- 13.4 GIF
- The GIF format was defined by CompuService Information Service,Inc. for storing
- images in a compressed form on their information network. The GIF format is
- very widely used on IBM and Apple computers. GIF images may contain from 1 to
- 256 colors.
- The ADPro GIF loader supports both the 87a and 89a GIF standards including
- interlaced GIF images. It supports multi-image GIF files as well.
- To read an image in the GIF format,select the GIF loader with the load format
- button. Then,select the load button to cause the file requester to appear.
- After selecting a file in GIF format,the image compositing control panel will
- appear if compositing is enabled.
- The GIF loader fully supports image compositing. For more information about
- compositing,please refer to section 5.5.
-
- 13.5 IFF
- The Super-IFF loader can read files in many IFF formats including the
- following:
-
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-
- Commodore standard IFF files in 1 through 5 bit-planes corresponding to 2
- through 32 colors.
- Commodore standard IFF files in the Amiga Extra-HalfBright format(64 colors).
- Commodore standard IFF files in the Amiga Hold-And-Modify format(4096 colors).
- IFF files in Sliced-HAM(SHAM)format(can be read but not written).
- IFF files in A-HAM or Dynamic HAM formats(4096 colors).
- IFF files in A-RES or Dynamic HI-RES formats(4096 colors in hi-res).
- Commodore standard IFF files in 12,15,18,21,and 24 bit-planes(4096,32768,
- 262144,2097152,and 16777216 colors respectively). This includes 21 bit-plane
- files created by Digi-View 4.0.
- The Super-IFF loader will look for a palette in the image file. If there is
- one,it will be tested to see if it contains only gray scales. If it does,the
- image will be loaded into 8 bit-planes and will be treated as gray scale image
- data. Otherwise,the image will be loaded into 24 bit-planes and treated as a
- color image.
- When attempting to load an image already in a displayable Amiga format(such as
- the 1 to 6 bit-plane formats)and there isn't enough memory to convert the full
- image into 24 bit-planes or 8 bit-planes if gray scale),the Super-IFF loader
- will simply load the image and not convert it into a deep bit-plane format.
- This means you will be able to view the image and edit its palette but you will
-
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-
- not be able to perform any other of ADPro's image processing functions.
- To load an IFF file,select IFF using the load format button and then click on
- the load button. The Super-IFF loader will bring up the file requester for you
- to select a file for loading. After selecting a file in the IFF format,the
- image compositing control panel will appear if compositing is enabled.
- The IFF loader fully supports image compositing. For more information about
- compositing,please refer to section 5.5.
-
- 13.6 IMPULSE
- The IMPULSE formats are defined by Impulse,Inc. for use with their color
- products such as Turbo-Silver and Imagine. ADPro's IMPULSE loader supports
- reading the RGBN and RGB8 IMPULSE formats. The RGBN format stores 4 bits per
- primary color giving a total of 12 bit-planes. The RGB8 format stores 8 bits
- per primary giving a total of 24 bit-planes of color information.
- To read an image in either format,select the IMPULSE loader with the load
- format button. Then,select the load button to cause the file requester to
- appear. After selecting a file in either IMPULSE format,the image compositing
- control panel will appear if compositing is enabled.
- Files in the IMPULSE format are always interpreted as color images.
- The IMPULSE loader fully supports image compositing. For more information about
- compositing,please refer to section 5.5.
-
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-
- 13.7 PCX
- The PCX format was defined by the ZSoft Corporation for use in their product
- "PC Paint Brush." PCX images may contain from 1 to 256 colors including special
- palettes for IBM PC EGA and CGA display boards.
- The ADPro PCX loader will correctly interpret all PCX images including those
- with CGA and EGA palettes.
- To read an image in the PCX format,select the PCX loader with the load format
- button. Then,select the load button to cause the file requester to appear.
- After selecting a file in the PCX format,the image compositing control panel
- will appear if compositing is enabled.
- The PCX loader fully supports image compositing. For more information about
- compositing,please refer to section 5.5.
-
- 13.8 SCREEN
- The SCREEN loader is an example of the versatility of the ADPro loader/saver
- interface. It doesn't load an image from disk as the other standard loaders do.
- Rather,it captures the rendered image data from another Amiga screen and
- converts this data for use by ADPro.
- Selecting the load button causes the SCREEN loader to make a list of the
- currently defined Amiga screens. Each screen will be listed by its Intuition
- screen name. If a screen does not have an Intuition screen name,then its name
- will be presented as No Name. If more than one screen has no Intuition name,
-
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- each No Name will be differentiated by a sequence number.
- Select a screen to capture by clicking on the button containing the screen's
- name. You may confirm that this is the screen you intend to capture by clicking
- on the button marked Show. The select screen will be brought to front. A click
- of the left mouse button will bring ADPro back to front.
- There are two ways to actually load the selected screen. First,you may depress
- the Grab button after selecting one of the screen choices in the SCREEN loader
- control panel. The selected screen will be loaded into ADPro and can then be
- processed as if it were any other type of loaded image.
- The first method of screen grabbing cannot allow you to grab a screen while
- that screen is showing menus. This is because you(the user)can't be in two
- places at one time(i.e.:pushing the grab button and holding down the menu
- button in the screen you wish to grab).
- The second method allows you to grab a screen including its menu.
- When the SCREEN loader begin executing,it temporarily installs a hot key
- sequence of RIGHT-ALT-RIGHT-SHIFT-BACKSPACE. When the SCREEN loader exits it
- removes the hot key sequence from the system's input chain.
- You can grab any screen including its menus by selecting the SCREEN loader and
- then bringing the desires screen to front,causing the desired menu to appear,
- and then depressing the hot key sequence. When you release the keys(while still
- holding down the right mouse button),the active screen will be loaded including
-
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-
- the active menus.
- After selecting a screen to be grabbed,the image compositing control panel will
- appear if compositing is enabled.
- The SCREEN loader fully supports image compositing. For more information about
- compositing,please refer to section 5.5.
-
- 13.9 SCULPT
- The SCULPT format was actually defined by Mimetics Corporation for use with
- their 24 bit-plane frame buffer. The format is better known as the format
- produced by Byte-By-Byte's SCULPT series of 3D modelling products.
- The SCULPT format has no header information at all contained in the image
- itself. Therefore,you must remember the exact dimensions of the image in order
- to correcly load an image in the SCULPT format.
- After selecting the SCULPT loader and hitting the load button,you will be asked
- to enter a width and height of the image to be loaded. Remember,that the SCULPT
- format does not store the width and height as header information in the data
- files. Therefore,you must keep track of these values yourself.
- The SCULPT loader can load a combination of three files to form a color image,
- or load a single file to create a gray scale image. After specifying a width
- and height,select which type of image(color or gray scale)you wish to load.
- If loading a color image,you will be asked to specify three image files
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-
- containing the red,green,and blue information for the image respectively.
- ADPro will check the size of each of three files you must specify against the
- width and height you provided. If the size of one of the specified files does
- not match the size indicated by the entered width and height,the load is
- aborted.
- There is a naming convention for images stored in the SCULPT format. This
- convention dictates that each of the three raw image files comprising one
- SCULPT image share the same root file name and have the extensions red,grn,and
- blue for the red,green,and blue components respectively.
- When you specify the name of the red component,if you do not specify a file
- name extension,or if the extension you specify is red,then the SCULPT loader
- will automatically generate the conventional extensions for the green and blue
- components.
- The Mimetics frame buffer software also uses ored,ogrn,and oblu extenstions to
- signify that the image in question is overscanned. The SCULPT loader will
- automatically generate these extensions where appropriate as well.
- When loading a gray scale file,you will be asked to select only one file in the
- SCULPT format.
- After selecting all appropriate files,the image composition control panel will
- appear if composition is enabled. The SCULPT loader fully supports image
- compositing. For more information about compositing,please refer to section
- 5.5.
-
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-
- PAGE 116-188 ARE BLANK
-
- CHAPTER 14 - STANDARD SAVERS
-
- This chapter describes the use and operation of the savers which are included
- in the basic ADPro package.
- To select a particular saver,reptitively select the save format button until
- the desired saver appears. Remember that the save format button is logically
- divided into two halves. Clicking on the left or right half will cycle the
- choices in a backwards or forward order.
- Note that some savers support only specific types of data. Usually,this is
- because of restrictions in the format that the saver implements. The different
- types of data which can be saved can be characterized as follows:
-
- Raw - Raw image data is either 24 bit-plane color or 8 bit-plane gray scale
- data.
- Rendered - Rendered image data can be color or gray scale and will comprise
- from 1 to 8 bit-planes(2 to 256 shades).
-
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-
- Screen - Screen image data is that portion of the rendered image which can be
- seen if you were to select the redisplay button. Screen image data is available
- only when the image has been rendered in one of the Amiga displayable modes.
- When a saver supports more than one of these types of data,it will ask you to
- select which type you wish to save.
- When using a saver which can write to disk,the file requester will appear for
- you to select the destination file name. The file requester is described in
- chapter 11.
-
- 14.1 DPIIE
- You must have rendered data available in order to save in the DPIIe format. To
- use the DPIIe format,the image must have been rendered with 256 colors. If you
- wish to save an image for use with DPIIe with fewer colors than 256,you can use
- the standard IFF saver.
- The file requester will then appear. Use it to select a file name in which to
- save the rendered image. For more information about the file requester,please
- refer to chapter 11.
- Note that you can benefit from use of the enhanced palette mode when saving
- images for use with Deluxe Paint II Enhanced.
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-
- 14.2 FRAMEBUFFER
- The FRAMEBUFFER saver requires the presence of raw image data. It writes this
- type of data to a Mimetics FrameBuffer,if you have one installed in your Amiga.
- The FRAMEBUFFER saver uses a device control library supplied by Mimetics
- Corporation to encode RGB data into the kind of data into the kind of data used
- by the FrameBuffer board. The encoding process(performed by the library
- supplied by Mimetics)requires approximately 700K bytes of free memory in order
- to function. Therefore,it may be necessary to use the MAXMEM tool type to
- ensure the availability of enough free memory to use this saver. For more
- information about the MAXMEM tool type,refer to section 4.3.
- The saver will center the image on the FrameBuffer's screen if the image is
- smaller than the maximum size of the FrameBuffer's imaging area(768 by 484
- pixels). If the image is larger than the FrameBuffer's imaging area,only the
- upper right portion of the image will be shown.
- Any work-in-progress within ADPro can be previewed on the Mimetics FrameBuffer
- by selecting the FRAMEBUFFER saver and selecting the save button.
- This saver is an example of how ADPro can be used as the central controller of
- diverse graphics peripherals. If there are other imaging peripherals you would
- like to see directly supported by ADPro,please contact ASDG.
-
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-
- 14.3 GIF
- The GIF saver requires the presence of rendered image data which cannot be in
- the Amiga specific formats of HAM,EGB,AHAM,ARZ0,or ARZ1.
- Upon selecting the save button you will be given the choice of which data to
- save. If the rendered data is in one of the allowable Amiga display modes,you
- can select cropped screen image to save only the portion of the image which
- would be visible if you selected the redisplay button. Or,you can select the
- button describing the full size and number of colors of the rendered data to
- save the entire rendered image.
- The file requester will then appear. Use it to select a file name in which to
- store the GIF image. For more information about the file requester,please refer
- to chapter 11.
- Note that you can benefit from use of the enhanced palette mode when saving
- images for use with applications which can read GIF.
-
- 14.4 IFF
- The IFF saver supports saving,raw,rendered,and screen image data. You will be
- asked to select one of the following:
- Cropped Screen Image - Selecting this mode will save the screen image data
- which would be displayed if you select the redisplay button. This choice is
- available only if you have rendered in an Amiga displayable mode.
-
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-
- N Color Image - Selecting this mode will save the entire rendered image. The
- number of colors in the rendered image will be presented in place of the N.
- This choice is available whenever rendered image data is available even if the
- rendering mode is not directly Amiga displayable.
- N Bit-Plane Raw Image - Selecting this mode will save the entire raw image as
- either a 24 bit-plane color image or 8 bit-plane gray scale image.
- Whenever a raw image is saved,ADPro includes Commodore standard CLUT chunks
- which represent your current color balancing settings. However,many programs
- which now support Commodore standard 24 bit-plane IFF files do not yet support
- CLUT chunks. To enable you to get exactly the image you intend,you can use the
- apply map operator to permanently modify the raw data to include the effect of
- the CLUT chunks.
- Raw images saved in the IFF format by ADPro also include an ASDG chunk which
- preserves the internal representation of your current color balancing settings.
- Reading and rewriting such a file in a non-ASDG program will more than likely
- cause the ASDG chunk to be removed. However,this means only that the color
- balance settings are lost and not that the data has been modified. You can
- reset the color balance settings by hand if you need them again.
- After selecting which type of data to be saved by the IFF saver,the file
- requester will appear allowing you to specify the output file destination. For
- more information about the file requester,please refer to chapter 11.
-
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-
- 14.5 IMPULSE
- The IMPULSE saver requies the presence of 24 bit-plane raw color image data.
- You will be asked to select between RGBN and RGB8 formats. The RGBN format is a
- 12 bit-plane format in which ADPro will truncate the least significant four
- bits from each of the red,green and blue components of the image. The RGB8
- format is a 24 bit-plane format in which ADPro will preserve the entire raw
- image it has.
- After selecting which type of data to be saved by the IMPUSLE saver,the file
- requester will appear allowing you to specify the output file destination. For
- more information about the file requester,please refer to chapter 11.
- While this format supports only raw image data,it does not contain its own
- color look-up tables. Therefore,in order to preserve the effect of any color
- balance settings you might with to maintain,use the apply map operator to
- transfer the effect of the color settings into the raw image data.
-
- 14.6 PCX
- The PCX saver can save two types of image data. First,if you are processing a
- gray scale image,it can save the raw or rendered image. If you are processing a
- color image,it can save only the rendered image data.
- The PCX saver cannot save an image rendered in one of the Amiga specific modes
- such as HAM,EGB,AHAM,ARZ0,and ARZ1.
-
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-
- Upon selecting the save button,you will be given a choice of which data to
- save. If the rendered data is in one of the allowable Amiga display modes,you
- can select cropped screen image to save only the portion of the image which
- would be visible if you selected the redisplay button. Or,you can select the
- button describing the full size and number of colors of the rendered data to
- save the entire rendered image. Also,you may elect to save the raw image data
- if you are processing a gray scale image.
- The file requester will appear. Use it to select a file name in which to store
- the PCX image. For more information about the file requester,please refer to
- chapter 11.
- Note that you can benefit from use of the enhanced palette mode when saving
- images for use with applications which can read PCX.
-
- 14.7 POSTSCRIPT
- PostScript is a typesetting and page description language defined(and
- trademarked)by Adobe Systems Incorporated. ADPro can save a wide range of data
- in the form of a PostScript file. Such a file can be sent directly to a
- PostScript compatible printer or,in the case of Encapsulated PostScript,can be
- imported into other programs.
- The PostScript saver always requires the availability of raw image data. Upon
- selecting the save button,ADPro will analyze the available raw image data to
- determine if it is an arbitrary color image,a gray scale image,or contains only
- shades of one specific primary color(such as cyan,yellow and magenta). This
-
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-
- FIGURE 14.1:THE PRIMARY POSTSCRIPT SAVER CONTROL PANEL.
-
- analysis will affect how the PostScript saver will compose the final PostScript
- output.
- The PostScript saver itself is comprised of three control screens. The first of
- these screens is presented in figure 14.1.
- The format of the PostScript output can be either Encapsulated(EPS)or Non-
- Encapsulated PostScript. For inclusion of the saved PostScript data into other
- programs,select Encapsulated.
- The type of PostScript data to be saved can be grayscale,color,or separation
- data. If you select color PostScript,the resulting file will make use of the
- PostScript color extensions and can be sent directly to a color PostScript
-
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-
- compatible printer. Unless you have a printer capable of supporting color
- PostScript,the grayscale choice is the appropriate selection. This will allow
- you to get a gray scale representation of your image right off of your
- PostScript printer. If you are processing color separation data(ADPro will
- determine this in the data analysis phase mentioned above)you can select a
- special setting which will include color separation specific instructions in
- the resulting PostScript file.
- The mode field allows you to specify that the image data will be saved in
- either binary or ASCII form. Binary form is much smaller than ASCII but can
- only be used with PostScript printers which are communicating via AppleTalk
- (registered trademark of Apple Computer)or some other similar printing capable
- network. For most ADPro users,the correct setting is ASCII.
- For non-Encapsulated PostScript output,the following options are available on
- this first control panel.
- Page width and height defines the logical size of the PostScript page. Remember
- that optional features such as registration and crop marks exist and are
- printed outside the logical page. Therefore,you must leave room for thm on the
- physical page should you want them.
- Image width and height defines the size of the box in which the image will be
- printed. The actual size of the image is effected by these values as well as
- whether or not the original aspect of the image will be preserved.
- The x and y offset of the image within the logical page specifies where the
-
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-
- FIGURE 14.2:VARIOUS POSTSCRIPT METRICS.
-
- upper left hand corner of the image box will be relative to the upper left hand
- corner of the logical page.
- The goal in designing ADPro's PostScript saver was to provide the maximum
- amount of flexibility to the user. This comes at the cost of some confusion,
- however,since we provide so many ways of adjusting the output image. The
- possible confusion may be alleviated somewhat by figure 14.2.
- In figure 14.2 notice that the registration and crop marks appear outside the
- logical page. Also note that the amount of overlap of the logical page and the
- crop marks is determined by the bleed setting. Be sure to set aside space on
- the physical page(by reducing the size of the logical page)if you wish to be
- able to see all requested crop and registration marks.
- Pressing the button marked additional options takes you to the second
- PostScript control panel shown in figure 14.3.
-
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-
-
- FIGURE 14.3:THE SECOND POSTSCRIPT SAVER CONTROL PANEL.
-
- Here,you may specify the angles and densities to be used in the PostScript
- output file.
- The gadget marked C/R Dns allows you to specify the Cyan density(all densities
- are in lines-per-inch)for color separation PostScript files or the Red density
- in color PostScript files. The gadget marked M/G Dns allows you to specify the
- Magenta density for color separation PostScript files or the Green density in
- color PostScript files.
- Similarly,the gadget marked Y/B Dns allows you to specify the Yellow density
- for color separation PostScript files or the Blue density in color PostScript
- files.
- Finally,gadget marked K/K Dns allows you to specify the Black density for gray
- scale,color separation and color PostScript files.
-
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-
- Note that when printing gray scale image data(different from printing a color
- image in gray scale PostScript)only the black density is used.
- The gadget marked C/R Ang allows you to specify the Cyan angle(all angles are
- in degrees)for and color separation PostScript files or the Red angle in color
- PostScript files. The gadget marked M/G Ang allows you to specify the Magenta
- angle for color separation PostScript files or the Green angle in color
- PostScript files.
- Similarly,the gadget marked Y/B Ang allows you to specify the Yellow angle for
- color separation PostScript files or the Blue angle in color PostScript files.
- Finally,gadget marked K/K Ang allows you to specify the Black angle for gray
- scale,color separation and color PostScript files.
- In figure 14.3,the button marked Use Dns/Ang can be toggled between that value
- and Ignore Dns/Ang. When set to Use Dns/Ang the PostScript file will contain
- instructions telling the printer use the angles and densities that you have
- specified. When set to Ignore Dns/Ang,the values you specify are ignored.
- Instead the PostScript file contains instructions telling the printer to use
- its own internally stored default angles and densities.
- You may wish to set this button to the Ignore Dns/Ang setting if you are
- working with a sophisticated printer which may have finely turned settings
- already stored in its firmware.
- The button marked Portrait can be toggled between that value and Landscape.
- Selecting Landscape rotates the logical page(see figure 14.2)by 90 degrees.
-
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-
- Registration marks can be toggled on and off with the button labelled Reg
- Marks. Similarly,crop marks can be toggled on and off with the button labelled
- Crop Marks.
- Note that crop and registration marks appear outside the logical page(see
- figure 14.2). Remember to take this into account when specifying the page
- dimensions by ensuring that the logical page plus the space set aside for crop
- and registration marks can fit on the physical page.
- The gadget marked Bleed controls how much the crop marks(if present)will
- overlap into the logical page.
- The button marked Ignore Aspect in figure 14.3 causes the image to be stretched
- as needed to fill the entire image width and height. Clicking on this button
- will toggle it to its other value,Keep Aspect. In this state,the image will be
- stretched to fill only one dimension of the specified image area. The other
- dimension will be stretched to match the scaling of the first dimension.
- Depressing the button marked Additional Options leads you to the final
- PostScript saver control panel shown in figure 14.4.
- In this figure,the gadgets marked Offset X and Offset Y allow you to specify
- the offset of the lower left hand corner of the logical page relative to the
- lower left hand corner of the physical page. The gadget marked Rotation allows
- you to rotate the entire page about its lower left hand corner.
- The button marked Eject Page in figure 14.4 may be toggled between that state
- and Don't Eject. When set to Don't Eject the PostScript file will contain
-
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-
- FIGURE 14.4:THE THIRD AND FINAL POSTSCRIPT SAVER CONTROL PANEL.
-
- instructions telling the printer not to eject the page when it is finished
- rendering inside the printer. This allows you to send additional pages which
- will be overlayed over the first. If set to Eject Page,the resulting PostScript
- file contains instructions telling the printer to eject the page as soon as it
- is completely rendered within the printer.
- The button marked Positive allows you to specify that you wish a positive or
- negative rendered on the printer. To create a set of negative films(used for
- most printing applications)you would set this button to its other state,
- Negative. A special feature of the ADPro PostScript saver is that it will
- actually produce a true negative even on PostScript printers which do not
- support the standard PostScript negative operator such as the Apple LaserWriter
- series.
-
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-
- The button marked Normal in figure 14.4 toggles between that state and Mirror.
- This button,used in conjunction with the Positive/Negative button will allow
- you to create mirror image negatives which is the standard used by professional
- printers. A special feature of the ADPro PostScript saver is that it will
- actually produce a true mirror image even on PostScript printers which do not
- support the standard PostScript mirror operator such as the Apple LaserWriter
- series.
- Auto Feed specifies that the PostScript file should contain instructions
- telling the printer to take paper from its standard paper tray. Toggling this
- button to Man Feed causes the PostScript file to contain instructions telling
- the printer to insist on a manually feed sheed of paper even if paper is
- available in its standard paper tray.
- Finally,the gadget marked Copies allows you to specify the number of copies
- that the printer will be told to make of each page output.
- On each control panel,hitting Cancel will cause any changes made on that
- control panel to be ignored. You will be returned to the previous control
- panel. If Cancel is selected from the fist control panel,then the PostScript
- saver will exit and no image will be saved.
- To accept changes made to a control panel,select the button marked Accept. This
- will cause the specified changes to be reflected in the next document you
- output. Hitting the Accept button from the first control panel will cause the
- file requester to appear.
- Using the file requester you can select the name of the file into which the
- PostScript output will go.
- To select a printer device directly,blank out the drawer string and insert the
-
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-
- name of the printer device in the file string. For example,to print to
- prt:,blank out the drawer string and insert prt: into the file name string.
-
- 14.8 SCULPT
- The SCULPT saver requires the presence of 24 bit-plane raw image data. The file
- requester will appear three times. Use it to select the names of the red,green
- and blue component files. Remember that you must explicity keep track of the
- width and height of the image in order to make use of it again in the future.
- While this format handles raw image data,it does not contain its own color
- look-up tables. Therefore,in order to preserve the effect of any color balance
- settings you might wish to maintain,use the apply map operator to transfer the
- effect of the color settings into the raw image data.
-
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-
- CHAPTER 15 - STANDARD OPERATORS
-
- This section gives detailed information about each Operator included in the
- standard ADPro distribution.
-
- For general information common to all Operators,please see Chapter 7.
- For information about how each specific Operator may be accessed from ARexx,
- please refer to Chapter 16.
-
- PAGES 135 & 136 ARE BLANK
-
- 15.1 APPLY MAP
- Changes made with the color controls such as brightness or gamma do not
- actually change any of the raw image data. Rather,these changes affect only
- look-up tables through which the raw image data is filtered. Therefore,the
- affect of changes made with the color controls can be undone.
-
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-
- The apply map Operator applies the changes made with the color control to the
- actual raw image data. It then resets the color controls to a neutral setting.
- Three uses of this Operator come immediately to mind.
- 1. It allows the range of the color controls to be extended by allowing you to
- repetitively apply color control changes over and over again.
- 2. It allows for better results when merging images using the image compositing
- feature of ADPro. For instance,you might want to merge an image with bright
- color settings with an image with dark color settings. Using this Operator on
- both images prior to compositing will allow you to get the desired results.
- 3. It allows other Amiga programs which can read 24 bit-plane IFF images but do
- not parse "color look-up table chunks" to get the image data you intended.
-
- 15.2 COLOR TO GRAY
- The color to gray Operator provides three very important benefits beyond simply
- turning color images into gray scale images.
- First,the method used within ADPro to covert from color into gray scale can
- actually produce gray scale data of considerably better quality than the
- original color data. For example,the Sharp JX-100 portable scanner is accurate
- in gray scale to 6 bit-planes and 18 bit-planes in color. However,when ADPro
-
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-
- converts an 18 bit-plane color image into gray scale,it produces a gray scale
- image which is accurate to 8 bit-planes.
- Second,ADPro renders extremely well in gray scale due to its dithering
- capabilities and the fact that 16 gray scales cover the range of gray
- proportionately better than 16 colors cover the spectrum of all possible
- colors. For this reason,a high resolution interlaced gray image rendered with
- ADPro can look very nearly photographic even given the Amiga's limited display
- capability.
- Third,this feature provides a way to covert color images into high quality gray
- scale images for the purpose of black and white desktop publishing. While color
- DTP is just now coming into its own,DTP is still predominantly gray scale.
- Selecting color to gray will initiate a conversion of 24 bit-plane color data
- into gray scale. You will be told if there is no 24 bit-plane color data
- available to convert. After the conversion is complete,select a screen format,
- number of bit-planes,and finally depress the execute button if you wish to view
- the resulting data.
-
- 15.3 CROPPING
- The cropping operator can be used to specify a rectangular region within an
- image which will be preserved. All data outside the selected region will be
- discarded.
- When the cropping operator is selected,it will bring up a control panel into
- which you can specify the offset of the top left-hand corner of the rectangle
- to be preserved. You specify the width and height of the area to be preserved
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- as well. Note that you cannot specify a negative offset nor can you specify a
- combination of offsets and width or height which would exceed the width or
- height of the original image.
- Aside from the straightforward use of this operator for cropping,you can also
- use this operator to "focus" ADPro's color picking technology. See section
- 12.11 for more informaion.
-
- 15.4 DYNAMIC RANGE
- The dynamic range operator performs two passes over any raw image data
- currently loaded in memory. During the first pass,the smallest and largest
- values contained in the raw image are found. Then,a control panel appears,
- displaying the values that were found in the first pass. If you select and
- accept a new maximum and minimum value,a second pass over the raw image is
- performed(mapping all of the contained image data to lie between the selected
- maximum and minimum).
- This Operator can be used in many different ways. It can be used to expand or
- contract the dynamic range of an image(by increasing or decreasing the spread
- between the maximum and minimum values). It can also be used as a hybrid
- contrast/brightness manipulation.
-
- 15.5 GRAY TO COLOR
- The gray to color Operator provides the logical inverse of the color to gray
- Operator. This Operator reformats the internal data representation of raw gray
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- scale image data into that of raw color image data. This feature is provided so
- that you can perform all image processing functions on both color and gray
- scale images.
- When combined with image compositing,interesting artistic effects can be had.
- For example,a masked color image can be "pasted" into an otherwise completely
- gray scale image for a startling effect. See section 12.9 for more information.
-
- 15.6 HORIZONTAL FLIP
- Many applications require the production of mirror images of the original data.
- Specifically,this is required by screen and heat-transfer printers. Selecting
- the horizontal flip command will horizontally flip any 8 bit-plane or 24
- bit-plane data which might be currently loaded in memory.
- Note that performing a horizontal flip followed by a vertical flip is the same
- as rotating the image 180 degrees. This can be used in conjunction with the
- orientation button to rotate images through 0.90,180,and 270 degrees.
-
- 15.7 LINE ART
- When 8 bit-plan gray scale data is available,selecting the line art operator
- invokes a proprietary edge emphasis algorithm. The result is an image which
- contrains the most prominent edges in the original imge.
- The production of quality line art from an arbitrary gray scale bit-map is
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- quite difficult. It is important to begin with a high contrast original or to
- boost the contast of the image before invoking the line art command.
- Modifying the color controls(such as brightness,contrast,and gamma correction)
- prior to executing the line art command will drastically affect the quality of
- the resulting line art. Increasing the brightness,contrast,or gamma correction
- of the image will also reduce the amount of clutter in the resulting line art.
- In general,increasing the contrast setting is usually a good step.
- After the line art command has been executed,the color controls such as
- brightness,contrast,and gamma correction will only slightly affect the rendered
- image. Decreasing brightness or contrast will thicken the lines in the image.
- Increasing brightness,contrast,or gamma correction will thin out the lines in
- the rendered image.
- When working with the line art command,we suggest that you save the original 8
- bit-plane gray scale data to disk before executing the command. In this way you
- can reload the original 8 bit-plane gray scale data and retry the command with
- different brightness,contrast,and gamma correction settings.
- Note that executing the line art command will reduce the size of the available
- image data by 2 pixels in width and height.
-
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-
- 15.8 NEGATIVE
- The negative operator inverts any raw image data currently loaded in memory.
- For gray scale data,this produces what would commonly be called a black-and-
- white negative image of the original data. For color image data,each primary
- color is inverted separately.
- This Operator requires the presence of raw image data in memory.
-
- 15.9 RECTANGLE
- The rectangle operator can be used to draw filled and unfilled rectangles into
- a color or gray scale image. Selecting this operator causes the rectangle
- control panel to appear. This control panel is shown in figure 15.1.
- Using this control panel you can specify the location of the upper left-hand
- corner of a rectangle as well as its width and height. You can also specify the
- thickness of the rectangle. The default thickness is one which means that a one
- pixel thick rectangle will be drawn. Since you specify the outside dimensions
- of the rectangle,any additional thickness will be drawn within the inisde of
- specified region. A thickness of -1 causes a filled rectangle to be drawn.
- You may also specify a mix value to be used in the drawing computation. A mix
- value of 100 is the default which indicates that drawn pixels shall completely
- obscure any pixels from the original image which they overlap. For more
- information see section 5.5.
-
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-
- RECTANGLE
- OPERATOR
-
- LEFT 0 TOP 0
- WIDTH 0 HEIGHT 0
- THICK 1 MIX 100
-
- RED GREEN BLUE
- 0 0 0
-
- DRAW CANCEL
-
- FIGURE 15.1:THE RECTANGLE CONTROL PANEL
-
- Lastly,you may specify the red,green and blue content of the color to be used
- in drawing the rectangle. When drawing a rectangle in a gray scale bit map,only
- the red value is used to determine the shade of the rectangle. Colors are
- specified in the range of 0 to 255.
- The rectangle operator can be used to draw borders around or create drop
- shadows for rectangular regions.
-
- 15.10 REMOVE ISOLATED PIXELS
- The RIP Operator is used to "clean up" an already rendered image. It does so by
- examining each pixel in the rendered image data in succession. If the
- surrounding 8 pixels are the same color,and the center pixel is a different
- color,the center pixel is replaced with the surrounding color.
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-
- We have found that RIP can "clean up" a majority of unwanted artifacts when
- rendering images with a small number of colors,such as a colored logo. RIP is
- less useful,though it can produce some artisitic results,when used on color
- scans or other true color bitmaps.
- In order to use RIP,you must have first rendered an image into 2,4,8,16,32,64,
- 128,or 256 colors or gray scales. RIP does not operate on HAM images.
- After rendering the image,selecting the RIP Operator and depressing the execute
- op button causes the operation to take place.
- RIP operates directly on the rendered image data. Therefore,aborting a RIP in
- progress will result in a partially RIPped image.
-
- 15.11 SCALING
- When 8 bit-plane gray or 24 bit-plane color data is present in memory,you may
- digitally reduce or enlarge the width or height(or both)of the image. This is
- useful in a number of ways. For example:
- The individual pixels in an NTSC screen are not square. In fact,they are higher
- than they are wide in low resolution,non-interlaced displays. However,the
- pixels produced by many image sources such as scanners and 3D modelling
- programs are perfectly square. This mismatch in aspect ration can result in
- NTSC images which appear vertically stretched.
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-
- By reducing the height of an image to approximately 86 percent of its original
- size,you can produce images with an accurate aspect ratio for NTSC screens.1
- Various artistic effects can be accomplished by reducing the width and height
- individually.
- You can create low resolution interlaced images easily by reducing the width
- alone by 50 percent and then enabling interlaced mode.
- You can create high resolution non-interlaced images(such as in the preparation
- of icons for the WorkBench)by reducing the height alone by 50 percent.
- You can cause an image to fit into any desired standard screen size. You can
- preserve the image's aspect ratio by reducing both the width and height by the
- same amount. Or,you can reduce the width and height by different amounts.
- You can produce a special effect called "pixelization" or "posterization" by
- significantly reducing the image and then significantly enlarging it.
-
- Selecting the scale button when raw data is available in memory will cause the
- scaling control panel(shown in Figure 15.2)to appear.
- -------------------------------
- 1 Since the actual aspect ratio of a given screen will vary from monitor to
- monitor,the figure of reducing an image's height by 14 percent is only
- approximate. Also,PAL video is much closer to square than NTSC. Therefore,PAL
- screens may not require adjustment at all.
-
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-
- VARIABLE REDUCTION
- SOURCE RESULT
- WIDTH 640 640
- HEIGHT 400 400
- ASPECT 10:11 10:11
-
- PERCENT REDUCTION
- WIDTH 100
- HEIGHT 100
- SWITCH
- RESET ACCEPT RETURN
-
- FIGURE 15.2:THE SCALING CONTROL PANEL.
-
- You can switch between enlargement and reduction by selecting the button marked
- switch. At any one time,you can either reduce or enlarge but not both.
- Using this control panel,you can specify a reduction or enlargement in two
- ways:
- 1. You can specify the number of pixels to be the resulting width and/or height
- using the supplied string gadget.
- 2. You can specify the percent of reduction(or enlargement)of the width and/or
- height using the slider or string gadget.
-
- When using the keyboard to enter values,the RETURN key will toggle between the
- width and height percentage of change or the new width and height in pixels
- depending upon which pair of gadgets are active. ALT-RETURN will toggle between
- the pairs of gadgets.
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-
- To reset the values to what they were when the control panel first appeared,you
- can select the reset button. To ignore any scaling you might have specified,you
- can select the cancel button.
- To accept a set of reduction or enlargement values,simple select the accept
- button or depress SHIFT-RETURN from the keyboard. Unlike other Operators,
- scaling operations are initiated immediately after acceptance.
- Quality digital scaling requires massive computation. The computation time of
- ADPro's scaling facility is proportional to the size of the resulting image.
- Also note that scaling permanently alters the raw data in memory. After an
- image has been saled,you would have to reload from disk in order to get back
- the unscaled data.
-
- 15.11.1 PIXEL ASPECT
- Some file formats such as the IFF format support the storing of a pixel aspect
- ratio with the file. When ADPro loads a file in a format supporting a pixel
- aspect ratio specification,it presents this information in the scaling control
- panel as shown in figure 15.2. The pixel aspect defaults to "1 to 1" when ADPro
- loads a file which does not contain any pixel aspect information.
- ADPro maintains the pixel aspect information as scaling operations take place.
- The aspect shown in the Source column in figure 15.2 represents the current
- pixel aspect. The aspect shown in the Result column represents the pixel aspect
- which would result from the currently defined scaling operation if it were to
- be executed.
-
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-
- 15.12 TRANSPORT CONTROLLER
- Selecting the Transport_Controller Operator causes ADPro to look for a running
- copy of MicroIllusions' Transport Controller. If found,ADPro will communicate
- with the Transport Controller to record the Amiga displayable image currently
- in memory.
- This Operator requires the presence of rendered image data in Amiga displayable
- format. It will also tell you if it cannot locate a currently running Transport
- Controller.
- The Transport Controller operator is not supported in the A-RES or A-HAM modes.
- Control will return to ADPro when the Transport Controller is through recording
- the image. The number of frames to be recorded is determined by the default
- value maintained by the Transport Controller. Direct control(from within ADPro)
- over the number of frames to be recorded is provided only via ARexx since the
- Transport Controller provides a user interface of its own.
-
- 15.13 VERTICAL FLIP
- Many applications require the production of mirror images of the original data.
- Specifically,this is required by screen and heat-transfer printers. Selecting
- the vertical flip command will vertically flip any 8 bit-plane or 24 bit-plane
- data which might be currently loaded in memory.
- Note that performing a horizontal flip followed by a vertical flip is the same
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-
- as rotating the image 180 degrees. This can be used in conjunction with the
- orientation button to rotate images through 9,90,180,and 270 degrees.
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