SolarCell Guide           What can you do with SolarCell?     SolarCell draws suns in a fantasy style. You can make suns with coronas, halos, rainbows, and swirling surface detail. SolarCell is a plug-in filter that works with popular paint programs like Photoshop, and this manual assumes you are familiar with your paint software. You can check for updates at www.flamingpear.com .      This manual has these sections: Installation Quick Start! The controls Hints Version history How to register Questions?           Installation     The SolarCell filter needs to be in your paint program's Plug-Ins folder. The installer program will put them there if you tell it to do so. When you launch your paint program, the Filter menu should contain an item called Flaming Pear, and that should lead to a sub-menu containing SolarCell.           Quick Start!     Start with an image in RGB or greyscale mode, and select some part of the image with your favorite selection tool. Choose the SolarCell filter. A dialog box something like this will appear:

SolarCell needs Photoshop 3.0 or an equivalent to present the image preview. With some other paint programs, the filter will still work, but there will be no preview. Click the dice button a few times until you see something that you like. Reposition the sun by clicking anywhere in the preview area. Click OK. The progress bar will appear, and then your selection will be replaced with a sun.      The controls There are several controls for each of the five elements in a sun: The sun Flares Diffraction spikes The halo The bow ...and a few other controls that affect the whole image.     dice       1. The sun     The sun's disk is normally filled with fiery swirls, but it can also be a flat color, or black like an eclipse.  Sun disk popup menu lets you choose the sun disk type. Color Button This button lets you choose the sun's color. The other disk controls only affect the "normal"fiery-swirls disk:     Radius This is the size of the sun. Cold/Hot Biases the sun's color toward cold (blue) or hot (red) hues. Swirl count Swirls in the lumpy pattern make it look more like fire. This control set the number of swirls. Swirl Size Set the size of the swirls. If the swirls are large enough to overlap each other, interesting patterns appear. Beware, setting this slider to a high value may take a very long time to produce a result. Be patient, and a new graphic will soon appear. Smear Larger values of this control produce longer streaks in the swirls. Detail Sets the overall scale of the lumpy pattern on the sun's surface. Monopoles and Vortices: You can have two types of swirls. Monopoles are streaks radiating from a point. Vortices are spiral whirlpools.   sun disk popup     color button     monopole     vortex       2. Flares     The flares are jets of flame shooting out from the edge of the sun,      Color button Sets the flares' color. Count Sets how many flares there are. Radius Sets the size of flares. Width Sets the width of the individual flares. Detail adjusts the lumpiness of the flares. Brightness Adjusts the overall brightnes of the flares. Orientation control Determines the clustering of the flares. It works like the control for the diffraction spikes, explained above.   sun with corona flares         3. Diffraction spikes   In real-life photographs, diffraction spikes appear around bright lights due to a flaw in the lens. SolarCell draws these spikes in order to produce the illusion of glaring brightness. Color button The color button sets the color of the spikes. Count Sets the number of spikes. Radius Sets the spikes' length. Width Sets the spikes' width. Brightness Sets the overall brightness of the spikes. Gamma Changes the contrast of the spikes to produce a softer or harder appearance. Diffraction For a more realistic appearance, this control lets you add stripes of subtle colors across the spikes. When this control is at zero, there are no stripes. At 100, the stripes are at their most prominent. Diffraction Scale Sets the width of the color stripes.   Orientation control Adjusts the direction and grouping of the spikes. It works like this: The direction of the yellow line sets the direction that the spikes will tend to line up along. The distance of the blue dot from the center sets how much the spikes will cluster together. For example: if you place the blue dot in the center of the control, the spikes will be dispersed all around the sun. If you drag the blue dot all the way to the edge of the circle, then the spikes will all cluster together at the same angle. Experiment and see.   sun with spikes                     orientation control     4. The halo     The halo is a bright circle of color around the sun. It helps to convey the impression of brightness, and of air between the sun and the observer.     Color button Sets the halo's color. Radius Sets the width of the halo. The radius is added to the sun's size, so you can change the size of the sun and the halo will move with it. Brightness Adjusts the contrast of the halo, so it can taper off slowly or rapidly.   sun with halo                       5. The bow   The bow is a rainbow around the sun. When it's bright, it produces a fantasy-like effect. When dim, it lends a subtle variation of hue.      Radius This is the bow's radius, but it is not added to the sun's radius. The bow radius can be less than the suns' radius. This way, the bow can overlap the sun, which is sometimes useful. Width The bow's width. Bow brightness Sets the brightness. Bow Blur Sets how much the colors blue together. When this control is turn up high, the bow will have subtle colors like those seen around the moon on a partly cloudy night. The checkbox Reverses the order of colors in the bow.   sun with bow                   6. Other controls   Dice This randomizes the settings. Click it as much as you want to see different effects. Random seed. This changes only the arrangement of all the random elements, like the spikes, corona jets, and the sun disk surface. MasterBrite This is the master brightness control for the whole image. Position of Sun Reposition the sun by clicking anywhere in the preview area. Glue mode: Lets you combine the sun with the underlying image in various ways. Modes other than "normal" produce special effects. "Composite" is useful: it makes the sun opaque, and everything else brightens the underlying image. Plus % and minus buttons: If the selected image area is larger than the preview are, these buttons will let you zoom in and out . You can also reposition the preview by dragging it around; your cursor will turn into a hand. Auto Preview: When this box is checked, the preview automatically updates whenever you move any control. Turn it off if you want to save time. Load preset: SolarCell comes with some presets, which are files containing settings. To load one, click this button and browse for a preset file. Save preset: When you make an effect you like, click this button to save the settings in a file.      Three more buttons: OK:  Applies the effect to your image. Cancel:  Dismisses the filter, and leaves the image unchanged. Register: Allows you to type in a registration code.   dice     random seed     glue mode     Load preset (top) and save preset           Hints   If all four color controls -- sun, spike, halo, and corona -- are similar, then results are realistic. Using vivid, unrelated colors produces a surreal effect. Updates and hints are online at http://www.flamingpear.com/solarcell.html .         Version History   Version 1.1e  November 1999 Fixes strange bow colors that may appear when SolarCell is used with some paint programs.  Version 1.1d  July 1999 Improves compatibility with non-Photoshop paint programs.  Version 1.1c  May 1999 Fixes a bug which sometimes caused the color buttons to crash.  Version 1.1b  May 1999 Fixes a slow startup bug which caused SolarCell to run very slowly the first time it was used. Version 1.1  April 1999 The first public release.         How to Register   SolarCell is time-limited evaluation software. If you would like to continue using it beyond 15 days, you can register it for US$20 in these ways: - Register online at http://order.kagi.com/?LB , using a credit card.     Payment is accepted through Kagi, a fee processing service. If you have questions about your order, you can contact Kagi's customer service at support@kagi.com: - Run the Register program that comes with SolarCell, which you can download through http://www.flamingpear.com/downloads.html . - Order by phone with a credit card at +1 (510) 601-5244 during business hours in the Pacific time zone. Kagi charges you an extra US$5 for this. - Or, you can send a letter to... Kagi  1442-A Walnut Street #392-LB  Berkeley, California, 94709-1405  USA     Your will get your code rapidly in an email message titled "Thanks for your payment," or on a postcard if you have no email.      What to do with the code when you get it: - From within your paint program, bring up the filter. - There should be a button called "Register" near the "Cancel " button. Click the "Register" button. (If there is no "Register" button, it means somebody has already input the code on this particular computer, and so you're already finished.) - A new dialog box will appear. Type your code into a blank. - Click OK.  .  - A thank-you message will appear. You're done.         Questions?   Answers to troubleshooting questions appear online at http://www.flamingpear.com/faq.html. You can check for new releases of the filter at www.flamingpear.com . And if you have ideas for improvements, or commentary, or questions, please email lloyd@flamingpear.com.