Pocket Artist Documentation

To install Pocket Artist, double-click the PocketArtist3.exe file from the download page. Upon installing, the program will appear on your mobile device's StartPrograms menu. Pocket Artist is then installed on your device and desktop and activated for a 30-day demo. If you would like to continue using Pocket Artist 3 past the 30-day trial period, you must purchase it from Conduits Direct.

Uninstalling Pocket Artist on the device: tap StartSettingsRemove Programs, tap Pocket Artist and tap Remove. On the desktop, tap StartSettingsControl PanelAdd Remove Programs, click Pocket Artist and click Remove.

Main Toolbar

Other Toolbars

Main Menu Items

• New: starts a new document. Will prompt to save the current document.
• Open: opens a document. Also will prompt.
• Save: saves the document. If you have saved the image previously, or if you loaded the current image and have edited it, this command will save it without a prompt.
• Save As: saves the document. This will prompt for a file name and saving type.
• Close: closes the document. Will prompt to save changes.
• Revert: loads the last saved iteration of current document.
• Recent Files: holds a list of recently opened, edited or saved files.
• Tools: fully described in the Advanced Tools section.
• Exit: (HPC only) exits Pocket Artist 3.
• Minimize: (PPC only) minimizes Pocket Artist, just like tapping the Smart Minimize button in any other Pocket PC application.

• Undo/Redo: undoes the last command, whether it be a paint stroke or a document command (such as resizing the image). If you have just selected to Undo, the command will Redo the undone operation.
• Step Backward: same as Undoing a step, but allows you to keep stepping backward in your image editing history.
• Step Forward: same as Redoing one step in your image editing history.
• Cut: takes the current selection, moves it to the clipboard (for version 3, the Pocket Artist and system clipboards are unified), and erases the current selected area of the document.
• Copy: takes the current selection and copies it to the Pocket Artist clipboard, retaining the selection and the document.
• Copy Merged: grabs all the layers as they are shown onscreen and copies it to the clipbaord.
• Paste: creates a new layer and copies data from the clipboard to a new layer.
• Clear: clears the current layer (or the current selection) by filling with the background color or erasing layer data.
• Transform: rotate, resize or flip the current layer or selection. If performed on the background layer, it will affect the entire document.
• Fill: fill the current layer or selection with the foreground color, background color or texture. Variable opacities and blending modes can be used. The "Preserve transparency" option will keep the current layer's alpha information intact when filling. If a texture is selected, another prompt for the texture file to use will open.
• Stroke: will outline a selection in various ways. Variable width and location (inside, centered, outside) settings can be used, as well as blending modes.
• Define Pattern: uses the current selection as the current pattern for the Pattern Stamp tool.
• Preferences: edit Preferences & Memory.
• About Pocket Artist: shows the version screen and copyright information for Pocket Artist and the installed plugins.

• Zoom In / Out / 100%: visually zooms in and out on the document. Zoom 100% resets the view.
• Zoom to Fit: zooms in or out to show the document as large as possible while still fitting it into the document area.
• Quick Zoom: a submenu of zoom increments from 12.5% to 1600%.
• Layer Toolbar / Channel Toolbar / Color Picker / Tool Options: toggle the visibility of the corresponding toolbar. A checkmark appears next to toolbars that are visible.
• Information: pops up a movable window that displays information on the stylus position and the color beneath it.
• Full Screen: switches Pocket Artist into a full screen mode, whereby the editing canvas fills the entire device screen.
• Grid: toggles the Grid, which is useful in guiding the stylus on the canvas with precision.
• Guides: toggles Guides, which help in precision (like the Grid). Each guide is created by dragging from the Ruler to the canvas, and consists of either a vertical or horizontal line that stylus motion is "snapped to" when painting or using other tools.
• Ruler: toggles the Ruler, which shows the range of pixels that is onscreen at any time.
• Snap To Grid, Guides: uncheck these options to keep the Grid and Guides visible, but to not perform any stylus precision snapping.
• Lock Guides: normally, the Move tool can be used to reposition a Guide. Locking the guides will not permit the Move tool to perform that action.
• Clear Guides: resets and clears all guides that have been created on the document.

• Levels...: adjusts the black, gray and white levels of the layer/selection. See Photography/Level Tools.
• Auto Levels: automatically adjusts the levels to have a uniform intensity across all levels and color balances.
• Auto Contrast: automatically adjusts the levels to have a uniform intensity across all levels without altering color.
• Fill Shadows: for images that have large dark areas, it expands the dark region to higher intensities to bring out detail. See Photography/Level Tools.
• Fix Overflash: for images that have large bright areas, it expands the bright region to lower intensities to bring out detail.
• Bright/Contrast: a window will allow you to adjust the brightness and contrast levels for the layer or selection. As these levels are modified, changes take place in the document window immediately.
• Hue/Saturation: adjust the hue, saturation and lightness levels for the layer or selection. As these levels are modified, changes take place in the document window immediately.
• Color Curves: adjust color levels of the layer or selection. All colors may be affected or just red, green or blue components.
• Desaturate: converts color image to grayscale.
• Invert: color values for the layer or selection will be inverted. This changes black to white, red to cyan, green to magenta, and blue to yellow.
• Image Size: scales the image up or down in size. Constrain proportions will keep the resulting aspect ratio the same as the original. The resampling algorithm may be selected. Each option offers a different tradeoff between quality and speed. On this screen you can also control the print resolution of the image, which is saved for certain image formats such as PSD, JPEG and BMP. Print resolution can be specified either in dots-per-inch or dots-per-centimeter.
  
• Canvas Size: changes the size of the canvas without scaling the image. The Anchor area specifies how you would like the pre-affected image to be placed in the new image -- in this case it would be aligned in the middle. If the height and width are decreased, the image would be cropped on each side.
  
• Crop Image: shrinks the current image, cropping it to the bounds of whatever selection you currently have.

• Deselect: defloats and removes the selection.
• Select All: selects the entire layer.
• Select Inverse: inverts the current selection so areas of the image that were selected are no longer selected and vice versa.
• Defloat: if a selection contains colors that were picked up during a Move operation, the colors are merged with the underlying layer.
• Feather: blurs the selection and creates a softer edge to the selection area. Colors data is not modified.
• Modify Border, Expand, Contract: adjusts the selection to either expand, contract the selected area or to select the border of the currently selected region.
• Save Selection: stores the current selection as a new channel. See Alpha Channels for more information.
• Toggle Outlines: the "marching ants" that appear as the boundary to the current selection will be hidden or shown by selecting this menu option.

• Filters: contains filters that may be applied to a layer or selection. They are discussed in further detail in the Filters chapter.
• Repeat: repeats the last run filter with the same settings.
• Fade Last...: steps back to before the last Filter was applied, and reapplies the filter with a new blending mode and opacity. Normally, all Filters apply themselves as a "100% Normal" function; this enables greater control.
  
  For example, add white text on a black background, and use the Gaussian Blur filter to blur it. The result is a blurry text image. Now, tap Fade Last, and pick the Difference or Exclusion blender. This combines the before (non-blurred) and after (blurry) images together, and computes the difference between the two, which results in glowing edges.
  
  Another example would be a "Soft Focus" effect, by using the Gaussian Blur on any layer, and then using the Fade Last command to apply the blur with the Lighten or Hard Light blender.

Drawing Tools

Image Tools

ViewingTools

Text/Shape Tools

Edit Transform Numeric

Levels: adjusts intensity levels of the layer or selection, for all channels and/or each channel individually. The current intensity levels are shown in the top graph, and the output intensities are shown in the lower graph.

By dragging the left slider in the top graph, you adjust the new black point of the image, which effectively darkens the image, by setting all values below it to black. Dragging the right slider in the top graph, you adjust the new white point of the image, which effectively brightens the image, by setting all values above it to white. Dragging the middle slider in the top graph will adjust the gray level of the image, which will adjust all the midrange values in a smooth form (akin to adjusting the gamma of the image).

By dragging the sliders on the lower graph, you adjust the output black and white values of the output. By dragging these away from the preset black/white areas, you bind the upper graph's black/white adjustments to the new lower graph's values, which lead to further improvements in level adjustment.

Color Curves: adjusts color levels of the layer or selection. All colors may be affected or just red, green or blue components. The adjustment is represented by a graph with input values along the X-axis, and output values along the Y-axis. The curve starts out with a rising diagonal line. This indicates no change. Adjust the curve by drawing on the graph. The example shown above causes dark and midrange colors to be darkened. All changes are shown in the document window immediately.

Brightness / Contrast: adjusts the brightness and contrast of the image as a whole. Increasing contrast shifts color values to the full shadow and full light extremes, while decreasing contrast shifts the color values to mid-way (gray). Increasing or decreasing the brightness shifts all colors up or down in their intensity level.

Hue / Saturation: adjusts color balance of the layer or selection. By adjusting the hue, you tint the image in the visible spectrum of color. Adjusting the saturation will either increase the color balance to a "pure" hue, or decrease the color balance to a grayscale shade. Increasing or decreasing the lightness will adjust the colors from black, to the current intensity, to white.

Other Photo Adjustments

The Auto Levels and Auto Contrast tools work by attempting to preset these level adjustment variables to values that will smooth out the intensity of the image to fit a "normal" distribution -- that is, not too light and not too dark.

The Fill Shadows and Fix Overflash tools work with similar algorithms, though their intent is either to "pull up" dark areas of the image, or "pull down" light areas of the image, in order to obtain more detail in a picture.

The Desaturate command removes the color from the image (or current selection), and the Invert command flips the color intensity of each pixel--black becomes white, red becomes cyan, and so forth.

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IPTC Caption Editing

Pocket Artist 3 has added the ability to adjust metadata for an image. Metadata is a collection of text items that describe the image itself, such as the artist or title of the image. The common standard to store this information in images is referred as the IPTC Captions method. Pocket Artist supports many of the common facets of this standard.

Another metadata collection is the EXIF standard, which is mainly used by digital cameras to record attributes of the photo that has been taken, such as the camera model, exposure settings and other attributes of that sort. Pocket Artist reads and retains IPTC and EXIF information when opening, editing or saving JPEG and PSD images.

The metadata editor is launched by tapping Image Tools Edit Captions / Info. The different metadata items are grouped into different tabs along the bottom: General, Keywords, Categories and Origin. The Exif information is stored on the last tab. To edit any of these items, simply tap in a space and enter in the desired data.

When adding data to images, it is common to reuse certain attrributes, such as the Copyright and Author information. Pocket Artist can Load, Save and Append any metadata by using the menu items on the Information menu at the bottom of the screen. The Load and Save commands read and write Pocket Artist Information Chunks (.AIC files, a proprietary file format). The Append command will fill in any blanks that the AIC file contains but that the editor has blank.

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Selections

Pocket Artist 3 supports full 8-bit selection areas, which allow selections to have soft or hard borders and antialiased edges. Pocket Artist features a rich set of tools and techniques to make selections.

All drawing tools and most image operations are constrained to the current selection. If there is a selection active, these operations will only affect the areas of the image surrounded by the selection. The operations that do not respect the current selection are image/canvas resizing and layer operations.

Below are descriptions of the selection tools.

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Selections



Select Rect: selects a rectangular area of the image. Tap-and-drag in the canvas to define the rectangle. Hold down Shift (HPC) or Action (PPC) to force the rectangle into a square. The tool options bar shows the position, width and height of the current selection.

Four buttons define the selection "Combine Mode": Replace, Add, Subtract or Intersect from the options bar. The fifth button allows you to constrict a selection either in absolute dimensions (e.g. to always select a 32x32 area), or by a ratio (e.g. to always select a 1:1 square area).

When Replace is selected, tap inside a selection and drag to move the selection without modifying it. Tap outside the selection to remove the current selection and create a new one. When Add is selected, draw a rectangle anywhere on the canvas to add the rectangle to the current selection. When Subtract is selected, any rectangle you draw will be cut out of the current selection. When Intersect is selected and a rectangle drawn, both the previous selection and the new rectangle will be removed. They will be replaced by a selection that contains only the overlap between them.


Select Ellipse: selects an ellipse, and works similarly to the Select Rect tool. Hold Shift (HPC) or Action (PPC) to force the ellipse into a circle. Combine Modes work in the same way as Select Rect. The "line-smoothing" button creates a smooth antialiased border for the selection.


Select Row/Column: select a single vertical or horizontal segment of pixels. When using Select Row, tap the canvas at the left of the edge of the line of pixels you would like to select. Drag to the right and release. The vertical position of your stylus will determine the line of pixels selected. The Select Column tool works similarly. You may use Combine Modes with both tools in the same way as Select Rect.


Magic Wand: works similarly to the Paint Bucket tool. Tap in an area of the picture to select a region of pixels of approximately the same color. The tolerance option determines how closely pixels must match in color. The "line-smoothing" button will antialias the edges of the selection based on color deviation. Combine Modes work in the same way as Select Rect.


Lasso: selects any shape that you draw. Tap in the canvas and draw a shape in the document to select it. The Smooth option helps antialias the border around curves and diagonal lines. Combine Modes work in the same way as Select Rect.


Select Polygon: selects a polygon that you draw. Tap in the canvas at each vertex, proceeding clockwise or counterclockwise. Tap at or near the starting point to close the polygon and select the area. The "line-smoothing" button antialiases the border of the polygon. Combine Modes work in the same way as Select Rect.


Deselect: eliminates the current selection. If the selection is floating, the data is defloated and merged into the image first.

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Layers & Masks

Layers work like panes of glass stacked on top of each other. Every document begins with a background (base) layer, which has no transparency, much like a sheet of paper. New layers created on top of the document are transparent when created, like glass. Only one layer at a time is Active, and all drawing tools work on this layer. Layers can be easily manipulated by reordering, duplicating and merging them.

Layers above the base may have Blending Mode or Opacity values other than the default in order to create special effects. They can also be Grouped. If a layer is Grouped, it is clipped by the first layer below it that is not grouped. This is illustrated to the right. Each brush stroke is drawn on a different layer. The red brush on the left is not grouped, and is essentially drawn on its own sheet of glass. The same red brush was used on the right, but grouped with the layer that contained the black brush. Grouping forced the red color to be limited to only those areas of the black brush layer that had been drawn on.

All tools that manipulate layers are contained on the Layer Toolbar and Layer Window. The Layer Toolbar is shown at the top of the window, and may be shown or hidden using the View -> Layer Toolbar menu command. The Layer Window covers the document and can be shown by tapping the button on the right of the toolbar with arrows pointing up and down.

Layer Masks

Each layer, in addition to having its own alpha transparency information (which determines each pixel's intensity in the document), can have its own Mask. An alpha mask is essentially a second alpha channel for the layer that is independent of the first, but that works in combination with the layer's own alpha channel. It allows you to change the appearance of the layer while keeping the original layer data intact. For example, giving it soft edges, knocking out a middle section, or to hide portions of a layer without actually deleting its data.

Use the popup menus to add or remove a layer mask. You can also disable the mask, or even show the mask only. Masks are 8-bit grayscale channels, as are any other channels you wish to add to your image. Channels are discussed in Alpha Channels. Masks are (by default) linked to their layer, so moving a layer also moves the mask.

Layer Toolbar

The Layer Toolbar allows you to select the Active layer by using the first listbox. This box says "conduits" in the picture above. Tapping this box will show a list of layers in the document and allow you to select one.

The eye button on the far left indicates layer Visibility for the Active layer. A layer can be temporarily removed from the final image by turning off Visibility. To the right of the Active layer is the Blending Mode. To the right of that is the Opacity. The Blending Mode and Opacity works much like the same controls for the Paintbrush tool. However, they affect all paint on the layer at once.

The arrow pointing to the right will open a menu of Layer Operations.

Layer Window

The Layer Window shows a detailed view of all layers in a document. This is helpful in order to get an overview of the layers and move them around easily. Each layer is shown on a separate line. Layers higher in the list are drawn on top of layers lower in the list. The Active layer is shown with a blue background.

Each line shows the Visibility of the layer, a thumbnail view of the data in the layer, and the full layer name. Gray and white boxes represent transparent areas of the thumbnail. The thumbnail image will be indented if the layer is Grouped.

If the layer has a mask, a thumbnail image of the mask will appear to the right of the layer thumbnail. If the mask is linked to the layer, a chainlink graphic will appear between them. If the mask is currently disabled, a red 'x' will be marked through the mask thumbnail.

Tap any layer to select that layer to be Active. Tap the Visibility button to change Visibility. Tap-and-hold on a layer to change the Grouped attribute. Tap-and-drag a layer up or down in the list to change its position and therefore when it is drawn.

Layer Operations menu

This menu is accessed from the arrow button at the far right of the Layer Toolbar.

New Layer: creates a new layer on top of the Active layer.

Delete Layer: deletes the Active layer and any data contained in it.

Duplicate Layer: creates a new layer on top of the Active layer and copies all data in the active layer to it.

Layer Options: opens a window allowing you to modify the Name of the Active layer and change whether it is Visible or Grouped.

Layer Mask Add / Remove: adds a layer mask if the layer does not already have a mask. Removing a mask can optionally "apply" the mask before discarding, which rewrites the layer's alpha channel to reflect the mask's contents before the mask is removed.

Merge Down: paints the Active layer onto the layer below it, merging them permanently using the current Blending Mode and Opacity.

Merge Visible: merges all layers that are Visible without losing data in layers that are current not Visible.

Flatten Image: merges all layers that are Visible and discards data from layers that are not Visible. This command may be used to force an image into one layer so that it may be saved as a BMP or JPEG file.

Select Layer: opens a submenu allowing you to set the selection to the boundaries of the Active layer. You may also Add, Subtract or Intersect these boundaries with the current selection.

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Alpha Channels

Alpha channels are a separate "layer" of information in your document. Instead of a usual multi-color layer containing red, green, blue and transparency information, an alpha channel contains only one component. Viewed separate from all other data in your image, it is a grayscale canvas. Alpha channels are used in several ways: to keep common selection regions around for later use; to be used in advanced imaging operations (named "channel ops"); and to perform spot color operations.

Just like the interface for Layers, Pocket Artist 3 features both a Channel Toolbar and a Channel Window. The Channel Toolbar contains a list of the channels in the document, and the ability to create and manipulate channels.

From left to right, the eye icon controls channel visibility. The combo box contains a list of the channels: the selected item is the target of any painting and editing operations you perform. Normally this is set to the RGB channel, which essentially means that you don't want to adjust an individual channel at this time, but paint normally on your layers in an RGB mode. Also listed are the Red, Green and Blue channels which will show a composite document for only those color components. Below these in the list are the alpha channels that you have in your image. Finally, if you are on a layer with a Layer Mask, if will be listed as the last channel.

The buttons to the right of the channel list are follows. Select Channel: forms a new selection based on the intensity of the pixels in the current channel. Save Selection: the opposite of select channel, this button saves the current selection as a new alpha channel. New Channel: creates a new alpha channel with no content in it.

The next buttons are much like the Layer Toolbar. One toggles the Channel Window, and the other pops up a menu containing relevant channel functions.

The Channel Window contains a list of the channels in the document, along with thumbnails of each item. By tapping on a channel, you are selecting it to be altered with any painting or editing (including filters). For example, if you would like to blur just the red parts of an image, you can select the Red channel, and then perform a Blur Filter operation.

Tapping-and-holding on a channel item will also pop up a context menu for the different functions available to channels: deleting or duplicating the channel, adjusting channel options, or selecting the channel.

Channels can also be viewed as overlaid colors on your main image. To adjust the color and opacity settings for a channel's separate visibility, use the Channel Options screen. For example, a channel you have set up as a work area mask could have a red color, and by showing it in addition to your layer's RGB information, it would display as a masking effect onscreen, while not needing to dedicate a whole layer to that function. Channel visibility is also useful in spot color creation. Several channels could have different mixed colors, and onscreen they would show up as different areas of color for ink post-processing.

This image represents what the appearance of the document would be with the "Alpha 1" channel visible in addition to the document. The Alpha channel is overlaid ontop of the document in a red color at 50% opacity.

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Filters

Pocket Artist is packaged with several image-processing filters. Most are self-explanatory. Shown to the right are some of the categories they fit into. Bundled filters include: Oxidize, Blur, Gaussian Blur, Motion Blur, Scatter, Add Noise, Despeckle, Reduce Grain, Fragment, Mosaic, Clouds, Difference Clouds, Sharpen, Sharpen More, Unsharp Mask, Convolve, Emboss, Find Edges, Grayscale, Solarize and Posterize. For Pocket Artist 3, a software development kit (SDK) is available for third parties to develop their own plugins for Pocket Artist.

Most filters have the type of interface shown above - a preview pane at the top of the screen, with the options to control the filter's settings below it. At the bottom is a toolbar that controls the preview pane, which can zoom in and out of the image, as well as toggle the filter's output to be shown, providing a quick A-to-B comparison of what the filter's effect would be.

Other filters have more complicated user interface, such as the Convolve filter, which is more complicated than other filters. This tool performs a manual convolution of the image, allowing the user full control over the process.

A square matrix with odd dimension (in this case, 5x5) is centered above each source pixel. The color of the source pixel and pixels around it are multiplied by the corresponding matrix entry. The sum of these colors is divided by the sum of all matrix entries, and a shift value is added to create the resulting color. Interesting presets are included.

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Blending Modes

Several parts of this documentation refer to Blenders, Color Blenders or Blending Mode. They are all discussed below. A list of blenders that Pocket Artist supports is in the image to the right.

Blenders are a way of mixing two colors to create a new one. They can be simple (such as the Normal blender, in which the color on top replaces the color on the bottom), to complex (such as the Overlay blender, which involves several factors, giving the appearance of a colored transparency overlay). Below are descriptions of the blenders. In the descriptions, two picture layers are assumed. The blenders that the painting tools utilize can be pictured as having a layer of a solid color (the foreground color) on top of the picture you are painting on.

Blenders are grouped by their composition type: normal, darken, lighten, overlays, special and color.

Normal: the top color replaces the bottom, just as if you painted over the bottom layer with opaque paint.

Darken: yields a color that is the minimum of the two colors.

Multiply: each color component of the top layer is multiplied by the bottom color. White will have no affect. Any other color will darken the bottom color.

Color Burn: uses the top layer's colors to darken the bottom layer's colors.

Linear Burn: just like Color Burn, but uses simpler mathematics.

Lighten: the opposite of Darken, this blender yields the maximum of the top and bottom colors.

Screen: almost the inverse of Multiply. Black will have no effect. Other colors will lighten the bottom color.

Color Dodge: uses the top layer's colors to brighten the bottom layer's colors.

Linear Dodge: just like Color Dodge, but uses simpler mathematics.

Overlay: combines both Multiply and Screen to form a blending mode that acts as if the top layer is like a color transparency that overlays the bottom layer.

Soft Light: the top layer lightens or darkens the image slightly depending on the brightness of the top layer. This effect takes place for each color component. It emulates a soft light or shadow of the appropriate color on the base layer.

Hard Light: the top layer lightens or darkens the image harshly depending on the brightness of the top layer. This effect takes place for each color component. It emulates a much harder light than Soft Light.

Vivid Light: like Hard Light, but uses Color Dodge and Burn effects to achieve a different look.

Linear Light: like Hard Light, but uses Linear Dodge and Burn effects to achieve a different effect.

Pin Light: like Soft Light, but uses Darken and Lighten effects to achieve a different effect.

Difference: yields the absolute value of the difference between the top and bottom layers. Large color differences are brighter. Similar colors yield a dark result.

Exclusion: akin to Difference, but when the top and bottom colors approach the same value, the result is gray instead of black.

Hue: combines the hue of the top color with the saturation and luminosity of the bottom color. Hue indicates the base color - red, yellow, cyan, etc. Saturation defines how rich or washed out the color is. Luminosity indicates brightness.

Color: combines the hue and saturation of the top color with the luminosity of the bottom layer.

Saturation: combines the saturation of the top layer with the hue and luminosity of the bottom layer.

Luminosity: combines the luminosity of the top layer with the hue and saturation of the bottom layer.

Glow: combines the color intensity of the top layer into the bottom layer with a 'glowing' effect akin to a neon light.

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Advanced Tools

Pocket Artist has several other interesting features that are located on the Image Tools menu.

Place Image

This command will prompt for another image to load, which is then centered with the current document and placed as a new layer. If the new document is larger than the current document, you can use the Move tool to pan the new layer around. If the new document is a multi-layer PSD image, each layer will be added.

Use as Desktop

This is a feature unique to Pocket Artist 3, and only available on older devices. By selecting this option, you can save your work straight to your Windows CE desktop, where it will appear there, optionally tiled. Newer Windows Mobile 2003 (and later) devices can achieve the same functionality by saving your work as a JPEG image, and then opening it up in the built-in Pictures application, and pick "Set as Today Wallpaper" from the Tools menu in that application.

Capture Screen

Pocket Artist can capture the screen display and copy it to the program clipboard for pasting into the document. Picking "Capture Screen" on the tools menu will prompt for a time delay, at which point you may set up for the capture. Your Windows CE device will beep when it is capturing your screen.

Two other commands are located on the Tools menu, and they merit their own chapters: Batch Processing and Animated GIF Creation.

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Batch JPEG Processing

By tapping Menu Image Tools Batch Processing in Pocket Artist, it will launch the Batch JPEG Processing wizard that has been introduced in Pocket Artist 3. This component processes multiple JPEGs as a whole, or individually (quickly), without having to actually load and save each image into Pocket Artist for editing. The wizard enables you to perform lossless JPEG transformations, such as rotation and flipping, as well as lossless cropping, grayscale reduction and image resizing. The term "lossless" means that the transformations are done without opening the JPEG's image data and recompressing it, which would result in further image degradation (since JPEG is a "lossy" format, depending on the quality set when saving an image, some detail is lost each time a JPEG is produced).

In addition to providing lossless rotation (which the built-in Pocket PC "Pictures" application can perform), Pocket Artist uses the scratch memory swap files (see Preferences & Memory) that have been introduced in version 3 to achieve lossless transformation of virtually any size JPEG. Through the use of this "virtual memory," Pocket Artist can transform images from the newest digital cameras (such as 15 Megapixel images, which would normally require 45 to 90 MB of memory to losslessly transform - something that the built-in Pocket PC "Pictures" application cannot match).

Batch processing also includes a step to set image captions for an image or a group of images. This is especially useful when you wish to tag a set of JPEGs with the same data, such as Author or Copyright information.

The Batch Processing wizard starts out by prompting for a file or folder to use. It uses the same Image Browser that is featured in Pocket Artist's "Open" prompt. To select a single JPEG image, simply tap the "Select All" command on the bottom toolbar. Any folder on the mobile device can be opened, as well as ones that have been network-mapped.

Next, Pocket Artist will prompt for where to Save the output images. You can overwrite the existing images by tapping OK at this prompt, or choose a different folder from this screen. If you have picked a whole folder to process, a folder prompt will appear (shown); otherwise a standard "Save" prompt will appear that asks for the file name and location.

After picking a source and destination for processing, and you have picked a whole folder to process, Pocket Artist ask to process each image individually, or all of them as a whole. If processing as a whole, the transformation interface (below) will only appear once, and the transformations will be applied to each image in the batch. In addition, the Edit Captions screen will appear only once, and will apply to each image as well.

The next screen that appears is the first half of the Batch Processing wizard; it displays a thumbnail of your graphic along with commands at the bottom. The "Transform" menu contains items such as rotation and flipping commands. More operations are located on the "Options" popup menu, such as Grayscale Reduction and Resize To Fit commands. To crop and image, drag an area on the image itself, and it will be highlighted. To continue with the transformation, tap OK at the top of the screen.

The next screen that appears after image transformations is the Edit Captions interface to add and adjust captions (see IPTC Caption Editing) for the image(s). When working in batch mode, only enter fields you would like to store into every JPEG; empty fields will not be affected.

The interface is exactly like the caption editor normally used for the current image document in Pocket Artist, though it contains an extra "Cancel All" command when working on images individually; tapping that command will cancel out of the batch processing mode all together. Tapping "Cancel" will not perform any caption edits on the current image, and (if editing individually) will proceed to the next image.

After finishing with the transformation and captions interfaces, batch processing of the JPEGs will be finished, and the processed results will be in the destination folder you specified in the first step.

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Animated GIF Creation

Pocket Artist 3 has introduced the ability to create animated GIF files, normally used for websites and emails. Tap Menu Image Tools Create Animation to launch the Animated GIF wizard.

As Pocket Artist is generally used for pixel-level editing, Pocket Artist does not perform more advanced animation techniques such as tweening or interpolation. Animations are built around frames, which you create with the animation wizard. Each frame of an animation is the result of a different combination of layer visibility. Therefore, each frame of your animation needs to exist as a layer or combination of layers in your image.

The first screen that is shown after tapping "Create Animation" is the interface to create a new color palette for the current image document. Instructions on how color palettes are created can be found on the Opening/Saving chapter.

Since the palettes that are created are based on this opening image, you will want to set layers to be visible in a way that reflects all the frames' colors as a whole.

After setting a color palette for the animated GIF, the Animation Frames screen appears. At the top is a "filmstrip" view of each frame in your animation. Below it are the adjustments that can be made to the selected frame. At the bottom are commands for adding new frames or saving the filmstrip data.

Tap "New Frame" at the bottom of this screen to create a new frame in the animation. A new screen will appear in which you can specify which layers to have visible in that frame. Since GIF animations can reset the display to the "previous image" after displaying an animation frame (explained below), most of the time this will be just one layer per frame. Tap OK from the layer visibility screen to create the new frame, and it will be added to the filmstrip.

Frames can be removed or reordered in the filmstrip by tapping-and-holding on the frame, and picking either Remove, Move Back or Move Forward from the popup menu that appears. Pocket Artist provides a quick way to add each layer of the image as separate frames in the animation by tapping the Frames Add All Layers command.

The Delay and Clear attributes are advanced settings in the animation. The Delay setting refers to the length of time you wish the current animation to appear onscreen. The Clear setting refers to how the animation display should clear the frame after it is shown. The default keeps the frame onscreen. This is useful with "background" information, and for animation frames that appear ontop of one another; the next frame will be drawn ontop of the current frame. The next option is to clear the frame completely. This will result in the next frame being shown by itself, as though it were a standalone GIF image. The final option is to clear the current frame with the previous image in the animation. This is very useful for many animations.

For example, to have an animation of a ball moving back and forth on a tennis court, you could have the court be the background layer of your document, and have a bunch of layers in the image for the different positions of the ball. Then, using the Add All Layers command, set all frames to the "clear to previous image" setting. This will initially display the court, and then the ball frames will display, with each frame resetting itself to the court image before the new ball location is drawn.

Also available on the Frames popup menu is the ability to Load and Save your filmstrip. This does not save the image itself, but saves the information about the frames, such as the layer visibility, delay and clear settings. It helps when creating an animation you might retouch later, since frame creation can be time consuming.

Tapping OK on the Animation Frames screen will finally prompt for a GIF file to save your animations on. After saving the image, Pocket Artist will return to the main screen and the animation wizard will be closed.

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Preferences & Memory

User Preferences

User Preferences are divided into general options, stylus options, and file associations. The default for all options is checked and should normally be used. On the general options tab you will find the following items:

General tab:


• Antialias paintbrush strokes: draws the paintbrush on a subpixel level to create a smooth looking stroke. Disable to speed up paintbrush operations at the cost of visual quality.
• Utilize brush spacing information: honors minimum spacing for each 'stamp' of a brush while drawing. This is used to create special effects with some brushes. Disable to always create a smooth stroke.
• Perform Zoom-to-Fit upon Load/New: whenever opening a document, zoom in or out to fit the document within the canvas area. Disable to always load documents at 100% zoom.
• Remember tool settings / Reset: whether to save the settings of the different tools, such as opacity, sketching mode and tolerances.
• Use memory caution when loading/saving: Pocket Artist does its best to predict when there might be memory problems during an editing session. As a result, it may report that it cannot load certain images into memory, when in fact it might indeed be able to, given that there aren't going to be major edits done to the image (such as level or hue adjustment, full-canvas gradients, etc). Disabling this checkbox will bypass the advanced memory warning prediction, but might have side effects while editing.
• Undo tool function: customizes the Undo tool button on the main toolbar to perform a variety of functions.

Editing tab:


• Use additional stylus movement data: use the device hardware to correctly interpolate the full path of fast stylus movements. Disable if rapid stylus movement creates inaccurate results on your device.
• Reduce stylus jitter: average a number of points during drawing tool movement to smooth the behavior of the tool. This helps counteract the tendency of stylus input devices to produce random variations in signals. You may select the Number of Points to be averaged. This determines how much smoothing is performed. Disable or reduce Number of Points if rapid stylus movement produces inaccurate results.
• Snap to stylus release point: only takes effect if Reduce stylus jitter is selected. This option forces the release point to be unaveraged, and is recommended. Turn the option off if you plan to always hold the stylus at the release point for half a second.
• Undo levels: controls the number of undo steps you wish to retain, when memory permits.

Buttons tab:


• Here you can map buttons and keys to functions and tools within Pocket Artist 3. First, select the function at the top of the screen, and then press the hardware button which you would like to map to that function. To unmap a button, or reset all button mappings, tap-and-hold in the mapped button list, and a popup menu will appear with the relevant commands.

Guides / Grid tab:


• Choose the size and colors of the Grid and Guides, which are displayed on the image when you tap View Guides or View Grid.

Associations tab:


• Choose whether Pocket Artist is associated with PSD, JPEG, GIF, BMP, PNG and 2BP files.

The Memory tab controls the current memory settings and constraints you would like to place on Pocket Artist. The first item, the "reserve for system" value, should normally be around 512K. Pocket Artist generally "eats up" as much memory as space will allow when opening large images and during editing (especially if you have a lot of Undo Levels being retained). It will stop using program memory at this 'reserved' mark.

Scratch files: Pocket Artist 3 has introduced the ability to open and edit images beyond the capacity of your RAM by utilizing scratch memory "swap files" on a memory card. As Pocket Artist is used, memory is allocated normally, and as a limit is reached, these scratch files are created and store image data. Check the "Enable" box to use scratch files, and pick a storage card location.

Scratch size: the architecture of Windows Mobile does not lend itself to scratch files that grow and shrink over time (as desktop Windows does with its swap file). Therefore, scratch files are allocated in "chunks" on the storage card. Two megabytes is a good value for these chunks, and in most cases you will want to leave the value at that. Increasing this value does not increase the amount of scratch space available (that would be the free space on your storage card); it will simply create fewer scratch files on your storage card (since each one holds more data), and can lend to increased overall performance.

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Tips

This section of the product documentation provides some tips and advanced usage for Pocket Artist, and will expand as users contribute. If you would like to submit a tip, email artist@conduits.com.

Enthusiasts are also encouraged to contribute to documentation on how to create interesting effects -- tutorials and how-to's on mastering all the features of Pocket Artist for a richer creative experience.

If you are interested in contributing, please email artist@conduits.com. Tutorials will be placed in the Artist's Corner section.

Application buttons can be mapped in the Preferences screen. Default Keyboard shortcuts are as follows:

• 0-9: Adjusts opacity for current tool, or layer
• Up/Down/Left/Right: Nudge Selection
• B: Brush
• C: Copy Tool
• E: Eraser
• F: Toggle Full Screen
• G: Smudge
• H: Toggle Selection Outlines
• I: Eye Dropper
• J: Air Brush
• K: Paint Bucket
• L: Lasso
• M: Square Selection tool
• N: Pencil
• O: Dodge Burn
• R: Blur Sharpen
• S: Rubber Stamp
• T: Text
• V: Move Tool
• W: Magic Wand
• X: Swap Foreground/Background Colors
• Z: Zoom Tool
  
  
• Ctrl+A: Selects All
• Ctrl+B: Brightnes and Contrast
• Ctrl+C: Copy
• Ctrl+D: Deselects
• Ctrl+Shift+D: Feather Selection Menu
• Ctrl+F: Fill Menu
• Ctrl+I: Inverts Colors
• Ctrl+Shift+I: Inverts Selection
• Ctrl+M: Curves
• Ctrl+N: New Document
• Ctrl+O: Opens file
• Ctrl+S: Saves current file
• Ctrl+V: Paste
• Ctrl+X: Cut
• Ctrl+Z: Undo/Redo

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© Copyright 2010 Conduits Technologies, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Big thoughts in small spots. Conduits develops Pocket PC, Handheld PC and Windows Mobile software for devices such as the HP iPAQ, Dell Axim, Palm Treo 700w and Pocket PC Phone Edition. Questions or comments about our website? Let us know.