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- Stencil (Effect Menu)
-
- A Stencil allows you to protect certain areas of an image from being erased
- or painted on. Stencils are created by defining a particular area to be
- protected. This can be done in either of two methods (or even a combination
- of the two):
-
- 1. By specific color
-
- 2. By area
-
-
- DEFINING A STENCIL AREA BY SPECIFIC COLOR
-
-
- MAKE The Stencil Requester allows you to select the colors you would
- (~) like to lock. Locked colors can not be painted on, erased or
- picked up as part of a brush.
-
- SEE -> `MakeStencil.pic`
- `MakeStencilHAM.pic`
-
- DEMONSTRATION AVAILABLE -> `Stencil_Standard.ademo`
-
- In all non-HAM modes, the Stencil Requester displays all of the
- colors in your current palette for you to choose from. Just
- click on the color that you want protected and a black marker
- will appear to the right of the selected color box.
-
- Clicking on INVERT will reverse the settings of the Stencil; the
- colors you have NOT selected will become protected. The CLEAR
- button will deselect all colors from the Stencil requester. Once
- you have decided what colors you want to protect, selecting MAKE
- creates a working Stencil. The letter "S" will appear in the
- menubar to indicate that the Stencil Mode is active. The stencil
- can then be toggled on and off using the ACCENT key below the
- ESC key.
-
-
- The SHOW button lets you see the stencil areas on the screen.
- This is done by dimming the entire painting area. The areas that
- are currently defined within the stencil will be highlighted.
- This lets you see what areas are affected by your color
- selections so that you can make changes if necessary. If a
- it appears that your stencil does not cover enough area, simply
- use the left button to click or drag over additional colors.
- Click the right button over a color to remove it from the
- stencil.
-
- NOTE: You may have to reselect the SHOW button in order
- to display the changes you have made.
-
-
- In HAM modes, the palette is not displayed within the Stencil
- Requester. You must select colors directly from the screen. This
- is done using the left buttons. Click directly on a screen color
- to lock it. A color box will display the color that your pointer
- clicked. You can continue doing this for as many other
- colors as necessary.
-
- DEMONSTRATION AVAILABLE -> `Stencil_HAM.ademo`
-
- Tolerance lets you set the closeness of colors. In other words
- colors that are similar to the picked color will also be included
- in the stencil. This is very useful for gradient areas. A low
- tolerance value requires that colors be very similar in order to
- be included as part of the stencil. High tolerance values let
- you include a wider variety of colors. Tolerance can range from
-
- 0 to 48
-
- Fine Tune, is used to add or subtract single colors from a
- HAM stencil without having to change tolerance level. Only
- the color you click on will be added or subtracted from the
- stencil -- the tolerance level will be ignored. Click with
- the right button to subtract colors & use the left button
- to add stencil colors.
-
-
- REMAKE When a Stencil is active, any colors you add onto the picture are
- independent from those that are locked in the Stencil. This
- means that if a new color is added to the picture it may not be
- protected even if it was selected in the Stencil requester.
- Selecting Remake from the Stencil requester will lock any newly
- applied colors that match the current stencil colors.
-
-
- PAINT ON/OFF This option activates or deactivates "Stencil Painting"
- (CTRL s) mode. In Stencil Painting mode, you can define a stencil by area
- rather than color. This is done by painting a stencil using any
- of the standard drawing tools and built-in brushes (i.e. Filled
- or Unfilled Line, Circle, Rectangle or Polygon, Airbrush, Brush
- and even the Fill tool). Creating a stencil in this mode is
- really simple. When Stencil Paint is active, a lowercase "s" will
- appear in the menubar and the entire painting screen will become
- dimmed. As you paint with a tool, such as the Freehand Line, a
- stencil is defined. This is indicated by the painted area
- becoming highlighted. Painting with the left button draws a
- stencil, while painting with the right button erases the stencil.
-
- To use the stencil, select the Paint ON/OFF option again or use
- its keyboard equivalent, Ctrl-S.
-
- NOTE: If you defined a previous stencil using the Stencil
- Requester, it will be displayed when you enter
- Stencil Paint mode. By using Stencil Paint, you can
- further define the coverage of the stencil.
-
-
- REVERSE Performs the same function as selecting the Invert option in the
- Stencil requester (color settings for the Stencil are reversed;
- instead of the color you picked being protected, the colors that
- you did NOT pick become protected).
-
- ON/OFF Retains the information for a current Stencil, but allows you to
- toggle from active to inactive so that you can paint over
- protected colors. The keyboard equivalent is the ACCENT key
- below the ESC key.
-
- FREE ON/OFF will make a Stencil active or inactive but keeps the Stencil
- information in memory. FREE completely deletes a Stencil and
- releases the memory that it takes up.
-
- LOAD Brings up a standard Load requester to allow you to load a saved
- Stencil. Stencils are loaded as full screen overlays and protect
- the areas that were defined when they were originally created.
- In other words, the shape of the stencil is used rather than the
- colors that were originally defined for it.
-
-
- SAVE Allows you to save a Stencil just like you would a Brush or
- Picture. You can change the colors that make up a Stencil at any
- time since the shape rather than the color information of the
- Stencil is saved.
-
- SEE -> `Load Picture` for details on how to use the file requester.
- `Lock FG` for another Stencil method.
-
-
-