ImageFX and CineMorph Copyright © 1992-1995 Nova Design, Inc. All Rights Reserved This drawer contains a demo version of Nova Design's ImageFX 2.0 software package. ImageFX is a complete image processing system for the Amiga computer. Featuring built-in support for scanning and framegrabbing, printing, image rendering, file format conversion, painting and touchup work, not to mention hundreds of special effects combinations, ImageFX is the only 24-bit image processing software you will ever need. It is a modular, easy to use, WYSIWIG system that covers all aspects of image manipulation from start to finish. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- What's Here The ImageFX demo has all saving and printing features disabled, and a limited number of load and render modules. Most all other features are intact. The "real" version of ImageFX includes modules to load and save dozens of file formats, render to many popular display devices (including Firecracker, OpalVision, DCTV, and HAM-E), scan or framegrab from a variety of input devices, and print to PostScript printers or through the Amiga printer.device. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Getting Started With ImageFX Here are few things to help you get started playing with ImageFX. Feel free to go beyond these simple guidelines; many powerful features can be found through experimentation. 1. Double-click the ImageFX_Demo icon. After a moment, you will see the ImageFX interface, consisting of a menu panel over top of a black screen. The black screen is known as the "preview" -- this is where images are displayed while you are working on them. Since ImageFX uses a modular system, the preview screen could be anything from a standard Amiga screen to a 24-bit Firecracker or IV-24 display. This demo only includes Amiga preview modules, however. 2. Click the "Load" gadget in the bottom right corner of the menu to load a picture. Some sample images are included in the "Pictures" drawer. After selecting the file you want to load, ImageFX will automatically attempt to determine the type of file (be it ILBM, GIF, JPEG, or whatever). Once the image is loaded into memory, you will see a representation of it in the preview screen. 3. To change the Preview Options, click the "Prefs" gadget, also in the bottom right corner of the menu. A window will appear with a number of preferences settings for the program. Selecting the "Preview Options..." button in the top middle of the window will give you all the display options for the current preview (dither and color settings, etc.). Choose the display mode you like best and click Okay. Clicking Use will return you to the main menu. NOTE: One thing to remember about ImageFX is the fact that the preview screen serves only as a quick "sketch" of your image. For high quality rendering, you should go into the Render menu (see 6 below). 4. The default area of ImageFX is the "Toolbox". This is where all painting and image processing effects are done. Standard painting tools are aligned along the top of the leftmost portion of the menu; further paint options can be accessed by double-clicking these gadgets. The rest of the menu is filled with image processing and buffer manipulation tools; clicking on a button will bring a second pop-up menu of choices (for example, clicking on the "Rotate" button will bring up a window with rotation options). Of note is the region control cycle gadget in the upper left; it allows you to limit any image processing operation to a region of the image. 5. The Palette area is used for selecting colors to paint with, building color ranges (for gradient fills and transparency controls), and choosing the colors used for rendering images. The palette can be reached by clicking on the Palette gadget just above the Toolbox gadget. A band of palette colors will appear just over the menu panel; you can choose any of these colors by clicking on them. Painting tools will then use the color you selected. 6. Rendering a 24-bit image down to Amiga modes is done from the Render menu (click on the Render button just underneath the Toolbox button). The toolbox gadgets will be replaced with render settings, including dithering controls, number of colors, and screen mode settings. Select a screen mode to render to, the number of colors, and the dither options and then press the Render button in the lower left corner to start the rendering process. ImageFX will generate a histogram, choose a palette, and then display the rendered picture. That should be enough to get you started exploring the many powerful features of ImageFX. Have fun and don't be afraid to experiment! -------------------------------------------------------------------------- For more information about ImageFX 2.0, contact Nova Design at: Nova Design, Inc. 1910 Byrd Avenue, Suite 214 Richmond, VA 23230 Customer Support: 804-282-6528 Fax: 804-282-3768