PhotoPro

User’s Guide
Babya PhotoPro User’s Guide

(C) 2007 Babya Software Group. All rights reserved.

 Contents

Babya PhotoPro User’s Guide 2

Welcome to Babya Photo Pro 4
Babya PhotoPro feature guide 4
 Welcome to Babya Photo Pro
Thanks for choosing Babya PhotoPro.

Babya PhotoPro lets you be creative in a multitude of ways-from creating simple graphics, to
advanced editing and effects and even your own icons. Before using Babya PhotoPro, you must
install it by following the steps in the install guide

Babya PhotoPro feature guide

The following is a guide to all of the features available in Babya PhotoPro.

TOP BUTTONS.
[Default size]
[Zoom scroll bar]
[DRAW MODE]
[Select OFF/ON]
[Copy OFF/ON]
[Move OFF/ON]
[K], [#]
[Undo/Redo] (10 Levels)
[Drawing shape][Description]
[Combo Pixel size]
[Combo Transparency]
[+]
[Magnifier]
[Color dropper]
[Color Label]
[Left & Right Color], [<->]
[PALXY]
[?]
[Keys]
[Exit]
[Clip on/off ]

SIDE ARROW MENUS

 [File]
[Information]
[Tools]
[Colors]
[Despeckler]
[Filters] (Stepped Mode)
[Deformers]
[Adders]
[Rotate]
[Resize]
[Text]
[Print]
[Merge] (Watermark)
[Sculpture]
[Shift/Scroll]
[Trace]
[Extractor]
[Make GFX]

DRAWING TOOLS
[Filler Tools]
[PolyLines problem]
VIEWPORT
DRAW/ZOOM MODE
IMAGE SIZES
KEY OPERATIONS
RED EYE REMOVAL
SIMPLE WATERMARK
MOUSEWHEEL SUPPORT
VB5 USERS
EXTRA FILES
INI DATA
TOP BUTTONS.

[Default size]
The main form can be reduced to a small size and the visisble Viewport
scrolled and/or saved from there, but the Default size or larger is
needed to show all the buttons.

[Zoom scroll bar]

This only operates in ZOOM mode, toggled from the Draw mode button.
In Zoom mode the image can be hand scrolled and a zoomed Viewport or
a selection saved. The whole zoomed image cannot be saved. To zoom
in on a point move the cross-hairs there and operate the zoom scroll
bar. Zoom multipliers go from 0.25 to 20. The [x1] button sets back to
Zoom multiplier = 1.

[DRAW MODE]
Toggles between DRAW & ZOOM MODE. Most operations can only be done
in DRAW mode.

[Select OFF/ON]
When ON (red line above button) the cursor changes to a cross. Click
on the image to start, draw, click to end, move to locate, click to fix.
Once a selection is made it can be saved. Also the Despeckler, Filters,
Deformers, Adders, Rotate, Sculpture, Shift/Scroll and Extractor will just
act on the selection rectangle if present. In addition a Merged image will
make it’s own select rectangle which can then be moved to locate.

[Copy OFF/ON]
When a selection has been made and the Copy button set to ON (red line above
button)the cursor will change to a 4 cross-arrow (Size all) over the selection.
A Copy can then be moved. To fix this copy, press the right mouse button on
the select rectangle. To cancel click the Select or Copy button or outside the
select rectangle.

[Move OFF/ON]
Similar to Copy except that the rectangle left behind will be filled with the
RightColor. To cancel click the Select or Move button or outside the select
rectangle.

[K]
[#]
This kills the Undo files and fixes the current image. The label
underneath the [K] button shows the numbered position of the undo file, it
changes to red when at the end of the undo list.

[Undo/Redo] (10 Levels)

This is implemented by saving arrays in files SAVDAT#.dat in the same
folder as the program. The sizes of these files depend directly on
the image size. For example for an image 800x600 the SAVDAT files
are 1.83 MB. They are deleted on exitting. In general the size of a
SAVDAT file is Image width x height x 4 + 28 bytes.

[Drawing shape][Description]
This shows the currently select drawing Tool and the Tool group name.

[Combo Pixel size]

Sets the drawing pixel size from 1 to 12.

[Combo Transparency]
Sets a global transparency 0% to 90%. Applies to all drawing Tools,
Text & Sculpture. This can be toggled On/Off with the ‘G’ key.

[+]
Toggles the cross-hairs On/Off. In DRAW mode they follow the cursor but
in ZOOM mode they are aligned with the scroll bars.

[Magnifier]
The Magnifier allows accurate placing of pixels as well as having a
button to show a thumbnail of the whole picture. The thumbnail display
can be left on when operating the Filters, Deformers, Adders, Sculpture
Shift/Scroll, Extractor and Merge. With Merge the overlaid image is not
part of the the main image and will not show on the thumbnail until Accepted.

[Color dropper]
 When toggled on the cursor changes to a dropper. It can be used set
any color from the image - left button for Left Color & right for
Right Color. The box to the left of the dropper shows the color at
the cursor. Also if frmBigPAL is up it will show the RGB values.

[Color Label]
Shows the color under the cursor.
Clicking here toggles a Color Park from which stored left & right colors
can be retrieved (see [Left & Right Color]).

[Left & Right Color], [<->]

These are the drawing colors used depending whether a Left or Right
mouse button starts a drawing. The Left & Right Colors can be swapped.
Clicking these, stores the color in a color park (see Color Label).

[PALXY]
This button brings up a larger palette display and also shows the X,Y
position of the cursor. When selecting a rectangle shows its width and
height.

[?]
Short Help display - also F

[Keys]
Pressing the key button will show a crib of the shortcut keys.

[Exit]

[Clip on/off ]
Shows (off Default size screen) when the cursor Clip is On or Off.

SIDE ARROW MENUS

Note that [File],[Information] & [Tools] bring up a menu with a Back-

arrow to get back to the main menu list.

[File]
This deals with opening standard VB picture files (ie bmp, jpg & gif ).
(New) allows the image size to be set. There are three types of saving
to a file or clipboard - Whole image, Rectangular selection (if present)
and the visible Viewport. The Clipboard viewer enables .clp files to be
loaded. Images can be saved as bmp, jpg or gif. A Recent Files list is kept
in Babya PhotoPro.ini. Also image files can be dropped onto Babya PhotoPro.exe. There
is also a (Full View) button to show the whole image using all the screen.
Note: press the ScrollBar to cancel this. A [Cls] button restarts and fills
the drawing surface with the left or right color.

[Info/Prefs]
This gives information on any loaded picture and Viewport details.
Also on this menu Global Transparency can be toggled, three buttons to
change the color scheme and a button to restore form locations to their
default values.
[Tools]
Shows the Drawing Tool groups. Click on any to bring up the tools
available in each group. Tooltips, Scroll bars with various labels
and Angle are present on some tools. (See DRAWING TOOLS).

[Colors]
Set Left/Right colors. The (Replace) button changes Left for Right
colors on the image. The UpDown Arrow button brings up a set of sliders
for producing smooth gradient palettes - which can be sent to the screen
by pressing the Right arrow button followed by the (Accept) button.
Default palettes are on the (0),(1),(2),(3) & (4) buttons.
A palette can be loaded by the (..) button (these must be JASC PAL
files) or the On Screen palette Saved by the (S) button. The (E) button
will extract an approximate 256 palette from the image. If the number
of colors exceeds 256 then they can be reduced by the (Reduction to N colors)
button to 16,32,64,128 or 256 colors. (B Scrollbar D) brightens or darkens
the palette.

[Despeckler]
This attempts to remove noise from an image. There is an example to try,
SaltPepper.jpg. in the Pictures folder. Trial and error must be used to
get the best removal. Also noise can be removed from a selected
rectangle.

[Filters] (Stepped Mode)

In common with the [Deformers] & [Adders] the Filters can act on the
whole image or just on a selection (if present). Also the Filters can
be operated in continuous or Stepped mode. The Stepped mode is intended
for large pictures where the filter action is slow. It enables a value
to be set on the scroll bar with no action until the (Show) button is
pressed. Note that some filters make use of the Right Color and this can
be changed using the local palette button without leaving the filters menu.
Dither uses the left & right colors. The Red button toggles animation On/Off.
It basically runs through a set of values displaying each as it goes. The
(Fix) button temporarily fixes the displayed image enabling multiple effects
to be displayed and the (Reset) button goes back to the last Fixed image.
This will be the original image if Fix has not been used. A local palette
can be toggled to see the effect of color changes without closing the window
to re-set the Left & Right colors

[Deformers]
Similar to Filters. The main difference is that a choice is given to use
the Right color or not. What this means is that either the deformed
image will appear with the original image as background or the background
will be a solid color. The Reflectors require a Select Rectangle and will
give a reflection to left, above, below or to right.

[Adders]
Similar to Deformers except that Left or Right color can be chosen and those
marked with ! use the Left & Right Colors to make a gradient.

[Rotate]
The whole image or just a selection can be rotated +/- 90 or 180 degrees.
Note that in the Deformer’s set there is a Rotate action for other angles,
for whole picture or a selection or the smallest circular area within the
rectangle.

[Resize]
This allows the Whole image to be resized or just the canvas. With changing
just the canvas size the image can be centered horizontally or vertically
or both. Canvas only reduction cannot be done.

[Text]
This has a large test box for typing. The Font can be selected and rotated.
Note the info - not all Fonts can be rotated. Also once Accepted Left click
on the image to show the text move around to locate and click again to fix.
The Font color is the Left color. Edge coloring can be opted for - with Right
color or an average between Left & Background color - Feint, Medium or Strong.
Hidden text produces text only slightly different from the image colors. This
would need to be saved as a separate bmp file for use with image subtraction
to reveal the text (see Merge). This is a simple watermark for bmp files.
Fuzzy & Outline text is included. With Outline, the text has to be thick
enough to show an outline. NB. these Text effect only shows on final image.

[Print]
Hopefully self-explanatory. Printing has been tested on Samsung lazer printer
and on a networked HP Color Deskjet sucessfully. Note that image sizes can be
changed and moved around the page for A4 and US 8.5x11” page sizes.

[Merge]
This opens up the Browser to load in an image from a File or the Clipboard.
When accepted the merging image is initially located at the top-left of the
Viewport. It can be moved by holding the Left mouse button down on the image
and moving the mouse. The transparency can be changed with the sroll bar for
the whole image or it’s edges. Left click the (Move ON) button, the main image
or close the Merge form to cancel. The two images also can be subtracted to
show only the difference, but the transparency scrollbar may need adjusting for
this. BMP images show the clearest hidden text.

[Sculpture]
This has an Open button on the form to load an image into the display
box. It has the Stepped/Animation/Reset/Fix buttons as mentioned before. The
strength of the overlaid image is set by the Weight scroll bar.

[Shift/Scroll]
The difference between Shift and Scroll is that Scrolling keeps the whole
image whereas shifting loses the image from the sides, showing just the
background color.

[Trace]
The effect is to place a piece of tracing paper over the Viewport. Trace has
it’s own simpler drawing tools and they operate with mouse down and can only
be colored black. Tracings can be saved as black & white 1 bpp bmps. If you
want to just trace part of a picture, make a selection first, save it and load
in before putting Trace on. The magnifier can be turned on in Trace mode.
[Extractor]
This extracts colors equal to the selected color and makes the rest equal to
the Right Color. The selected color is set by clicking on the main picture or
by selecting one of the solid color buttons.
A Tolerance can be set to extract a broader band of colors. Works best with
images that have solid areas of color. Gifs & sometimes Bmps rather than Jpegs.
This can be used in conjunction with the Filters action to ‘make non-white
colors black’, to make a mask.

[Make GFX]
Facility to make small bitmaps 8x8 to 48x48 and save as 24bpp bmp. Also gifs,
icons & cursors. This is non-optimized for file size in that bmps are 24bpp and
gifs, icons & cursors are 8bpp. For cursors the HotX, HotY setting is the active
point of the cursor. Also cursors must be 32 x 32. The transparent part of icons
and cursors is set by the Right color. The appearance of a cursor can be tested in
this menu.

DRAWING TOOLS

Drawing is done with 3 actions, mouse button click to start, draw, click to
end, move to locate and lastly click to fix. The exceptions are where more than
one stroke is needed. For poly-lines and curvy-lines each click starts a new
segment but to end, the click must be with the OPPOSITE button to that which
started the drawing then, after locating, any click to fix. The drawing color
is the Left or Right color depending on whether a left or right click started a
drawing. Some of the Tools in the Singles & FreeDraw groups, that have a
colored icon, use the Left & Right colors and those with a filled red icon use
the Right color to fill them.
Drawing is done using XOR. This means that the drawing will not take it’s final
appearance until fixed. The advantage over using say, a dotted line is that most
of the intended shape is visible against different backgrounds. But if a line is
exactly drawn over twice it will appear invisible until fixed. This can occur
with polylines which go back exactly over an earlier segment.
Note extra info for Fillers. With Fillers the last, but one, five shader items
act on the whole image unlike the other tools. In particular for the Filler Tool,
if the colors are changed, press the (Re-Color & re-select button) and then
actually select the fill pattern wanted.
The Warper can act in 4 directions, depending which way the mouse is moving.
Also the Tools from Smudge to Warp operate with the mouse button held down again
unlike the other Tools. Other exceptions are the single Dot which places the
colored dot at mouse down and cannot be moved. Similarly Trace & Make GFX draw
with the mouse button down.

[Filler Tools]
There are two kinds of Filler Tools, FILLERS & BORDER FILL. FILLERS fills in
monocolor areas. BORDER FILL fills from cursor point until the Left Color is
encountered. So if a particular area needs isolating then draw around it with
the Left Color then select BORDER FILL, a fill sub-tool and then click outside
the particular area. The Polyline or Curvyline tools are probably the best to
use for drawing around an area. In conjunction with the Magnifier make sure
there are no gaps. The Select rectangle can be used to take out the area, to
the clipboard or save selection. Finally fine trimming can be done, again with
the Magnifier.
[PolyLines problem]
The Double & Shaded Poly/Curvy line shapes are not perfect due to the problem of
coping with reversed intersections. If the Poly/Curvy line is unacceptable then
Undo and try again with less sharp bends.

VIEWPORT

The Viewport is that part of the image that is visible. It’s maximum size depends
on the screen resolution. For example with 1024x768 the maximum size is 816x623.
[See info above on (Clip)].

[Clip on/off ]
To avoid any button being pressed whilst in the middle of a drawing
the mouse is clipped to the Viewport. Keying F2 unclips the mouse.

DRAW/ZOOM MODE

Most operations occur in DRAW mode. In ZOOM mode a Selection can be made and saved
as well as the Viewport but not the whole zoomed image. When the cross-hairs are
on and visible, zooming will always show that part of the picture where the
cross-hairs meet.

IMAGE SIZES

The program will work with very large images but is best with images sizes under
about 2000x2000 pixels (for an average PC 1.83 GHz). Note that Win9x system may
fail for images > 16MB ie > about 2000x2000.

KEY OPERATIONS

F1 - Help
F2 - Unclip mouse
Arrow keys and KeyPad keys - move cursor
+ Shift - move faster for Arrow keys.
Enter - Send Left Click
BackSpace - Send Right Click
Space bar - After fixing a shape, moving the
mouse will then make a copy. Does not apply
to Single Dot, Fillers or Smudge to Warp.
Make sure to click to complete a shape before
pressing Space again.
C - Toggle Cross-hairs
G - Toggle Global Transparency On/Off
P - Toggle Large palette X,Y
M - Toggle Magnifier
F4,F6,F8,F12 - Change Mag factor if Magnifier ON
T - Thumbnail if Magnifier ON

RED EYE REMOVAL

RedEye.jpg is included in Pictures folder. This comes from

Johannes B at PSC CodeId=47347, which does a careful red-eye
removal. With Babya PhotoPro a quick removal can be done by making
a selection rectangle over a pupil, bring up Filters and Swap
Blue & Red or, more accurately, Vary Red.

SIMPLE WATERMARK

A simple watermark can be done, for an image, by opening the Text

menu and selecting Hidden text. This, when fixed, puts on the
text with a slightly different color to the background. To see
the text load the original image then Merge the image with the
hidden text using the subtract option and varying the transparency
scrollbar. Note that, if the image is larger than the viewport
then the form should be maximised first. If the image is still
larger than the viewport then save the viewport or a selection,
rather than the whole image, with the hidden text. This can then
be moved around the original image using the Merge menu and
subtraction as before.

MOUSEWHEEL SUPPORT

Active in Zoom Mode.