6. Paint Shop Pro: (Continued)
Managing Colors
Using Masks and Layers
Changing Colors
Colorizing Photographs
Animation Shop
Links to Tutorials & Tips
There are many very good tutorials available on the Internet for various features of "Paint Shop Pro". These sites also provide many good tips and tricks. These sites will link you to many others. Explore and enjoy.
http://www.jasc.com/gatut.asp?
http://newdawn.gzinc.com/tutorials.html
Managing Colors
When you work with graphics on a computer screen you are viewing transmitted light. When you see images on printed material you are viewing reflected light. There is a difference, two different types or models of color are used. Paint Shop Pro uses three color models or methods for describing color. Most computer graphics software will recognize these models, they are:
The RGB Model ... The CMYK Model ... The HSL Model
The RGB Model -
The RGB model is the one used to emit light on computer monitors. It has three primary colors of Red, Green, and Blue. All colors you see on your monitor screen are achieved by combining these colors in varying proportions. The strength of each of these colors is described by numerical values ranging from 0 to 255. See the example below.
........................RED.......GREEN........BLUE.........Color
Produced
Strength.............0.................0...................0............Pure
Black
Strength.........255.................0...................0............Pure
Red
Strength.............0.............255...................0............Pure
Green
Strength.............0.................0...............255............Pure
Blue
Strength.........255.............255...............255............Pure
White
Red, green, and blue are referred to a additive because they combine to yield white. The absence of any emitted color is black, this is the color of a blank screen or your monitors screen when there is no power.
The CMYK Model -
The CMYK model is one of the Subtractive Color Models which is based on light being absorbed and reflected by paint or ink. This model is used for printing. The primary colors are Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow. When all three are combined they produce black. Because of impurities in ink it is difficult to produce a true black. This is why they have added a fourth color blacK; hence the K in CMYK. This is the reason some ink jet printers have a black cartridge in addition to the color one. You can now begin to see why it is difficult to obtain an exact match of the colors viewed on the monitor to the colors printed on paper. Also different papers absorb various inks at different rates. Also monitors, like TV screens, have adjustments which can vary the appearance of shades and colors. Another contributing factor is that different people see colors differently.
The HSL Model -
This model defines color using Hue, Saturation, and Lightness. These are also measured on a scale of 0 to 255. Hue distinguishes the various colors such as Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Cyan, Blue, Magenta, and finally back to Red. These are the colors you would experience as you move through the color spectrum. Red has a value of either 0 or 255. Yellow is a value of 45, green is at 85, and Cyan is the opposite or inverse of red and it is at a value of 128. Blue is 170, Magenta is 212. Notice that Blue is opposite of Yellow and Magenta is the opposite of Green on this color scale or wheel.
Saturation is the strength of a hue, or the amount of gray it contains. Vivid colors (very little gray) has a high saturation level or number. As the saturation decreases the amount of gray increases.
Lightness is the amount of perceived intensity of light. A value of 0 is total darkness or black. A value of 255 is total lightness or white. On this scale a value of 127 (50% lightness) is considered a pure hue.
In Paint Shop Pro the removal of hue from an image is referred to as Gray Scale. A gray scale image contains 256 levels of gray or lightness. This is similar to the old black and white TVs.
Color Channels are planes of color which images are organized in. An RGB image has three channels while a CMYK image has four. Graphics programs usually contain instructions for the computer to allow conversion from one type to another. All printer software must have this capability if it prints graphics.
Color Depth is often referred to as bit depth. It is the number of colors a pixel can display. Note: a 1-bit image can display 2 colors; an 8-bit image can display 256 colors; a 24-bit image can display 256 colors; and a 24-bit image can display 16.7 million colors. As the number of bits increase the size of the file describing the image increases. When file size is important, as in the time required to upload or download from a remote site, the type of image with the desired resolution, size and color depth becomes important. The depth of color also determines how many images can be stored on a floppy disk.
HTML Color Codes are composed of a string of 6 characters, both numbers and letters. These codes can be used for such purposes as defining body and background colors. Some examples are: White #FFFFFF; Black #000000; Blue #0000FF; and the background color for this page is #FE9EAD.
Using Masks and Layers
A Layer can be thought of as a transparent sheet. These layers are placed in a stack over your graphic. You can paint on these layers. You can add, delete, rearrange their order, and blend them in a variety of ways. The background layer is the first layer of a newly created image. You can make any given layer the current layer. The commands you give are only applied to the current or active layer. The number of layers you can have open at one time depends on the memory in your computer. You should take some time and explore all the layer commands and menus. We will use layers shortly in colorizing photos and changing colors of parts of graphics. Remember a layer can be thought of as a transparent sheet. They are stacked on top of your image and you can paint on them, or paste objects on them. When your view appears as you want it you can then merge all the layers into one graphic.
A mask is a part of a layer. Masks allow you to hide and reveal parts of a layer and apply special effects with precision. Think of them as a painter thinks of applying masking tape. Masks can be created from an image, a selection, or a channel. You need to experiment with the mask commands on the menu bar. Think of a mask as a defined area which you can only work within. The idea of masks and layers will become clearer as we use them to colorize photos.
Changing Colors
There are many ways to change color. The best way to begin to grasp these concepts is to do something. Once you see how easy it is to change colors on a portion of a picture or graphic then the operation seams easy. You have already changed colors when you were making signs with Paint in lesson 1. To select areas and make selections should by now be a learned operation. Accuracy will come with practice. There are many ways to change a color of a selection. Enough trying to explain this, the best way is for a demonstration. The exercise associated with this class has steps to follow. These steps are used to accomplish many tasks; changing colors of a portion or object in a photo, this also applies to colorizing old black and white photographs. Go now to the two examples in the exercise and follow the steps. Most of the steps are general. There are many adaptations to them and many approaches towards achieving the same result.
TASK 6 - COLORIZING GRAPHICS USING LAYERS
Colorizing Photographs
There is only one additional step required to colorize a black and white (gray scale) image. The only thing you need to do is to use the color command on the menu bar and then increase the color depth. Then follow the same procedure used to change colors of objects in a picture.
TASK 6 - COLORIZING GRAPHICS USING LAYERS
Animation Shop
Animation Shop is an image animation program which comes with some purchased versions of Paint Shop Pro. It helps you crease and combine multiple images to provide motion, these files are sometimes referred to as animated clips or small video clips. You can use a graphics program to alter a graphic and use a program like Animation Shop to create the clip into one file. Time during this course will not allow us to go into any detail on using this software. After becoming well versed with Paint Shop Pro the use of Animation Shop is a fairly easy extension to learn. (Revised Jan. 2, 2000)
TASK 6 - COLORIZING GRAPHICS USING LAYERS