Exercise 1 - Sign Creation

Using the MS Paint Application

Create and store a graphical image of a common arterial stop sign. Store the result on your hard disc  in two different formats (bmp and jpg).  It is recommended that other signs also be created to explore other capabilities of the software...

Learning Objectives:

a. Learn the Basic Graphics Concepts.
b. Review file management concepts.
c. Use of the "PAINT" tools.
d. Use of Multiple Drawings.
e. Copy, Paste, and Resize.
f. Opaque vs. Transparent.

Getting started with Paint

a.  Open the Paint Application, this starts a new untitled drawing.
        (Click on Start, Programs, and locate and open Paint... Use your task bar to switch back to this page.)

    1.  Become familiar with the menus and tool buttons.  Do this by clicking on each of the commands on the menu bar in succession, File, Edit, View, Image, Colors, and Help.  Read and notice all of the commands under each of them.  Many of the commands will not be available until your drawing has some content.  i.e. They will be gray instead of black.

    2.  Open the View command dialog box and insure that Tool Box, Color Box, and Status Bar have check marks.  Open the Image dialog box and notice that some of these commands have " . . . " after them, this indicates that choosing this command will bring up additional choices.  Select and click on the Attributes command.  Now click on the default button.  Notice what other choices you have.  Your drawing should be approximately 4.25 by 3.25 inches.  It should be colored. Click on OK.

b.  Now we will save this untitled drawing to the folder designated for the Exercises used in this course.  We will look at the steps involved in creating files and folders.  Click here for detailed help and review of file management commands.  Save this untitled file as : "c:\My Documents\Graphics\Exercise 1\stop.bmp".  Save it as a 16 Color Bitmap.  Notice that the file name in the title bar changed from "untitled.bmp" to "stop.bmp".  This change tells us we were successful in the creation of a new file.

c.  Let us now take a tour of the various tools available in the Paint Application.  We can accomplish this by holding our mouse over each of the tool buttons (do not click) and waiting for a description of the particular tool to appear.  

    1. After viewing the descriptions of each of the 16 tools available let us now choose the Brush by clicking on it.  Notice how the brush Button appears to be sunken, this shows us which tool is current.  You can only have one active tool at a time.

    2. Move your mouse over onto the drawing area and click and drag it to make a paint stroke.  Try making a stroke with the right mouse button.  What happened?  Use the Help command on the menu bar for an explanation.  Use the Help Topics,  select index, and then Brush (Click the display button).  What is the Foreground color, and the Background color?  Can you see white paint on a white background?  Be sure to use the help index to assist you in your understanding of how different tools work.

    3.  Select the curve tool.  Read the help for this tool and then draw two different curves with different line widths and different colors.  Select the rectangle tool and draw a rectangle.  What is the line width and color?  Can you change the line width of the rectangle by changing the line width on the line tool?  Try it!  Try to draw a rectangle while you are holding down the shift key.  What happens?  You can now draw squares.  Try the same procedures with the Ellipse tool to draw circles.  What happens when you draw a line with the shift key held down.  Keep on learning...

    4.  Close your drawing without saving it.  This will allow you to use the drawing "stop.bmp" in the next section. i.e. You will start afresh with a new canvas.  You can play as often as you wish by merely repeating the above exercise.  Practice is the best way to retain your new learned concepts.

Creation of a Stop Sign

d. Now we shall learn additional features of the Paint software by performing a task, to create a stop sign.  We will learn how to use multiple copies of the application by copying and pasting from one to another.  We will learn to work at the pixel level and to zoom in and out.  We will learn how to measure using the Status Bar located at the bottom of the drawing area.  The exercise has been designed to make use of various features of  the software.  Start the Paint Application and open your "stop.bmp" file.

    1.  Select the rectangle tool and draw a square with 242 pixels per side. Hints... Hold down the shift key to get a square... Look at the status bar's right side to see both the absolute location of the mouse and next to it the absolute size of your object. (Note: You must release your mouse before the shift key.)

    2.  Leave this application and file open.  When you go to start, programs and open another Paint application the current one will go down to the Task Bar.  There are now two paint applications open and you can switch back and forth between them by selecting the one you desire from the Task Bar.

    3.  On this new untitled drawing make a square which is 71 pixels on a side.  Use the magnifier tool to zoom in on this square.  Use the line tool and draw two diagonal lines, each connecting opposite corners of the square.  Hint...  Hold down the shift key as you draw these lines, it will be easier.  Your square should look like the one below.  Notice the individual pixels.

    4.  Use your select tool to enclose your square.  After it is selected choose the Edit command and pick the Copy command to transfer a copy of your square to the computers "Clipboard".  Now go and select your "stop.bmp" drawing from the task bar and open it.  Notice your untitled drawing stays on the task bar.

    5.  Now go to Edit on the menu bar and select the Paste command.  The small square will now appear on your drawing.  Below your tool buttons there are two icons of drawings.  The top one is for pasting opaque and the lower one for pasting transparent. Notice the change in the pasted square when you select the lower icon such that your pasted square will become transparent. When you pass your mouse over the pasted selection the cursor will change to a set of crossed arrows.  This symbol shows that you can drag your selection and reposition it.  This is called a floating selection.  Move it and position it inside of one of the four corners of your large square.  Repeat the edit and paste commands along with the move action to position three more squares, one in each of the remaining three corners of the large square.  The result is shown below.

    6.  Notice if the unwanted lines are removed we will be left with an octagon shape.  There are many ways to accomplish this.  One is to use the magnifier and the eraser tool.  This is a good exercise for becoming good with the mouse.  It is however tedious.  Magnify each corner one at a time and use the eraser tool to remove the unwanted pixels.  The result should be an enclosed octagon.  The enclosed part is very important.  If you remove a pixel which you should not have you may use your pencil tool to replace it.  If there are any holes in your octagon it will become obvious in the next step.  Remember you can always use the edit and undo command to get a second chance.  Use your View, Zoom, and Normal size to zoom out and view your entire drawing. Your result should be like the one below.

    7.  Notice the inside extra lines are not required to be completely erased.  This next step will take care of this.  Now use the "Fill with color" tool and pour the inside of the octagon full of black paint.  This will cover any of the remaining lines left from the small squares.  Now you can change the foreground color to red and change the black octagon to the desired color for the STOP sign.  Your drawing should now look as shown below.

    8.  We must now discover the characteristics of the "Text" tool such that we can insert the word STOP.  This is a trial and error process to arrive at the proper font size and character set.  It is a good idea to save your work at this time. If you make mistakes in the future you do not have to go all the way back to square one.  Your file already has a name and address therefore all you need to do is to use the File menu's save command and your "stop.bmp" file will be overwritten with this new one.

    9.  Select the "Untitled - Paint" drawing from the task bar to bring up the small square with the diagonal lines.  Zoom to the normal size by using the view menu and selecting zoom and then normal size. (On most versions of Paint this can also be accomplished by using the magnify tool and the the "right" mouse button.)  You are finished with the small square so you can select it and then hit the "Delete" key on the keyboard.

    10.  Select the text tool and draw a large rectangle with it from the upper right to the lower left, a Text menu dialog box should then appear and a typing cursor should be in the rectangular text box.  You can now select the font and size you desire.  Set the foreground color to blue first.  Set the font to "Arial Narrow (Western)" and bold.  Set the size to 60.  Click in the text box to get the typing cursor there and then type "STOP" using all capitol letters.  Click the mouse anywhere outside of the text box, this releases the text command.  Now use the select tool and select your stop text.  Use the edit and copy command to put this text on the clip board.

    11.  Now select your stop.bmp drawing from the task bar and display this drawing.  Use the edit and paste command to place your text on the red octagon.  Be sure that the paste transparent attribute is selected and then move your STOP text to the desired position.  Click outside of the select box to disable the selection.  Now select white for the foreground color and use the "Fill with color" tool to change the blue letters to white.  Success should now be yours.  Be sure to save your drawing by using the file menu and the save command.  Your "stop.bmp" will be replaced with the final copy.

    12.  One final learning objective requires that you also save this drawing as a jpg file.  Use the file menu and the "save as" command to change the format to the ".jpg" type. Be sure that the "file name" and the "save in are correct.  The path for this should be ... "c:\My Documents\Graphics\Exercise 1\stop.jpg"  

Note:  Files in the same folder can have the same name provided that the three character extensions are different.

Did we achieve our learning objectives? 

Learning Objectives:

a. Learn the Basic Graphic Concepts.
b. Review file management concepts.
c. Use of the "PAINT" tools.
d. Use of Multiple Drawings.
e. Copy, Paste, and Resize.
f. Opaque vs. Transparent.

It is recommended that you repeat this exercise several times.  Also be creative and make other drawings using other features available in the Paint Application.  Practice is the only way to retain the learned concepts.

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Prepared 12/13/01
Revised 12/31/02
For Class Members use.
By: Dean Christensen