PC World Komputer 1999 May/pcwk_05_99B.iso/PAINTER.5/README/README.TXT

Text File | 1994-11-30 | 14KB | 299 lines

FRACTAL DESIGN PAINTER« 3.0 FOR WINDOWS - READ MEv3.0

This READ ME file contains late-breaking information on Painter 3.0.
Please read the QuickStart Guide for installation instructions.
NEW USERS--be sure to fill out and mail your Painter registration card,
so Fractal Design can let you know about the latest changes and
improvements to the program. Registering entitles you to free
technical support, product updates and special offers.

This document contains the following sections:

    1. Common Installation Problems
    2. Easter Eggs
    3. Useful Feature Notes
    4. General Troubleshooting
    5. Printing
    6. How to Contact Technical Support


1. COMMON INSTALLATION PROBLEMS

* Painter serial numbers:
If you have trouble entering your Painter serial number into the
program, make sure:
- All letters are in UPPER CASE.
- Enter only zeros and ones.  There are no letter "O"s or "I"s.
- Include the two hyphens "-" that appear in the number.
- Enter the number in the second text field.  The first field is for
your name.
- If you have upgraded from an earlier version of Painter, your old
serial number WILL NOT work in Painter 3.0.  Use the new number
included in the Painter 3.0 package.

* Startup error: "Cannot find AVIFILE.DLL"
This error means Video for Windows(tm) is not active in Windows.
Painter 3.0 will not run without Video for Windows (VFW) installed.
The Painter installer will install VFW unless you specifically
uncheck that option.  MAKE SURE to restart Windows after the Painter
installation is complete to allow VFW to load correctly.  If for some
reason you need to install VFW again, run the Painter installer and
select only the Video for Windows install option.

* Startup error: "256-color display driver required"
Painter REQUIRES that Windows use at least a 256-color video card
display driver.  Any 16-color driver, including the standard "VGA"
driver that ships with Windows, will not work with the program.
Change resolutions to a driver that offers at least 256 colors and is
compatible with your video card.

* Plug-ins:
If you are using a large number of third-party plug-ins with Painter,
the program will take much longer to launch and may appear to "hang"
momentarily.  This is because Painter must load each plug-in every
time you start the program.  Also be aware that because of changes
made by Adobe, the plug-ins included with Photoshop(tm) 2.5 and 3.0
will not work within Painter.


2. EASTER EGGS

Due to the irrepressible creative energy of the Painter engineering
team, the following features found their way into the program AFTER
the manuals went to print:

* Masking
 - The Invert Mask command (shortcut: Ctrl-Shift-I) found under
Edit: Mask inverts the current mask or selection.
  - The Clear Mask command (Ctrl-U) found under Edit: Mask
reinitializes the mask. Note that this is Painter's equivalent to the
"Select None" command found in many image-editing programs.  This is
different than Painter's Deselect command (Ctrl-D) which temporarily
deactivates the mask.

* Patterns
When you use the Define Pattern command (found under Tools: Patterns),
your image is tagged as the current Clone Source and given these few
special properties:

 - Wrap-Around Color: When you use any painting tool (including the
Image Hose) in a pattern image, the paint will magically "wrap-around"
from side to side and from top to bottom. This makes it incredibly
easy to paint seamless, self-tiling patterns. Before painting, choose
Tools: Patterns: Define Pattern to tag the active image as a pattern
file. Note, that if you want to fill a selection with a pattern,
choose Edit: Fill, and select the "Clone Source" radio-button option
from the dialog.

 - Wrap-Around Seams: If you have defined an image as a pattern, you
can slide the "seams" of the pattern (the top, bottom, left and right
sides of the image), into the center of the image by holding down the
Shift key with the Grabber, and moving the image. The left seam will
magically appear at the right; top on the bottom, so you can easily
create perfect patterns. Check it out!

* ColorTalk
A very cool feature from Fractal Design ColorStudio« was ColorTalk,
an image-editing programming language. ColorTalk is being enhanced for
a future version of Painter, but for those who like living on the
edge, you can access the development version of ColorTalk by hitting
the "K" key on your keyboard. ColorTalk technical documentation can be
found in the \SUPPORT\TECHNOTE directory on the Painter EXTRAS CD-ROM
or in our online forum libraries (see below).

* Sessions
A very useful tool for those of you who use sessions is the ability to
execute them from the keyboard. If you give your session a name
followed by a "\" and a single letter, the session can be executed by
typing "Ctrl-K" followed by that letter. For example, if you had named
your session, "TimeBomb\h," you could invoke that session by typing
"Ctrl-K" and then "h."


3. USEFUL FEATURE NOTES

* Pressure-sensitive selections: Holding down the Alt key while using
the Outline Selection Tool will autotrace the contour of the
selection's stroke, similar to the way the pressure-sensitive brushes
in Illustrator(tm) and Freehand(tm) work. If you are using a pressure-
sensitive tablet, the stroke will also vary in proportion to pressure.

* Controlling Image Warp. When using the Image Warp effect, click on
the area of the image in the preview that you wish to distort and drag
in the desired direction. The drag distance controls the movement of
the starting point. The circle that appears as you drag indicates the
zone of pixels that will be affected or influenced by the effect.

* HOT TIP: If you have the brush tool selected, holding down the Ctrl
and Alt keys and dragging on the canvas will allow you to adjust the
brush size interactively. A great option for making perfect brushes!


4. GENERAL TROUBLESHOOTING

* 15- or 16-bit display modes:
With some 32768-color (15-bit) and 65536-color (16-bit) video drivers,
Painter may display colors scrambled.  If this happens, choose
Preferences: Windows from the Edit menu and check the box "No Device
Dependent Bitmaps".

* Memory:
There are two memory options in the Windows Preferences section:
"Maximum Memory for Painter" and "Half Memory for Painter."
- For best performance with only Painter running, select Maximum
Memory for Painter.
- To be able to run a larger number of Windows applications at the
same time as Painter, select Half Memory for Painter.

* Windows virtual memory:
Painter does not utilize the Windows virtual memory swap file to hold
image data.  Instead, it will create its own temp file on the hard
disk as necessary.  This means that an excessively large Windows swap
file will only take hard disk space away from the program and possibly
hurt performance.  As a general rule, we usually recommend you set
your Windows swap file to about half the level of RAM on your system.
For example, on a computer with 16 megabytes of RAM, use a permanent
Windows swap file of about 8 megs.  For more information, consult the
Tips and Hints Guide on the Painter 3 EXTRAS CD-ROM.

* Windows disk cache:
On a system with 8 megs of RAM, we usually recommend setting the
Windows disk cache (SmartDrive; or, in the case of Windows 3.11,
32-bit File Access) to a low setting of about 256k (the default is
usually 2000k).  This strikes a balance between hard disk performance
and memory available to Painter.  For computers with 16 or more megs
of RAM, the cache can be set to larger values.

* Graphics tablets:
Painter is compatible with pressure-sensitive graphics tablets that
support either the WINTAB or Pen Windows tablet driver standards.
Some tablets, like those from Wacom, also include a "Windows 3.0-
compatible" mouse-type pressure driver that works within Painter.
Unlike previous versions of Painter, Painter 3.0 ships with NO tablet
drivers itself.

* Tilt and Bearing:
The ability to link the tilt or bearing of your graphics tablet
stylus to aspects of your brushstroke (like color or size) has been
implemented in Painter 3.0.  Currently, these features are
supported ONLY by CalComp tablets.  If you are not using a CalComp
tablet, the Tilt and Bearing settings in the Advanced Controls:
Expression palette will not give useful results.  If you ARE using
a CalComp tablet, CalComp requires that you have the following line
in the [Pen Driver] section of the SYSTEM.INI file:  calaft=1

* Opening Painter 3.0 TIFF files in Dabbler, Sketcher, or earlier
versions of Painter:
If TIFF files saved from Painter 3.0 come into other Fractal Design
software scrambled, you have probably saved the TIFF with a mask
layer.  Other Fractal Design programs do not support TIFFs saved with
masks.  To work around this, open the image back into Painter 3.0,
choose File: Save As, and uncheck the "Save Mask" box.

* TWAIN-compatible hand scanners:
Painter is not optimized to work with hand scanners.  If you are
having trouble scanning directly into the program using File: TWAIN
Acquire, and you don't have access to a flatbed scanner, scan the
image using the stand-alone software packaged with the scanner.  From
this software, save the image in a compatible format (like TIFF), and
use the File: Open command within Painter to open the image.

* Diamond SpeedStar 24X ISA video card:
In our testing, this card is incompatible with Painter in 24-bit color
resolutions using the most recent Diamond drivers (v. 2.04).  Pick a
resolution with fewer colors in the Diamond control panel.

* Crystal Fonts with ATI video cards
Painter may fail to start up when running Crystal Fonts and 256 colors
on an ATI video card, giving the message "Painter requires access to
the Windows Palette to run properly on 256 color devices."  This is
due to Crystal Fonts making it appear to Windows applications that the
card's color palette cannot be changed. To run Painter, turn Crystal
Fonts off in the ATI control panel.

* EPS Clipping Paths:
In the EPS Save Options dialog box, the option to save the current
selection as a clipping path has been disabled. This option is not
available in Painter 3.0.

* Painter Technical Notes:
Technical notes on ColorTalk, Weavings, Color Sets and Sessions can be
found on the Painter EXTRAS CD in the Support directory. The technical
note on Image Hose nozzle rankings will be available from Fractal
Design Technical Support starting in December 1994.


5. PRINTING

* Printing options (under Edit: Preferences: Windows):
- The printing option "Free Memory for Printing" transfers the image
to disk during printing so that more memory is available for the
Print Manager and printer driver. This may result in faster printing
or may even allow printing to work in cases where it otherwise might
fail.
- The option "No Print Banding" disables print banding for devices
that support it. This may be required to make some printers work (see
below).  The option affects only GDI printing.

* Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 4 Series - GDI (non-PostScript) printing:
When using these printers, if the image only prints partially or
aborts with a "Print Overrun" error, try toggling Painter's "No Print
Banding" setting.  You will find this under the Edit menu in
Preferences: Windows.  This setting is sometimes affected by whether
the image is being printed in portrait or landscape orientation.  The
optimum settings are as follows:
- HP LaserJet 3 drivers:
    "No Print Banding" should be CHECKED.
- HP LaserJet 4 drivers:
    When printing in Portrait, "No Print Banding" should be CHECKED.
    When printing in Landscape, "No Print Banding" should be UNCHECKED.

* Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 4 Series - PostScript printing:
In File: Print, make sure to use "B&W PostScript" instead of "Color
PostScript."  This will speed up printing significantly on these black
and white laser printers.

* Hewlett-Packard DeskJet 1200C/PS printers - PostScript printing:
When printing to the HP1200C/PS from Painter using PostScript, the
printer may return error messages.  To fix this, under File: Print
Setup, choose Options: PS Options and select the "Optimize for
Portability" choice.

* Error message: "Image does not fit within the printer page."
If you receive this error when printing to non-PostScript printers
like the HP DeskJet series and the Canon BJ series, your image may
print out compressed.  This is a known limitation of the Windows GDI
print function.  To avoid this problem, make sure your image fits on
the page by doing one of the following: check the "Size to Fit Page"
box under File: PostScript Setup, change the page orientation
(landscape or portrait) under File: Print Setup, or resize the image
using Canvas: Resize.

* Printing annotations:
Printing annotations will work only with PostScript printers.  With
GDI (non-PostScript) printers, the image will print out without the
annotations.


6. HOW TO CONTACT TECHNICAL SUPPORT

Technical support is free of charge to registered users.  Please have
your registration number handy when contacting Fractal. When
contacting us by phone, it is most helpful to be calling from the
computer where you need support.  This way we can work with you to
solve the problem or demonstrate a particular function of the software.

Hours:  8am-5pm (PST), Monday-Friday
[phone]

To get support online or to just exchange tips, you can also use any of
these online services to contact Fractal Design:

Internet:   "[e-mail]"

CompuServe: Technical Support - "GO FRACTAL"
            Painter User's Group - "GO GUGRPA"

AOL:        Painter User's Group - Keyword search "Fractal"