This document should only be used with the Apple Macintosh version of Splosh.

Transcription

1 Splosh 1 Introduction Splosh is an easy to use art package that runs under both Microsoft Windows and the Macintosh Mac OS Classic or Mac OS X operating systems. It should however be noted that the Apple Macintosh version differs in functionality from the Windows version, making best use of the features offered by each operating system. This document should only be used with the Apple Macintosh version of Splosh. System Requirements An Apple Macintosh computer running Mac OS 8.6 or 9.x with 1 MB of free hard disc space and a minimum of 16MB of free memory. A copy of CarbonLib version 1.6 needs to be installed in your System folder. CarbonLib is not required for Mac OS X. An Apple Macintosh computer running Mac OS X version or above with 1 Mb of free hard disc space. Licence Splosh is distributed by Kudlian Software Limited and is copyright Kudlian Software Limited Documentation is copyright Kudlian Software Limited You must ensure that you have the correct number of licences to run the software on your computers. It is illegal to run software for which you have no licence. If the software was supplied pre-installed on a computer then it is only licensed for use on that machine. A separately purchased pack contains a licence, which may enable it to be used on a number of machines within a single establishment, for example a school. All trademarks are acknowledged. Splosh Kudlian Software Ltd Kudlian Software Ltd. 8A Nunhold Business Centre, Dark Lane, Hatton, Warwickshire CV35 8XB support@kudlian.net Web:

2 Getting Started 2 Installing Splosh Splosh may be installed onto the hard disc of your computer and may be supplied on CD ROM or as a web download. You will require a serial number in order to obtain technical help on this software. The serial number can be found in the pack that you have been supplied with or may be obtained by contacting Kudlian Software Limited. Mac OS 8.6 & 9.x Insert the CD ROM into the CD ROM drive of the computer and double click the CD icon. Drag the Splosh application to where you wish to install it on your system. We recommend that you install Splosh to the Applications folder in order to make it available to all users on the machine. Drag the file CarbonLib to the System folder on the hard disc. A message may appear asking you to confirm that this needs to be placed into the Extensions folder. Confirm that you wish to do this. Mac OS X You need to ensure that you are logged onto the machine as an administrator in order to install the software. Insert the CD ROM into the CD ROM drive of the computer and double click the CD icon. Drag the Splosh application to where you wish to install it on your system. We recommend that you install Splosh to the Applications folder in order to make it available to all users on the machine. Starting Splosh To run the Splosh application: Double click on the Splosh application in the usual way.

3 Creating a New Picture To create a new picture window, use the New Picture dialogue and choose the size of canvas you require. You can either choose from a number of standard canvas sizes, such as A4, or choose your own size by clicking on the Custom Size button and then typing in the sizes you require. You must specify a custom size by giving the width and height in pixels. 3 Once you have chosen your canvas size and clicked on OK, there will be three windows on screen, these are; the Main Canvas (document) window, the Colour palette, and the Tools palette. The main splosh canvas window is shown on the next page.

4 4 The main canvas window is resizable. By dragging the bottom right corner of the window you can make the window larger than the canvas. The canvas will appear to be floating above a grey background. Brush tools and shape tools can be used anywhere in the canvas or background area. If you paint outside the canvas then it will not appear on your picture. If you have chosen a canvas that is to large to display on your desktop the main window will have scroll bars along its edges.

5 The Toolbar 5 Each main canvas window has its own toolbar. These tools relate to the canvas on which you are currently working, the active window. Splosh is a multi-document application. This means that you can have more than one Splosh document open at a time. Some of the functions of these buttons can also be accessed through the menu bar at the top of the screen. Save Saves the currently selected picture When you save a Splosh picture the file icon will look like this: This file can be loaded back into Splosh by either using the File Open... item from the menu bar, or by double clicking on the file icon in the Finder. The file s type is a Macintosh PICT file, and as such you will be able to import this into a number of other Macintosh applications if they support the loading of PICT files. Under Mac OS X you can also see a preview of the file when using column view in the Finder. Print Opens the Print dialogue window which then allows you to print the picture in the currently document. Undo and Redo Splosh remembers the last 5 canvas actions and gives you the chance to undo or to redo them. To undo a canvas action use the undo button, to redo use the redo button. Wipe wipes the canvas. Note, you are not given the chance to save your work when using the wipe button, but should you wish to recover your work then click on the undo button.

6 Colour Palette The colour palette contains a number of colour swatches with powerful mixing capabilities. It is a free floating window that can positioned anywhere on screen. Splosh is a multi-document application, and that means you can have more than one canvas window open at any time, but there is only one colour palette that is used for each document. 6 The colour palette contains: The Indicator Well This shows the currently selected colour and it is the largest colour well on the palette. A number of pre-defined Colour Swatches. Click on any colour well to select that colour. You can also drag a colour from a colour well into the indicator well. The Mixer Well and Mix Button. The mix button allows you to add some of the mixing colour in shown in the mixer well into the indicator well. To set the mixing colour, either; Drag the colour from a colour well into the mixer well, or Hold down the ALT key when clicking on a colour well. The mixing button adds colour to the indicator well in much the same way as you would normally mix paints together. Saver Wells On the right hand side of the Colour palette window is small palette of twelve saver wells, where you can save any special colours you may have mixed. All you need to do is drag the current colour to a saver well. To empty a saver well, Control-click the mouse on the colour.

7 Tools Palette 7 The floating Tools palette contains the painting and effects tools. Brushes There are four brushes giving various effects: the Paint Brush, the Spot Brush, the Spray Brush, and the Speckle Brush. All brushes operate in the same sort of way. Click on the tool button for the brush you want to use. When you move the cursor into the canvas area, or the area surrounding it, you will see a ring that represents the area the brush will affect. To use the brush, click and move the brush around as desired. Resizing the Brush You can resize the brush dynamically by using the Shift and Option keys on the keyboard, even while painting with the brush. This can produce some amazing effects. A single tap on the Shift key will increase the brush size by 1. If you hold the Shift key down, the size will initially increase by 1, then start to increase smoothly. The Option key operates in a similar way but reduces the size of the brush. The brush size varies between 1 and 200, and the figure refers to the diameter of the brush measured in pixels. Alternatively you can change the brush size using the bumper buttons in the Tools palette. Click on the down arrow to decrease the size of the brush and the up arrow to increase it. A mimic showing the diameter of the brush is also shown. Fill Tool The fill tool fills an area with the currently selected colour. When you click at a certain point on the colour will flow into that area, spreading out as far as the original colour continues. Actually, in diluted form it will also flow into all pixels around that main area, to try to make a smooth join with the surroundings.

8 Shape Tools The shape tools offer the facility to draw shapes quickly and effectively. They comprise the Rectangle Tool, the Ellipse Tool, the Line Tool, the Multi-line Tool, and the Curve Tool. They all operate in a similar way. When you select a shape tool, the currently selected brush also remain selected as this will be used to stroke the shape, although you can always change the brush by clicking on the one you want. As you drag out a shape, a green dotted line will indicate where the shape will be stroked. When you complete the shape it will be stroked with the currently selected brush. Let s try an example of this to see it in action. 8 Drawing a Shape Select the rectangle tool and an appropriate brush type and size. Click once on the canvas, the origin will appear, and then move the mouse. A dotted rectangle will be drawn, originating at the anchor point where you initially clicked on the canvas. Click on the canvas a second time to paint the shape to the canvas. At any time prior to fixing the shape to canvas you can change the colour from the colour palette, change the brush type and use the modifier keys (see below). Modifier keys have also been linked to each tool. Shift Hold down the Shift key and click the rectangle tool. Before you start to paint to the canvas press and hold down the Shift key. A square will now be drawn. This is known as the constrained option Alt (Option) Holding down the Alt key forces the shape to be drawn from the centre rather than from a corner. This is known as the Centred option. Alt & Shift If you hold down a combination of Alt and Shift then the shape remains regular and is drawn from its centre. During shape formation, you can always cancel the operation by using the Escape key (or by typing a full stop with the Command key down). The operation would also be cancelled if you deselect the shape tool whilst forming a shape. When a shape tool is selected, you may wish to resize the selected brush, or simply remind yourself how big it is. A quick way to do this is to press the Space bar. This will deselect the shape tool, leaving just the brush selected, which you can then adjust if desired. To get back to the shape tool, tap the Space bar again. Generally whenever there is no shape tool selected, tapping the Space bar selects the last shape tool that was selected. Tip: To draw a solid rectangle but with rounded corners, you can use the rectangle

9 tool. You just need to make sure that the brush size is fairly large compared to the size of the rectangle trace that you create with the tool; so large that there is no hole left afterwards (although, you could always fill in the hole afterwards, after deselecting the rectangle tool by clicking its button). Ellipse Tool Use the ellipse tool to create an ellipse. Operation is much like that for the rectangle tool, including the options of constrained and/or centred operation. Constrained operation keeps the ellipse constrained to be a circle. Line Tool Use the line tool to draw a line. Click to place an anchor point. Move the cursor to where you wish the line to end, and click again to finish the operation. To constrain the line to be horizontal, vertical or diagonal, hold the Shift key down. Multi-line Tool Use the multi-line tool to create a succession of lines, going from point to point. Click to place a first point. Each successive click will add a line from the previous one. For your final point (to end the operation), a double click is required instead of a single one. Each time you add a line, you can constrain the line to be horizontal or vertical or diagonal by holding down the Shift key, as with the line tool). Note that it is possible to revisit points. In fact, whenever you move the cursor near an old point, the cursor will snap to that location and the dot will be circled, to let you know that if you click now, you will be revisiting that exact location. When snapping occurs, it overrides constrained operation if you are using it. Curve Tool Use the curve tool to create a curve that smoothly passes through the points you add with successive clicks. As such, this tool is similar to the multi-line tool, but instead of using straight lines to join points, it makes a smooth curve. Snapping occurs just as with the multi-line tool. A good example of the use of this would be in making a closed loop, by eventually ending the curve at the starting point. For example, to create a rounded triangle, click once to start, click elsewhere for a second corner, click elsewhere for a third corner, then double-click back at the start point. As with the multi-line tool, you can use the Shift key to constrain a point so that the line from one point to the next is horizontal, vertical or diagonal. With this tool however, that straight line is generally not what gets drawn, the dotted line will indicate the path that the painting will follow. 9

10 Pipette Tool The pipette tool is used to select a colour from the canvas. To use the tool; Click the mouse over the colour you wish to choose. Alternatively if you keep the mouse button pressed down and move the pipette tool over the canvas, the indicator well in the colours palette constantly updates to show the colour under the tip of the pipette. Using a keyboard shortcut You can temporarily toggle to the pipette tool by holding down the Control key. When you release that key, you return to the current tool. This can be handy for quickly changing colours when using a brush or other tool. Hand Tool / Positioning the Canvas You can use the hand tool to move the canvas around, if the window does not show the whole canvas (for example if you have made the window bigger or smaller than the canvas area). Select the hand tool from the tools palette, click down to get a grip on the canvas, then drag it around as desired. You will not be allowed to drag the canvas too far out of view. When scroll bars are visible, they are another way to move the canvas around. Using a keyboard shortcut You can temporarily toggle to the hand tool by holding down the Command key. When you release that key, you return to the current tool. 10

11 The Menu Bar 11 Options The Options menu has the following items. Set Brush Cursor Colour It is possible to change the colour of the brush cursor, this sometimes allows it to be seen more clearly against certain backgrounds. Select the colour you want to use from the colour palette (lighter colours tend to look better), then choose Set Brush Cursor Colour from the Options menu. The cursor colour has no effect on your picture. All Brushes Same Size If this item is checked, it means that whenever you change to a new brush, the cursor will be the same size as it was for the last brush you used. This is the default behaviour for Splosh. But if you prefer, you can let each brush maintain its own individual size, by unchecking that menu item. This can be useful if you are doing a lot of swapping between brushes that you are using for different purposes. For example you might be using the paint brush for painting thin lines, and the spray for covering large areas.

12 Worked Example 12 Painting an Island This example illustrates a bit of fun you can have painting an island. Paint the whole canvas with a dark green. Set a lighter green and use the speckle brush in the areas you want to have the island. Don t speckle too light or too heavy (you ll have to experiment). Set a bluish colour and use the fill tool to paint the ocean outside the island. To reduce the number of tiny speckles of land mass around the main island area, slightly alter the blue you used for the ocean colour (mix in a bit of something) and use the Fill tool in the ocean again. This will tend to eat away some of the speckles. To swallow up more and more of the speckling, keep altering the blue and using the fill tool again. Of course, you don t have to use greens for the island. By using yellowy browns, you can get something that looks more like sand on a desert island or select the Undo item from the Edit menu (it will say something specific, such as Undo Paint Brush).