Copyright: Copyright 2000 Cosmi


Help Contents
Contents

INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS

CD-ROM Installation

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Operating System

Disk Space

Hardware

GENERAL INFORMATION

Ease of use

General Caution

Supported Formats

IMAGE SIZE AND CURSOR LOCATION

Speed Buttons

Sliders

EDITOR FEATURES

Groups

Photo Tab

Quality Tab

Color Tab

Effects Tab

Fun Effects

Scanning

Photo Album

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Team Members

BONUS

Freebies just for you

SUPPORT

Our proud tradition of support

Voice

E-mail

Fax

Internet


CD-ROM Installation

USING WINDOWS 95 OR HIGHER


USING WINDOWS 95 OR HIGHER

1.  	Place the CD into your CD-ROM drive.

2. 	In the start-up screen click on START, then click on RUN.

3.  	Type in D:\CDSETUP and press Enter. (If your CD-ROM drive is not D, then change it to the letter associated with your CD-ROM drive.)

4.  	Follow any instructions that appear on the screen.


Operating System

Your computer must have Microsoft Windows 95 or a higher version of this operating system.


Disk Space

This program requires approximately 25 megabytes of space on your hard drive.


Hardware

 A mouse or pointing device is required.

To print out any items you create or save in this program, you must have a printer. Although the program will operate with dot matrix printers, we recommend ink jet or laser printers for the best results. If you wish to produce items in color, you must have a color printer.

• SPECIAL NOTICE: When you purchased your printer, you also installed printer software. This software is also known as a "printer driver." (It is possible that you didn't have to do this manually if you have Windows 95 or 98 "plug and play," nevertheless your system did have printer software installed automatically.) In most cases printer drivers are updated on a regular basis. On some occasions, the software provided with printers has been changed to fix "bugs" or to improve performance. Please be sure that you have the latest printer drivers for your printer.

 To access our web site you must have a modem and a connection to the Internet.


Ease of use

Team COSMI has made every effort to make this program as simple and easy as possible to use.

Please take a few moments to familiarize yourself with a few of the controls in the program. For traditionalists, program functions can be reached by using the appropriate menus.


General Caution

Some of the effects in this program can consume huge amounts of computing power. This is normal for any graphics intensive program. You may wish NOT to run multiple concurrent tasks on your machine.


Supported Formats

Photo Editor Plus supports the following image types:

BMP - Bitmap; GIF - CompuServe GIF; JPG - Joint Picture Experts Group; PCX - PC Paint; PNG- Portable graphics; TIF - Targeted Image Format;
PCD - Kodak™ Photo CD and TGA - Targa.


IMAGE SIZE AND CURSOR LOCATION

The status bars on the bottom of the screen show the image size and current cursor location:


Speed Buttons

You may find it easier to access functions by using the speed buttons as shown below:

Different speed buttons appear based on which part of the program you are using.   A small down arrow is located next to many of the speed buttons.

Clicking on the small down arrow shows you the other choices available for that speed button:

If there is no small arrow to the right of a speed button, clicking that button immediately takes the action specified. For example, the Convert to Gray button, which changes a color image to gray scale, does not have a down arrow next to it. So, as soon as you click it, the image will be converted to gray:


Sliders

Many program functions are completed through the use of a slider. For example, if you want to change lighting, and select this choice, you will reset the lighting using two sliders:

These sliders are similar to volume controls. When set exactly in the center, this means NO change from the original. When moving to the left of the center, you decrease the property. For example, to decrease the brightness of an image, move the slider to the left of the center:

The opposite, moving to the right of the center, increases the property.

As soon as you move the slider, the preview of the images shows you the change you made. If you have changed several times and want to return to the last setting, you should click the Revert (think of it as UNDO) button:

You can also revert, or undo your changes, on the EDIT menu:

After Saving or Closing, however, you cannot undo changes. You may also redo your changes from the Edit menu. Think of redo as a double undo.

If you decide to see SAMPLES, four examples showing greater amounts of the effects are shown so that you see examples of the use of each effect.

As you can see, the illustration above shows a very small, small, large and very large application of the 'border' effect. The samples can be used to decide if you wish to use the effect at all.

If you uncheck Enable Samples, there will be an increase in program speed, but no samples.


Groups

Photo Editor Plus is separated into the following different related groups of functions.


Photo Tab

The Photo Tab provides the following functions:

•	Open

•	Save As

•	Print

•	Zoom In

•	Zoom Out

•	Zoom To

•	Orientation

More:

OPEN

SAVE AS

PRINT

ZOOM

ORIENTATION


OPEN

Allows you to open a digital image file that you already have or scan an image from any Windows supported scanner.


SAVE AS

Allows you to save an image under a different name or as a different type of image.


PRINT

Allows you to print an image. You may also print preview or change printers or print settings.


ZOOM

Zooms in or out. The Zoom To control allows you to pick exact percentages, or to return to the original size.


ORIENTATION

Allows you to flip or move an image an arbitrary number of degrees or upside down for example.


Quality Tab

The functions on the Quality Tab perform the following basic manipulations and effects on images:

More:

AUTO CONTRAST

GAMMA CORRECT

LIGHTING

SHARPNESS


AUTO CONTRAST

Use this control to try to correct an image if it is muddy, or, if the dark areas are not sufficiently dark in contrast to light areas. Feel free to experiment with the control.  TIP:  If you want to make changes to an image, make a copy of the file, and keep the original on a diskette, zip disk or other backup device. If you "ruin" the picture by clicking on too many buttons, no harm done! Just restore your backup. Remember that you can also "undo" changes that you make until you save the file.


GAMMA CORRECT

Use this control if you have an image that is under or over exposed and you wish to bring out more depth, or less depth of saturation of color. Like any other control, you can experiment, undo, or try your changes on a copy of the file.


LIGHTING

Lighting allows you to change the brightness and contrast of images. Like any other control, you can experiment, undo, or try your changes on a copy of the file.


SHARPNESS

The sharpening filter allows you to sharpen an image, which can result in straighter lines and sharper transitions. Sharpening combines pixels that are similar and near together. You can also blur the image. Like any other control, you can experiment, undo, or try your changes on a copy of the file.


Color Tab

The Color Tab allows you to change colors in an image as follows:

More:

CONVERT TO GRAY

INVERT COLORS

COLOR ADJUST

HUE/SATURATION


CONVERT TO GRAY

This control gray scales an image by changing colors to shades of gray. This effect creates a 24-bit grayscale image. One time that you may wish to use this control is when you will be printing color images on a black and white printer. The various illustrations in this manual were converted to grayscale before printing. The conversion results in a better, clearer representation of the different variations in color shown in black and white.


INVERT COLORS

If you scan a film negative, you will have to invert the colors to be able to work with the image in original color. You will use this control often if you are scanning negatives.


COLOR ADJUST

This control allows you to change the red, green and blue values in the image as a whole. There are several reasons to use this control, one of them being color bias of commercial films.


HUE/SATURATION

The best way to explain this control is that saturation determines how blue each blue is, etc.  At one extreme, no saturation, you have a black and white image. At the other extreme, every blue is 100% blue, etc. You may wish to use this control to create a "picture post card" effect with eye popping green grass.


Effects Tab

The Effects Tab provides the following quick and easy effects that add dramatic effects to your images:

The best way to understand these effects is to take different photos and try them. Enjoy!

In most cases, very small amounts of effects are best as extremes result in distortions. However, there may be times when you wish to distort some or all aspects of an image.

More:

BORDER FADE

COLOR BLEED

EXTRUDE

MOSAIC

MOTION

NOISE

OIL PAINT


BORDER FADE

Creates a false border, 'framing' a picture by masking the border area with variable thickness. You select the amount of the border.


COLOR BLEED

Mixes together colors, similar to dropping a small amount of water on a water color picture. (This does NOT refer to color bleeds to edges.)


EXTRUDE

Pixilates an image, and in its extreme setting results in a 'grid' showing depths of primary colors.


MOSAIC

Best described as a 'stained glass' effect. Can also be thought of as a jigsaw puzzle creation tool, although the pieces are rounded.


MOTION

Simulates motion by stretching and deforming an image to give the impression of side-to-side movement. Select the angle and amount of motion. Looks great with racecars and can be fun with a baby carriage!


NOISE

Adds small speckles of dirt to the image. This is useful for aging or weathering an image. Use in small amounts.


OIL PAINT

Replaces pixels of color with brush strokes and less blending of colors. Gives the effect of painting over an image.


Fun Effects

If you've been in a carnival's Fun House, then you will understand these effects. All fun effects distort images in amusing ways. These effects are particularly useful for faces. The effects are as follows:

More:

CIRCULAR

GLOW-IN-THE-DARK

JIGGLE

PINCH HOLE

WAVE

WHIRLPOOL


CIRCULAR

The circular effect bends an entire image into a circle by moving the entire image from a left-to-right orientation to an inside-to-outside circular effect, placing your flat image on an apple and then cutting off the peel in a circle. The peel is then straightened to create the effect.  Fun!


GLOW-IN-THE-DARK

Converts light colors to black and darker colors into glow-in-the-dark primary colors.  You can create a 'neon sign' effect.


JIGGLE

This allows you to change the horizontal and vertical hold of an image, similar to a television.


PINCH HOLE

This pushes out a hole of a variable size from the middle of the image. Like shoving a ring through a tablecloth or watching an animation of a black hole swallowing matter, a 'pinch' appears. This is a very fun effect.


WAVE

Introduces an ocean wave. In its lowest settings, a small amount of change occurs. The image is similar to a multi-color chalk drawing having an eraser pushed over it. In higher settings, the image spins and curls as if it were riding on a wave.


WHIRLPOOL

This gives the effect of an image going down a drain.


Scanning

You may scan in an image from any Windows compatible scanner through the FILE OPEN speed button or FILE OPEN menu.


Photo Album

Our Photo Album program allows you to store your precious memories. You may create multiple albums, as many as you need.

More:

PRELIMINARY STEPS

CREATING, DELETING OR RENAMING ALBUMS

ADDING PHOTOS

ALBUM AND DETAIL VIEW

SORTING

MODIFYING IMAGES IN ALBUMS

RIGHT CLICK MENU

LIBRARY


PRELIMINARY STEPS

There are two preliminary steps that you should take before creating your albums. First, add the names of the photographers that have taken the images that you will be storing in your album. This is accessed from the FILE menu, Edit Author list:

After selecting Edit Author List, enter the names of the photographers you wish to add:

Notice that the menu also provides an item for editing the source list. This allows you to specify sources of images, from example specific camera or camera and lens combinations.


CREATING, DELETING OR RENAMING ALBUMS

To begin use of our photo album and catalog, you must first create an album or albums. Use clear and easy-to-remember names. To create a new album, click on the Albums Tab on the extreme left center of the Photo Album, and then click on Add. You will then be able to enter the new album name. Notice that you can clear, rename or delete albums, but be sure that you wish to permanently erase an entry before deleting!


ADDING PHOTOS

You are now ready to add pictures to albums. There are four easy steps.  First, click on Add Photo:

As you remember, we previously added both sources and authors. The items we added there will be shown when selecting the source and author.

After completing the basic information, you will be automatically prompted for a destination for the photo.

If you wish, you may then use our category selection to select the subjects applicable to the photos. Note that you can select multiple categories.

Complete the process to create your albums.


ALBUM AND DETAIL VIEW

You will see a display similar to the following when you have added images into an album:

Notice that there are two tabs on the top of the album. When you click on detail view, you then see details on each picture as you click through them:


SORTING

You may choose to sort your libraries. A different sort can be used for each library. The following sorting functions are supported:


MODIFYING IMAGES IN ALBUMS

You may modify images in photo albums through our photo editor. Simply click the modify button, and the current selected photo will be opened in the editor:


RIGHT CLICK MENU

Most of the functions related to images are available by right clicking on an image:


LIBRARY

If you have related albums, you may place albums into different libraries by using the FILE, Library commands:

We have included an 'image pack' with our software to allow you to experiment with different types of images.

To access the images, double click on the IMAGES.ZIP file.  The images are stored in a compressed (or zipped) format.  Most persons will have a 'zip' archive program already installed.  If you do not have a zip program, you may obtain one from shareware and freeware sites on the web, such as www.hotfiles.com.


Team Members

Team COSMI, the only fully integrated software developer and publisher in the budget software industry, wishes to give special thanks to team members who made special contributions to this program:

Vice President of Publishing: Herb Kraft

Director of Research and Development: Chris Marinacci

Project Programmer: Bill Weber

In-house Programming: Brian Snofsky

Documentation Manager: Kathryn Berlfein


Freebies just for you

For exclusive free pictures, galleries of examples and more program enhancements, visit our special support area for Photo Browser and Editor:

http://www.cosmi.com/photobrowse/freebies.htm

You will need a password to access the files in this area.  The password is:

San Gabriel

Please save this password, as you will need it to access the various freebies.


Our proud tradition of support

We encourage all of our users to provide comments and suggestions about this program.  This program is supported by voice, fax and Internet e-mail.


Voice

(310) 886-3510

For telephone support, call COSMI's Customer Service during the hours below.  (Note:  All times are in the Pacific Standard Time zone.)

Monday through Thursday, 8:30 am - 12:00 noon and 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm

Friday, 8:30 am – 12:00 noon.

• COSMI is very proud to be one of the few remaining software publishers to provide no charge customer support!


E-mail

Support questions may be addressed to: support@cosmi.com.


Fax

 You may fax us at (310) 886-3517.


Internet

Be sure to visit COSMI's Internet Web site: http://www.cosmi.com.