Copyright: (c)2000 MEGALUX Light Technique Ltd.


What is UFX?
What is UFX? see also UFX Basics

Ultimate FX is an easy-to-use image manipulator tool. Its main purpose is to scan photographs, enhance them and add some spectacular effects. It can be used extensively in everyday multimedia tasks.

This program is advertisement supported freeware. You may use it for all kinds of commercial purposes. The only exception is the usage for electronic scoreboard and electronic advertisement board systems; if you plan to use it for such purposes you have to ask for our written permission.

If you would like to register Ultimate FX for a nominal fee, you can get rid of the advertisement banners. Your registration key will also disable all advertisements in all minor versions until the next major release.

It is recommended to visit the Ultimate FX homepage to get the latest effects and other enhancements that will help you to be more productive. You can also read the latest information on the development there. The homepage can also be accessed easily from the Help / About panel of UFX.

Contact us for comments and bug reports (which are warmly welcome):

MEGALUX Light Technique Ltd.

1033-H Budapest, Szõlõkert u. 5.

HUNGARY

Internet: http://www.ultimatepaint.com/ufx/

E-Mail: support@ultimatepaint.com

Troubleshooting and Frequently Asked Questions

Getting Started

How to improve UFX?

How to Register?


How to improve UFX?

First of all you can send your comments and descriptions of functions you would like to see in Ultimate FX. If they're reasonable they will be included in one of the next releases. You may also send your more specific ideas with source examples.

Send bug reports. Although we considered UFX free of annoying bugs, there may be some hidden ones we hadn't discovered. Important bugs will immediately be fixed.

Write your own components if you're familiar with programming. Share it with others and share it with us. You may also send plug-ins in Filter Factory format. Send these components to support@ultimatepaint.com as attachments. Please DO NOT SEND compiled UPCs, they're huge and we are afraid of bugs and viruses. If you send valuable, unique routines, you may get registered shareware versions for free.

You can also sign up our UP/UFX Announcement List to be notified on every update. If you have tips and tricks you would like to share with others, sign up to the UP/UFX User Discussion List.


UFX Basics

You can start the program by clicking on its icon or run it from the command line and specify additional parameters.

Ultimate FX runs in HiColor (15 or 16 bit) and True Color (24 or 32 bit) video modes. If you try to start it in another mode it will display an error message.

First time the Main Menu of the program is positioned in the top left corner. There you can find the File, Edit, Image, Color, Options, Window and Help menus. There is a floating Palette where you can see and alter the colors used. Right below the main menu there's a toolbar that contains the zoom control, the drawing and background colors and the icons of the most frequently used functions. There are two unique functions here: Load previous and next image. These buttons load the previous and following image in the folder in alphabetical order, respectively.

You can zoom in between 1 and 32 or zoom out between 3/4 and 1/10. Click on the up and down arrows beside the value or use the gray + (increase) and - (decrease) keys to change the zoom factor.

Hold down the Shift key while zooming to increase / decrease the zoom value by two instead of only one.

Maximum and minimum zoom values also depend on the resolution of the image:

-	in the case of zoom in neither image_width*zoom nor image_height*zoom should exceed 32000,

-	to use zoom factors less than 1 both image dimensions must exceed 4 pixels.

If you press key z you can switch back from a greater zoom to a smaller one. If it's possible the program will display the whole picture. If you press key z again you'll get the previous zoom back. The picture will be centered around the mouse pointer.

Images are placed in separate windows. There's always at least one image open. If you close all images, the program automatically creates an empty one. The name of each image along with its zoom factor is displayed in the caption of its window.

Click on the image to get the color of a certain point. You can assign this color to the drawing or background color: if you clicked with the left mouse button the acquired color will be the new drawing color, while if you used the right mouse button, it changes the background color.

If you see only part of an image, you can move the visible portion of the drawing window around using the sliders of the window, the wheel of your mouse (hold the Ctrl button down for horizontal movement) or the arrows on the keyboard. You can move to edges of the picture by pressing the keys Home (left), End (right), PgUp (top) or PgDn (bottom).

There is a status bar at the bottom of each image. Here you can see the cursor coordinates and the color below the cursor.

Move an image near to another to automatically dock it which leaves no space between them. Also, if you resize an image by dragging its border, neighboring images are resized, too. You can switch automatic resizing off (Resize Neighbors).


Command Line

There are a few command line options you can use to start Ultimate FX with. If you add a picture name, the program automatically loads it. E.g.

UFX mypic.pcx

loads picture mypic.pcx from the current directory.

You can enter names of more than one image in the command line, the program will open all images in different windows. If an image name contains spaces, place quotation marks around it. E.g.

UFX firstpic.jpg "my second pic.pcx" third.bmp

If an error occurs during loading images, the process is immediately finished and no other images are loaded. E.g. if my second pic.pcx cannot be loaded (does not exist or is corrupted) third.bmp won't be loaded at all.


Frequently Asked Questions

These are the most commonly asked questions about Ultimate FX. Read them before you contact us, maybe you'll find the answer here.

Q:	How can I report a bug I've discovered?

A:	If you checked that you have the latest version, send an E-mail to support@ultimatepaint.com with detailed description how you found the bug. You should also mention basic information on your configuration: operating system, memory size, video card, other programs running in the background, and the version number of UFX you use.

Q:	Is there an alternate site where Ultimate FX can be found?

A:	If you have problems downloading the latest version, always check the alternate sites where UFX is also available (listed on the homepage). Also, there are shareware collections, from where UFX is downloadable, however you may not find the very latest version there. If all alternate sites fail (which is quite unlikely), try

http://www.torry.ru (Apps / Misc Apps) or

http://www.hotfiles.com (Graphics&Multimedia / Graphics Tools).

Q:	Each time UFX is upgraded do I have to uninstall the old instance first or will it just overwrite the one I have?

A:	If you don't uninstall the previous version there will remain two unnecessary uninstall data files which consume a few KBytes on your hard disk. There will also remain an unnecessary entry on the Add/Remove Program Panel. If you can live with that, it's good either way.

Q:	How can I uninstall Ultimate FX?

A:	If you ever want to uninstall it, select Start / Programs / Ultimate FX / Uninstall Ultimate FX. Or use Control Panel's Add / Remove Programs icon.

Q:	Why do I get message 'First switch to HiColor or True Color display mode'?

A:	UFX does not work in 16/256 color modes, please switch to a HiColor (15 or 16 bit) or True Color (24 or 32 bit) mode. You can do it under Start / Settings / Control Panel / Display / Settings. Here you can alter parameter Color Palette to High Color or True Color. From now on your computer will display everything in more than 32768 colors. UFX requires this to run.

Of course you can switch back the same way any time you want to.

Q:	Is Ultimate FX Year 2000 compliant?

A:	Ultimate FX is totally Year 2000 compliant, as it uses dates only when it saves and loads images (and that is operating system dependent). As long as the host operating system (Win95 / 98 or NT) is designed to handle Y2K, there should be no problem using Ultimate FX.

Q:	Can I convert all my BMP images into JPEGs with Ultimate FX? If so, what are the possible drawbacks?

A:	Yes you can, but you have to do it one-by-one. Open a BMP image in UFX and simply save it as a JPEG. But be careful! JPEG is a lossy format, so you will get details lost. You won't see this degradation until you reload the image (open the image you've just saved again) - or have the Auto reload function enabled! The program saves JPEG images with quality setting 75 (out of 100) by default. The greater this magic number is, the better the image quality, but the bigger the file will be. 75 is a good trade-off, you won't see visible degradation of digital images, and the size is kept small. Unfortunately when dealing with computer graphics JPEG tends to make sharp contrast changes noisy. Generally, JPEG is not suitable for saving computer graphics even at high quality settings. Use lossless formats to save images like these.

Q:	Can I save transparent GIFs with UFX?

A:	Yes, use the Transparent check box in the Save dialog. The current background color will be made transparent.

Q:	I can't seem to find my color palette or tools on UFX. Where are they?

A:	All images you open (even ones with palette) are converted to true color (RGB) format inside UFX. When you save them, you may convert them back to the desired format.

Q:	Is there a way to enter a zoom ratio as a decimal, i.e. to define a precise ratio?

A:	Unfortunately not. You have to use the values the up-down zoom control (or gray + / - keys) can set.

Q:	Can I capture the content of the screen with UFX?

A:	Screen capturing is built into Windows. Press Print Screen or Alt+Print Screen and Windows will put the whole screen or the active window into the clipboard, respectively. From here you can import it into UFX by using function Edit / Paste.

Q:	Can I use filters designed to work with Adobe Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro?

A:	Yes, UFX supports Adobe plug-in filters (*.8BF files). To use Adobe plug-ins, you should set Options / Preferences / Plug-ins / Adobe plug-ins location to the folder where the plug-ins are.

Q:	I checked Use Adobe Plug-ins and set the Adobe Plug-ins location to the right directory, but no plug-ins appear. What do I miss?

A:	Most of the plug-ins use other DLLs which may not be present on your computer. The most likely candidates are MSVCRT10.DLL, MSVCRT20.DLL and PLUGIN.DLL. Check the list under Plug-ins failed to load and examine the code of these plug-ins to discover what DLLs they use. Get these DLLs (e.g. from the Web) and copy them into the System directory of Windows or the Comps dir of UFX.

Q:	Can I use UFX to design posters or billboards, or do I have to ask for a permission first?

A:	We intended to get permission from the ones that want to use UFX in connection with electric advertisement boards / stadium scoreboards. You can use it freely to produce any kind of still image to be used in anywhere (and that includes advertisements: small or big; in a magazine, in the street, on the Net, etc.) except on electric videoboards, videowalls and scoreboards. Only in that latter case you have to seek for a permission.

Q:	We would like to include UFX on our shareware CD-rom. Should we ask for your permission?

A:	UFX can be put on any media you like without our permission as long as you provide the original setup.exe file along with the short description file file_id.diz. You cannot modify these files, nor can you add any other files to the install package.


Colors

Several effects require two colors to be specified: the drawing and background colors.

You can set them in many different ways:

The easiest way is to click on the drawing or background color on the toolbar which brings up the Color Selection dialog. You can use hot keys to change these colors: Ctrl+Shift+D pops up the Color Selection Dialog for the Drawing color, while Ctrl+Shift+B does the same fo the Background color.

You may also choose several predefined colors from the Palette, or simply click on a color on the current image to select (left mouse click gets the drawing, right mouse click gets the background color).

There are also several hot keys which may help you speed up the process of changing a color:

Ctrl+Shift+D	instantly brings up the drawing color selection dialog,

Ctrl+Shift+B	brings up the background color selection dialog,

Shift+Up arrow	swaps the current drawing and background color,

Shift+PgUp/Home	increases/decreases the Hue of the current drawing color,

This value represents the base shade of the color.

Shift+Right/Left arrow	increases/decreases the Saturation of the current drawing color,

This value tells how much white the color has.

Shift+PgDn/End	increases/decreases the Value (Intensity) of the current drawing color,

This is the brightness of the color.

Shift+Down arrow	changes the functions described above: instead of Hue / Saturation / Value you will be able to directly change the R / G / B values of the current drawing color. By pressing it again the program switches back to HSV-change mode.

When you change the drawing color, the different color components (HSV or RGB) are displayed on the statusbar of the current image.


Color Selection Dialog

You may get this dialog if you want to change the drawing, background or a color parameter in an UFX Component.

On the right you can see the Hue, Saturation, Value (Intensity) and Red, Green, Blue components of the color. You may change these values directly (Hue can change between 0 and 359, while the other parameters between 0 and 255). You can also use the Hue circle and the SV color field at the left: select a base color by clicking on the Hue circle and get a color from a similar group of colors by clicking on the SV field. In both cases you may drag the mouse over the fields to see instant color changes.

The selected color can be seen on the palette bar (in the case of changing the drawing or background color) or on the Text toolbar (shadow color).

You may get the hexadecimal value of the selected color in the HTML field. Copy this value onto the clipboard and paste it right into your HTML code if you need it.

If you close the dialog with the Ok button, the new color will be permanent, while clicking on the Cancel button leaves the original unchanged. The Help button brings up this help.


Drawing Color
Drawing Color  See also Background Color

Several effects require a drawing color to be specified.

You can see the current drawing color at the toolbar (it is the one right in front of the background color). If you click on this box or press Ctrl+Shift+D, you will get the Color Selection dialog where you may alter it. You can also change it by using the Palette or with different hot keys.


Background Color
Background Color See also Drawing Color

Several effects require a background color to be specified. In addition, when saving an image with Transparent option enabled, the background color will be used as the transparent color.

You can see the current background color on the toolbar underneath the drawing color. If you click on this field or press Ctrl+Shift+B, you will get the Color Selection dialog where you may alter it. You can also change it by using the Palette or with different hot keys.


Palette

On the palette bar you can see different colors in adjacent boxes. These boxes help you store and restore the most often used colors.

To restore one of these colors, simply click on the desired box. If you click on one of these boxes with the left mouse button, the drawing color will be changed to the color of this box. If you click with the right mouse button, the background color will be altered.

If you want to store the drawing or background color, click on the desired box with the left (drawing color) or right (background color) mouse button while holding any of the Shift, Ctrl or Alt key down.

By default there are eight boxes, but you can easily change this by setting Preferences / Colors / Palette Entries, open a previously saved palette that has different number of entries or get the palette of the current image with the Limit Colors function.

You can save and load fast palettes: use the Load and Save Palette functions of the Color menu.


File menu

In the File menu you can find the following commands:

New...	creates a new picture with background color, using the New dialog,

Open...	opens an existing picture in the Open Image dialog,

Browse...	browses the current directory for all available images. See the Image Browser dialog,

Save	saves the current picture (if the picture has no name it pops up the Save as dialog),

Save As...	saves the current picture with a different name in the Save Image dialog,

Close	closes the current image. It also asks you to save any changes you've made since the last save operation,

Close All	closes all images currently open,

Send via E-Mail...	sends the current image to an E-Mail address along with a custom message. The message can be composed in the Send via E-Mail dialog,

Select Source...	if you have more TWAIN scanners attached you are allowed to select the active one from a menu. If you have only one scanner you don't have to make a selection,

Acquire...	scans a picture from the scanner if you have one attached,

Print...	prints the current picture. It first pops up the Print dialog, where you can select the orientation, the number of copies, the layout of the page and see the print preview. If you press Print, it will send the current picture to the printer.

Printer Setup...	the standard Printer Setup dialog appears, where you can select the printer to be used and several printing-specific parameters,

Exit	exits Ultimate FX. If there are unsaved changes the program asks whether you want to save them. Select Yes to save changes, No to discard changes and Cancel to return to UFX.

After these options comes a list of recently used files. An image appears in this list when you open it and/or save it. The most recently used file appears at the top of the list. The maximum number of entries can be set in the Preferences dialog. If a new image gets listed at the top and the list have already reached its maximum length, the last entry automatically disappears.


New Image dialog

You can open a new picture here. This picture will be filled with the current background color. You can set the size of the picture: Size X specifies the width, while Size Y the height of the picture.

After that, clicking on the Ok button opens the new picture. The Cancel button on the new picture dialog aborts the current operation. Help brings up these instructions.


Open Image
Open Image See also the File menu

You open an existing picture in this dialog. You can select the name and location of the picture, decide which file types to display on the list.

You can see a small preview of the selected picture at the bottom of the dialog box. If you uncheck the Preview switch, this preview won't be displayed. To the right there is a slider displaying the index of the current image in the file (it has meaning only when opening GIFs or AVIs that have multiple images).

Under that index you will find the basic properties of the selected picture: size in pixels, picture type, size in bytes, date of last modification.

If you press the Ok button, the picture will be opened in a new window. If you press Cancel, the open operation will be canceled. Button Help brings up this help text.


Image Browser Dialog

You can browse the current directory for all images recognized by UP. The images will be scaled down and displayed in one panel simultaneously. If there are more than you can see at once, resize the form or use the scroll bar to see the rest. If you point your cursor to an image, the image dimensions and file size will appear.

You can display contents of a folder by clicking on it on the treeview. Double clicking on a folder - as well as clicking on the [+] sign - will expand / collapse its subfolders.

To open an image simply double click on it.

If you would like to create a HTML page that includes the thumbnails of all images in the current folder, press the Create HTML button. The Create HTML dialog will come up.

To close the panel without selecting a file, use the Close button at the bottom.

Button Help brings up this help text.

By default the browser opens an image every time it is displayed and scales it down. This may take some time if you have large images. You can speed this up by enabling UP to store the scaled images in a separate file. These cache files will be stored in folders you visit with the browser, and will be used to speed up thumb displaying next time you enter that folder with the browser. You can enable this function on the Options / Preferences panel.


Create HTML Dialog

This dialog makes it possible to automate most tasks of creating webpages that include thumbnails of your images. The HTML code as well as the thumbnails will automatically be generated.

Page Width	determines the width of the HTML page in pixels. The table of thumbnails will fit into this width.

Show Image Name	sets whether image names should be displayed below their thumbnails.

Link to Original Image	this switch makes it possible to link each thumbnail to its original image. When the user clicks on a thumbnail, the browser will display the image in its original form and size.

Alignment	is the alignment of the table of thumbnails and the naviagation arrows. It can be left or right aligned and centered.

Limit Rows to	this switch allows you to break the thumbnails into several pages. Check the option and enter the number of thumbnail rows you want to display on each page.

Thumbnail Width and

Thumbnail Height	determines the maximum size of each thumbnail. Original images will be scaled down retaining the original aspect ratio to that maximum size.

Full Fit	allows thumbnails to fill the Thumbnail Width/Height-sized rectangle fully retaining aspect ratio. Parts of the images that would not fit in are cut off.

Horizontal Gap and

Vertical Gap	are the gaps left between thumbnails measured in pixels.

Previous and Next	are two switches that control the visibility of navigation arrows. Check them to display the arrows. The arrows are displayed stretched on the panel, however the created HTML code has them in their original size. Press button Replace to replace the currently selected arrow-graphics.

Base Name	is the base name of the HTML files. The program numbers these pages from 1, so e.g. if the base name is images.htm then pages will have the names images1.htm, images2.htm and so on. You can choose between the .htm and .html extensions.

Destination Folder	is the folder where all the HTML files are created in. This should be a folder on your hard disk or on a network drive.

Image Subfolder	is the name of a subfolder where all the thumbnails are created in. Also, if you choose Link to Original Image, all original images are copied here, too. Similarly, arrow graphics is copied here.

Be careful, if you replace the arrow graphics with a new one, the copy of the old one isn't removed automatically.

E.g. if you choose c:\temp as your Destination folder and images as the Image Subfolder, all thumbnails will be generated into c:\temp\images.

All images are referenced relatively, so only folder Image Subfolder will appear in the HTML code, Destination Folder is not referred to at all.

Some of these parameters are displayed only in Expert Level.

Button Ok creates the HTML pages and thumbnails, Preview allows you to preview the pages in the default browser. Help brings up this page, while Cancel abandons the dialog and the settings.


Save Image
Save Image See also the File menu

This dialog is similar to the Open Picture dialog but here you can save the current picture. You can select an existing name or type a new one, decide which file types to display on the list, and select the location where you want to save the picture to.

List Folders contains the last folders that were used to save images. Select a folder and the program opens it immediately.

There are several parameters of the image that determines the number of colors, dither, transparency, interlaced/progressive mode, and the image quality:

Colors	here you can select the subformat of the image. Usually there are several possibilities; almost all formats support true color (16 million colors), some of them can be saved in 256 or 16 colors and there are a few which can save images in grayscale or monochrome. Selecting the Adaptive setting makes UFX to count the colors first, then to select the nearest submode (but be careful, it always will be a mode with 256 colors or less).

Limit Colors to	if the image will be saved with a palette (256 or less colors) you can further reduce the colors by setting this value.

Dither	if the image is saved with a palette, you can instruct UFX to dither the image. This way you can achieve better image quality.

You should use Dither only when saving the final version of the image, because it makes harder to make any changes later, and increases the compressed image size.

Transparent	Some image types can save transparency information. If you check this parameter all pixels that have the background color will be transparent in the saved image.

Interlaced/Progressive	Some formats can store the image in interlaced or progressive subformat. It can be useful, because even when the image is still loading, you can see its approximate content. Usually this means slightly bigger images - the rare exception is JPEG, where you can get even slimmer files using this option.

Quality	when you save JPEG files (which is a lossy format), you can select the final quality of the image. The higher this setting, the better the quality but the bigger the file will be.

JPEG files are saved with image quality set to 75 by default, which is a good trade-off: it retains good quality and has small size.

Please notice that UFX can save GIF files. The algorithm used is not LZW based, thus free of royalty fees, while still retaining compatibility with normal LZW-based GIF decoders. Unfortunately it also produces slightly larger files. THIS IS A LEGAL ISSUE AND NOT A QUESTION OF TECHNICAL SKILL. We may include the standard GIF compression algorithm in a later release.

If you save images with palette (so UFX has to reduce the colors) or save lossy images (JPEG), be careful, because the image might change which you won't notice until you reload the saved image. This can be automated by switching Auto reload on.

Use button Optimize to get to the Image Optimization panel which helps you to reduce file size while retaining image quality.

Button Set as default sets the current extension as the default type of untitled images.

UFX cannot write multiimage GIF files. If you save an image and give the name of an existing GIF file, it will be overwritten with the current image.

If you press the Ok button, the current picture will be saved. If you press Cancel, the save operation will be canceled. If you save a picture that already exists the program asks whether you want to overwrite it or not.

Button Help brings up this help text.


Optimizing Image

This dialog helps you to optimize your image and to find the image format and parameters best fit to your particular needs. Use it to find the right quality setting for your JPEG, or to find the minimum number of colors for your GIF or PNG image to get the smallest file possible.

You can see a parameter panel on the left and four preview images. Set the parameters of the current image (see the tab above the parameter panel) and press the Preview button. The preview of the image will be displayed along with the file size required to save the image with these parameters. When you click on an image, the tab containing its parameters will be automatically activated.

Use the gray + / - keys to zoom in / out the image, drag the mouse or use the arrow keys to get the desired part of the image to preview.

To accept a setting press the Accept button of that certain image. You'll get back the Save as dialog with all parameters set.

If you're using a smaller screen resolution or need only two previews, press the << button to hide the right images. Later you can press the >> button to display them again.

You can save and restore panel-settings: enter a new name in the combo box and press button [image] to save the current settings. Later use button [image] to retrieve them. Finally [image] deletes the currently selected parameter group.

Help shows this help page, while Cancel abandons the operation and makes no changes to the parameters on the Save as dialog.

The program needs four times the memory required to store an image to manage this panel, so you may get the Not enough memory warning when you try to optimize bigger images. In this case you won't be able to use this functionality.


Send Via E-mail Dialog

This dialog helps you to easily send an image via E-Mail.

Before invoking this dialog make sure the image you want to send is the active one in UP. Fill out the address fields and compose your message. After that simply press button Send. Now let's see the different parameters in more detail:

From	your E-Mail address,

To	the address you want to send your message to,

Subject	the subject of the mail,

Body	finally this is the body of the message.

There are several buttons below these fields. Send sends your image along with the message you've composed. Advanced / Normal displays or hides more settings in connection with the E-Mail and your Internet account. Help brings up this help page, while Cancel abandons your message and closes the dialog without sending the E-Mail. If you choose to display additional parameters you can see and set the following values:

From Name	your name that is displayed along with your E-Mail address in the header of the message,

Reply To	enter this address only if it is different from your From field. The addressee can send a reply to this address,

SMTP Server	this is the name of your outgoing mail server,

User ID	this field can be left blank in most cases, however some mail servers need your user ID, too, to send your messages.

The first time you invoke this dialog the program tries to retrieve all necessary parameters from your settings. If you use Microsoft Mail & News, Outlook Express or Netscape Messenger the fields will be filled automatically. Also, later the program will remember the settings you've entered.

You can be sure that the program respects your privacy and will send no other information than your image and the composed message on the Net.


Print Dialog

Use this dialog if you want to print the current image.

On the left you can see the preview of the page to be printed, while on the right there are the printing parameters you can set:

The first parameter is the printer you want to use. Select the right one if you have more than one printers.

After that press button Properties... to set the desired parameters of this printer (such as DPI, paper size, etc. - it depends on your printer). Below this button you can see where this printer is connected to and the comments entered in association with this printer.

Group Page Orientation sets the orientation of the paper you want to print to. Here you can decide if you want to print a Portrait or a Landscape image.

Groups Vertical Align and Horizontal Align helps you to place you image to certain positions on page. Option Center places the image in the middle of the page, while Left, Right, Top and Bottom moves the image to one side of the page. Custom is chosen when you freely select the position of the image by dragging it.

Group Image Size determines the size of the image. Select Original to get back the original image size, Fit to Page to maximize the image size on the page or Custom if you want to set the size by hand. You can adjust the size by entering numerical values into fields Width and Height or by interactively resizing the image on the preview field. The measurement units can also be set below these fields. The default is the inch. If switch Keep Aspect Ratio is on modifying one dimension affects the other one.

Check Draw Border if you want the program to draw a thick border around the image on the page. It can be helpful if you want to cut the print out after the process.

Text Title is displayed at the top of the page. The font can be selected in the dialog invoked by button Font.

Number of copies defines how many copies you will print.

To the left you can see the print preview that reflect the above settings. You can freely move or resize (use the little black boxes) the image with the help of the mouse.

Press Print to print the image as it is displayed on the preview, Cancel to cancel the operation or Help to get this text.


Edit menu

There you can find some functions that help you undo / redo the latest changes, manage image selections and the Windows clipboard.

Undo ...	this function undoes the last image operation.

File operations cannot be undone or redone.

Redo ...	Use this function if you want to redo an operation just undone.

In theory you have unlimited undo and redo operations. The only limitation is your computer's memory and free hard disk space. You can set the amount of memory / hard disk space dedicated to these functions at Options / Preferences / Undo. There is also an Undo and Redo icon on the toolbar.

Copy	the same as Cut, but it leaves the original picture intact.

Paste	grabs an image from the Clipboard. You can also use other programs or the operating system to place images into the Clipboard,

Paste as new	creates a new image and pastes the contents of the Clipboard into it.

Delete	deletes the image and fills the area with the background color.


Image menu

In this menu you will find some image operations and transformations. Also this is the place where the external Adobe plug-ins and UFX components doing different filtering and transformations appear.

Info	this is not a transformation. It gives information about the current picture: it displays the picture name and dimensions. Also if the image is associated with a file, this dialog displays the last saved file size and date.

There may be entries of Adobe plug-ins or UFX Components which are organized into groups. Click on a name of a group and you will get the list of components in the group. The Adobe group is unique, there are all the Adobe compatible plug-ins Ultimate FX has found. The directory where these filters are looked for can be set in Options / Preferences / Plug-ins.

There's an effect browser for each Ultimate FX Component group. You can get help on each UFX component by activating it and pressing F1.

Each component has parameters, an Ok and a Cancel button. Most have an Effect Mode list from where you can select different modes the effect is applied on the original image. Also, most effects have a Preview button and many have an instant preview area. Set the desired parameters, and if an instant preview is displayed (Inst Preview is on), you can promptly see the changes you've made. Press the Preview button to see the changes on the whole picture (progress is displayed on the bottom left corner). Accept the settings by pressing the Ok button, or abandon them by pressing Cancel.

You can use components written by others or even write your own one if you're familiar with programming. See the Ultimate Paint Component SDK for further information. (Ultimate Paint components are totally compatible with Ultimate FX ones.)

At the Preferences panel you can also turn the search for UFX Components and Adobe plug-ins off. This way the startup of UFX can be significantly shortened.


Effect Browser dialog

You can browse effect groups. This is similar to the Image Browser dialog, but here the current image will be scaled down and processed with each component in the group. These thumbnails will be displayed in one panel, simultaneously. If there are more images, you can resize the panel or use the scroll bar to see the rest of them. You can navigate through effects by clicking on the desired group on the treeview.

To activate a component double click on its thumbnail. To close the panel without selecting an effect, use the Close button. Help brings up this description.

The image is processed with the original settings of each component.

You cannot cache thumbnails of the effect browser like in the Image Browser dialog.


Color menu

Here you will find functions that manage the Fast Palette and quantize the image:

Load Palette	you can load a previously saved Fast Palette. If you click on this function an Open dialog comes up where you can select the palette file to load,

Save Palette	by invoking this function you can save the current Fast Palette. In the Save dialog you can give a name and select the location of the file. Saved palettes will have the extension of .pal,

Limit Colors	this function brings up the Limit Colors dialog, where you can create a Fast Palette or quantize your image (limit its colors).


Limit Colors dialog

With this tool you can easily reduce the colors of your image (quantize) or create a palette of the used colors.

In the Limit Colors to field enter the number of colors you want your image to be represented with. Check Save Background Color box if you want to keep the current background color as one of the used colors. Turn on the Dither Image switch if you also want your image to be dithered during the process.

Dithering the image will increase its visible quality but makes harder - if not impossible - to make any changes later, and increases the compressed image size. So apply it with care only on the final image.

The Operation parameter determines what you would like to achieve exactly. There are three possibilities:

Store Colors in Fast Palette	limits the colors of the current image to the specified number and store them in the Fast Palette,

Use Colors of Fast Palette	limits the colors of the current image using only colors of the Fast Palette. It's useful if you want to create several images with the same palette,

Create Fast Palette Only	creates only a new Fast Palette based on the most important colors of the current image. It does not alter the image.


Desktop menu

In this menu you can import and export several images of your desktop:

Wallpaper	you can load the desktop wallpaper (if exists) or save an image as the current wallpaper. The image will be saved to the Windows directory as UPaint.bmp.

If you export more than one wallpaper, don't forget to always save the previous one under a different name, since it will be overwritten by the new one.

If you painted a new wallpaper, it will be saved as a true color image. If you loaded an existing image, it will inherit the bit-depth of the original.

Startup screen	these functions loads or saves the current startup screen. However the original clouds-behind-the-windows-logo cannot be loaded,

Waiting screen	here you can import / export the current waiting for shutdown screen.

Shutdown screen	the functions of this submenu load and save the Windows Shutdown screen.

The import functions of the last three images will double the width of the imported image to give you the aspect ratio you will see when Windows displays the image, while export functions halve it back to the original size. The saved images will have 256 colors.

You can also save whatever image you like as a Startup, Waiting and Shutdown screen, but these images will be scaled down to 320x400 regardless of the original aspect ratio and saved in 256 colors. It is recommended to use only these export functions to alter the Windows screens in order to keep the right image size and bit-depth.


Capture Desktop Dialog

Use this dialog to capture your desktop or a selected window.

First you should set whether you want to capture the whole desktop (screen) - in this case select Whole Desktop, or only a window - in this case you should select Active Window.

The Trigger parameter determines how the capture will be triggered: with an automatic delay or by hand:

•	Select Hot Key and set the key to start the capturing by pressing a key combination.

•	If you'd rather automatically capture the selected source after a certain time ellapsed, use Delay In Secs and set the delay value in seconds.

Click on button Capture to start the capturing of the desktop or a window.

Help brings up this description while Cancel abandons the whole operation.

When you click on Capture the program is minimized to the taskbar not to hide the desktop and other windows.


Options menu

In the Options menu you can alter the outlook and behavior of the program.

Palette	displays (if it's on) or hides (if it's off) the toolbar that contains the icons and the fast palette. If you close the toolbar you can open it again by turning this switch on,

Standard Functions	displays or hides the toolbar containing the most frequently used functions under the main menu.

Finally you can invoke the Preferences dialog, where all important properties of the program can be set:

Preferences...	this brings up the Preferences box, where there are groups of properties under multiple categories.


Preferences dialog

In this dialog you can alter some common behavior of the application. There are several pages, you can switch between them by pressing their label on the right side.

In the General page you will find several general properties:

Clipping	if it's on the program ignores all drawing operations that take place outside the viewable area. The exceptions are the Image processing functions which are always operating on the entire picture. If the switch is off you can continue drawing outside the viewable area,

Fix video card bug	some new video cards have bugs in their driver or does not support some common functionality. This may affect the displaying of images in UFX. By default this option is on so it may slows down displaying of images. If you want faster refresh, turn it off and check whether there are any freezes while you zoom in/out and scroll the image in the window. If you don't experience anything like this you may safely leave this option unchecked.

The Interface page holds options in connection with the user interface:

Resize neighbors	if this option is active, when you resize an image by dragging its border all neighboring images will also be resized,

Flat icons	switch this option on if you want to have Office97-style flat icons (default). If this is switched off you will have old style icons,

Maximize application	turn this option on if you want UFX to start maximized every time,

Always dock toolbars	use this switch if you want your toolbars to be docked to the current image all the time,

Minimize images to Taskbar	if you want your open images to appear on the Windows Taskbar turn this switch on. This change will take effect only when you restart UFX,

Fixed Zoom for New Images	check this option and select a zoom factor if you want to open all images with the same, constant magnification. If the option is not checked, the program uses the highest zoom level with which the image still fits the screen,

Level	this determines the user's level of experience. If you set this to Novice, only the most important and commonly used parameters will be displayed in the toolbars. This way you won't get confused if you're only getting to know UFX. Choose Expert if you're already familiar with the basic parameters and want to use UFX in a more flexible way.

The Files page contains options in connection with file handling:

Backup files	switch it on if you want to create backup copies of saved files. In this case the extensions will start with '_'.

Auto load palette	turn this option on if you want UFX to load the palette of images automatically (where available). The palette will be loaded to the Fast Palette area, where you can easily select colors for working on the image. Changing these colors have no effect on the image, as it is handled in true color format,

Auto reload	if this option is active, saved files are immediately reloaded. This is useful if you save files in a lossy format (e.g. JPEG) or with palette that has less colors than your original image. You can always undo the operation if you don't like the outcome,

Cache thumbnails	if you want the image browser to remember previously loaded images and not to load each image every time, you can turn this value on. UFX will store small images (thumbnails) in a file placed in the directory where the images are.

File list length	this value sets the length of the most recently used file list. It is between 0 (no file list) and 16. This list appears at the bottom of the File menu.

Clear file list now	it clears the most recently used file list,

Remove inaccessible entries	removes those entries from the file list, which cannot be accessed at the moment.

In the Undo page you can select:

Undo in memory	set the amount of memory in megabytes you want to reserve for the undo operation. The bigger this value is the more undo phase can be stored in memory and the faster their retrieval will be,

Undo on disk	this is the amount of disk space you reserve for the undo operation. The bigger the value the more stages of work are stored to be retrieved if needed.

Directory for undo files	here you can set the location of undo files on disk. You can browse a dir with the help of the icon right to the input field. The freely available space on the current hard disk is displayed below the field.

The Plug-ins page contains the options related to the UPCs and Adobe Plug-ins.

Use UP Components	turn this switch off if you don't want to use UPCs. It speeds up the initialization of the program, but UPCs won't be available in the Image menu.

Use Adobe Plug-ins	this switch determines whether you want to use Adobe Plug-ins or not. If you don't check this combo box, the initialization of the program may speed up significantly depending on the Plug-ins you have, but you won't be able to use any of them.

Turning on or off these two switches has immediate effect: the UPCs and Plug-Ins will be installed or deinstalled right after you press Ok.

Adobe plug-ins location	UFX will search this directory when initializing the external Adobe Plug-ins. You can also select the directory with the help of the icon right to the input field.

Plug-ins failed to load	Here you may get a list of Adobe Plug-ins that failed to load. This usually happens because these plug-ins use some DLLs. If these DLLs cannot be found on your computer, the plug-ins that need them cannot be used.

Usually plug-ins miss MSVCRT10.DLL, MSVCRT20.DLL, CTL3D32.DLL or PLUGIN.DLL. The easiest way to check which DLLs a plug-in uses is to look for the string '.dll' in its code and see what stands before it.

Here you can select the language of the messages. The current language is marked. Select the desired language from the list and click Ok. All messages, buttons and menus will change instantly.

If you're interested in translating UFX to your language, please contact us for further information.

In the Extensions page you can select the extensions you want to associate with UFX. Explorer will open the checked file types with UFX by default. The associations of unchecked types will be restored to their previous values.

In some cases you will find gray mark beside a file type. This means that this type has several extensions and some, but not all of them are associated with UFX. If you leave this mark grayed, the associations of this type won't change.

By checking / unchecking a type that has more than one extension will affect all of them.

Select a file type (click on its name) and press button Set Default to set the selected extension as the default type of untitled images.

In the Colors page you will find options relating to handling colors and palette:

Color values in Hex format	switch it on if you would like to set or read the color values in hexadecimal format,

Palette Entries	this value determines the number of entries displayed in the fast palette field,

Default Palette	here you should enter the name of the palette you want to automatically load every time UFX starts. Click on the small folder icon to browse the file.

Palette files can be saved in the Color menu.

This panel helps you to adjust UFX to the properties of your display.

Use Gamma Correction	switch this option on if you would like to enable the gamma correction features of your video card in UFX. Be careful! Some older video drivers have bugs, so if you experience freezes or other strange behavior, turn this switch off. The gamma correction feature may also slow down displaying of images significantly.

Use Windows Defaults	turn this on if you have already set the proper gamma values globally and would like to use these settings.

Coarse Setting	if you enable gamma correction but would like to use local settings for your images, adjust this value. Set it so that the inner rectangle gets as close to its surrounding area in color as possible.

Fine Tuning	do some fine adjustments with these values for each color component.

After setting these values, all images in UFX will be displayed according to the gamma of your display. It does not affect however the contents of the images, they remain the same as without this correction.

Button Ok makes all changes permanent, Help brings up this description, Cancel abandons all changes and closes the dialog.


Window menu

Here you can select among images currently open. You will see the index and name of each picture. Untitled is an image that hasn't been given a name and saved yet. It can be an empty one or a picture that has been created recently. The current image is marked.

Prev	switches to the previous image. It does nothing if you're at the first one already. Reach this by pressing Shift+Ctrl+Tab.

Next	switches to the next image. It does nothing if you're editing the last image already. Reach this by pressing Ctrl+Tab.

Cascade	arranges open images in a cascaded layout that all image headers can be seen.

Full Screen	use this function to see the current image zoomed to full screen on a black background. All menus and toolbars will be hidden. Click with the mouse or press a key to return to normal mode. The function can also be reached by pressing F9.

Fit to image	this function resizes the active window to match current zoom and image dimensions.


Help menu

The Help menu contains all functions necessary to get help and to contact us.

Contents	activate it to get the contents of the available help,

Visit HomePage	immediately takes you to the Ultimate FX Homepage by opening a new browser window. You can also reach this by clicking on the top right corner of the About dialog,

How to Register	shows the help topic about registering the product,

About	brings up the About dialog with the version and credit information of UFX.

You can get help on the current operation at any moment by pressing the F1 key on the keyboard.


Write Text

In this drawing mode you can display text on the image. Type the text in the topmost field of the Write Text panel, then click on the image or drag to move it to the right position. You can modify the text and its properties any time during typing. Finally you should place the text on the image by clicking on the Ok button, after which you won't be able to modify it.

In the Write Text panel you may alter the following text parameters (some of them are displayed only in Expert Level):

Font

In this group you can set the outlook of the font you want to use. Select one of the Windows True Type fonts, set the font size in points, and use any of the modifier switches (bold, italic, underlined, shadowed, outlined).

Shadow

If you choose Shadow in the Font group, you can set the shadow parameters here: the depth of the shadow in pixels and its color. Click with the left mouse button to get the Color Selection dialog or use the right button to get a popup menu. The possible choices are:

Color dialog	displays the Color Selection dialog - just as the left mouse click,

Drawing Color	we will use the current drawing color,

Background Color	the background color will be copied into the shadow color,

Pick from image	you can pick a color from the image by click on it.

Size

The width and height of the text in percentages. With these parameters you can stretch the font if needed.

Position

The position of text. Although you can drag the mouse cursor to the right position on the image, it is also possible to set the position with these numeric parameters more precisely.

Paragraph

If you type in more than one line, you can set the alignment (left, center, right or justified) and the line spacing of the paragraph. The alignment is always calculated with the help of the longest line.

When you set the font type or size in the font group, the line spacing parameter will be set accordingly. If you want either tighter or looser lines, you can adjust this number.

Handle

Here you can set where to grab the text. The position parameter (described above) may mean the center of the text, one of the sides or one of the corners. Click on the apropriate arrow to define the handle position.

The color of the text will be the current drawing color, while the outline (if exists) will be displayed with the background color.


Undo

This icon undoes the last drawing operation.

File operations cannot be undone.

If you want to undo more than one operation at once, use the small arrow right to the icon. A popup list appears that contains all operations up to now. Select an entry and UFX will undo all operations up to that point including the selected item. The number of operations that can be undone is limited only by the undo memory settings on the Options / Preferences panel.

If you want to redo an operation just undone, use the neighboring Redo icon.

With the help of these icons you can try out all your ideas effectively without risking to ruin your work.

You can also reach this icon by pressing key Alt-Backspace, or activating Edit / Undo.


Redo

This icon redoes the last operation you've undone.

File operations cannot be undone / redone.

If you want to redo more than one operation at once, use the small arrow right to the icon. A popup list appears that contains all operations up to now. Select an entry and UFX will redo all operations up to that point including the selected item. The number of operations that can be redone is limited only by the Undo memory settings on the Options / Preferences panel.

If you want to undo the last redo operation, use Undo again. With the help of these icons you can try out all your ideas effectively without risking to ruin your work.

You can also reach this icon by pressing key Shift-Alt-Backspace, or activating Edit / Redo.


UFX Components

UFX has the ability to run image functions that weren't originally included in the program. These standalone routines are called UFX Components. They are single files with UPC extension, and located in the Comps subdirectory. In the program you will find them under the Image menu. You can use UFX Components written by others or write your own ones if you're adventurous. However we recommend that you use only components that you're absolutely sure of being safe, working properly and not doing any harm to your system. It is completely your responsibility.

You may also find a pack of tested components attached to this version of UFX.


Hot Keys

Menus

Alt+F	Files menu

Ctrl+N 	New...

Ctrl+O	Open...

Ctrl+S	Save

Ctrl+F4	Close

Alt+X	Exit

Alt+E	Edit menu

Shift+Del, Ctrl+X	Cut

Ctrl+Ins, Ctrl+C	Copy

Shift+Ins, Ctrl+V	Paste

Ctrl+Del	Del

Alt+I	Image menu

Ctrl+P	Crop

Ctrl+F	Filter Factory

Ctrl+I	Info

Alt+O	Options menu

F6	Palette on/off

F7	Standard functions on/off

Alt+W	Window menu

Alt+1-0	Switch to image 1..10

Ctrl+Tab	Next image

Shift+Ctrl+Tab	Previous image

Alt+H	Help menu

Misc

Alt+BackSp, Ctrl+Z	Undo last action

Shift+Alt+BackSp	Redo last action

gray + / -	Increase / decrease Zoom

Z	Toggle zoom

Up, Down,

Left, Right	Scroll image

Home	Go to left side

End	Go to right side

PgUp	Go to top

PgDn	Go to bottom

Ctrl+Shift+D	Change Drawing color

Ctrl+Shift+B	Change Background color

Shift+Up	Exchange Drawing and Background colors

Shift+Down	Switch displaying of colors between RGB and HSV

Shift+Home	Decrease Hue / Red value of Drawing color

Shift+PgUp	Increase Hue / Red value of Drawing color

Shift+Left	Decrease Saturation / Green value of Drawing color

Shift+Right	Increase Saturation / Green value of Drawing color

Shift+End	Decrease Value / Blue value of Drawing color

Shift+PgDn	Increase Value / Blue value of Drawing color

Ctrl+L	Clipping on/off

Ctrl+A	Anti-alias on/off


How to Register

The free version of UFX is fully functional without any time limit. If you would like to get rid of the advertisement panel that is constantly visible while you work with UFX, you should register the program for a nominal fee.

How much to pay?

To register Ultimate FX you should pay

•	$9.95 for a single license,

•	$39.95 for a 5-user license,

•	$99.95 for an unlimited site license (only $29.95 for educational institutions).

How to register UFX?

You will receive the final registration code by email directly from us in two days. This code is a very short file which should be put in the folder of Ultimate FX.

You have to do this registration procedure only once, after that UFX will be registered, and won't display any advertisements.o

In addition all minor UFX versions before the next major version number change stay registered which means that all updates remain ad-free until the next major version.

Keep your registration file in a safe place: in case you delete UFX by accident you will need it again.

Please do not distribute your registration code. It contains your name, so it's easy to identify who gave away the code.

How to pay?

For your convenience we have contracted another company, NorthStar Solutions, to process any orders you may wish to place with your Discover, MasterCard, Visa, or American Express card.

You may also order UFX if you don't have a credit card: see MAILED ORDERS section below.

Please be sure to mention you would like to order Product #4511 when placing your order for a single copy or Product #4512 if you order site license for an educational instutution:

INTERNET ORDERS

Visit NorthStar Solutions at

http://www.nstarsolutions.com/1191.htm

and fill out their online order form - fast, easy and secure!

PHONED ORDERS Monday-Friday, 9am-7pm CST

800 699-6395 << U.S. only

785 539-3731

Ask for Product #4511 (single license) or Product #4512 (site license for educational institutions).

Please call these numbers only to place orders, NorthStar Solutions cannot provide any technical assistance for you, since it is only the distributor of our product.

FAXED ORDERS 24 hours

785 539-3743

E-MAILED ORDERS

CompuServe: starmail

America Online: starmail

Internet: starmail@nstarsolutions.com

MAILED ORDERS

You may register with a check or money order by making them

payable to "NorthStar Solutions" and sending them to:

1228 Westloop Pl, Suite 204

Manhattan, KS  66502

For all kinds of orders please provide (or be prepared to provide) the following information:

•	The program you are registering: Product #4511 (single license) or Product #4512 (site license for educational institutions),

•	Your mailing address,

•	Your credit card # and its expiration date (if using credit card),

•	Your E-Mail address (so NorthStar Solutions can send you an E-Mail confirming your order and we can contact you easily with the registration code and any important follow-up information, upgrade announcements, etc.).