Noiseware Professional Plug-in for your Photoshop

Noiseware Professional Plug-in for your Photoshop

INTRODUCTION

Noiseware™ is the highly-acclaimed, award-winning software tool from Imagenomic that is setting the standard for digital image noise reduction.

Noiseware leads the field for speed, quality and ease-of-use in restoring image fidelity by eliminating digital noise and unwanted artifacts introduced by high ISO photography and less than optimal environmental conditions. Unlike most image processing software techniques that utilize simple methods (such as median filters) to treat digital noise in images, Noiseware features a sophisticated yet fast noise filtering algorithm. Using the adaptive noise profile capability and sharpening function, Noiseware greatly reduces the visible noise while keeping the details in the images.

Noiseware Professional Plug-In works with both 8-bit and 16-bit images and is compatible with leading image editing tools including:

• Adobe Photoshop 7.0 and CS
• Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0 and 3.0

MODIFYING NOISEWARE PROFESSIONAL PLUG-IN INSTALLATION

To modify Noiseware Professional Plug-in installation, select “Modify Noiseware Professional Plug-in Installation” from Imagenomic program group in Start->Programs->Imagenomic->Noiseware Professional Plug-in. The Installation Wizard automatically detects compatible host programs that are available on your computer. You can add programs not detected by the wizard or remove the ones that you do not want to associate with Noiseware Professional Plug-in.

RUNNING NOISEWARE PROFESSIONAL PLUG-IN

To run Noiseware Professional Plug-in click on the Filter menu and select Imagenomic->Noiseware Professional

USING NOISEWARE PROFESSIONAL PLUG-IN

Noise Profile

When you start Noiseware Professional Plug-in, it automatically calculates the noise profile for the image. Noise Profile Viewer displays noise values for four noise frequency groups (high, mid, low and very low), and for each luminance and chrominance channels (Y, Cr, Cb); Noise values are calculated based on the brightness levels of the image and have relative values ranging from 0% to 100%, where 0% means that noise is not found for the given brightness level on the selected frequency, and 100% means that noise level is extremely high.

“Settings” Combo Box

Noiseware Professional Plug-In provides 14 predefined preset settings for easy and quick processing. In addition you may set custom settings by operating the filter sliders. You can create your own custom presets (up to ten) by using the “Save Custom” from the popup menu. To delete a custom preset use the “Delete Custom” from the popup menu. The popup menu appears when you click on the round arrow button on the right side of the "Settings" combo-box.

Noise Level Adjustment

You can adjust the noise level detected by Noiseware by operating the corresponding sliders in the Noise Level Adjustment section. The adjusted values can vary from -100% to +200% of the noise profile. The values can either be specified for luminance and color channel and for individual noise frequencies, or can be selected from predefined noise filter settings. A negative value instructs Noiseware that the image contains less noise than detected. A positive value means the actual noise level is more that the detected noise level.

Noise Suppression

You can set the noise suppression level by operating the corresponding sliders in the Noise Suppression section. The suppression values can vary from 0% to 100%. The values can be specified for luminance and color channel and for individual noise frequencies. The less the suppression value, the more of the original image is included in the output. The more the suppression value, the more of the filtered image is included in the output.

Tonal Range Noise Adjustment

In addition to adjusting the specific frequency noise level, you can also set the noise level in shadows, mid-tones and highlights by operating the corresponding sliders in the Tonal Range Noise Adjustment section. The values can vary from -25% to +25% of the noise profile.

Sharpening

Noiseware provides 11 level sharpening function (-5 to +5) and uses unsharp mask with predefined parameters and over-sharpening control.

Processing Degree

You can choose between four different processing degree settings (Auto, High, Normal, Low). The effect of the Processing Degree settings is most noticeable if you select full suppression, and if the amount of noise is rather high. It essentially sets the level of smoothening of the edges and lines. So, if you feel that the image does not look natural - i.e. it looks over-processed - you can change the processing degree to a lower setting.

”Low" setting should be used when you want to preserve more details - i.e. landscape shots with many small and tiny details, and the "High" setting should be used when a smoother image is more desirable - i.e. portraits.

In the Auto mode, Noiseware automatically decides what setting to apply depending on the amount of noise detected at each frequency and channel.

Preview Window

When any of the Noise Filter parameters are changed, Noiseware updates the visible part of the image in real-time while you modify filter parameters. Once the filtering operation is completed you can click (and hold) on the processed image with the left mouse button to view the original image or to use panning. To zoom, you can use the [-]/[+] buttons located under the preview window. The zoom value can vary from 100% to 400%.

Navigator Window

The Navigator window allows navigating the image by dragging the red square cursor or by clicking on a different area of the image. The corresponding area of the image is then displayed in the main preview window.

PHOTOSHOP ACTION AND SCRIPTING SUPPORT

Noiseware Professional Plug-in provides full action and scripting support within Photoshop. The recorder actions contain all Noiseware Professional Plug-in adjustable parameters including noise level adjustment and suppression values as well as sharpening and processing degree.

TECHNICAL SUPPORT

Technical support for Noiseware products is available via Imagenomic’s website at http://www.imagenomic.com/support

Copyright© 2004 Imagenomic LLC. All rights reserved.

All product and company names referenced herein are trademarks of their respective owners.

Noise is often introduced in digital images by a variety of factors such
as low light levels, the quality of the camera sensors or environmental
conditions during image acquisition. Sports, indoor shooting and other
high ISO photography are typically affected by visible amounts of noise
requiring time consuming image manipulation which rarely produce good
results.

In situations where other imaging tools and techniques fail, Noiseware
rescues images by recovering the original image with minimal loss in
quality and detail.

Why Noiseware?

Fast. Noiseware features THE fastest noise removal algorithm and provides
the quality of restoration unattainable by other methods.

Intelligent. Noiseware continuously perfects its processing quality. Every
time you filter an image, Noiseware learns more about your own camera or
image acquisition device.

Nifty. Noiseware does excellent job at removing high and low ISO noise in
photographs, grains in scanned images, JPEG compression artifacts, Moiré
pattern effect and much more.

Easy. The user-friendliest noise removal tool available, Noiseware
streamlines your workflow into a one-click operation. You can get superb
results without even reading the help file.




- Team SCOTCH


News:

Team SCOTCH is currently looking for motivated and talented crackers.
Due to the nature of our releases Dongle, FlexLM experience is not really
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at following protections: Serials (keygens), RSA/Blowfish, VB/Realbasic,
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If you are tired of working on (cad)cam apps, which nobody uses, you might
want to consider joining us and produce cracks for applications that
are actually being used :-)

I am a Dongle/Flexlm cracker, so I am not welcome in SCOTCH ?

Wrong. We do have a regular supply of dongle/flexlm apps, and a professio-
nal testerbase who can ensure proper testing of your cracks.
Your skills will also be used to fix donglecracks by other groups, this
way you will become the hero of the end-user community, for which we
release.

What does SCOTCH have to offer ?
We do NOT offer hardware, money, shells etc ...
We offer you a group with great teamspirit, where you will be coached
to bring out the best of you. Many of our members have 10+ years experience
and believe in values and bringing working releases to the end-user
community.

If you are tempted by this offer, do not hesitate to contact your local
SCOTCH representative and we'll get the ball rolling!

SCOTCH is also looking atm for a new HQ, so if you think you have what
it takes, find us and we will see about you.

And finally, enjoy this nice release!!!!

----
DSHIP AND RELEASING, NOT ABOUT COMMERCE !!!
TEAM SCOTCH STRIVES FOR A SCENEWIDE BAN OF INDIVIDUALS AND GROUPS THAT
RUN COMMERCIAL ACTIVITIES!!!

Creating Complex Shapes with Corel DRAW!

This tutorial will show you how to create complex shapes in Corel DRAW! I used Corel DRAW! 7.0 for Windows. Some things may be done differently with other versions.

It's fairly easy to create simple shapes with a vector drawing program such as Corel DRAW!. There are built-in tools for creating circles, ellipses, squares, rectangles and polygons, etc... You may wonder, though, how to create more complex shapes. The tools to help with this are there, as well, they're just not as obvious.

In this tutorial I'll demonstrate how to center objects, how to "combine" more than one shape to cut one shape from another and how to "weld" several shapes into one. I'll also show you how to duplicate objects while changing their size and how to rotate an object with its center of rotation changed so as to duplicate shapes around a single point that you determine.

Before we begin, let's take a look at the shape we'll be creating (see figure 5.1).

figure 5.1

You may recognize this shape as the shape that's used to signify radioactivity. I had this shape in mind for a new design that I wanted to use here at GrafX Design. You'll see it showing up here-and-there at the bottom of various pages.

At first glance you may not see how this shape can be created with circles and triangles. Take a look at figure 5.2, though, and you'll note that the radioactive symbol is made up of an outer circle (shown in blue), an inner circle (in red) and three triangles (in yellow).

figure 5.2

Start out by opening a new image.

NOTE: If you don't see the rulers at the top and left of the main window--choose View, Rulers. This will turn the rulers on.

To help with the exact placement of the different objects that make up the final shape you can set the guidelines. Simply click-and-drag down from the ruler at the top to create a horizontal guideline, and click-and-drag from the ruler at the left to create a vertical guideline (see figure 5.3).

figure 5.3

You want the quidelines to dissect the image in the center so set the vertical guideline at 4.25 inches (half of 8.5 inches, the width of the page) and set the horizontal guideline at 5.50 inches (half of 11 inches, the length of the page). You can see the coordinates of the guidelines change, as you move them, in the lower left of the screen.

Now you're ready to begin drawing.

Select the Ellipse tool and, while holding down the CTRL key to constrain the ellipse to a circle, draw a circle about 2.5 inches in diameter.

Choose Arrange, Align and Distribute. This will bring up the Align and Distribute dialog box. Choose the Align tab, select Center of Page and click OK. Your circle should now be centered over the guidelines.

Choose Arrange, Transform, Scale and Mirror to bring up the Scale and Mirror dialog box (see figure 5.4).

figure 5.4

Make sure there's a checkmark in the Proportional checkbox and enter 80% beside the H in the Scale window (with Proportional checked you won't need to set both the H, horizontal, and the V, vertical. Click on the Apply to Duplicate button.

Change the 80% to 20% and click the Apply to Duplicate button again. You should now have 3 centered circles (see figure 5.5). Select the Pick tool and click away from the circles to de-select them.

figure 5.5

Click on the outside circle, to select it, and then SHIFT-click the second circle to select it as well.

Choose Arrange, Combine. Nothing seems to have happened, but the inner circle has been cut away from the outer circle leaving a donut shape with a large hole in it. If you select a fill color now you'll see that this is true because the second circle doesn't fill in (see figure 5.6).

figure 5.6

What you've just done is you've created a new shape from two separate shapes.

Double-click the Polygon tool to bring up the Options dialog box. Set the shape to polygon and the number of points/sides to 3.

Place the cursor in the middle of the circles and click-and-drag up and to the left to create a triangle. It should be big enough to span the distance between the small circle and the new circular shape (see figure 5.7).

figure 5.7

Choose Layout, Snap to Guidelines.

You may want to zoom in to about 400% to help with the following steps.

Select the Pick tool and use it to select the triangle shape. Move the shape into position with its bottom corner at the center of the circles (see figure 5.8).

figure 5.8

With the Pick tool still selected, click on the triangle again to get the rotation arrows. Move the center of revolution to the same point as the bottom of the triangle (see figure 5.9).

figure 5.9

The center of revolution is a small circle with a dot in it. It will originally show up in the center of the triangle. You can click-and-drag it into place. Since the snap-to-guidelines is set it will snap into place in the center of the guidelines.

You should still have the Scale and Mirror dialog box open. Choose Rotation. Set the Angle to 120 deg. and click the Apply to Duplicate button to create a second triangle. Click the Apply to Duplicate button once more to create a third triangle (see figure 5.10).

figure 5.10

Click anywhere to clear the selection and then click-and-drag a marquee around all of the shapes to select all of the objects.

Near the top-right of the screen you should see the Weld icon (see figure 5.11).

figure 5.11

Clicking on this icon will complete the image (see figure 5.12).

figure 5.12

Make sure you keep a copy of the vector drawing i.e. save the image as a CDR file so you can go back and make changes easily later on.

Of course, this final image was only really half of the design I had envisioned. To complete the design I exported the image as an EPS file and opened it in Photoshop. I then added some texture using Auto/FX. I played with the color, contrast and brightness, and lighting until I had the exact texture I wanted. I also added an Inner Bevel using Alien Skin's Eye Candy. Finally, I added a custom radial gradient behind the shape. There was still something missing, though, so to finish up I went back to Corel DRAW! and I created some text along a circular path and exported that, too. I then opened the text in Photoshop and cut-and-pasted it over the radioactive image to arrive at the completed design you see below (figure 5.13).

figure 5.13

That's it.... Be sure to check out some of our other Corel DRAW! tutorials.

Replacing a Background with Photoshop Elements

This Photoshop Elements 5.0 lesson will demonstrate how you can replace the background in any of your digital photos. Along the way you'll also learn how to use the Magic Selection Brush Tool to make selections, how to save and load selections, how to do some simple color correction/adjustments and how to get started with Layers.

Replacing a Background with Photoshop Elements

NOTE: This Photoshop Elements lesson was created using Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0, but you can achieve the same results using other versions.

Getting Started

To get started run Photoshop Elements and choose Edit/Enhance to bring up the Photoshop Elements Editor.

You'll also need a couple of photographs... a portrait and a background that you can use to place the portrait subject against. You can see from the figure above that I'll be using a "studio portrait" (this is really just a simple digital portrait taken against a blank wall) and a photograph of a sunset (taken on an afternoon walk... a good reason to have your camera handy :)).

What needs to be done is to isolate the portrait subject so that she can be copied and pasted over the sunset... fun stuff, so let's get started.

Using the Magic Selection Brush Tool

Photoshop Elements has a very powerful, yet easy-to-use selection tool called the "Magic Selection Brush Tool", that helps isolate portions of an image. Isolating one part of an image from the rest of it means that you can selectively modify portions of an image. This lesson will demonstrate several of the Magic Selection Brush Tool's options.

With both of your images open activate the portrait image by clicking its title bar.

Select the Magic Selection Brush Tool (see figure 1.1).

figure 1.1 -- The Magic Selection Brush Tool

When you do so you'll be presented with a dialog box offering some helpful tips on how to use the tool (see figure 1.2).

figure 1.2 -- The Magic Selection Brush Tool tips dialog box

After making note of the information the dialog box is so helpfully providing click OK to close it.

One significant piece of information offered is that modifications to the selection can be made in the Tool Options Bar. The Tool Options Bar (see figure 1.3) is located along the top of the Editor window just below the main menu. The options change for every tool and it's a good practice to take a look at it when using a new tool, or even when using a tool you're more familiar with. The options we're most concerned with are adding to and removing from a selection. These will make getting the best selection as painless a process as possible.

figure 1.3 -- The Magic Selection Brush Tool Options

We pretty much have the tools we need to select the background and the info we need to use them effectively...

The idea, with the Magic Selection Brush, is to paint areas that you want to be selected. In this case painting the background in the portrait will select the background making it possible to isolate the portrait subject.

You can really just go wild and paint wherever you want an area selected. I like to be a little more careful, though, to see what the tool does and how it operates.

You can see in figure 1.4 that I made a small squiggle in the upper-left corner of the background.

figure 1.4

In figure 1.5 you can see that all of the background is selected... unfortunately so was some of the portrait subject :) Not to worry. Here's where the tool's options (refer back to figure 1.3 for a quick peek) come in.

figure 1.5

In the Magic Selection Brush Tool Option bar select the icon with the minus sign (-) in it. Drawing over selected areas with that option on will remove areas from the selection. I drew a number of squiggly lines, each time removing some of the selected portrait. You can see the marks I made with the tool in figure 1.6.

figure 1.6

After making the adjustments my selection seems pretty good as you can see in figure 1.7.

NOTE: If, while unselecting some areas you accidentally unselect too much, simply adjust the option to add to the selection instead of removing from it (click the icon in the Tool Options with the small plus sign (+)).

When you're satisfied with the selection you've created you can proceed...

figure 1.7

The thing is, I really want to select the portrait subject, not the background... again, no problem. All that needs to be done is for the selection to be inverted. To do so choose Select, Inverse.

Adding Digital Watermarks to Your Photos with Photoshop CS2

So many people are publishing their digital images in one form or another these days that it's not hard to see why they would want to protect their images in one way or another. The following technique uses Photoshop CS2 to embed a visual "watermark" in an image.

NOTE: This technique, although demonstrated here with Photoshop CS2, can easily be accomplished with just about any version of any image manipulation software (Paint, Paint Shop Pro, GIMP, etc.).

To get started open an image that you want watermarked. I'll be using the image you see in figure 18.1.

figure 18.1

I'll be using text for this technique, but take a quick look at this Paint Shop Pro version, where I used a company logo as the watermark.

With your image opened in Photoshop, it's time to get started...

Click on the "Default Foreground and Background colors" icon to set the default black foreground and white background colors. The icon is near the bottom of the Toolbar, just below the foreground and background color swatches (see figure 18.2).

TIP: You can use the keyboard shortcut to quickly set the default colors. To do so, simply hit the 'D' key.

figure 18.2

Select the Horizontal Type tool and set the Font Family, the Font Style and the Font Size. I used Myriad set to Bold Italic 8 points for this example, but you can, and should play around to see what fits in best with the image(s) and the idea(s) that you're working on.

Click anywhere inside your image and type in the text you want displayed as a watermark. I'll type in 'copyright © T. Michael Clark' for this image (see figure 18.3). Note that I got the copyright symbol by using ALT 0169 (that is, I held down the ALT key and typed 0169 on the number pad of my keyboard).

NOTE: If you start typing and find that the text is too big, or too small, you can select the text you've entered, using the Type tool and reset the Font Family, Style or Size.

figure 18.3

Here comes the fun part... Choose Filter, Stylize, Emboss. You'll get a warning about the type layer needing to be "rasterized" before you can proceed. Rasterizing the type layer means that it can no longer be edited. No matter, if need be, you can simply re-create the type layer. Click "OK" to proceed.

As you can see in figure 18.4, the Emboss effect leaves the text looking raised. It has also changed the type to a mid-gray color with light and darker edges giving the effect of embossing. The gray fill is especially important here because we'll choose a layer-blending mode that will make the new text visible but not as though we had simply typed on the image. Instead what will happen is that the gray will disappear letting the image show through, but the lighter and darker edges will remain leaving a visible watermark on the image. To see what I mean, change the layer-blending mode to 'Overlay'. You can change the layer-blending mode from within the Layer palette. The pulldown menu to do so is located in the upper left corner of the Layers palette.

figure 18.4

Figure 18.5 shows my finished image. Notice that, though subtle, the watermark is visible and even readable.

figure 18.5

Advanced Masking Techniques with Photoshop

Although I'll be using Photoshop's Quick Mask tool for this tutorial, I'll explore it a little more in-depth than I have in my previous Photoshop Quick Mask tutorial, and I'll add a couple of ideas this time around that you can use to make sure you're creating the very best mask that you can. To that end I'll be demonstrating some fairly advanced Photoshop tools, but I'll tackle only as much as you need to know to get the job done. So no worries... let's get started.

NOTE: This Photoshop lesson was created using Adobe Photoshop CS2, but the same results can be achieved in just about any version of Adobe Photoshop.

The whole idea behind using the quick mask tool is to make a selection of a portion, or portions of your photograph so that you can apply some correction or effect to those areas while leaving other (unselected) areas unaffected. Another trick that this Photoshop technique can be used for is replacing or removing the background of a digital photograph.

The "quick" part of using Photoshop's Quick Mask tool comes with practice, so open up an image that you can play around with and double-click the quick mask icon in Photoshop's toolbar (see figure 20.1).

figure 20.1

Actually, you can activate and use the quick mask tool with a single-click, but double-clicking the tool's icon opens up the Quick Mask Options dialog box (see figure 20.2).

figure 20.2

There are a couple of cool options here that are often overlooked by beginner and intermediate users. For example, you can click the color swatch to bring up the Color Picker dialog box. Go ahead and give it a try... we'll wait a couple of minutes while you play around with it :)

Red is generally a good color choice for quick masks, but for images such as the photo of the Flamingos that we're using for this example, another color choice (something that contrasts with the red, perhaps) might be a better bet to use as the masking color. Remember that as you create your mask with the painting tools the mask will be visible as a semi-transparent layer over your image. It will be hard to see where you are (and aren't) painting if the mask is too similar in color to the objects you're masking. Figure 20.3 shows a couple of other color choices being explored as possibilities.

figure 20.3

I'll stick to a shade of blue as that color seems to work best for this image. I'll also stick with the default 50% Opacity setting, but feel free to explore different values to see what works best for you and the particular photograph that you're working on.

The "Color Indicates:" option isn't really that important because any mask you create with the quick mask tool will ultimately become a selection, and any selecion can easily be inverted (choosing Select, Inverse will do so, in fact).

Click OK, now that you've set your quick mask tool options, and you can begin.

Note that if you had started out with some of your image selected, it would be evident because you'd see a semi-transparent area in the color that you set in the quick mask ptions dialog box. With no selection made, though, it's as though you haven't done anything. That is, there doesn't appear to have been any changes made to your image by selecting the quick mask tool. To get an idea of what I mean, get out of quick mask mode by clicking the "Edit in Standard Mode" icon (it's just to the left of the quick mask mode icon in the toolbar).

TIP: You can use the keyboard shortcut key, in this case the 'Q' key to quickly toggle between quick mask mode and standard editing mode.

Now that you're back in standard mode, make a quick selection (pardon the pun). You can easily do so by selecting the Rectangular Marquee tool (it's in the upper left corner of the toolbar) and clicking and dragging inside your image. With the selection made go back into quick mask mode to view your mask. Figure 20.4 shows my image with a rectangular selection and the resulting quick mask made from that selection.

figure 20.4

You can start to see how selections and masks can be quite similar and interchangable.

The idea behind this tutorial is that I can select the frontmost flamingo, avoiding all other areas of the photograph, by painting a "quick mask" over the bird in question using common Photoshop painting tools, such as the Brush tool. To get started, I'll momentarily go back to standard edit mode and turn off the rectangular selection (choose Select, Deselect).

NOTE: One thing that you don't want to do, and that I've often found students doing, is make a selection while in quick mask mode. Things can get rather messy if you do. Just try to remember that you want to 'paint' your selection or mask. Leave those selection tools for another time.

Now, back into quick mask mode, grab the Brush tool and, from within the tool options for the Brush tool, set the brush size and hardness. I'll start with a fairly big brush (80px.) and with the hardness set to 100% (see figure 20.5).

figure 20.5

Depending on what portions of the image you'll be painting over you may have to reset the size and hardness as you work. Before you start painting, make sure that you set the default foreground and background colors (the default is for the foreground color to be black and the background color to be white). You can do so quickly by tapping the 'D' key.

When you paint with black, you create the mask, and when you paint with white you erase the mask. This makes it easy to create a quick mask because even when you 'paint outside the lines' it's a relatively quick fix. Simply tap the 'X' key to swap the default foreground and background colors and swipe the mouse over the area that needs fixing.

TIP: You'll want to zoom in (perhaps way in) while you're painting your mask. To help you get around within your zoomed-in image quickly, you can simply hold down the spacebar. Doing so will activate the hand tool, enabling you to navigate to new, unpainted areas quickly and esily.

Keep painting the mask until you have all of the portions of your image that you want selected, painted over. Figure 20.6 shows my 'final' quick mask.

figure 20.6

Get back into standard editing mode (press the 'Q' key or click the Edit in Standard Mode icon in the toolbar). When you do, you'll see the selection that painting your mask has created. If you have not changed the "Color Indicates:" setting, the selection will be backwards, or inverted. You can tell if this is so by looking for the selection markers. If you see the marquee (they look kind of like marching ants) around the perimeter of your image (see figure 20.7) you'll have to invert your selection. To do so simply choose Select, Inverse.

figure 20.7

With the selection straightened away it's time to save it. To save the selection that you just created using the quick mask mode choose Select, Save Selection... Doing so will bring up the Save Selection dialog box (see figure 20.8).

figure 20.8

Enter a name for the selection. I'll call this one 'Bird' as it seems appropriate. You'll note that the document contains the name of your currently open image. Also note that the channel is set to 'New'. This is perfect because I'm saving a newly created selection. We could also merge our selection in with existing channels (if there were any that we had created previously, for example).

With the selection saved, its okay to turn off the selection. To do so choose Select, Deselect.

Now for some advanced fun :)

With the selection saved in its own channel, it can be further manipulated. For now, we'll simply take a look at the channel and see how our quick mask did. To see the channel that contains your saved selection, bring up the channels palette (you can do so by clicking its tab if the palette is open (it's usually grouped together with the Layers and the Paths palettes), or by choosing Window, Channels).

To bring up the channel with your saved selection, simply click its entry in the Channels palette. You can see the 'Bird' channel I created in figure 20.9

figure 20.9

With your selection channel open, you can examine your work with a more critical eye. When I zoomed-in, for example (see figure 20.10), I could tell that I had some holes in the mask, or areas that I had missed with the brush tool.

figure 20.10

Fixing those problems is as easy as painting them away with the brush tool. To fix the holes seen in figure 20.10, I simply grabbed the brush and painted them out using white.

Once you're satisfied that the selection is as good as you can get it, save your image. Make sure that you save a copy as a .psd file to retain the channel and your selection. Having done so you can easily get the selection back at any time by choosing Select, Load Selection... In the dialog box that appears, simply choose the document and the channel you want to load the selection from... voila!

Of course, the real magic comes when you apply corrections/filters to the selected area. We'll tackle that in an upcoming tutorial by correcting the exposure of part of a photograph...

In the meantime here's a teaser. The photo below (see figure 20.11) was created by using the mask to select the main flamingo so that copies of him/her could be pasted into the photograph.

figure 20.11

That's it.... Be sure to check out some of our other Photoshop tutorials. For example, the next tutorial demonstrates some tricks that can be done to further improve/modify your saved selection and the one after that shows you how to correct common exposure problems using Photoshop Levels.

Creating Animated Logos with Corel DRAW!

Animated GIFs

This tutorial will demonstrate how you can create an Animated GIF logo. I used Corel DRAW! 7.0 for Windows for this technique. Some things may be done differently with other versions.

Putting a New Spin on Your Logo

I'll be the first to admit that I'm probably the last person to jump on the "Animated GIF" bandwagon. To be honest, I didn't really see the potential for animated GIFs. Most of the early images I saw were kind of cheesy. On top of that, I prefer keeping my images' download time to a minimum, and animated GIFs can get rather large very quickly.

Recently, though, I've seen the light. Done right, animated GIFs can be pretty cool. And, with today's GIF animation software, animated image file size can be kept quite reasonable. Animated GIFs can be real attention-getters on banner ads, can really add to the appeal of a static logo, and they can certainly add some pizzazz to a web page.

Animated 3D text has become so popular on the web, in fact, that there are now several dedicated programs available for you to choose from. These programs, produced by software companies such as Xara and Ulead, make the creation of animated 3D text as simple as point-and-click.

What if you need to do more than animate simple text? Normally you might think of resorting to a dedicated 3D-rendering program. These programs can be expensive, though, and they often have pretty steep learning curves. So what can you do? Well, you can use Corel DRAW! to create the frames for your animated masterpiece. That's right! Corel DRAW! has all the features necessary to help you create a 3D animated logo.

Here's how you can use the extrusion features to give depth to, light, and spin your creation...

Open a new graphic in Corel DRAW! (I'm using version 7, but the method should translate well to other versions).

I'll be creating a simple logo using the first letters of GrafX Design, my design company.

First I entered the text using the Text tool. I then selected the text by clicking on the Pick tool. This enabled me to change the font and the size of the text. I chose Braggadocio at 72 points.

Because I didn't want to create just simple text, but rather I wanted a logo, I decided to cut the text out of a simple oval shape. To do that, I selected the Ellipse tool and dragged an oval shape around the text.

To line these elements up, marquee-select them all with the Pick tool and choose Arrange, Align and Distribute. In the Align and distribute dialog box, check Center of Page and click OK.

With the elements still selected, click the Combine button on the property bar. This will combine, or cutout, the text from the oval.

You can change the color of the oval logo by left-clicking a color on the color palette. I choose a light blue color (see figure 9.1).

figure 9.1

Now that the logo design is complete (as simple as it is), it's time to extrude the image, light it, and start creating the separate frames you'll need in order to complete the animation.

Choose Effects, Extrude to bring up the Extrude dialog box (see figure 9.2). This is where you'll do most of the work needed to create the frames of your spinning animation.

figure 9.2

In this dialog box you'll see 5 tabs. The first three, Extrude, Rotate, and Lighting are the ones you'll need to use to create the frames for your animation.

The first thing you should do is extrude the logo. This process gives your logo some depth, i.e. it adds the 3rd dimension to your image.

Click on the first tab if it's not already active. You can now set the basic shape, viewpoint, and depth of your image. I set the shape to "Small Back," the viewpoint to "VP Locked To Object," and the depth to 2.0. You can play around with the various choices until you get the look you're after. When you're done, click Apply.

The next thing you will do is create the lighting.

Click the third tab. Turn on the first light by clicking the first lightbulb icon (or Light switch 1).

You can now position the light by dragging the small black icon around the 3D grid. You must place the icon on an intersection. I chose the upper-right corner. Once you've chosen the position for your light, click Apply.

At this point you won't really see much difference in your image. It's coming, though.

Click on the 2nd tab. This option enables you to rotate the logo in 3D space. You'll notice the Corel symbol that's visible in the middle of the dialog box (see figure 9.3).

figure 9.3

This symbol can be dragged around with the mouse, and its position will correspond to the position of your image in 3D space once you click Apply. Changing the position in this manner is a lot of fun. However, you'll need to be more exacting when creating your frames. Below and to the right of the Corel symbol is a small, bent-cornered, rectangular icon. Clicking on this icon will replace the Corel symbol with a set of coordinates, or rotation values. The first controls the rotation about the x-axis, the second about the y-axis and the third about the z-axis. Because I'll be spinning my logo around the y-axis, I'll only need to change the values for number 2.

Before you start to apply the rotation values you should save the first frame. Obviously the first frame doesn't need to be rotated.

Before saving the first frame, though, create a white (or some other color, if you prefer) bounding box around your logo image. You'll need to do this because of the way Corel DRAW! saves an image. When Corel DRAW! saves an image it doesn't keep all of the white space you see around the onscreen representation. Instead, all of that white space is cropped off. It's best to have all of the frames of your animation the same size, and adding the bounding box will assure that this is the case.

Select the Rectangle tool and draw a box around your image. It doesn't have to be much bigger than the image but it should give you a little extra elbowroom.

On the color palette, left-click the color that you want the box to be. This hides your logo, of course. Press CTRL-Page Down until the box moves to the back and your logo is again visible.

To center everything again, marquee-select all of the objects and then select Arrange, Align and Distribute. Place a check mark in the Center of Page box and click OK.

To save the first frame of your animation, choose File, Export. In the Export dialog box, choose a folder in which to store the image, give your file a name, and choose a file type. I like to use the BMP file format, (because it's 24-bit and it's a format most animation programs recognize) and let the animation program handle the palette. I also like to name the frames in sequence. I started this sequence as GD00.BMP.

Click Export to bring up the Bitmap Export dialog box.

Set the colors to 16 Million Colors. Set the Size to Custom and place a checkmark in the Maintain Aspect Ratio box. You can leave the Resolution at anywhere from 72 dpi to 96 dpi because the animation is intended for screen viewing. I always like to set Anti-aliasing to Super-sampling. Once you have entered all of the settings, click OK to save the image.

Now you're ready to rotate the logo.

By adding the bounding box you de-selected the logo. Simply use the Pick tool to re-select the logo.

Back at the Extrude dialog box, click Edit and enter 10 in the 2nd spin control. Click Apply to apply the rotation. You could rotate the logo by a value of 1 rather than 10 each time, and this would result in an extremely smooth animation. However, it would also result in an unacceptably large final file size.

The 2nd frame (see figure 9.4) is ready to be saved. Not so bad, eh?

figure 9.4

Choose File, Export and name the second frame. I named mine GD01.BMP. You'll need to select the Maintain Aspect Ratio and Super-sampling boxes again.

That completes the 2nd frame.

Back at the Export dialog box, click Edit and enter 20 in the 2nd spin control. Export this frame.

Continue on until you hit the value 70. You'll notice that the image is now at 90 degrees (see figure 9.5).

figure 9.5

This occurs because Corel DRAW uses the values -100 to 100 for the rotation values and not, as you might expect, 0-360 degrees.

After saving the frame with the value at 70, start back down using negative values. Start with -60, then -50, etc, until you hit -10. Although, technically, using these values won't spin the logo so that you see the back of it, using these numbers will give your animation the appearance of spinning 360 degrees around the y-axis.

You should now have 14 frames numbering 00 through 13. You're ready to animate your logo!

It's time to fire up your animation program. I'm currently using Ulead's GIF Animator. I like it because it's relatively easy to use-it offers animation and optimization wizards, has good palette control, and accepts a fairly wide range of file formats.

After opening GIF Animator, I created the final animation, which can be seen below. Because the wizards work so well, I simply chose to use all of the defaults.

When the animation program opens, it offers you a chance to use the Animation Wizard. This wizard enables you to Add Images/Videos. From this first dialog box, you can add the images, or frames of your animation. Simply point to the folder where you stored the separate frames. There's a small quirk, though. The frames will not be in sequence unless you follow this simple rule: Choose the last file in the sequence and then, while holding down the shift key, click on the first filename in the sequence. Click OPEN. You can click through the remaining choices by choosing Next each time. The one place you might want to stray from the default is the Frame Duration. I like my animations to run more quickly than the default and usually choose 10/100's of a second rather than the 25/100's. In the last dialog box, choose Finish to close the wizard.

To see how your animation will appear, click on the Start Preview button. You'll see your animation for the first time. Pretty cool, eh?

If everything looks okay, you can choose File, Optimization Wizard. Again, you should be able to just let the wizard do its thing. My final, optimized, spinning logo weighs in at a pretty good 11K. If you're not happy with the final result, re-run the wizard and tweak some of the settings. Some of the biggest savings can be achieved by lowering the color depth. I saved the logo with 64 colors, but I probably could have gone lower without sacrificing too much of the image's quality. You should spend a little time getting to know the animation software. Most of the packages I've tried are fairly easy to use and come with pretty extensive online help.

That's it. I invite you to play around with some text and some different shapes in Corel DRAW!. Try adding a bevel (use the last tab in the Extrude dialog box), or adding a second and third light, etc. Extrude your images to different depths and try filling them with textures as well as solid colors. Pretty soon you'll be wowing the visitors at your web site with all manner of spinning and moving logos and buttons.

figure 9.6

NOTE: If you'd like more information on creating animated GIFs visit our Animated GIF pages.