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4.2.17 Painttool settings

The painttool settings offer to you all options for and the possibility to change among the different painting tools.

Use "Tool" to switch between the painttool to use for the current image/project. The options, shortcuts and more of interest for the respective painttools are as follows beneath. A rule for most painting tools is that you add paint with the left mouse button and erase with the right mouse button. Thus, this is not repeated below.

4.2.17.1 Freehand (linked)

This tool draws a contiguous line, using your current brush. Especially if using big brushes during fast moves "edges" may appear. To overcome them, you may want to increase the number of "maximum queued mouse-steps" in the settings to avoid this problem.

4.2.17.2 Freehand (unlinked)

This tool draw the current brush everywhere the system has notified fxPAINT about mouse activity. As the mouspointer, which is not always visible as such, doesn't move completly smooth but jumps around a lot, this does normally not create contiguous lines but instead softly touch the paint layer. This is especially useful in conjunction with the Pyro Plugin.

4.2.17.3 Freehand (spread)

Like the name already suggests, this "sprays" the brush randomly on the paint layer. The following options are available:

Points
This determins the number of brush drawings per movement.

X- and Y-offset
Determines the maximum offset of the sprayed brushes from the actual painting coordinates.

4.2.17.4 Line

There are no options or shortcuts available for this tool.

4.2.17.5 Circle (empty)

This tool draws an empty circle with the current brush. If you want to really create a circle and not an ellipse, press the shift-key before starting to draw and keep it pressed until after done drawing.

4.2.17.6 Circle (filled)

This tool draws a filled circle. Shortcut see "Circle (empty)".

4.2.17.7 Circle (gradient)

This tool draws a gradient-filled circle. Shortcut see "Circle (empty)".

4.2.17.8 Smear (not undoable)

With this tool it is possible to "smear" around in the project/image. The "finger" used for this is the currently selected brush. In order to work "correctly" the drawing layer has to be cleared. Attention: This operation is not undoable.

4.2.17.9 Box (empty)

This tool draws an empty rectangle using the current brush. If you want to create a quadrangle and not a general rectangle, press the shift-key before starting to draw and keep it pressed until after done drawing.

4.2.17.10 Box (filled)

This tool draws a filled box. Shortcut, see "Box (empty)".

4.2.17.11 Box (gradient)

This tool draws a box filled with an intensity gradient. Shortcut, see "Box (empty)". Additionally the following options are available:

Kind
Choose between (from left to right) between horizontal, vertical, diagonal, vertically or horizontally centered gradient types:

From, To
Determines the beginning- and endintensities for the filling gradient,

Exchange
Exchanges the "From" and "To"-values.

4.2.17.12 Gradient tool

The gradient tool fills the whole layer with a selectable gradient "pattern" and its repetition. All gradients additionaly can be freely positioned and rotated and thus are predestined for soft fades. This tool comes to its full potential when used along with the paintmode "Gradient".

The following options are available:

Kind
The gradient types linear, bilinear, radial and conical are available. From left to right, with drawing always starting at the image's center on to the lower right corner, gives you the following results:

Repetition
By default all pixels beyond the gradient are either filled with full or no intensity. This repetition scheme can be changed and used for special effects, though.

Available are the modes "None" (standard), "Simple" and "Wavelike" - as can be seen in below illustration from left to right.

4.2.17.13 Polygon (unfilled)

With this tool you can draw unfilled polygons, using the current brush for the lines. You always quit the polygon mode by pressing the opposite mouse button than you started with.

Example: You start with the left mousebutton, add all your points by pressing the left mousebutton at the respective places and, after having drawn the last line, quit by pressing the right mousebutton.

4.2.17.14 Polygon (filled)

See "Polygon (unfilled)". This tool thus creates a filled polygon.

4.2.17.15 Béziercurve

This tool draws a béziercurve.

4.2.17.16 Magic stick

The magic stick selects pixels of the base image, that are equal or similiar in color within definable limits, either in its surrounding or the in whole image.

The following options are available:

Mode
Here you have the choice between "regional" and "same color". This settings determines which pixels are selected. "Regional" limits the selection of pixels to the surrounding of the pixel you clicked on, "same color" thus selects all pixels that are considered "equal".

The following illustration will make this clearer:

The leftmost picture is the original. In the subsequent pictures the magic stick has been used on the center of the image, once (middle) with mode "Regional" and the other time (right) with "same color".

R, G, B, All
These settings determine the maximum possible tolerance within which the color of a pixel is still considered "equal" to the color of the originally selected pixel. "All" sets all tolerances at once.

Shortcuts
In order to make use of the magic stick in its most flexible way, you can replace, expand and substract your selection. If you don't keep any key pressed, the magic stick will generally replace any other selection. Keeping pressed the "Alt"-key adds, keeping the "Shift"-key substracts the new selection from the already existant selection or drawing.

4.2.17.17 Fill

This tool works similiar to the Magic stick but does generally add and fill areas of the exact same intensity on the draw layer.

4.2.17.18 Cut

This is not really a drawing tool. It's purpose is to cut out rectangular areas of an image and create a new image/project with the date contained. Here again you can use the "Shift"-key to get a quadrangle.


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