Paint.NET v3.36 How to Use:

Transcription

How to Use:
Paint.NET v3.36
Paint.NET is a free image manipulation program. It features an intuitive and innovative user
interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and
powerful tools. Paint.NET can accomplish many of the tasks performed by other commercial image
editing software and more.
In this tutorial:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Learning the interface
Basic tools
Using layers
Using adjustments and effects
Common image editing tasks
Additional help resources
Authored by Carl Schroedl (Spring 2009)
Quick Tips for Paint.NET v3.36
CONTENTS
Topic
Page #
Getting Started
3
Onscreen Map
4
Colors Window
5-6
Tools Window
7-9
History Window
9
Layers
10
Adjustments and Effects
11
Common Image Editing Tasks
12-14
Additional Resources
15
COPYRIGHTS
Screen shots reprinted with permission from dotPDN LLC under the Creative
Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 License.
Paint.NET is a trademark of Rick Brewster.
2
GETTING
STARTED
To open Paint.NET find the application’s icon under Start Menu -> Programs.
By default, Paint.NET loads without an image. To create a new image, click File ->
New. The New Image dialog box allows you to specify the image size and resolution
in several different units. Selecting Maintain Aspect Ratio ensures that when the
size of the image is changed, the ratio of width to length will be maintained. To open
an existing image, simply select Open or Open Recent from the File menu.
To save an image, click File -> Save or File -> Save As. Paint.NET allows you to
save your work in numerous industry-standard formats as well as its own format that
saves your separated layers and other editing-specific information. It is best to work
with the image in .pdn format, but then export it as a .jpeg or other industry standard
format when you need to share it with others.
3
ONSCREEN
MAP
The following table summarizes the functionality of the various onscreen items. Many
of the items have expanded descriptions in subsequent sections of this guide.
Item
Purpose
Tools Window
Allows for easy access to Paint.NET’s various tools
Colors Window
Selects colors for the foreground and background
Layers Window
Lets you select the order, visibility and blending of your
image’s layers
History Window
Provides unlimited undo functionality
Grid/Ruler Options
Changes settings for onscreen drawing assistants
Zoom Controls
Jumps between pre-defined zoom levels or allows you to
specify the amount.
Tool Options
Displays different options depending on the tool selected
Mouse Coordinates
Displays the position of your cursor in the units specified in
Grid/Ruler Options
Image Dimensions
Displays the dimensions of your image in the units specified
in Grid/Ruler Options
If any of the listed windows are not visible, click on the Window menu and select the
missing window.
4
COLORS
WINDOW
The Colors Window is something you will become very familiar with as you use
Paint.NET. The window offers many ways to select color. Some ways are numerical
and precise, while others are more visual and abstract. The Colors Window defaults
to a simpler display mode. Normally, the simpler display mode will suffice, but to fully
understand the Colors Window you should try expanding it by clicking on the More
button and clicking on the various controls.
The Expanded Colors Window
Item
Purpose
Color Wheel
Single-click on a color anywhere within the wheel. The color
of the point you clicked on is now the current color. You will
also notice that the other controls in the window have
changed. In Paint.NET, all of the color controls are updated
to reflect the current color regardless of which color control
you used to change it.
Color Palette
Although the color wheel allows you a lot of variation in your
color selection, many times you will find it more useful to
choose from the list of preset colors in the color palette.
Single click on any one of the presets in the color palette to
change your current color.
RGB Controls
The RGB controls allow you to quantitatively manipulate or
observe the amount that each of the primary colors of light
(Red, Green and Blue) contributes to your current color.
You can use the sliders or the text fields to input numbers
from 0 – 255 for each primary color.
A numerical representation of the entire current color is
contained in the Hex text field. The six digits can be broken
up into three groups of two. Each group of two digits
represents the primary colors in the order R-G-B. The
digits in each group of two contain the numbers 0-255, but
the numbers are in hexadecimal (digits 0-F). In most cases
you won’t need to understand this text field unless you are
working on graphics for web pages.
5
HSV Controls
The HSV controls are very similar to the RGB controls,
except the variables used to define the color are Hue,
Saturation and Value (Value can be thought of as
brightness). The hue can have a range of 0-360, whereas
saturation and value have ranges of 0-100. The numbers
can be manipulated manually or determined by the sliders.
Transparency Controls
All of the color selection methods outlined above neglect
the important visual quality of transparency. Transparency
can be adjusted to values between 0 and 255 with either
the slider or the text field, where 0 is completely transparent
and 255 is completely opaque.
Primary/Secondary
Selector
Paint.NET remembers two colors at any one time. The
purpose of having two colors will become more apparent as
you learn to use Paint.NET’s tools. You can change what
color Paint.NET remembers for the Primary color by using
the other controls on the Color Window, but to change the
Secondary color, you must first switch your focus from
Primary to Secondary. You can switch between the
Primary and Secondary colors by clicking on the Colors
Window’s dropdown menu and selecting the desired item or
by clicking on one of the two large colored squares in the
upper left hand corner of the window.
To test your understanding, you can try selecting
Secondary, choosing a new Secondary color, switching
back to Primary and selecting a color from roughly the
opposite side of the color wheel. If the
Foreground/Background Selector shows your two colors in
its overlapping squares then you have done this correctly.
Swap Colors
Click this button to swap your Primary and Secondary
colors. This is different from the Primary/Secondary
Selector.
Switch to Default
Restores your Primary color to black and your Secondary
color to white.
Add to Palette
If you want to add a color to your palette for easier access
in the future, there are three steps to follow. First, select a
color using any of the methods described above. Second,
click the Add to Palette button. Third, click on an existing
square within the palette. Paint.NET will store the primary
color you have selected into the square you chose on the
palette.
Palette Management
Three main options are presented when this button is
pressed.
The Save Current Palette As list item will save all of the
colors in your current palette to a file so that you can load
them later. To load a saved palette, just click on Palette
Management and click the desired palette’s name. The
Open Palettes Folder item opens the location where
palettes are saved. Reset to Default Palette removes any
custom palettes and restores the default color presets.
6
TOOLS
WINDOW
The Tools Window contains many useful items that will allow you to create your
masterpiece. To use a tool, you must first select it by clicking on the appropriate icon.
To find the keyboard shortcut for selecting any of these tools, simply hover your
mouse over the corresponding icon.
Selection Tools – The general rule of thumb in Paint.NET is that you cannot modify
something unless you have selected it. There are several ways to do this:
Rectangle Select Click and drag to select a rectangular area of your image. For
more precise selection, mind your mouse coordinates or turn on rulers or grids. To
select a perfectly square area, hold down Shift while you drag your mouse.
Lasso Select Click and drag your mouse in an arc to select an irregularlyshaped region. It can take some practice to accurately select an area.
Ellipse Select Click and drag to select an elliptical region. To select a perfectly
circular region, hold down Shift while you drag the mouse.
Magic Wand Select Click on an area of similar color and the magic wand will
select all pixels within a certain tolerance for that color. To reduce the range of colors
Paint.NET selects, reduce the tolerance on the Tool Options. To increase the range
of colors, increase the tolerance. Another helpful Tool Option is Flood Mode.
Contiguous Flood Mode will select all of the desired color range near where you click
the magic wand. By contrast, Global Flood Mode will select all regions of the image
that fall within the color tolerance.
To select multiple areas on an image, you can hold down the Ctrl key as you make
each selection. You can even change selection tools in between!
As you switched through the different selection tools, you may have noticed the
Selection Mode Tool Option appear. Changing this option can help you to select
areas based on already selected regions. The options’ names are fairly intuitive. In
most cases the default Replace should suffice, but you should try experimenting with
the others in case they ever do come in handy.
Fill Tools – The fill tools add color to regions of your image canvas. When leftclicking, Fill Tools cause a region to become the color of the primary color. When
right-clicking, Fill Tools will shade a region the color of the Secondary color. Fill tools
only color the region that has been selected by the user, or, if no region has been
selected, the fill tools operate as though the entire canvas were selected. To make it
easier to learn how to use the Fill Tools, deselect by clicking on the menu Edit ->
Deselect.
Paint Bucket Click on a region of similarly colored pixels to paint them all the
color of the Color Window’s Primary color. Adjust the Tolerance Tool Option to vary
the size of the region that will be repainted.
Paintbrush This tool allows you to freehand draw. Wherever you click, a small
blot of your Primary Color will appear within a small radius of your mouse pointer.
You can specify the radius of this blot by changing the Brush Width Tool Option.
Pencil This tool is very similar to the Paintbrush, but it lacks a Brush Width
option. It is good for adding small details to an image quickly.
7
Clone StampTo select your source pixels, hold down the control key and left
click on any area of your image. Release the control key, move your cursor to a
different location on the image, and proceed to click and drag your cursor around.
You should notice that when you move your mouse two circles move along with it.
The circle that does not contain the crosshair cursor is the source you selected for
your clone stamp. Pixels are copied from the source circle and drawn to the target
circle (the one with crosshairs).
Recolor This tool is similar to the Clone Stamp tool, but it draws colors to the
target circle selectively. Control-click to select your source. You can also change the
source and output colors by switching your Primary and Secondary colors. Move your
cursor to a different position and then click and drag to draw new pixels. You can
adjust the range of colors that are replaced by changing the Tolerance Tool Option.
Eraser Clicking on the canvas makes any pixels within a specified radius of the
cursor transparent. To specify the radius, change the Brush Width Tool Option
Gradient Clicking and dragging with the gradient tool fills your canvas with a
continually varying color spectrum between your Primary and Secondary Colors. To
change the direction of the color fade, try right-clicking and dragging. To change the
pattern of your gradient, switch between any of the first 5 tool options. Clicking on the
next tool option lets you switch between color mode and transparency mode. The
default color mode makes the continuous variation depend on the Primary and
Secondary colors, whereas the Transparent mode makes the variation depend on 0 to
255 alpha (transparent -> opaque). To finalize your gradient, press the enter key.
Translational Tools – These tools move and scale pixels or selections.
Move Selected Pixels Once you have created a selection on a group of pixels
with any of the selection methods, you may move them to another location on the
image canvas by clicking on them and dragging when this tool is selected. You can
also scale the selected pixels in the x or y directions by clicking and dragging the
rectangular sizing handles on the selection border. Similarly, you can scale the
selected pixels in the x and y directions simultaneously by clicking and dragging the
circular sizing handles. You can maintain the aspect ratio of the selected pixels while
scaling if you hold down shift while using the circular selection handles.
Move Selection You can perform any of the actions described above in Move
Selected Pixels to the selection area itself, without scaling and/or moving the pixels
within the selection. After selecting an area on the image canvas using any of the
Selection Tools, you may translate and/or scale the selection using the sizing handles
described above.
Text Tool Click your cursor on some location on your canvas. You needn’t be
precise as to where your text begins as you can always move it around after you have
typed. Type whatever you desire. Click and drag the box with multi-directional arrows
to position your text on the canvas. Use the Font tool option to pick any font installed
on your computer. Use the next tool option to change the font size. The dropdown
menu next to the font size selector allows you to change whether or not Paint.NET
performs smoothing operations on your text, or if it leaves it sharply defined. The Tool
Options region also sports some self-explanatory text formatting options. The Fill
Tool Option allows you to pick 50+ ways to fill your typed text. All methods of filling
your text rely on your Primary and Secondary Colors.
8
Line/Curve Tool Clicking and dragging with the line tool creates a straight line
between the point you clicked and the point at which you released the mouse button.
If you hold down shift while dragging, it will restrict the line’s angle to multiples of 15°.
You can change the line’s color by changing your Primary Color. Once you have
drawn the line, four adjustable waypoints will appear. You can drag the waypoints
around the canvas to adjust the line’s path. The Tool Options for the text tool allow
you to adjust the width, pattern (dotted vs. undotted), fill pattern, and lets you add
arrow heads to your line. To change the background of your fill pattern, change your
Secondary Color. Press the enter key or click elsewhere on the canvas to finalize
your line’s path and appearance.
Shape Tools This group of tools aids you in the construction of common shapes that
would take you a long time to create using Paint.NET’s other tools. As with the fill
tools, the Primary and Secondary colors can be effectively swapped by right-clicking
instead of left-clicking.
Rectangle Tool Click and drag your cursor to form a rectangle. Hold down the
shift key while dragging to create a square. To change the rectangle’s border color,
switch your Primary color. The default method of drawing the rectangle is to draw a
border only. By switching the Draw Method (
) in Tool Options you can draw the
border and a filled interior, or a border-less filled interior. All other tool options for the
Rectangle Tool are the same as the Line/Curve Tool.
Rounded Rectangle Tool rounded corners.
Functions the same as the Rectangle tool but draws
Ellipse Tool Functions similar to the Rectangle Tool. Hold down shift while
clicking and dragging to create a circle.
Freeform Shape Tool Clicking and dragging causes the shape’s outline to follow
the path of your cursor. This tool draws in the same way that the Lasso Selection
Tool selects.
HISTORY
WINDOW
As you tried out the various tools above you probably
noticed items being added to the History Window. Every
time you change something about an image, Paint.NET
stores a copy of what the image looked like beforehand.
To go back one step, all you need to do is click the undo
arrow ( ). If you decide that you want to keep your
changes, you can redo what you have undone by clicking
the redo arrow ( ). Clicking
or
respectively
undoes or redoes all actions performed since you opened
the image. Alternatively, you may also click on items in
the history list to roll back to a previous state.
9
LAYERS
WINDOW
So far you’ve been experimenting with various tools,
and colors in one layer. Paint.NET allows you to
extend this functionality into multiple layers. Layers
are the indispensible features that make computer
image manipulation so attractive. Layers contain
separate entities that do not directly affect one
another. To select any layer, simply left click on it in
the Layers Window. The top layer is the front most in
your image. It may help you to think of a multi-layered
image as a stack of glass sheets that you add paint to.
The only difference is that there’s much less mess!
Add a new layerClicking here adds a new layer
above your currently selected layer. Additional layers do not contain a fill color (i.e.
they are transparent) by default. You can use any of the tools that you want on this
new layer.
Delete LayerRemoves the selected layer. You can undo this action at a later
time if necessary.
Duplicate Layer Creates a copy of the currently selected layer and inserts it
above the current layer. Be cautious; the name of the layer is duplicated as well! You
may want to modify the layer’s name in the Layer Properties before continuing (see
below).
Layer Properties Clicking this icon
opens a new window that allows you to
configure the 4 properties of a layer.
Name: Call your layer something
useful.
Visible: Hides or displays your
layer. You can also quickly
switch this by checking the boxes
in the main Layers Window.
Blending Mode: This dropdown
lets you pick from more than 10
different modes. Usually Normal
mode will do, but you can experiment to see for yourself.
Opacity: Changing a layer’s opacity is like uniformly changing the alpha
component of every color on your layer. You can type in numerical values of
0-255 or just move the slider around until the desired overall effect is achieved.
Merge Layer Down This flattens two layers into one. You can undo this action
later, but nevertheless proceed with caution.
Move Layer Up/Down -
Moves currently selected layer higher or lower.
10
ADJUSTMENTS AND
EFFECTS
Adjustments
Although the tools and layers provide
innumerable editing options, a few
operations don’t need to be performed with
a cursor. These operations are stored in the
Adjustments menu. The Adjustments are
performed on the current selection or, if
nothing is selected, the entire layer. A few
of the more advanced features in the
Adjustments menu won’t be of use to the
average user. Advanced adjustments will
only be summarized in brief.
Auto Level Paint.NET will try to bring
an overly dark or bright image back to within normal range.
Black and White -
Removes color.
Brightness / ContrastClicking on this item brings up a new window. Use the
sliders and/or the text fields to adjust these attributes of your selection.
Curves Opens a new window with a graph of Luminosity. Click on the line to
create new waypoints. Drag the waypoints around to affect the luminosity. You can
switch to the RGB curves by changing the dropdown selection in the Curves Window.
The RGB curves can be manipulated in the same way as the Luminosity curves.
Hue/Saturation Opens a window where you can vary three of the properties of the
selected pixels. Pushing
resets the properties to their default values.
Invert Colors Levels intensity.
Inverts the color of your selection.
Allows you to map the intensity of an input color to a specified output
Posterize Makes your picture look like a retro poster by reducing the number of
colors it can display.
Sepia Another nostalgia adjustment. This essentially converts your image to
black and white and then applies a brown tint.
Effects
Paint.NET includes over 25 effects that you can apply to regions of your image. The
Effects are varied and many. Additional effects are developed by members of the
Paint.NET community and many are available to download for free. Examples of
effects include fire rendering, reflections, image map maker (similar to Adobe
Photoshop’s “Slices”) and many more. For additional effects and plug-ins
visit: http://www.getpaint.net/redirect/plugins.html . Full explanation of the effects is
not within the scope of this guide. Some common effects are discussed You can
learn about the effects by experimentation or by visiting Paint.NET’s Help menu.
11
COMMON
IMAGE
EDITING
TASKS
Photo Touch-Ups
Not many people can get professional-quality photos on the
first shot. Luckily, there’s a lot you can do in Paint.NET to
correct most photo mishaps.
Say that your raw photo subject has is upside down, has red
eye, and a blemish. We can fix it!
First let’s get the subject right side up. Click Image -> Flip
Horizontal. Now we’ll take care of those red eyes. First
select both of the reddened areas. The Magic Wand will
probably be useful, but you may find it necessary to use
other selection tools as well. In this photo, the Magic Wand
(@ 50% Tolerance) and the Ellipse tool were used to select
the subject’s red pupils. Once the pupils are selected, go to
Effects -> Photo -> Red Eye Removal. Experiment with
the sliders until the desired effect is achieved. Once you are
satisfied, click Okay.
Now we’ll focus on the slight blemish under the subject’s
nose. Zoom in on the region by using the zoom buttons in
the toolbar, or by scrolling while holding down the Ctrl key.
Once you have zoomed in on the red area, use the Clone
Stamp tool to erase the blemish. Hold down the Ctrl key
while clicking on a fleshy patch of skin to set the clone
stamp’s source. Then click and drag around on the blemish
to replace it with varied skin-colored pixels.
Separating Subject and Background
One of the most fun features of this program is being able to put people or objects into
extraordinary contexts that would be difficult, expensive, dangerous, or outright
impossible to achieve otherwise.
Let’s pretend we’re the coordinator of an arctic trip and we want to send out a funny
photo to remind people of the upcoming departure date. We want to put a man in
naught but his bathing suit in a frigid landscape. First we find source images for the
man in the bathing suit and the arctic background.
12
Before we begin we should take into account the shadows
and lighting of the source images. We notice that the light
sources of the photos are positioned opposite one another.
To account for this, we open up the bathing suit image and
flip it by clicking Image -> Flip Horizontal. Luckily for us,
the subject in the arctic image won’t cast a shadow, so we
can simply ignore the shadow of the man with the bathing
suit when we copy him to the arctic scene. Now we are
ready to remove the man from the comfort of his 80° F
paradise. We will remove the background element from
the source image and little-by-little, using various selection
methods, whittle the image down to the man alone in his
bathing suit. In some instances, selecting more and more
of the subject may be useful, but we will proceed with a
background removal technique. If there are large
uniformly-colored regions in the image that do not share
the colors on the subject, it is usually best to select that
region using the Magic Wand. The sky is a good example
of this. You can select broad regions and then remove
them by pressing the Delete key.
Unfortunately, there will inevitably be some large swaths of
canvas occupied by colors similar to those on your subject.
The sand and the man’s legs are similarly colored. Here,
using tools like Rectangle Select is a prudent way to start.
Use Rectangle Select to get big chunks of sand (or any
leftover water) and push the Delete Key to remove them.
Now you can go in with the Magic Wand set to low
Tolerance values. If the Wand’s selection doesn’t include
any of the subject that you will include in the final photo
delete it. Be careful not to delete parts of the subject or
your work will look shoddy. If it does happen, don’t be
afraid to use the History Window to your advantage.
Concentrate on removing pixels at the border between the
subject and his background.
Once you have removed the background pixels adjacent to
the subject, you can remove the non-adjacent pixels using
the Eraser or manual selection tools like Rectangle or
Lasso. Once you have isolated your subject, select the
background with the Magic Wand. Currently you are
selecting everything but your subject. To select the
subject itself, click Edit->Invert Selection. You can cut
your subject using Ctrl+X or Edit->Cut, but before you do
that you should prepare your frigid background for the
warm-weather visitor. Open the background image by
pressing Ctrl+X or by clicking File->Open. Create a new
layer on top of the arctic image. Switch back to your
subject image by clicking on the preview thumbnails in the
upper right hand corner of the window or by pressing
Ctrl+Page Up or Ctrl+Page Down. Cut your subject from
his image. Switch back to the arctic scene and paste him
onto the new layer.
13
Scaling handles should appear around the man. Click in the middle and drag him to
the desired location. Try to pick a location where the lighting on the man matches that
of the background. Now scale the subject down to be comparable in size to the other
person in the picture. Once you have finished translating and scaling hit enter to finish
the picture.
Of course the picture alone won’t carry the entire desired message; we need to add
some text to complete the idea. Add a new layer. Name it “Text” to distinguish it from
the others. Add the text, pick a font and position it attractively on the canvas. If you
like what you see, save the image in an industry-standard format and fire up your
email client to show your friends!
14
ADDITIONAL
RESOURCES
You can obtain more tutorials, assistance, technical support, plug-ins, effects, and
program updates by visiting Paint.NET’s website:
http://www.getpaint.net
The official Paint.NET community can be found at:
http://paintdotnet.forumer.com/index.php
15

Paint.NET v3.36 How to Use:

Transcription

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