Drawing copied from Paint Shop Pro's Help
Advanced Features
Paint Shop Pro has incorporated many features into the newer versions of this software. These advanced features came about as the capabilities of the hardware increased as a result of new technology. Increased random access memory allowed for layers, it allowed for large files to be manipulated. The increased processing speed made many features possible. We are going to look at color management, layers, and masks in conjunction with exercises to change colors of individual items within a photo. We will also demonstrate and use the application to colorize a grayscale image. In today's computing environment any software application used for drawing or working with pictures should have the capability for layers and vector images or content. We will look at vector graphics in the next section. We will see how vectors can be used to add special effects to photographs.
Note: Most of the information contained in this lesson is directly from the "Help" menus contained in the "Paint Shop Pro" application.
You can create three types of layers in Paint Shop Pro: raster layers, vector layers, and adjustment layers. Raster layers contain pixel-based information. Vector layers contain instruction data for drawing vector lines, shapes, and text. Unlike raster layers, vector layers can be added to images of any color depth. Adjustment layers contain color correction information; use them to change the appearance of the underlying layers.
A newly created Paint Shop Pro image consists of one raster layer, the background layer. This is analogous to the canvas of a painting; every image must have at least one layer. Paint Shop Pro supports up to 100 layers per image. The actual number of layers you can create may be further limited by the amount of memory in your computer.
The layer you are editing is called the current (active) layer. As you work with images containing multiple layers, be sure the appropriate layer is current before you apply commands.
Paint Shop Pro provides the Layer palette, the Layer Properties dialog box, and various commands in the Layers menu for working with layers. The Layer palette displays each layer, its order in the layer stack, its current properties, and for a vector layer, a button for each vector object you draw. The Layer Properties dialog box shows the settings for an individual layer, and it provides access to the adjustment layer settings. The Layers menu contains the general commands for creating, managing, and merging layers. It also lists the layers in the image.
Drawing copied from Paint Shop Pro's Help
Note: An image must be a gray scale or 24-bit color image to contain more than one raster layer or an adjustment layer. To add these layers, increase an image’s color depth.
A mask is a greyscale image that you apply to a layer. You can use it to hide and display parts of the layer, to fade between layers, and to create special effects with precision. Masks can be created from selections, alpha channels, and images.
A mask can cover a layer completely or with varying levels of opacity. The grey value of the mask determines how much it covers. Where it is black, it completely masks the layer, producing a transparent area; where it is white, it leaves the layer unmasked (in its original state); where it is grey, it produces a semi-masking effect, with the transparency increasing as the grey becomes darker.
All masks are created and edited in a raster, greyscale mode. Therefore, all tools and image processing features that work on greyscale images work on masks. The tools that can be used in either vector or raster mode (Drawing, Preset Shapes, and Text) work only in their raster modes when editing masks.
A mask works the same way with a vector layer as it does with a raster layer. It can be linked to a layer, which moves it with the layer. If a mask is not linked to the layer, moving the layer’s content will not affect the position of the mask.
Because a mask is greyscale, you can save it with the image in an alpha channel or as a separate image on a hard disk. Also, you can load a selection as a mask and a mask as a selection from an alpha channel.
Exercise 6 – Changing Colors
This task is to change colors of articles of clothing on a picture captured from television. The minimum steps to achieve this goal will be presented. Paint Shop Pro has capability far beyond what time will allow us to consider. The goal of this exercise is to get you started and let you see how simple and basic the concept is. We will use most of the default settings.
Exercise 7 – Colorizing an Image
This task expands on the previous one in that color is added to a greyscale image. The power of layers and masks is presented. Notice how once masks are created they can be used to enable many of Paint Shop Pro's features to specific parts of an image.
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