Paint Shop Pro

CS 102

Nov. 28, 2001

Paint Shop Pro

Experiment with Paint Shop Pro. Grab a GIF or JPEG file and edit it. Try painting your own image. Try each of the following:

1. Use your Images folder to save your work.

2. Open Netscape Navigator, go to a page with an image, and right-click on the image to save it into your folder.

3. Start Paint Shop Pro.

4. Open the file you saved in Netscape Navigator.

5. Changing foreground and background colors: Along the right edge of the Paint Shop Pro Window you'll see a color spectrum with two rectangles below. The foreground rectangle shows the foreground color while the background rectangle shows the background color. Clicking the left mouse button within the spectrum changes the foreground color; use the right mouse button to change the background color.

   You can use the dropper tool to change foreground and background colors by clicking within an open image.

6. Creating a new image. Click the new image button. A dialog box will open. Select the width and height (in pixels) you want. Use a resolution of 72 pixels/inch. If you want to create a transparent GIF, set background color to Transparent. (The transparent areas will show as a checkerboard pattern). Otherwise, select a background color: black, white, etc.

7. For most of the image manipulation functions, Paint Shop Pro must be working at a depth of 16-million colors. To increase the color depth, open the Colors menu, choose Increase Color Depth, and choose 16 Million Colors.

8. Using one of your images, experiment with the flip, mirror, and rotate choices under the Image menu.

9. Next, experiment with the deformation and filter browsers under the Images menu. Apply a few and see what happens. (You can return to your original by using the undo button.

10. Cropping. Often you'll only want part of an image. Use the selection tool (on the left hand side, sixth from the top) to mark the part of the image you want to cut out. Open the Edit menu and choose Copy. Open the Edit menu again, choose Paste, then choose As New Image. A cropped version of the original image should appear.

11. Resizing an image. Copy the two 3XX JPEG images in S:Images to your Images folder. One is 60x82, while the other is 600x820. Under the Image menu, you'll find Resize. Resize each image so that it is the size of the other image. (Hint: Within the Resize dialog box, select Pixel size and enable Maintain aspect ratio. Then, you need only enter the new image width in pixels.)

    This demonstrates that it's not a good idea to resize to a larger size, but it's fine to resize to a smaller size. So, remember, when scanning it's better to use too large a DPI because you can resize down later.

12. Brightness and contrast adjustment. Copy the image tigger.jpg from my Images folder to your Images folder. Open it in Paint Shop Pro. From the Colors menu, choose Adjust, then choose Brightness/Contrast. Preview the following settings of (brightness, contrast): (0, 0), (25, 0), (25, -25), (50, -25), (50, -50), (50, -90). By suitably adjusting the brightness and contrast of an image, you can make it usable as a background image on a web page.

13. Saving an image file. For each of the following, open the File menu, choose Export, and then select Transparent GIF or JPEG File as appropriate.

    Notes for GIF files:

    1. A dialog box will open. Press the Use Wizard button.

    2. Step 1: Select No transparency or Use existing transparent areas as appropriate.

    3. Step 2: If you chose ``No transparency'' in the previous step, select your background color, otherwise move on to step 3.

    4. Step 3: Use web-safe colors.

    5. Step 4: Move the slider all the way to ``Better image quality.''

    6. Step 5: Observe how your image will appear and the file size. If you're not happy, you can return to previous steps and make adjustments. Click Finish when you're done.

    Notes for JPEG files:

    1. A dialog box will open. Press the Use Wizard button.

    2. Step 1: Move the slider toward ``Better image quality'' (but not all the way).

    3. Step 2: Observe how your image will appear and the file size. If you're not happy, you can return to the previous step and make adjustments. Click Finish when you're done.

14. Using the browser to view results. Return to Netscape Navigator. From the File menu choose Open Page and browse to your Images folder (set Files of Type to All Files). Open and observe each of the images. How does the image with a transparent background look?

15. Painting and sign-making. This is a paint program. Click the new button to get yourself a fresh canvas. Use a black background and 16.7 million colors. Experiment with the painting tools: paint brushes, air brush, flood fill, line, and shapes. (Hints: When you choose a painting tool, some parameter boxes will open beneath the tool bar. Experiment with different parameter values.) Add some text (Hints: When adding text, make sure Floating is enabled. After placing the text, there's a marquee around it to allow you to position it precisely. To turn the marquee off, open the Selections menu and choose Select None.) Use several colors. Are you the next Van Gogh? Try different things. Go ahead, knock yourself out. (You can look at sign.gif in my Images directory for a silly example. It's transparent, so compare it in Paint Shop Pro and Netscape Navigator.)