Thursday, July 28, 2005

Using MS Word's WordArt feature with Photobie!

You may know that MS Word allows you to create fancy flexible WordArt text. Here I just want to let you that. You can use this feature together with Photobie to create perfect fancy text. The process is simple:
First, create the WordArt text in Word, should be simple to you.
Second, use the screencapture tool in Photobie (either to use notification menu which located on system tray of right bottom on you screen, or to use the predefined the hotkey) to capture the selected rectangle that contains the text.
Third, paste to the image that you are editing, and set the transparent color to the white. Bingo!

Note, to get the perfect effect, you may need to adjust the layer transparent color tolerance in the lay manager property list.

Well, This is just a sample usage, you can definitely explore more usages with Photobie integrated Screen Capture feature.

--Cheng

Why didn't I get the transparent GIF image?

Sometime, you may have a perfect transparent image in the Photobie editor, but when you save it as a transparent GIF file, there is a background in certain color, which makes it not transparent. It happens due to the Photobie tries to set the GIF transparent color as the Global transparent color, it works if there is no dominate color in your image that is close to the Global transparent color. So, the solution is simple, set the Global transparent color to whatever color that isn't in the current image before you save it.

Bingo!

Photobie 1.9 is now available

What's new in version1.9:

1. 32 bit true color Icon support: now you can create 32 bit true color icon easily. Do whatever you do as editing other image (including the transparent part), make sure the background image have square dimension. Then config the icon output setup on the Icon_GIF menu. You can set the output as 64x64,32x32,16x16 bitmaps within the single icon file. By default, the icon file consists 32x32 and 16x16 bitmaps. Click on the save button, give the icon file name, press enter, Bingo! You got you nice icon.

2. Image directory viewer allows you to batch resize/rotate multiple images: simply select the images in the top image browser (for multiple selection, you need to hold the Ctrl key while click on the destinate image), click on the resize/rotate button on the toolbar, then set the dimension/angle values. click the action button. Then you will see the resized/rotated images

3. Enhanced layer manager: the layer manager holds more buttons which enable you to clone a layer, copy/paste a layer, merge multiple layers. Also there is a button enable to import the color label on the left tool bar of the main form to be the layer transparent color. To make the GUI nicer, now you can hide the layer property info by click on the show/hide property button on the layer manager.

4. Autoscroll active window capture: Photobie enable you to capture the whole scroll window automatically. When setup the hotkeys, you need to check the autoscroll checkbox together with the capture the active window checkbox.

Note: For some reason, the Firefox browser doesn't scroll; Be sure to check the captured image to see if it is captured correctly by all means! (Will work on such problem in future release. At least you can try to use it now, maybe it works perfect for you already.)

5. Smart path recorder: Photobie now records you last save/open directory, so that you don't have to find directory tediously.

6. Few bug fixes.

Now, I will really work on the Photo album feature in the next few weeks. I have to get it done by my daughter/son birth, which should be the end of August.

I can't wait to be a new Daddy!

Enjoy the Photobie,

--Cheng

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Photobie 1.8 is ready.

Advanced screen capture features added.
1. allow up to 8 customized hotkeys for screen capture.
2. can capture the cursor,
3. can capture active window
4. can capture predefined area
5. can output to clipboard as well as new photobie image
6. can invoke other programs that can take bmp image file as command line argument

Also, Photobie now support high quality transparent GIF image.

The image directory viewer is also enhanced you can press arrow keys to switch images . It also allows full screen view.

Updated the help file (finally, I did it.) :)

Enjoy!