by Ron Person
Windows 98 gives you two capable graphic file editors, Windows Paint and Imaging for Windows. Windows Paint is simple and easy to use, but it also might be as powerful a graphics application as you will ever need for creating and modifying bitmap (BMP) as well as GIF and JPEG graphics used on web pages.
Imaging for Windows enables you to open, modify, and annotate a wide range of graphic file formats, including TIFF, BMP, PCX, JPEG, GIF, fax documents, and more. With Imaging for Windows, you can add annotations to documents, highlight areas or text, rotate or magnify, and combine individual documents into a single multipage document. Imaging includes the ability to control scanners.
When you need to make simple modifications to a BMP, GIF, or JPEG image, you might want to choose Windows Paint. It's quick to learn, yet has a full set of basic bitmap drawing tools.
To start Paint, click Start, Programs, Accessories, Paint. Paint starts up and opens a new, empty Paint file (see Figure 15.1).
FIG. 15.1 When you start Paint, a new file opens.
To open a previously saved Paint file, click File, Open. Double-click the file in the Open dialog box.
Use different levels of magnification to examine your drawing more closely or to paint and modify an image at the smallest, pixel, level. Use the View, Zoom or View, View Bitmap commands or the Magnifier tool to magnify an image so you can work on fine details. Figure 15.2 shows a small GIF image that has been magnified. When an image is magnified, you can edit the individual pixels in letters or the drawing.
FIG. 15.2 Magnify image details for more precise editing control.
The larger magnifications of the picture display the pixels, or tiny squares of color, which make up your painting. Paint with any of the tools you use in normal magnification.
To change the view, follow these steps:
To zoom back out to regular editing view, choose View, Zoom; then click Normal Size or click the Magnifier tool and then click in the picture.
Because Paint is a bitmap graphics application, the shapes you create are painted on screen in one layer. Although you can't layer objects, you can select portions and move, rotate, stretch, and change colors. As an aid for web graphics, you also can make graphics backgrounds transparent so a web page background shows through.
As you edit, be aware that completed objects cannot be edited, only erased or painted over and replaced. You can edit any object while creating it, but not after you complete the object. To remove an object you have just drawn, click Edit, Undo.
Whenever you reach a stage in your drawing where you are satisfied to that point, save the drawing with a unique name. This will enable you to return to previous stages. When the drawing is finished, erase the unneeded files.
The Paint toolbox includes tools for selecting areas, airbrushing, typing text, erasing, filling, brushing, drawing curves or straight lines, and drawing filled or unfilled shapes. Most of the tools operate using a similar process, as described in the following steps.
To create or modify an image you first must select the appropriate tool. If the tool uses a color you must also select a color. Figure 15.3 shows the individual tools in the tool box located on the left side of the screen.
FIG. 15.3 Paint's tool box provides the tools you need to create and modify a picture.
The color box offers foreground and background color choices. At the left end of the color box (see Figure 15.4) is a box overlaying a box. The top box is the foreground color; the bottom box is the background color. When you draw with the left mouse button the line is in the foreground color and the background color fills the object. Drawing with the right mouse button reverses the use of foreground and background colors.
FIG. 15.4 Choose foreground and background colors from the color box.
To select a tool or foreground color, click the left mouse button on the tool or color. Select a background color by right-clicking on a color.
To draw with the tools from the tool box, follow these steps:
The exceptions to this process are as follows:
Using Simple Tools
The toolbox tools listed in Table 15.1 use simple procedures for operation. Tools not in this table are described in their own sections following this. Drawing with the left mouse button down uses the foreground color. Drawing with the right mouse button down uses the background color.
| Function | Tool Name | Description |
| Select a rectangle | Select | Click the tool; then select an area by dragging a rectangular box. |
| Erase under tool | Erase | Click the tool; then select the eraser size at the bottom of the tool box. Drag with the left mouse button to erase. Background color is used to erase. |
| Fills interior of connected borders with color | Fill with Color | Click the tool. Left-click inside shape to fill with foreground color. Right-click for background color. |
| Pick color from picture for use with a drawing tool | Pick Color | Click tool; then click color in picture for use with drawing tool. |
| Magnify the picture to work at pixel levels | Magnifier | Click tool; then click magnification value at bottom of tool box. Use any tools while magnified. |
| Draw free-form lines | Pencil | Click tool; then drag to draw a one-pixel-wide free-form line. |
| Draw with variable width brush | Brush | Click tool; then select from the brush shapes at the bottom of the tool box. Drag to paint. |
| Paint with patterns of dots of varying density | Airbrush | Click the tool; then select a sprayer size at the bottom of the tool box. Select a color. Click or drag to spray. Hold the tool in one position longer to spray more densely. |
| Draw a straight line | Line | Click the tool; then select a line width at the bottom of the tool box. Drag the mouse to draw a straight line. Cancel the line that you're drawing by clicking the right mouse button before you release the left mouse button. Draw vertical, horizontal, or 45-degree angles by holding the Shift key. |
| Draw rectangle or square borders or filled shapes | Rectangle | Click the tool; then click the border only, border and fill, or fill only icon at the bottom of the tool box. Drag to draw a rectangle. Border size is the last line size selected. Hold the Shift to draw squares. |
| Draw an oval or circle | Ellipse | Click the tool; then click the border only, border and fill, or fill only icon at the bottom of the tool box. Drag to draw an oval. Border size is the last line size selected. Hold the Shift to draw a circle. |
| Draw a rectangle with rounded corners | Rounded Rectangle | Click the tool; then click the border only, border and fill, or fill only icon at the bottom of the tool box. Drag to draw a rectangle with rounded corners. Border size is the last line size selected. Hold the Shift key to draw a square with rounded corners. |
Selecting a Free-Form Area
The Free-Form Select tool enables you to select an area of any shape by drawing a free-form boundary around the area. Click the Free-Form Select tool and two additional icons will be displayed in the toolbox. From these two, select either the Opaque (includes the background) tool or the Transparent (omits the background) tool at the bottom of the toolbox. Draw any shape to enclose the area to be selected. If you make a mistake while using the Free-Form Select tool, click the left mouse button outside the cutout area to cancel the selection.
Adding Text to a Picture
Use the Text tool to add text to your painting. Click the Text tool and, in the tool attributes box below the tool box, select Opaque (the background color fills the text box behind the text) or Transparent (the picture appears behind the text). Next, in the picture area, drag to determine the size of the text box. The text toolbar will be displayed, as shown in Figure 15.5. If it does not, click View, Text Toolbar to display it. Select a font, a point size, and bold, italic, or underline. There also is a button to orient text vertically or horizontally. Click in the text box and type.
FIG. 15.5 Type text in the text box and format with the Text toolbar.
TIP: If your painting includes a lot of text, you might find editing easier if you type the text in a word processor, select and copy it, and then paste it into Paint.
Drawing Curves The Curve tool draws a curve. To draw a curve, follow these steps:
Drawing Objects with Many Sides (Polygons)
The Polygon tool draws a multi-sided shape. Each side on the shape is a straight line. To draw a polygon, follow these steps:
To save a Paint file, click File, Save As. Type the name in the File Name text box; then click the Save As Type box to select one of the following file formats:
| Format | File Extension Assigned |
| Monochrome Bitmap | BMP |
| 16 Color Bitmap | BMP |
| 256 Color Bitmap | BMP |
| 24-bit Bitmap | BMP |
| JPEG | JPG, JPEG |
| GIF | GIF |
Windows 98 includes free imaging software provided by Kodak called Imaging for Windows. Imaging for Windows can be used to view, annotate, print, manage, store, and share images that have been created from faxes, scanned documents, or computerized images. If you have a scanner, you can scan documents into Imaging for Windows.
You can annotate stored documents with graphics, highlights, and text. It even includes predefined or custom "rubber stamps" that can be stamped on an image. Documents can be passed on to others as a file. The imaging software is OLE-compatible, so you can select and then drag documents from the imaging software and drop them into applications such as Microsoft Word, Exchange, or Lotus Notes. Double-clicking on an embedded image of a document activates the image and switches the applications menus and toolbars to those of the Imaging for Windows software.
File formats read include AWD (Fax), BMP, PCX/DCX, JPG, XIF, GIF, WIFF, and TIF. The software stores documents in an industry standard multipage TIF 6.0, AWD (Microsoft FAX), or BMP (bitmap) format.
Open Imaging for Windows by clicking Start, Programs, Accessories and selecting Imaging. Imaging will open with a blank new document. By default, AWD and TIF files will open when the files are opened from an Explorer window.
Imaging for Windows runs either in a Read Only mode to preview images or in an editing mode. If you want editable files to open in the Imaging Preview mode so they cannot be edited, choose Tools, General Options and click the Preview button in the General Options dialog box.
TIP: If the title bar for a document shows (Read Only), the document is in a format that Image cannot edit. Save the document to TIF, AWD (Fax), or BMP formats if you want to edit it.
Imaging for Windows includes several tools to help you modify images, although you should not consider it a graphics editing application. If you will be modifying images, you might want to display the Imaging and Annotation toolbars by choosing View, Toolbars and selecting these two toolbars. From the Page menu or the Imaging toolbar, you can rotate an image in 90-degree increments clockwise or counterclockwise.
The Annotation menu or toolbar enables you to draw freehand lines and rectangles, highlight areas, create text boxes, and stamp with rubber stamps. The annotations you make are objects. Objects remain distinct and editable from the picture background. You can select an object with the Annotation Selection arrow and move, copy, or delete it. Saving the file in TIF format will enable you to make further changes to the objects when you reopen the file. Saving to BMP or AWD format freezes the annotations.
Build a multiple page document by opening a new document or opening one of the documents that will be contained (see Figure 15.6). To insert a document before the current document, choose Page, Insert. If you want to insert a scanned image, choose Scan Page from the submenu and following scanning procedures. To insert an image from an existing file, choose Existing Page and select the file from the Open dialog box.
FIG. 15.6 Construct and view multipage documents in Imaging for Windows.
If you want to insert an image at the end of a multi-page document, choose Page, Append and then choose either Scan Page or Existing Page from the submenu depending on the source of the file you want to append.
Use Imaging for Windows to scan documents and images directly. Before you can scan a document, you must install your scanner; then click File, Select Scanner. Select the scanner you want and choose OK. After you have selected a scanner you can scan a new document by clicking File, Scan New. The control window for your scanner or digital camera will be displayed. Follow the procedure described for your scanner or digital camera.
Imaging for Windows works with TWAIN-compliant scanners and digital cameras. If your scanner or camera does not work with Imaging for Windows, check to make sure the scanner is TWAIN-compliant and is correctly installed.
Use Imaging for Windows to collect and annotate fax documents like the one shown in Figure 15.7. You also can create a multipage fax document from separate fax documents or image files, as described in the preceding section.
FIG. 15.7 View, annotate, and aggregate fax documents.
Add comments to a fax image by annotating the image with a text overlay or by drawing on it. To annotate an image with a drawing, highlight, text, note, or rubber stamp, choose the type of annotation you want from the Annotation menu. The highlighter will draw with a color over the fax image. When the file is saved to an AWD format, the highlight color changes to black-and-white shading.
TIP: Make multipage documents easier to browse by choosing View, Page and Thumbnails. This displays the thumbnails in a scrollable left pane and the full image of the selected thumbnail in the right pane, as shown in Figure 15.6.
The file format in which you save your work affects changes you have made to the document or image. The default format for new files is TIFF although you can select AWD (Fax) or BMP format from the New Blank Document dialog box. When you create the new document, you can also specify the color depth, compression, resolution, and size.
If you create a TIFF file, you have a variety of color palettes available and you can use compression to reduce the file size. AWD files are limited to black and white, and compression is automatic. If you annotate an AWD file, the annotation will become a permanent part of the file when saved. BMP files can have different color palettes, but they are limited to a single page and cannot be compressed.
TIP: Change a file type by opening the file and then resaving it with the new file type. The new file will be limited by the color palette, size, and compression options available to the new file type.
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