Color Reduction and Cleaning

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The document provides an overview and instructions for using Vision® Fashion Studio 2002 software for color reduction and cleaning of images.

The document aims to guide the reader through installing, learning the basics of, and utilizing the key features of Vision® Fashion Studio 2002 for color reduction and cleaning tasks.

The document covers installing the software, an overview of the main window and menus, a tutorial on basic color reduction and cleaning functions, and descriptions of the various tools and options available in the software.

G R E TECHNOLOGY E B R Expect More.

Vision Fashion Studio 2002 Color Reduction and Cleaning User Guide
Release 4.0

Licensed by

NedGraphics

www.gerbertechnology.com

Color Reduction and Cleaning


Notice
NedGraphics reserves the right to make changes to the product described in this manual at any time and without notice.

Copyright and Trademarks


1999 - 2002 NedGraphics All rights - including all trademark rights - are reserved. Trademarks of NedGraphics include NedGraphics, Fashion Studio, and Color Reduction and Cleaning. All other trademarks and registered trademarks mentioned in this guide are the property of their respective owners.

How to Contact Us
Customer Service support hours are from 8am until 7pm Eastern Standard Time. If you have a question or encounter a problem, please contact Customer Services Support Department. Our toll free number 1-800-321-2448 can be called during support hours from anywhere in North America. International support questions can be faxed to 860-871-3862. Please direct faxes to: Customer Service Software Support. Email inquiries can be sent to [email protected].

Color Reduction and Cleaning

Contents
INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW.......................................................1 BEFORE YOU BEGIN ...............................................................................5 STRUCTURE OF THE GUIDE .............................................................................5 TERMS AND CONVENTIONS ............................................................................6 BASIC WINDOWS CONCEPTS ..........................................................................7 HELP .............................................................................................................10 INSTALLATION AND UNINSTALLATION ........................................11 INSTALLATION ..............................................................................................11 UNINSTALLING THE SOFTWARE ....................................................................14 TUTORIAL ................................................................................................15 YOUR FIRST COLOR REDUCTION ...................................................................15 YOUR FIRST CLEANING .................................................................................19 THE MAIN WINDOW..............................................................................23 MENUS .......................................................................................................27 FILE MENU ....................................................................................................27 Open Scan.................................................................................................28 Save Scan as .............................................................................................30 Load Image...............................................................................................33 Merge Scan...............................................................................................34 Save Image ...............................................................................................34 Save Image as .......................................................................................35 Close.........................................................................................................36 Print ......................................................................................................36 Print Preview............................................................................................50 Print Setup ............................................................................................51 Image Properties...................................................................................54 Last opened documents area ....................................................................59 Exit............................................................................................................59 EDIT MENU ...................................................................................................61 Undo .........................................................................................................61

Contents
Redo ......................................................................................................... 61 Cut............................................................................................................ 61 Copy......................................................................................................... 62 Paste ........................................................................................................ 62 VIEW MENU ................................................................................................. 63 New View ................................................................................................. 64 Center View ............................................................................................. 65 Film Mode................................................................................................ 65 Toolbar display area ............................................................................ 66 Separation Palette ................................................................................... 69 Separation Sample ................................................................................... 71 Cleaning Palette ...................................................................................... 72 Zoom In.................................................................................................... 74 Zoom Out ................................................................................................. 74 SEPARATION MENU ...................................................................................... 75 Point......................................................................................................... 75 Circle ....................................................................................................... 76 Lasso ........................................................................................................ 77 Next Color................................................................................................ 78 Auto Cleaning .......................................................................................... 78 Auto Smoothing........................................................................................ 78 Check List ................................................................................................ 79 Process..................................................................................................... 83 Load Sample ............................................................................................ 84 Save Sample ............................................................................................. 84 Clear Active Sample............................................................................. 84 Reset All Samples ................................................................................. 84 CLEANING MENU.......................................................................................... 85 Cleaning overview ................................................................................... 85 Standard Cleaning Steps ......................................................................... 86 Cleaning tools.......................................................................................... 87 Cleaning methods .................................................................................... 92 Cleaning Intensity.................................................................................... 97 Global Smoothing .................................................................................... 99 Multiple Selection .................................................................................. 100 Pick Color.............................................................................................. 100 Coloring ............................................................................................. 101 PREFERENCES MENU ................................................................................. 103

Color Reduction and Cleaning


Define module switching.....................................................................103 Display layout .....................................................................................104 WINDOW MENU ..........................................................................................107 Cascade ..................................................................................................107 Tile Horizontally ....................................................................................108 Tile Vertically.........................................................................................109 Arrange Icons .........................................................................................110 Opened windows area ............................................................................111 HELP MENU.................................................................................................113 Help Topics.............................................................................................113 About Color Reduction and Cleaning.................................................113 TOOLBARS .............................................................................................115 STANDARD TOOLBAR .................................................................................115 SEPARATION TOOLBAR ..............................................................................116 CLEANING TOOLBAR ..................................................................................117 Cleaning tools.........................................................................................117 Cleaning methods ...................................................................................118 PRESENTATION TOOLBAR ..........................................................................120 New window............................................................................................120 Pick center..............................................................................................120 Tile horizontally .....................................................................................120 Tile vertically..........................................................................................121 Show/Hide Palette ..................................................................................121 Film ........................................................................................................123 MODULE TOOLBAR ....................................................................................128 No project open ......................................................................................128 Separation mode.....................................................................................129 Cleaning mode........................................................................................129 Fashion Studio Communication Layout .................................................130 ZOOM TOOLBAR .........................................................................................131 Zoom level ..............................................................................................131 Zoom In...................................................................................................132 Zoom Out ................................................................................................132 The Zoom Slider .....................................................................................133 USING THE FILE ATLAS WINDOW..................................................135 BROWSE POP-UP MENU ..............................................................................136

Contents
COLOR CHANNELS ............................................................................. 137 HSV ........................................................................................................ 138 RGB........................................................................................................ 139 CMY ....................................................................................................... 139 CMYK .................................................................................................... 140 hCL ........................................................................................................ 140 XYZ ........................................................................................................ 140 Lab ......................................................................................................... 141 CMYK% ................................................................................................. 141 Colored .................................................................................................. 142 Enhanced Display.................................................................................. 142 GLOSSARY ............................................................................................. 145 APPENDIX A: ADDITIONAL FILE FORMATS............................... 153 APPENDIX B: SUGGESTION SHEET FOR COLOR REDUCTION AND CLEANING.................................................................................... 155 APPENDIX C: ANOMALY REPORT FOR COLOR REDUCTION AND CLEANING.................................................................................... 157 INDEX ...................................................................................................... 159

Color Reduction and Cleaning

INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW


All CAD/CAM artists already know that one of the most time consuming processes in digital design work is the color separation, reduction, and cleaning process. With Color Reduction and Cleaning, let NedGraphics show you how easy this image preparation process can now be. Color Reduction and Cleaning is a module with tools specifically designed to get the separation and cleaning job done quickly and efficiently. This design module has a fast, easy, intuitive and visual method of producing perfect separations and powerful automatic cleaning functions. It is specifically designed to facilitate intuitive point and click visual selections. These time-consuming and tedious jobs can be completed within minutes. We have researched hundreds of methods of color separation techniques. This research has now paid off in the development of a number of the quickest and most accurate ways of separating scanned images into the number of colors that you will be using in production. Best of all, the program will automatically "clean up" your work. In minutes your designs will be in "print perfect" condition, ready to be manipulated in graphic design software. The new generation of quick, inexpensive desktop and larger scale scanners, now allows you to import designs directly into Color Reduction and Cleaning. To translate these raw scans into a usable form for design and accurate re-coloring, CAD artists will need to color separate the scan into a specific number of color channels. Four color (CMYK) process separations, standard to the graphic arts industry, are not applicable to most textile and wallcovering manufacturing applications. So, simply choose one of our unique separation techniques, and the program will immediately let you see how the color separated design will look, before you have processed the image. This feature will let the artist choose the best technique for their design. Should you be working with antique swatches, or original artwork that has seen some weathering, Color Reduction and Cleaning offers the most advanced and intuitive cleaning tools. These tools quickly and easily remove any "dirt" or stray pixels that

Introduction and Overview


have been scattered throughout the design. If you are working with high quality artwork, our automatic cleaning functions will eliminate this cleaning process altogether. You will be able to immediately color reduce any kind of artwork or image into the exact number of colors you want. The Zoom function allows you to quickly focus in on specific areas of your work with multiple preview screens of your working image. Up to 256 colors can be selected for the color separation. Selecting colors for the separation is easy using the Zoom and Pick Center functions in combination with either the Point, Circle or Lasso selection tools. The Film Mode allows clear and precise visualization of all independent film channels. Selecting any sample color (with New View and Film Mode selected) gives a clear preview of the current status of the individual color separation for that specific color in the area targeted. The separation features allow you to build your separations progressively by previewing the separation (in progress) as you work (in real time) and thus controlling the separation step by step. The final separation process can be set to enhanced, normal or draft quality. This powerful separation module protects the integrity of delicate linework and all stipple and texture tones. The separation feature also has Auto Cleaning and Auto Smoothing functions. Valuable time is spent on designing, not cleaning pixel dust. Stray pixel dust is swiftly eliminated via the Automatic Noise Cleaning function. Any additional cleaning can be quickly completed by choosing: (1) Noise Cleaning, (2) Outline Cleaning, (3) Cleaning Horizontally, (4) Cleaning Vertically (5) Global Cleaning, (6) Color Cleaning and Smoothing. You can also fine tune the cleaning process by: (1) customizing the Pencil tool to clean with, (2) using the Zone Cleaning function to create selection boxes over the areas to be eliminated or (3) selecting the Freeform Lasso tool. The cleaning process can be automatically generated "globally" on the entire image (not just whats on the screen!) or isolated locally with the Pencil, Zone Cleaning or Lasso tool. The cleaning process also can be activated with one single screen sample color or several screen sample colors at one time.

Color Reduction and Cleaning


Easy-to-use on-line help explains every function as you go along. You can import and export images in standard graphic formats. The Browse button allows access to the File Atlas, which provides thumbnail visualization of graphic images before you load your file. Speed, ease of use and visual controls are the words that come to mind with this design module. Spend your time designing and coloring, not cleaning stray pixels. Weve achieved this by providing you with the most powerful automatic cleaning functions and a simple yet sophisticated method of ensuring perfect separations. Features: Option to use two monitors. The fastest color reduction tools in the industry! Color-reduce any artwork or image into the number of colors you want. Intuitive point and click color selection. Build your separations progressively, previewing and controlling the color reduction results step by step. Automatic cleaning of stray pixels. Can be used with other CAD software. View film channels independently in color, B & W or different contrast mode. Protects the integrity of all stipple and texture tones. Clean by elimination, isolation with pen or brush, or "globally" on entire image (not just whats on the screen!). Automatic outline cleaning and smoothing. Easy-to-use on-line help explains every function as you go along. Import/Export in standard graphic formats. Protects delicate linework.

Introduction and Overview


Vision Color Reduction and Cleaning can be used as a stand-alone module for use with other graphic design systems or with any Vision design program. Its tools let you be much more productive and accurate in processing flat, step tone, and full tone designs, while also considering the specific manufacturing environments in textiles and wallcovering. Color Reduction and Cleaning is the quickest, most powerful color reduction and cleaning program available for industry today. This design module is the Windows 95/NT version of the high performance color separation and cleaning system currently in use on thousands of high-end NedGraphics workstations worldwide. Enjoy the ride!

Color Reduction and Cleaning

BEFORE YOU BEGIN


Structure of the Guide
You will find a detailed description of how to use Color Reduction and Cleaning beginning with a Tutorial section and a description of The Main Window to help you become familiar with the Color Reduction and Cleaning interface. We also recommend reading the preliminary sections on Terms and Conventions, Basic Windows Concepts, Help, and Installation and Uninstallation. To help you along, weve provided an index at the end for easy reference.

Before You Begin

Terms and Conventions


For a description of the principal Windows terms and concepts needed for Color Reduction and Cleaning see Basic Windows Concepts. For the purposes of writing this guide, the following terms and conventions have been used:

Command names are printed in bold with the first letter of each word capitalized. Sections of this guide are also indicated by bold text. For example, the instruction refer to the Standard Toolbar for the All Undo command shows that there is a section about the Standard Toolbar, and a sub-section about the All Undo command. There is a sub-section for each command. For page numbers refer to the table of Contents at the beginning of this guide, or to the Index at the end. Key names are printed in ordinary capitals, for example, the Enter key is designated by ENTER.

Symbols:
This symbol indicates very important information This symbol is followed by remarks and advice for avoiding common problems and for saving time.

This symbol is followed by a reference to related information.

Combinations and sequences of keys:


A plus sign (+) inserted between key names, indicates that the keys should be pressed simultaneously. For example, "press SHIFT + W" indicates that W is to be pressed while holding down SHIFT. A comma (,) inserted between key names indicates that the key names are to be pressed one after the other. For example, "press ALT, SPACE BAR" indicates that ALT is to be pressed and released, and then the SPACE BAR is to be pressed and released.

Color Reduction and Cleaning

Basic Windows Concepts


As this software has been developed under the Windows environment, you will need to be familiar with basic Windows concepts and functions. If this is not the case, please refer to the Windows help and tutorial provided with your system. Some of the basic Windows concepts and functions referred to in this guide include: Click: to click an item means to place the mouse pointer or cursor over the item, and to press and then release the left mouse button without moving the mouse. You click to choose or select an item, or to operate a tool. Double-click: to double click an item means to click it rapidly two times. This action is used in certain selection procedures and for launching certain functions. Drag: to drag means to move the mouse while holding down the left button. This action is used with certain tools to select an area of the screen, and also forms part of the action drag and drop. Drag and Drop: to drag and drop an item means to click the item, drag to a new position on the screen, and then release the mouse button, so that the item is moved to the new position. You can move whole windows with this technique by dragging and dropping the title bar, similarly drag and drop the edge of a toolbar to move it to a different location on the screen. Right Click: to click the right mouse button when the cursor is over the area of the screen you are using. Typically this is in order to obtain a popup menu (See Pop-Up menus). Thanks to the Windows interface, it is possible to have several files open at once, in which case several working windows will be displayed on the screen. Equally, for some programs, it may be possible to have several views of the same project open at the same time as separate windows. However, we advise against having too many files open at the same time in order that all windows are at least partially visible.

Before You Begin


The title bar of the main window displays the name of the program. The title bars of the different project views show the project file name. The active window has a blue title bar. To switch between the various open windows, just click the desired window. The status bar at the bottom of the screen displays information about the use of individual toolbar buttons and menu commands. For this information, simply move the mouse pointer over the toolbar button or menu command concerned. You can close a window or a particular view of your project by clicking on its close button , in which case you will have to choose New Window from the Window menu to regenerate that view if you require it again later. You may prefer therefore just to minimize the view to a small icon at the bottom of the screen by clicking its minimize icon . To tidy up the window icons, select Window Arrange Icons. The window icons are now lined up with each other along the bottom of the screen. Restore a view to its former size by clicking its restore icon . If you wish a view to fill the entire screen (covering the other views temporarily), click its maximize . icon To adjust the size of a view more precisely, move the mouse pointer over a horizontal or vertical border of the view, so that the pointer changes into a double headed arrow . Now drag the border to enlarge or reduce the size of the view. Note that certain functions can be activated by clicking a tool button, and de-activated by clicking the button again. To choose from a drop-down box, click the down arrow to list the contents of the box, and then click one of the items in the list to choose it.

Color Reduction and Cleaning


To change a value in a field with spin arrows, click the up or down arrow to increase or decrease the value. Alternatively, double-click the existing value, press DEL to delete it, then type in a value of your choice Finally we advise you to refer to the section of this guide on The Main Window, to become familiar with the Color Reduction and Cleaning interface.

Before You Begin

Help
Color Reduction and Cleaning may include an on-line help. This operates as follows: To find information about a dialog box, click its Help button (if available). To look up information choose Help Topics from the Help menu and then click on one of the tabs (if available): The Contents tab to see the topic headings. Double-click a heading to see the help topics it contains. Double-click a topic to obtain access to it. The Index tab to use the subject index. The Search tab to search for a term not contained in the index. (if available), then on any item for

Click the Whats this? button help on its use.

Move the mouse pointer over a toolbar button or menu command. After a moments pause, a tooltip appears next to the button. A more detailed prompt appears on the Status Bar at the bottom of the screen for both toolbar buttons and menu commands.

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Color Reduction and Cleaning

INSTALLATION AND UNINSTALLATION


Installation
A wizard is included on your installation CD which makes installation straightforward. Before you begin, however, we strongly recommend you to read the following general description of the installation procedure. The first step of the installation procedure is to find the dongle and the access code supplied with your software.
During the installation procedure, or the first time you run an application, you will be asked to enter the access code. Be sure to type in the code exactly as given i.e. using upper case and/or lower case in exactly the same way. In case you do not have this code, please contact us at the nearest NedGraphics address given on the cover of this guide. You will need to tell us the number written on your dongle, the name of each application you have purchased, and, if you have this information, the STEP number associated with the applications.

The dongle is a hard lock key in the form of a plug that is essential for the software to work. Before installation you must insert the dongle into the parallel port of your computer, where it will remain permanently. Preferably you should attach the dongle while your computer is turned off. You can then connect your printer cable to the end of the dongle if you normally use a printer on that port.
The parallel port comprises two rows of holes, 25 holes in all. If there is already a parallel dongle connected to the parallel port, simply add the new dongle to the end of it. If you are using an USB type of dongle, connect it to your free USB port. Note that USB ports do NOT function on a computer running under Windows NT.

11

Installation and Uninstallation


If the other end of the printer cable is attached to your printer, the printer must be switched on or the dongle will not allow your software to be used. In case you should have any difficulty in printing, you may need to use a second parallel port for your printer.

Next, start your computer under Windows.


If you are using Windows NT4 or Windows 2000 the account you log on with must have administrator rights. Should you encounter any difficulty, please ask your system administrator to log on for you.

If you have any other applications running, you are strongly advised to close them before beginning installation. Now insert your installation CD into the CD-ROM drive of your computer. After a few moments, a start-up screen should appear automatically. On some systems the installation CD may not launch automatically. To launch the CD in this case you will have to open your Windows Explorer. You will then have various alternatives: Right-click on the CD drive, and choose AutoPlay from the pop-up menu that appears. In case this is unsuccessful, look for a file with a name similar to Winsetup.exe. Double-click this to launch the CD.

When you get to the start-up screen, you may find a range of options that you can click on for demonstrations, information and installation of your software. If you choose to proceed with an installation, a wizard will take you through a series of screens until you arrive at a dialog box containing a list of the available applications to install. By default, these may all be selected. In this case it will be essential to de-select some of the applications by clicking on them, to leave only those which you have purchased and which you wish to install. Use the scroll bar at the side of

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Color Reduction and Cleaning


the dialog box to move through the list. Note that it may be appropriate to select one or more of the following elements, if available: Basics: If this option is available, and there is not currently any other Vision software installed on your system, you will need to install this. Sentinel, or another hard lock device driver: If this option is available, and there is not currently any other Vision software installed on your system, you will also need to install this. Tutorial files: These include sample image files that you can use with the applications you are about to install.

At the end of the installation procedure, you will usually be asked if you wish to re-boot your computer immediately, or later. It is advisable to reboot immediately to avoid any possible problems in running the installed applications later on. To run one of the applications you have installed, click the Start button of Windows, and choose Programs from the menu that appears. Then choose the name of your Vision software suite from the next menu, which will display a list of the installed applications such as the following:

Click the application that you wish to run.

13

Installation and Uninstallation

Uninstalling the software


If you decide to uninstall Color Reduction and Cleaning from your computer, select Control Panel from your Start/Settings menu of the Windows status bar. In the next window that appears, double-click the Add/Remove programs icon. As a result you will get the following dialog box :

At the Install/Uninstall tab click to select the Color Reduction and Cleaning from the list. The Add/Remove button will become active. Click it to start the uninstall procedure. A warning message box will ask again for your confirmation. Click OK to continue the uninstallation.

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Color Reduction and Cleaning

TUTORIAL
Your first color reduction
You have scanned a design composed of just a few basic colors (in the following example black, yellow, burgundy, leaf green and white). However, the resulting image file is in true color format, and contains any number of variations of the basic colors. The operations you will perform on the scanned image, and that will be described in this tutorial are: reduce the number of colors in the image file to the basic colors clean up the image by removing stray pixels

So lets get going! After starting the application as described in the Installation and Uninstallation section of this guide, choose Open Scan from the File menu. The following dialog box appears:

We suggest that you start with a relatively simple scanned image. For example, choose the image Flower from Scans in the Tutorial folder of 15

Tutorial
your installation CD. This image is in .SCA format, but your image might be in another format such as TIFF or BMP. On starting your first work on a project, a blank separation palette dialog window, will be opened, waiting for you to select the reduction colors.
Once the separation process is completed in one work session, you will have the option to save the color reduction sample, for future work on the project. You can save as many versions as you need, and load them any time you want.

See the Separation menu, in the Menus section of this manual for more information on the separation samples.

For the purposes of this tutorial, delete all the work that may have previously been done by right-clicking in the Separation window. Next click the button Delete all samples from all channels which pops up. The palette color chips are now empty, and we are ready to start color reduction. How many basic colors are there in your image? In the image Flower below, there are five basic colors: white, black, yellow, burgundy and leaf green. Count the number of basic colors in your image and enter the number in the colors field on the toolbar as shown. The first color chip of the palette has automatically been selected ready to be used (it has an extra internal border). Well fill it with the background color, which we will define using the Pick Circles tool as follows. First click the Pick Circles tool to select it as shown Next click on the background and drag outwardly to enclose a circular area of the background. As soon as you release the mouse button, the average color of the circular area is calculated, and assigned to the first palette color chip as shown below.

16

Color Reduction and Cleaning

If you make a mistake at any time, cancel the last action made by clicking the Undo button on the toolbar. To define one of the flower colors, we need to work in more detail: click the New Window toolbar button, and then click on one of the daisies. An enlarged image of the area of interest you just selected will appear in a new window entitled Detail, which fills the top right quarter of the screen, and a Preview window appears beneath it as illustrated below. Click the second color palette chip to select it, and then define the yellow color of the center of one of the flowers by using the Pick Circles tool again, this time working directly in the Detail window.

17

Tutorial

As soon as you have dragged out a circular area with the Pick Circles tool, the second color palette chip is filled with the average color of the circular area, and the Preview image is updated to show the progress of your work. To define the white color of the petals, and the green of stems and leaves, it may be necessary to zoom in. To do this, click the positive zoom button on the toolbar to zoom in on the active window. Click more than once for a higher zoom factor. Before defining the burgundy color, we must re-center the image. To do this click the Pick Center button on the toolbar, and then click a burgundy colored flower. It appears immediately in the Detail window. Now define the burgundy color as for the other colors, using an appropriate tool such as the Pick Circles tool. When you have defined all the basic colors, the Preview window should show the image using these colors only, approximately as it should appear when processed. If the preview is correct process the image by clicking the on the toolbar. Processing will convert each image Compute button 18

Color Reduction and Cleaning


pixel to the nearest of the colors you have defined, and will take a few moments. As soon as processing has been completed, the color-reduced image appears full screen. The application has automatically switched to cleaning mode and the Cleaning Toolbar appears in place of the Separation Toolbar ready to tidy up stray pixels.

Your first cleaning


You can now begin the cleaning process. To achieve the best results, work close up on each part of your design in turn. For this open the Detail window by clicking the New Window toolbar button, and then by clicking an area of the design you want to clean. The area appears in the Detail window. Imagine that you see some small patches of burgundy and yellow, which should not appear in that part of the design. Select these colors for removal first by clicking on the Multiple Selection button on the toolbar, and then by clicking the palette color chips of the colors concerned. They appear with a double black and white internal border as shown below.

Now click the Lasso Cleaning button to define a zone in the Detail window from which to remove any yellow or burgundy pixels. Drag the tool to enclose the zone as shown below, and then release the mouse button.

19

Tutorial

As soon as the mouse button is released, all yellow or burgundy pixels in the selected zone are replaced by adjacent colors. Now select the Pick Center tool on the toolbar, and click in the main view on another part of the design you wish to clean. The new area to be cleaned appears in the Detail window. Proceed as before by selecting the colors to be removed, and by defining the zone from which the colors are to be removed by using the Lasso Cleaning tool. When you have cleaned the whole image, choose Save Image from the File menu. The Save As dialog box appears:

20

Color Reduction and Cleaning

Choose an appropriate file name and location for your work, and save it using one of the available file types: HR2 (ideal for Vision projects), TGA, TIFF or BMP/DIB. Your file can then be opened using another application for further development. For example, open the file in Vision Easy Coloring to modify the colors or create a whole range of different colorway versions.

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Color Reduction and Cleaning

THE MAIN WINDOW


The following pictures illustrate the different working tools of the Color Reduction and Cleaning main window, their availability depending on the working mode (separation or cleaning). The main window in separation mode:

23

The Main Window


The main window in cleaning mode:

The various commands of the View menu will allow you to customize the appearance of the tools as desired. The Title bar displays the name of the program or information about the image. The Menus bar displays the titles of Color Reduction and Cleaning menus.

For details about these various menus, refer to the Menus section of this guide.

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Color Reduction and Cleaning


Five Toolbars are available: The Standard Toolbar groups management tools. The Separation Toolbar groups special tools to speed up the Separation process. The Cleaning Toolbar groups special tools to speed up the Cleaning process. The Zoom Toolbar provides tools to use easily the zoom factors. The Presentation Toolbar provides helpful tools for organizing the viewing of the current document.

You can move and reposition them as you like by dragging and dropping them. It is also possible to hide them by using the Toolbar function commands in the View menu.

For details about the various functions of the toolbars, refer to the Toolbars section of this manual.

The Status bar displays, at any time, the interactive help and other information about the tools, commands and images.

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Color Reduction and Cleaning

MENUS
File menu

The File menu contains commands, which operate on a project as a whole, and in particular, which enable you to: Open a project or a scanned image; Mix together parts of a large scanned image to rebuild it; Save a project or a scan in one or more versions; Print a project in the desired form; Set up the image properties; Exit from the application.
The File menu can be accessed both when a project is already open and with no project open. The available functions differ with the situation. Above are the two respectively available functions in the File menu.

27

Menus Open Scan


To open a true color image file, such as the file of a scanned image for color reduction, select Open Scan from the File menu, or use the keyboard shortcut CTRL+O. A dialog standard browsing box appears on the screen:

It is possible to open a 256 color image with this command. However, if you have a 256 color image which does not require color reduction, use the Load Image command in the File menu to open the file directly in cleaning mode.

Use the normal Windows file opening procedures to navigate through file folders, and open files: Choose the Drive and Folder where the existing document is located. Choose the format of the file in the File Types window from the available choices (SCA, TGA, TIF, BMP, DIB, JPG, PCX, PCD, PCT, PNG, PSD, RAS)

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Color Reduction and Cleaning


Select the document in the File Name window. Finally click on Open.

Use the Browse button to be able to have a preview of the images in a specific folder. On clicking this button you will see a dialog window like this:

Note that only RGB files will be displayed by the browser thumbnails.

Double-click the file thumbnail to open the desired image. Double-click on the folder image to exit the current folder. Double-click other folder thumbnails to open them.
See Using the File Atlas Window, for more information about this function.

29

Menus
After completing the procedure, the working window displays the selected document on the screen.

Save Scan as
To save a new scan file, or the current scan file in true color format with a new name, select Save Scan As from the File menu. The dialog box is as follows:

Choose a drive, and a folder to place the new file in, and a file name for the new file. To change the format, select one from the list in the File Types.
Depending on the file format you will choose for your saved file, Color Reduction and Cleaning will automatically create some other files to store specific information.

See Appendix D Additional File Formats for more information about these files.

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Color Reduction and Cleaning


Use this function if you decide you need to change the file format. Available types are TGA, TIFF, BMP/DIB.

The Options button opens a dialog window with two tabs, with more optional settings:

The File Format tab

Depending on the file type you chose in the Save Scan as dialog window, more options will be available in the File Format tab. Colors: select the desired color type from the available options.
For the TGA and BMP file types: Monochrome, 256 Colors (LUT) and True Colors (RGB) are available. For a TIF file type: all the options will be available.

Negative colors: if you selected Monochrome from the Colors area you will also have this option available. Select it to invert your colors to negative complementary colors (if available in your software version).

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Menus
Compression: select a compression mode from the available choices. The availability of the compression modes depends on the type of file you chose earlier and the selections you make in the Colors area.
For TGA files:None and RLE. For TIF files:

Monochrome, 256 colors (LUT) and True colors (CMYK): None, RLE, and LZW. True Colors (RGB) and True Colors (Lab): None and LZW.

BMP files: no compression mode is available.

Export color palette along with the file: for 256 Colors LUT images you also have the option to export the color palette. Select the option then choose the desired format from the drop-down box.

The Image Parameters tab


Click the Image Parameters tab to choose an appropriate resolution and repeat setting. It appears as follows:

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The dimensions given in the Size fields correspond to dimensions of your project set under Image Properties, in the Files menu. Select the desired dimension units with the drop-down box.

For information on size settings and repeat type for the project itself, please refer to Image Properties in the File menu, Menus section of this guide.

When you have made your choices from the File Format and Image Parameters tabs, click OK to return to the Save Scan as dialog box. Click Save when you have made your choices.

Load Image
To load an image file having the standard 256 color format in cleaning mode, select Load Image from the File menu, or use the keyboard shortcut CTRL+L.
If you have a true color image (or even a 256 color image) which requires color reduction, use the command Open Scan (File menu) to open the file in color reduction mode. Using the Load Image function in Cleaning mode to load LUT images (as TIF, TGA, or BMP) will load the image files with calibrated colors according to the calibration you may have performed in Easy Coloring (using the Color Settings function in the File menu).

A standard browsing dialog box appears on the screen. Choose the Drive and the Folder in which the existing document is located. Choose the format of the file in the Files of type window. A large range of graphic file types are available: NedGraphics HR Vision HR2, Targa TGA, Tag Image TIF, Microsoft BMP, DIB, DES Project DES, NedGraphics PAT, Encapsulated Postscript EPS, Graphics Interchange Format GIF, JPEG File Interchange Format JPG, PC Paintbrush PCX, Kodak PhotoCD PCD, Macintosh PICT 33

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PCT, Portable Network Graphics PNG, Photoshop 3.0 PSD, SUN Raster RAS. Select the document in the File Name window. Use the Browse button if you want to make use of the preview facility of this function.

See Open Scan in the Menus section, for more information about the Browse function.

Finally click on Open. The working window will display the document on the screen.
To quickly open one of the last used documents, select it from the bottom of the File menu in the Last opened documents area.

Merge Scan
This function (designed to fit together several scans into one image) is only available in the Vision Color Reduction and Cleaning Pro version (a module of NedGraphics Printing Studio).

Save Image
This command is available to you after having performed color reduction, and gives you the choice of saving your work as a standard 256 color image, in different file formats. Selecting Save Image from the File menu, brings out a dialog box on the screen. Choose a Drive, a location and a File name, using usual Windows procedures. Choose one of the available file types: HR2 (ideal for Vision projects), TGA, TIFF or BMP/DIB.

Use the Options button if necessary.

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See the Options button at Save Scan as in the File menu, Menus section of this guide for information of this command.

Finally click on Save.


Depending on the file format you will choose for your saved file Color Reduction and Cleaning will automatically create some other files to store specific information.

See Appendix D Additional File Formats for more information about these files.

Save Image as
This command is available to you after having performed color reduction, and is the same as the Save Image command, except that it gives you the opportunity of saving your work using a different name. When you select Save Image as from the File menu, a dialog box appears on the screen. Choose a Drive, a location and a File name, using usual Windows procedures. Choose one of the available file types: HR2 (ideal for Vision projects), TGA, TIFF or BMP/DIB.

Use the Options button if necessary.

See the Options button at Save Scan as in the File menu, for more information about these options. Since your file format will be a 256 Color (LUT) file, only this option will be available in the File format tab of the Options dialog window.

Finally click on Save.

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Menus Close
Closes the active project. If the project has been modified since its opening, a message box will appear asking whether or not to save changes.

Print
Printing in Separation mode
To print the active project, click on the Print icon in the Standard toolbar, select Print from the File menu, or use the keyboard shortcut CTRL+P. A dialog box appears on the screen:

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The Printer section
The Name field in the Printer section of the dialog box displays the name of the printer that is currently selected for printing your work. Click the down arrow at the end of the Name field to choose an alternative printer. If the State of the printer is shown as not being ready, check the printer, for example to make sure it isnt out of paper or ink, and to make sure it is switched to on-line. A Type field will display the name of the currently selected printer, and a Where field the name of the port the printer is connected to.

The Print to file option


For certain types of printers, a file must be created specifically for the purposes of printing. If you are using this type of printer, click Print to file in the Printer section. The Options button now becomes available. Click it to choose an appropriate file format, print resolution and paper settings. On clicking the Options button the following dialog box appears:

From the File Format tab choose an appropriate file type, color range, and, if appropriate, the compression type according to

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availability. Available formats are TGA, TIF, BMP, DIB and Postscript level 2 PS.

See Save Scan as in the File Menu, Menus section of this guide for more information about the Colors, Negative colors and Compression options. Note that the Monochrome and 256 Colors (LUT) options in the Colors area of the File Format tab may not be available in your version of the software. File type: selecting the Postscript level 2.PS format will activate a Send to Printer checkbox. Check it, if you want your project sent to both a file and the printer (you will have to have selected a printer with Postscript capabilities in the main dialog box).

Type the appropriate file path and file name in the File name field, or choose the file name and file path by clicking the Browse button . On clicking the Browse button, the Save As dialog box appears. Having made your choice of file path and file name in this dialog box, click Save to return to the File Format tab.

Refer to Save Image as in the File menu, Menus section of this guide, for guidance on the Save As dialog box.

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Click the Image Parameters tab to choose an appropriate resolution and paper setting for your printer. It appears as follows:

The dimensions given in the Page Size fields correspond to the printable area of the paper selected from the Page Size drop-down box and considering the margins set under Page Margins area. If you select Custom as your paper size, you can enter dimensions of your choice according to the paper you have available. Make sure the values you select in the Resolution section correspond to the resolution available for your printer. Typical resolutions both horizontally and vertically include 150 DPI and 300 DPI.

Select your parameters (page size units and size, orientation, margins, and resolution). When you have made your choices from the File Format and Image Parameters tabs, click OK to return to the Print dialog box.

The Copies section


In the Copies section of the Print dialog box, choose the number of copies you wish to print.

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If several pages are to be printed a number of times, you may wish to click Collate. On selecting Collate, the pages icon to the left of the check box changes to show how the pages will be organized.
You will have to have more than one page to print for this option to be functional.

The Print range section


Your image dimensions may exceed the available area for the paper size to print on. In such a case, your image will be printed on more than one page. In the Print range section of the Print dialog box, choose All to print all pages necessary for your whole image. Choose Pages and specify the page number limits in the available boxes, to only print some of the pages of your project. When you have selected all the options, click OK in the main Print dialog window to start printing, or click Cancel to abandon printing.
In the Status bar a Progress bar will display your printing progress.

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Color Reduction and Cleaning


Printing in Cleaning mode
When selecting Print from the File menu while in Cleaning mode, the following dialog box will appear:

The new parameters on this dialog box, as compared to printing from the Color Separation (reduction) mode are the following: The Page range section: Current Colorway: you may have created more colorways for your design, using NedGraphics Easy Coloring application. Select this option to print only the current colorway. Selected Colorways: select this option to print a range of your design colorways. As a result, the Colorway Selection button will become available.

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The Colorway Selection button
Click the Colorway Selection button in the main Print dialog box for the Colorway Selector dialog window to appear:

Colorway Selection area: One colorway: select this option to print just one colorway. You will only be able to select one colorway. Selected colorways: select this option to print just the selected colorways. All colorways: select this option to print all the colorways. 42

Color Reduction and Cleaning


Display Options area: Display Image: select this option for the colorway image to be displayed in the dialog window. Click a colorway thumbnail to select. A blue border will mark the selected colorway. Click again to deselect. Display Colorway: select this option for the colorway color chips to be displayed as a list in the dialog window. Click to select. A blue background will mark the selected colorway. Click again to deselect.

Display Name: select this option to display only the colorway names (if any) in the dialog window list. Click to select. A blue background will mark the selected colorway. Click again to deselect. When you have made your choices in the Colorway Selector dialog window, click OK to accept the settings, or Cancel to discard all changes and return to the Print dialog window.

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The Page Options button
When printing colorways the Page Options button on the bottom of the Print dialog window is active. Click it to obtain the following dialog window:

Title area: select the text information you want to print from the available options. Palette area: make your choices in this area to print the color palette, colorway name, color name, color-code. Choose the position of the Palette information on the printout form the Position area (top or bottom). Selecting Print palette will make all the other options in this section active.

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The color codes to be printed are the color codes set up as the HSV or hCL mode in NedGraphics Easy Coloring.

Color chip size: select the desired color chip size from the available options: auto, small, medium, large. Image area: Print Image: select this option if you want to also print the design image (you may choose to only print the title and palette information). Upon selection, the other options in this area will become active. Life size: select this option for your printout to have a life size scale.
If you decide to use this option, you may desire to use the Auto Cutting feature in the main Print dialog window, so as if your image is larger than the page size, it will be cut in portions to fit on each page. You will then be able to fit them together and re-compose your entire design image. Note that if you use the Area Selection printing mode, the Life Size option in this dialog window will be unavailable. The Area Selection dialog window parameters offer you specific printout scaling tools (the Zoom% fields) that you can use to print in life size (use Zoom%=100).

Selected Area: choose this option to only print the area defined using the Area Selection function in the main Print dialog window. Quality: this field offers you the possibility to print using different printing qualities, depending on your current needs. Three levels of quality are available High: this mode will use both the smoothing and the antialiasing processes for best printing performance. Medium: this printing mode uses an antialiasing process (no smoothing) for a good level of printing quality. Normal: use the normal mode (no processes applied) for a fast printing. Use this mode especially for quick printing tests, when 45

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speed is an important factor, and when you want crisp image details with sharp corners.
Note that the printing speed may be affected by the selected level of quality (lower for higher quality). The quality setting will be also used by the Print Preview function, the displayed image being processed according to the current quality level.

See Print Preview (File menu) for more information about this function.

Click OK when you have made your choices to accept the changes, in the Page Options dialog window, or Cancel to discard all changes and return to the Print dialog window. Print the films: select Print the films option to print the films of your project. The Film Options button will become available.

The Film Options button


A film is the image of just one color of your current project. The films of a project are a package of images representing each, just one color of the whole image.

Select Film Options to open the related dialog box:

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Selecting With cross markers in film corners will determine four markers to be printed in the corners of the image. They may come in very handy when aligning/centering the images of the films. Select With cartouche / Mats to print a box (cartouche) displaying the color of the film.

Select With Color name and/or With Color code to also print the color name or the color code next to the cartouche.
The color code will be the one you select in the Color Channels dialog box.

See Color Channels section at the end of this guide for more information about this function.

One colorway by sheet: select this option to print just one colorway on each sheet of paper.

The Area selection button


This function allows you to print just a selected area of your project. This will come in very handy when, for example, you want to make a quick test print to see how a special section of the project looks on paper.
Printing in Area Selection mode is the only way you can print your project image in repeat-mode. Specific repeat parameter fields allow you to customize the repetition as desired.

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Clicking the corresponding button in the Print dialog window will open a dedicated box as follows:

The Area parameters allow you to define and edit the size of the area to print, in various modes. The Width and Height fields: Origin column parameters: these two parameters define the origin, or starting point of the printing area (horizontal width and vertical height). The default values correspond to the origin of your image (0,0 or the left upper corner). Enter the desired values from the keyboard, or use the spin arrows to increase or decrease the values. The Size column: the default values correspond to the original size of your current image base repeat (as if the whole image was selected for the printing operation), using the current units as set by the Image Preferences, Preferences area, Units parameter. A doted line rectangle will mark the selection. Enter the desired horizontal size (width) and vertical (height) of the printing area from the keyboard or use the spin arrows to increment or decrement the value. Repetition column fields: use these fields to set the repeat number (horizontal and vertical) for the printing area, as the current (desired) size as compared to the original size. A border marker will dynamically highlight the printing area as defined by the current values. This parameter offers another way to control the final size. The Zoom% column fields: these fields display the resulting printing area scale factors (horizontal and vertical), in percentages, taking 48

Color Reduction and Cleaning


into account the currently set desired size versus the original size and the current repeat values.
Note that only two of these parameters are independent. Modifying the Size or the Repetition parameters will automatically change the Zoom parameters to reflect the change. Modifying the Zoom parameters will change the Size parameter accordingly.

Visually defining the printing area and use the picker tool to draw Click the green arrow button (using a click-and-drag method) a rectangle on your project image to visually define the desired printing area:

Note the Origin, Size and Repetition fields updating to reflect the current situation. Press the Reset button to delete the current selection and remain in the Area selection dialog window to define another printing area. You can press Escape on your keyboard to cancel the currently selected area and start defining another, without resetting the current values.

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Print to file and Print to file Options:

See the Print to file section in Menus, File menu, Print, Printing in separation mode for more information on these options.

Copies section: select Auto Cutting for an automatic paper cutting feature to be active.

See the Copies section in the Printing in Separation mode for more information about these options.

Postscript Optimization: select this option for the printing optimization feature to be active. You will have to print on a Postscript printer for this function to be available. When you have made all the necessary choices, select OK to start printing, or Cancel to abandon printing your design. While printing a progress bar will be displayed in the Status bar of your main window to inform you about the printing status.

Print Preview
To preview the active file to be printed, click on Print Preview in the File menu. The preview will show the project image as it will look when printed with the current printer settings.
The colors of your design displayed by Print Preview function will depend on the calibration you have chosen for your system, using the Color Settings function in Easy Coloring or other NedGraphics application.

See the Easy Coloring manual for more information about calibration. The quality setting in the Page Options dialog window of the Print function, will be also used by the Print Preview function, the displayed image being processed according to the current quality level.

See the Print function for more information about the Quality setting.

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Color Reduction and Cleaning Print Setup


This function will allow you to set the general printing options. Select Print Setup from the File menu or use the keyboard shortcut SHIFT+CTRL+P to call this function. The following dialog box appears:

The Name field in the Printer section displays the name of the printer that is currently selected for printing your work. Click the down arrow at the end of the Name field to choose an alternative printer. When selected, the name of the network printer will be displayed in the Name field. Other details about the selected printer are displayed in the Printer section. If the State of the printer is shown as not being ready, check the printer, for example to make sure it isnt out of paper or ink, and to make sure it is switched to on-line. Properties: click on the Properties button to enter the specific printer properties setup function.

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See your printer manual for information about this procedure.

Choose the size and source of paper from the Paper section, and click Portrait or Landscape in the Orientation section.
You may be able to set some other print parameters for your selected printer from the dialog box that appears when you click the Properties button. For an explanation of the choices available in that dialog box, please refer to the documentation for the printer concerned.

Network: click this button to look for a new printer in your network, one that you didnt install a driver for yet. A Connect to Printer dialog window will open as follows:

The function will locate any printer server on your network and the printers installed on that server.

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Locate the desired printer in the network, and click to select it. Click OK to install the printer driver, or Cancel to abort selecting a new printer. Expand by Default: selecting this option will determine the network structure to appear expanded when opening this dialog window the next time. Not selecting the option will collapse the structure to just the network main domain. You will then have to double-click the main domain to expand the structure, then the name of the printer server to have access to the installed printers. Click the OK button to close the Print Setup dialog box and to save any changes made. Click the Cancel button to close the dialog box without saving changes.

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This function displays information about the current image, and allows setting of image parameters. Selecting Image Properties, from the File menu, or using the keyboard shortcut ALT+ENTER, will produce the following dialog box:

The Preferences area


At Units set the units for the image size dimensions using the dropdown box. The figures displayed on top, in the Size area of the dialog box will automatically convert the image size to the new units. Pixel(s), inch, meter, centimeter, millimeter, 1/10, thou.

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At Resolution unit select the unit for the resolution of the image, using the associated field. DPI, PPM, PPCm or PPMm. The figures displayed on the right-top side of the Size area of the dialog box will adapt to show the X and Y resolution using the new units. The Size area parameters (Width, Height, Resolution X and Resolution Y) will load the default values of the current project. Select the unit for the display of the Width and Height fields of the Size area in the Unit list box of the Preferences area. The choice is between Pixel(s), Inches, Meter, Centimeter, Millimeter, 1/10 mm or Thou (1/1000 inch).
The Unit selection will be remembered the next time your start your Vision Color Reduction and Cleaning,

The Repeat area


Use the repeat drop down box to select from the available choices: none (no repeats), straight, vertical stepped, horizontal stepped. Horizontal symmetry (mirrored) and, Vertical symmetry (flipped): use these options as you desire, to set a certain type of symmetry to your repeats (mirrored or flipped). Select none if you do not want your repeats to be mirrored or flipped.
These options will only be available if you first chose a repeat type different than none.

Upon choosing a Vertical or Horizontal stepped repeat, the Repeat area will offer you the possibility to set your step value in three ways: Pixel(s): input the value for the repeat step in pixels. Click in the field and input the value from the keyboard, or use the spin arrows to increment or decrement the default value displayed.

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%: input the step value in percentages. Click in the field and input the value from the keyboard, or use the spin arrows to increment or decrement the default value displayed. Step: use the two fields in this area to define your step as a fraction of the image size. Click in the field and input the value from the keyboard, or use the spin arrows to increment or decrement the default value displayed.
The Repeat information will not be used in the Color Reduction and Cleaning software, but it will be useful in other NedGraphics applications.

View repeats button: click this button to access a graphical mode of selecting your repeat type.

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Here is an explanation for the used symbols in the graphical representation: None (the project will be based on a single image not repeated) Straight Straight Symmetry V Straight Symmetry H Straight Horizontal and Vertical Symmetry Horizontally stepped Step H Symmetry H Step H Symmetry V Step H Symmetry HV
Vertically stepped Step V Symmetry H

Step V Symmetry V Step V Symmetry HV

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This dialog window will also allow you to set up the repeat step value (for horizontal stepped or vertical stepped image). Input the step in the percentage (%) fields or use the fractional fields as explained before. Select OK when ready to return to the previous Image Properties dialog box.

The Size area


The values displayed in the Width and Height fields are for the size of a single repeat of your image, and the values given depend upon the units you choose from the Preferences, Units drop-down box. For example, if you choose Millimeter as the unit, the Width and Height fields will show the physical dimensions of the repeat in millimeters. If you choose Pixel as the unit from the Units drop-down box, the Width and Height fields will show the dimensions of the repeat in terms of the data (pixels) contained in the original image on which the project is based. Width/Height: these fields display the size of your current project in the units selected in the Preferences area, Units field on the bottom of the dialog window. Resolution X/Y: display the horizontal (X) and vertical (Y) resolution of your current design in the units selected in the Preferences area, Resolution unit field. Select OK to accept the values in the Image properties window and close the window, or Cancel to discard all changes.

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The File menu lists the last opened documents on the bottom area of the dialog window (recent files list). To quickly open one of the last used documents, select it from the bottom of the File menu.

Exit
To close Vision Color Reduction and Cleaning, choose Exit from the File menu. If any open projects have not been saved, a dialog box will be offered, giving you the opportunity to save them.

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Edit menu

This menu, mainly offers commands that allow you to undo and redo previous commands, when you change your mind about using a specific function or, when you are just testing options.

Undo
To cancel the effect of the last modification made on the current file, select Undo from the Edit menu, or click the corresponding button in the Standard toolbar.
The keyboard shortcut for this command is CTRL + Z.

Redo
To cancel the effect of the Undo command, select Redo from the Edit menu, or click on the corresponding button in the Standard toolbar.
The keyboard shortcut for this command is CTRL + A.

Cut
Select Cut in the Edit menu, or click the Cut icon on the Standard toolbar, to copy the selection onto the clipboard and remove it from the active document.

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The keyboard shortcut for this command is CTRL + X.

This function is not implemented in the current version of the software.

Copy
Click on the Copy icon on the Standard toolbar or select Copy from the Edit menu, to copy the selection onto the clipboard.
The keyboard shortcut for this command is CTRL + C.

This function is not implemented in the current version of the software.

Paste
Click on the Paste icon in the Standard toolbar or select Paste from the Edit menu, to insert the contents of the clipboard as a new document. One can then perform a separation or a cleaning based on the nature of the document.
The keyboard shortcut for this command is CTRL + V.

This function is not implemented in the current version of the software.

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View menu
The View menu enables you to show or hide various parts of the screen, such as toolbars and the palette. To show an item, click its name in the View menu. Click the item name again to hide the item. The availability of commands in the View menu depends on the working mode, separation or cleaning mode.

View menu Separation mode

View menu Cleaning mode

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This command creates a new window displaying an enlarged, detail view of the current project. When in Separation (reduction) mode, this function creates two linked windows: The Detail window displays an enlarged area of the Master window. This window will allow you to work on small details of your image, having at the same time the whole picture in front of you. The image here will be center around the point you click in the main view, or a point you select with the Center view function . The Preview window displays the same image as the Detail window, with the same zoom factor, as a preview of the color reduction process. You can customize this view by enabling the Film Mode option (see further in this section).

If you are in Cleaning mode, only one Detail window appears. To perform the operation, do the following: Select New View from the View menu (or click on the New View button in the Presentation toolbar). The mouse cursor changes into a lens: Click on a place in the Master window (artwork view), where you want the Detail window to be centered.

You can open more Detail/Preview windows for the same project in order to better see different details of your image, and their previews.

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Color Reduction and Cleaning Center View


This function centers the image in the Detail and Preview windows on a selected point (in color reduction mode). To use this function: Select Center view from the View menu, or click on the Pick in the Presentation toolbar (see Presentation center icon toolbar, in the Toolbars section of this guide). When the mouse cursor is over a valid zone, it appears as shown here. Click to update the centering of the Detail and Preview windows (in color reduction).

Film Mode
This function switches the Preview windows to Film mode and enables the Film Options (See Film Options pop-up menu in the Film, Presentation Toolbar section of this guide for further information). When selected, the command displays a tick mark character in front of it, in the View menu.
The film mode is recommended when you want to see the exact spreading and distribution of a selected color in your image. The whole image, except the selected color will be faded out, creating a contrast that will allow easy assessing of the colors usage. This function, associated with the Film Options Pop-Up menu, is useful to customize the display mode of Preview windows.

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For example, with this image in the Detail window, select Film mode from the View menu, or click the in the Film button Presentation toolbar.

Select a color in the Color palette of the Separation window. The selected color will be marked with a rectangle. In the Preview window you will see the distribution of the selected color (color 6). The Film mode can receive different settings (see Film Options pop-up menu in the Film, Presentation Toolbar section of this guide for further information). In this example, the selected color is represented in black, on a pastel background.

Toolbar display area


This area of the View menu makes it possible for you to display on your screen the toolbars you need. Select the toolbars you want to have displayed, by clicking the toolbar name. A checkmark in front of the name will announce the display status (ON if check marked). Notice that the Separation and Cleaning toolbars are not available at the same time. Their presence depends on the mode you are currently in (Separation or Cleaning).

See the Toolbars section of this guide for more information on each of the toolbars.

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Status Bar
This bar at the bottom of the document window displays the interactive help and other information about the tools, commands and images.

Module Toolbar
This toolbar allows quick jumps between Fashion Studio modules in order to allow you to perform specific tasks (cleaning, coloring, layout, design changes) on your current design image. The availability of the jump functions depends on some factors as: The applications you have installed on your system. Your current Printing Studio application and the opening mode (direct or from within another module). The current settings in the Preferences menu, Define module switching function. The design open status (no design loaded, or at least one design open). The design processing status (for example Cleaning mode or Separation mode).

See the Preferences menu, Define module switching function for more details about these options.

Mainframe (no Separation mode.

project

open)

and

Cleaning mode.

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Standard Toolbar

This toolbar groups basic commands: Cut, Copy, Paste, Print, Help, Undo, Redo.

Separation Toolbar (in Separation mode)

This toolbar groups all the tools needed to make the color reduction. It can be active only if the current file is a scan file.

Cleaning Toolbar (in Cleaning mode)

This toolbar provides quick access to the cleaning functions and it is only active if the current file is an image file.

Zoom Toolbar

This tool bar provides versatile, quick zoom-factor setting operation.

Presentation Toolbar

This toolbar groups functions used to manage the views and the different elements composing a project.

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Color Reduction and Cleaning Separation Palette


The Separation Palette displays the output channels when reducing colors. Select Separation palette from the View menu (only in Separation mode), or click the corresponding Show/Hide palette button in the Presentation toolbar.
You have to choose a non-automatic separation method for the Separation palette to be available.

See the Check List function in the Separation Menu, Menus section of this guide for more information about the separation methods.

When loading a scanned image for the first time (no previous work done on it), the separation palette will display 24 empty color channel slots.

While working on your project, you will gradually assign colors, or channels to slots in the separation palette (see the Separation menu in the Menus section, and the Separation tools in the Toolbars section of this guide for more information on how to assign colors to the palette). Your Separation palette, for example, may look like this:

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If more than 24 color channels will be needed for your project, the scroll bar on the right side of the palette will make it possible to scroll through the channels. The number of colors to work with can be set with the Separation toolbar.

See the Separation toolbar in the Toolbars section of this guide for further details.

Preview button: click this button each time you want to see the effect of your changes in the Preview window. Only using this button the Preview window will be updated to your latest changes.
This will allow you to make your color selections more easily, not having to wait for the updating of the Preview window before you can proceed.

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Click on the View Samples icon in the Separation tools toolbar, or select the Separation Sample option in the View menu to see all the selected samples for each output channel. The Separation Sample will appear on the bottom of the Separation palette window. It will show all the samples of the currently selected color (color 10 in the example below).

Drag the cursor of the Separation sample scroll bar to scroll through the samples, if necessary.

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The Cleaning Palette displays each color of the separated design. Select Cleaning palette from the View menu (only in Cleaning mode) or select the corresponding Show/Hide palette button in the Cleaning tools toolbar. If there are more than 16 colors, a scroll bar will be available on the right side of the palette.

Select each color by clicking on it. A selection rectangle will highlight the current color. in the Cleaning Toolbar is If the Multiple Selection icon selected, the color selection buttons of the Cleaning Palette become active, allowing you to change the selection.

See Multiple selection in the Menus, Cleaning menu section of this guide for more information about these color selection buttons.

Cleaning outside the group: If you worked on your design in NedGraphics Easy Coloring with grouped colors, the Cleaning outside the group checkbox will become active.

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Color Reduction and Cleaning


You will have to use the Cleaning colors function function and the Multiple selection button option to be available. or the Filling has to be off, for this

When checked, this function will work like this: With the Cleaning Colors function With a color selected in one of the groups, you will be able to use one of the selection tools in the cleaning toolbar Clean Under Pencil, Zone, Lasso, Global, Selection by Color to pick an area from the image. The function will start looking in the area close to your selection. From all the colors found, it will pick the one that DOES NOT belong to the group the selected color is in. It will then search through the groups, and identify the group for this specific color and select a replacement that will have the same position in the group, in terms of Saturation and Intensity, with the initially selected color (whatever the actual position in the group it might have).
Saving the image at this point (either as TGA, TIF, BMP, HR2) will also save all the colors and groups, for future editing.

With the Filling function With a color selected in one of the groups, you will be able to use one of the selection tools in the cleaning toolbar Under Pencil, to pick an area from the Zone, Lasso, Global, image. The function will replace the colors in the selected area, with colors in the group the currently selected color is in, range-to-range, that is, replacing a color in the image, belonging to certain position in its own group, with the color having the same position in the group of the current color.

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Menus Zoom In
Enlarges the view of the active window with the value set in the Zoom (+/-) step field of the Display Layout dialog box in the Preferences menu.

See the corresponding function in the Zoom toolbar section. for more detailed information.

Zoom Out
Reduces the view of the active window with the value set in the Zoom (+/-) step field of the Display Layout dialog box in the Preferences menu.

See the corresponding function in the Zoom toolbar section. for more detailed information.

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Separation menu
The functions in this menu are only available if a scan file has been already loaded and selected as the current file. They offer different color picking and color-separation methods, sample saving and loading possibilities, automatic process options.

Point
This tool allows picking individual colors from your project, with the eyedropper tool. Select Point from the Separation menu, or click on the corresponding Pick Points button in the Separation tools and you can toolbar. The mouse cursor becomes an eyedropper then click in the design to add the color under the mouse cursor to the current channel. The selection of the tool will be indicated with a tick mark in front of the function, in the Separation menu.
You can make multiple selections for the same color channel. To do this, make sure the Next color function is not selected, then just click on all the colors you want to add to the current color channel.

See the Next color function in the Separation menu for more information on this option. Each time you select a color in the Color palette of the Separation window, the selection tools used to add colors to that specific sample will be marked accordingly in your Main and Detail windows.

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Display the Separation Sample to see all the samples for the current color. See the Separation sample in the View menu, or the View sample button in the Separation tools toolbar, for more information about this feature.

Circle
This color-picking function allows picking all the colors contained in the selection circle you define on the project image. Select Circle from the Separation menu, or click the corresponding Pick Circles button in the Separation tools toolbar. The mouse cursor becomes a circle eyedropper and all the colors inside the circle you define will be added to the current channel. The selection of the tool will be indicated with a tick mark in front of the function, in the Separation menu. To draw the selection circles proceed as follows: Click on the center of the circle you want to add. Drag, to draw the circle, and drop to add all the colors inside to the current channel.

Each time you select a color in the Color palette of the Separation window, the selection (points/circles/lasso) areas used to add colors to the current color sample will be highlighted accordingly in your Main and Detail windows. Display the Separation Sample to see all the samples for the current color. See the Separation sample in the View menu, or the View sample button in the Separation tools toolbar, for more information about this feature.

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Color Reduction and Cleaning Lasso


This color-picking tool allows you to draw a free-hand selection shape, and to associate all colors inside the shape to the current Sample in the Separation Palette. Select Lasso in the Separation menu, or click the corresponding button in the Separation tools toolbar to use this tool. The selection of the tool will be indicated with a tick mark in front of the function, in the Separation menu. Click on the image (Main or Detail window) and drag to draw a closed shape as the lasso. All the colors encompassed by the shape will be added to the current sample.
You can combine the color-picking tools (Points, Circle, Lasso) to select the colors for the current sample. Display the Separation Sample to see all the samples for the current color. See the Separation sample in the View menu, or the View sample button in the Separation tools toolbar, for more information about this feature.

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Menus Next Color


When this option is selected, each time you add a color to the Separation Palette, the selection of the current color chip is moved forward one step, to the next color chip, until reaching the last one. Select the Next Color option from the Separation menu, or click the Next Color button in the Separation tools toolbar, to select the Next Color option. The selection of the tool will be indicated with a tick mark in front of the function, in the Separation menu.

Auto Cleaning
To do a first overall cleaning automatically, for the entire image, after the color reduction process, click on the Auto Clean icon in the Separation tools toolbar, or select Auto Cleaning in the Separation menu. The selection of the tool will be indicated with a tick mark in front of the function name, in the Separation menu.
The function can also be accessed through the Check list function.

See Check list in the Separation menu section of this guide for more information about this function.

Auto Smoothing
To smoothen up the result of the separation process, in order to avoid some borders to be hatched, click on the Auto Smoothing icon in the Separation tools toolbar, or select Auto Smoothing in the Separation menu. The selection of the tool will be indicated with a tick mark in front of the function name, in the Separation menu.
The Auto Smoothing option is not recommended for designs with a high level of detail, because you may loose them with this option.

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The function can also be accessed through the Check list function.

See the Check list function below for more information about this function.

Check List
This option allows the setting of the separation parameters. Select Check List in the Separation menu, or click on the corresponding Check List button in the Separation tools toolbar to open the specific dialog window. The window will display the parameters used for the color reduction process. The following dialog box appears:

Color parameter area Number of colors


In the Color parameters area, set the number of colors you intend to use in the Separation Palette, for the current project.

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The same parameter can be set using the Set Sample Number function in the separation Standard tools toolbar . Use the arrows to set the desired value, or click in the value area, type in the desired number and press Enter.

A corresponding number of color samples will be displayed in the Separation Color palette (24 in the example below).

If more than 24 colors will be required for your work, a scroll bar will become available.

Separation parameters - Quality level


The quality level refers to the color reduction method to be used for the current project. The following methods may be used, depending on the desired precision, complexity, gradation of the design, and the speed of the process:
You can also choose the separation method using the corresponding in the Separation tools toolbar. selection box

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Automatic methods
Automatic Auto/texture

Automatic and Auto/texture


The Automatic processes will perform an automatic color reduction and separation onto your project, according to a preset algorithm. The only parameter you will be able to set is the number of colors to be used. Use the Colors selection box in the Separation tools toolbar to set the number of colors for the separated image. The Preview window will be automatically updated. The Separation palette dialog box will be disabled.
Since all automatic color separation procedures are done according to an internal algorithm, and your intervention is not required, the separation palette window will be disabled if such a method is selected. In the Preview window you will see what your image looks like after the separation.

Manual methods
Flat draft Flat normal Flat enhanced Texture

The manual methods offer more control over the separation procedure, allowing individual selection of the used colors.
When using a manual separation method, the Separation window and color palette will be available on the screen.

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Flat draft, Flat normal, Flat enhanced
Generally designed for flat-tone colored images, these three methods give progressively better results (from draft to enhanced), but are also progressively slower (draft being the fastest). You can also use them for images with gradations, to just see a quick result of a separation.
Try this command with different number of colors selected, and compare the results.

Automatic
This separation method will automatically select colors from your image, using a random selection method (up to 256 colors). Your processed image will contain most of the colors in the initial picture. Small details of a particular color, not found anywhere in the picture may be lost ("noise" pixels, stray dots etc.).

Auto/texture
The Auto/texture separation method, as all the other methods involving a "textured" process, will add a special effect to your separated image. Using an internal algorithm called "error diffusion", it will create a "sandy", granulated effect, which may be very appealing for certain applications.

Texture
Being a non-automatic color separation method, Texture offers more control over the colors to be used by the separated image. The special "texture" effect will be used to create your separated image. The Separation Color palette is present on the display. Choose the number of colors for the new project image, using the Colors tool in the Separation tools toolbar,

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the Check List function button Separation menu. , or the same function in the

Pick your colors using the tools offered by the Separation menu (Point, Circle, Lasso) or the Separation tools toolbar
or from the

Use the Next color function in the Separation tools toolbar Separation menu, if necessary.

Automatic cleaning
You can also enable here the Automatic cleaning function checking the appropriate selection box.

See Auto cleaning in the Separation menu for more information about this function.

Automatic smoothing
You can also enable here the Automatic smoothing function checking the appropriate selection box.

See Auto smoothing in the Separation menu for more information about this function.

Process
Click on the Process icon in the Separation tools toolbar, or select the Process from the Separation menu to proceed with the color reduction process, and start the Cleaning mode. A confirmation will be required to launch the process.
Before proceeding, you may wish to click on the Check List button to view once more the parameters which will be used for the process.

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Menus Load Sample


This function loads a previously saved Separation Palette. By default, a color palette is automatically generated when a separation is computed, taking the name of the current file.
It can be useful to use several palettes to see which one gives the best result. Use the Save Sample function to save several color palettes.

See the Save Sample function below for more information.

Save Sample
Saves the active Separation Palette. This function will save all the different samples for each color in the palette so you can easily load them again or modify them. The palette file will automatically receive a .DLS extension.

Clear Active Sample


Clears the active sample in the Separation Palette. A message box will appear to confirm the process.

Reset All Samples


Deletes all the samples in the Separation Palette. A message box appears to confirm the process.
The same result may be obtained using the Delete all samples from all channels function in the Separation Sample pop-up menu.

See Delete all samples from all channels, in the Presentation toolbar, Show/Hide Palette, Sample Pop-up Menus section of this guide for more information on this function.

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Cleaning menu
This menu is only available in Cleaning mode, that is, after an image has been loaded, and the separation process started, using the Process button in the Separation tools toolbar, or using Process from the Separation menu.

Cleaning overview
Cleaning means removing individual pixels or groups of pixels of a specified color and replacing them by the most prominent surrounding color.

First, you must set a cleaning area selection tool (first section of the menu). The tool will specify the area where the cleaning will take place. Then you must choose a cleaning method (second section of the menu). The method will specify how the process will be performed.

You must equally select at least one color to clean, either by clicking directly on the color on the cleaning palette, by using the Pick Color command, or by using the Pick Color or Multiple Selection commands in the Cleaning tools toolbar (end of the cleaning menu).

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When describing the cleaning tools below, the process will be named "cleaning", but be aware that it could also be "replacing" depending on the cleaning method selected.

See Cleaning methods below for more information.

Standard Cleaning Steps


Select the Cleaning noise method in the Cleaning tools toolbar or using Noise in the Cleaning menu Select the cleaning intensity from the Cleaning tools toolbar or using Cleaning intensity in the Cleaning toolbar if applicable for the selected method. Select the color to be cleaned by clicking in the Color palette on one of the available colors. Select the cleaning tool to determine the area to be affected by the cleaning process, using the buttons in the Cleaning tools or the corresponding functions in toolbar the Cleaning menu. In the Main window or, the Detail window use the cleaning tool to select the area to be cleaned, and the cleaning will be automatically processed.
Use the Multiple selection function in the Cleaning menu or the in the Cleaning tools toolbar if applicable corresponding button for the selected method - to be able to select more than one color for cleaning.

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Color Reduction and Cleaning Cleaning tools


Pencil
This is the first cleaning area selection tool, and will just clean the pixels under the mouse cursor. To clean the selected colors under the mouse cursor, click on the Clean Under Pencil icon, or select the Pencil option in the Cleaning menu. Suppose you want to clean the greenish dots in the petals area in this image. Select the color of the dots using the pick color button in the Cleaning toolbar, and clicking on the dots you want to eliminate, or by directly selecting the color in the Cleaning Color palette. Select the Clean Under Pencil tool in the Cleaning tools toolbar (or using the Pencil function in the Cleaning menu), then just click on all the dots you want eliminated from the image.

The adjacent picture depicts the image with cleaned petals.

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Preferably use the Detail window for better accuracy. Use the Film option in the Presentation toolbar or the corresponding Film mode function in the View menu, to better operate in the working area, and have a clearer image of the cleaning operation. Use the Cleaning Pencil Options button in the Cleaning tools toolbar (or the corresponding Pencil Size function in the Cleaning menu) to set the pencil parameters for this operation.

See the Pencil Options below for instructions on the Pencil parameters setting. See Standard Cleaning Steps in the Cleaning menu, Menus section of this guide for more information.

Pencil Size
Click on the Pencil Options button in the Cleaning tools toolbar or select Pencil Size in the Cleaning menu, to set the size parameter used for cleaning with the Pencil. Click on the Size list box to set the new size for the Pencil. On the right side of the dialog box, you can visualize a preview of the Pencil.

Click on the OK button to validate the changes, or click Cancel to abort the operation. These parameters will be used the next time you use the Pencil.tool.

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Rectangle
To clean, the selected colors inside a rectangular selection, click on the Zone Cleaning button in the Cleaning tools toolbar, or select the Rectangle option in the Cleaning menu. To select an area, click on one corner of the area you want to clean, then drag the mouse button in order to draw a box. Release the mouse button.
If you used the Fill method with this cleaning tool, the pixels included in the rectangle tool area will be replaced with the current color in the Cleaning palette. See the Fill method below in the Cleaning methods section of the guide, for more information.

See Standard Cleaning Steps in the Cleaning menu, Menus section of this guide for more information.

Lasso
To clean the selected colors inside a free hand area, click on the Lasso Cleaning button in the Cleaning tools toolbar, or select the Lasso option in the Cleaning menu. Click and drag around the area you want cleaned. The shape you draw should approximate a closed contour, but even if not, the software will close it for you. Dropping the tool will start the cleaning process in the specified area.

If you used the Fill method with this cleaning tool, the pixels included in the lasso tool area will be replaced with the current color in the Cleaning palette. See the Fill method below for more information.

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Menus
See Standard Cleaning Steps in the Cleaning menu, Menus section of this guide for more information.

Global Cleaning
After selecting one or more colors from the palette, choose Global Cleaning from the Cleaning menu, or click on the corresponding toolbar button in order to eliminate the selected colors from the entire design.

See Standard Cleaning Steps in the Cleaning menu, Menus section of this guide for more information.

Selection by color
This cleaning tool will clean (fill or replace) the selected colors from your image. To use it, select the tool, click on a desired color in the Main or Detail window, and it will be processed according to the selected cleaning method: filled by the currently selected colors in the Cleaning Color palette, if you chose Fill as the cleaning method replaced by the most prominent neighboring color, if you selected any of the other cleaning methods.
The color you click with the tool will be processed in only the contiguous area of your selection (not on every area of that color in your project).

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For example starting with this image, suppose you want to replace the central yellow area of the flower at left with the currently selected color in the color palette.

Selected color number 2 (pale beige) as current.

When clicking on the desired yellow , just that area with the Filling tool area will be filled with the new color, not all the yellow pixels in the whole image (the contiguous yellow). Select color 1 (yellowish) as the current color Cleaning color as the cleaning method.

Click again on the same area. The yellow will be replaced with the most prominent surrounding color.
This function may only be present in the Cleaning tools toolbar in your version of the software.

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Menus Cleaning methods


Filling
The Filling cleaning method is the only one of all the cleaning procedures that does not replace pixel clusters with the surrounding color, but replaces (fills) the selected pixels, or area, with the current color in the Cleaning color palette. Depending on the cleaning tool you used (Pencil, Rectangle, Lasso, Global, Selection By Color) it will fill respectively, the area under the pencil, a defined rectangle shaped area, a lasso defined area, the whole image, or the clicked contiguous color with the current color. Select Filling in the Cleaning menu, or use the corresponding button in the Cleaning toolbar to use the command. Use the standard cleaning procedure to perform a cleaning operation on your image.

See Standard Cleaning Steps in this section of the guide for more information. Multiple color selection is not applicable for this cleaning method.

Noise
To clean pixels, or group of pixels defined as "noise" in your project, click Cleaning noise in the Cleaning tools toolbar, or select the Noise in the Cleaning menu function. The isolated groups or clusters of the currently selected color in the Cleaning Palette, considered as Noise, will be replaced with the adjacent most prominent color. This method looks for all pixels that are included in a square the size of which is defined in the field called Size of points.
The size of the groups to be considered Noise and processed by this function . is determined by the Cleaning intensity parameter

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See Cleaning intensity in the Cleaning menu section of the manual for more information on this parameter.

Use the standard cleaning procedure to perform a cleaning operation on your image.

See Standard Cleaning Steps in this section of the guide for more information.

Outlines
This function will clean jagged outlines of selected colors, smoothing up the contours of the shapes in your image. To clean outlines, select Outlines from the Cleaning menu, or click on the corresponding button Cleaning Outlines in the Cleaning tools toolbar. The depth of cleaning will depend on the Cleaning Intensity parameter.

See Cleaning intensity in the Cleaning menu section of this guide for more information about this parameter.

Suppose you start with this image, having a jagged outline made up of two composing colors. Select the Cleaning outlines method using the Outlines function in the Cleaning menu, or the corresponding button in the Cleaning tools toolbar. Select a cleaning tool (Rectangle for example) either from the in the cleaning toolbar. Cleaning menu or the specific tool

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Select the colors of the outlines you intend to clean. Use the , if necessary, to select more than one Multiple selection button color.

See Multiple selection in the Cleaning menu, Menus section of this guide for more information about this function.

Select the intensity parameter for the operation

This parameter will determine the maximum thickness, in pixels, of the outline to be cleaned. Thicker outlines, or area, will be left intact, thinner outlines will be cleaned, their color replaced with the most prominent surrounding color.

Select the cleaning area, using the Rectangle tool and drawing a rectangle around the jagged petals of the flower in the image. The result may look like this:

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Horizontal
To clean a horizontal succession of pixels, click or the icon Cleaning horizontally in the Cleaning tools toolbar, or select the Horizontal command in the Cleaning menu. This method looks for every continuous row of pixels made up of one of the currently selected colors, whose length is equal or less important than the amount defined by the intensity parameter, and cleans it.
The size of the horizontally placed pixels (groups, clusters) to be processed by this function, is determined by the Cleaning intensity parameter Set the number of horizontally placed pixels to clean in the Cleaning Intensity field of the Cleaning tools toolbar or select Cleaning Intensity. The maximum length is 7.

See Cleaning intensity in the Cleaning menu section of the manual for more information on this parameter. Use the Multiple selection function in the Cleaning menu or the in the Cleaning tools toolbar to be able to select corresponding button more than one color for cleaning

Use the standard cleaning procedure to perform a cleaning operation on your image.

See Standard Cleaning steps in this section of the guide for details about the cleaning steps.

Vertical
To clean a vertical succession of pixels, click on the Cleaning vertically button in the Cleaning tools toolbar, or select the Vertical function in the Cleaning menu. This method checks for every continuous column of pixels of one of the selected colors whose height is equal or less important than the amount defined, and cleans it.

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The size of the vertically placed pixels (groups, clusters) to be processed by Set this function, is determined by the Cleaning intensity parameter the number of vertically placed pixels to clean in the Cleaning Intensity field of the Cleaning tools toolbar or select Cleaning Intensity. The maximum length is 7.

See Cleaning intensity in the Cleaning menu section of the manual for more information on this parameter. Use the Multiple selection function in the Cleaning menu or the in the Cleaning tools toolbar to be able to select corresponding button more than one color for cleaning.

Use the standard cleaning procedure to perform a cleaning operation on your image.

See Standard Cleaning Steps in this section of the guide.

Color
To eliminate all the pixels corresponding to the selected colors and replace them with the surrounding colors of the design, click on the Cleaning Colors icon in the Cleaning tools toolbar, or select Cleaning Color command in the Cleaning menu. As all the pixels of the selected colors are deleted, you dont have to set the Cleaning Intensity (not available for this method).
Use the Multiple selection function in the Cleaning menu or the in the Cleaning tools toolbar to be able to select corresponding button more than one color for cleaning.

Use the standard cleaning procedure to perform a cleaning operation on your image.

See Standard Cleaning Steps in this section of the guide.

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Color Reduction and Cleaning Cleaning Intensity


The cleaning intensity parameter determines which elements of your image the cleaning process will operate on. This parameter is named cleaning "intensity". Select it using Cleaning intensity in the Cleaning menu or the corresponding tool in the Cleaning tools toolbar.
The cleaning intensity parameter settings is only available for the following four cleaning methods: Noise, Outlines, Horizontal and Vertical cleaning . The cleaning intensity parameter will be stored for each of the four available cleaning methods.

During cleaning, Color Reduction and Cleaning removes clusters of touching pixels of the color(s) selected from the palette, and replaces them with pixels of the surrounding most prominent color. Enter the maximum number of pixels for the clusters that will be cleaned in the Intensity field on the Cleaning toolbar. In the example shown at right, the intensity is set to 7, which means that only clusters of 1 to 7 pixels will be cleaned.

The cluster configurations on which the cleaning methods will operate, is different for each method: Noise and Outlines will operate on any configuration of clusters, connected either on sides or corners.

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Cleaning horizontally will only operate on horizontally (right and left side) connected clusters.

Cleaning vertically will only operate on vertically (upper and lower) connected clusters. Here is an example of Noise cleaning. Let us test the procedure on a test image like this: The area contains isolated pixels, groups of three, four and five pixels, connected in various ways. Select the cleaning intensity (select 1), using the Cleaning intensity function in the Cleaning menu, or the corresponding field in the Cleaning tools toolbar Select the current color in the cleaning palette, the yellow shade:

With Noise as the cleaning method select the cleaning tool as Rectangle in the Cleaning menu, or use the corresponding button in the Cleaning tools toolbar and draw a rectangle around this area. You will get this, i.e. the four isolated-one-pixel areas in your image will be cleaned out. 98

Color Reduction and Cleaning


The four isolated-one-pixel areas in your image will be cleaned out. Selecting 3 as the cleaning intensity parameter will produce the following image:

All the isolated areas up to three connected pixels large, were cleaned out (there were three groups, marked with blue). Selecting 4 as the cleaning intensity threshold will produce the following image: All the isolated areas up to four connected pixels large, whatever the configuration, were cleaned out (there was just one, marked in green).

Global Smoothing
To smoothen all the image in order to avoid borders appearing jagged, or eliminate "pixelized" filled areas, click on the Global Smoothing button in the Cleaning tools toolbar, or select Global Smoothing in the Cleaning menu. A message box appears asking for confirmation.
The Global Smoothing function is not recommended for designs with a high level of detail, because you may loose them with this function.

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Menus Multiple Selection


To select more than one color for the cleaning, click on the Multiple Selection button in the Cleaning tools toolbar, or select the Multiple Selection option in the Cleaning menu.
If this option is selected, the Select All, Reset All, Invert All buttons in the Cleaning Palette will be available to modify the selection (see the View Menu section for further details about using the Cleaning Palette).

The Select All button selects all the colors for the cleaning. The Reset All button deselects all the colors for the cleaning. The Invert All button inverts the selection by selecting the non-selected colors and by deselecting the selected colors.

Pick Color
To select colors to clean, click on the Pick Color button in the Cleaning tools toolbar, or select the Pick Color option in the Cleaning menu. The mouse cursor becomes an eyedropper .

Click on the desired color: its color chip becomes outlined in the Cleaning Palette.
If the Multiple selection option color to clean. is on, you can select more than one

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Use the Coloring function in the Cleaning menu to switch to another NedGraphics module (application), such as Easy Coloring, allowing further color editing operation.
The module to switch to is set by the Define module switching function in the Preferences menu.

See Define module switching in the Preferences Menu, Menus section for more information about this function.

When done editing, use the Exit function of the module you switched to, to leave the module, and return to Color Reduction and Cleaning. A dialog window will ask your confirmation about keeping the changes you have just made.

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Preferences Menu

This menu holds a set of functions that will allow you to customize your Color Reduction and Cleaning application with regard to possibilities to switch to other NedGraphics software and interface aspect.

Define module switching


This function will allow you to set up the NedGraphics application you will switch to when using the Coloring command in the Cleaning menu.

See Coloring in the Cleaning menu for more information about this function.

The following dialog window will open upon using this function:

Use the drop down box to select from the available choices as Vision Easy Coloring or Vision Easy Coloring Pro.
You will have to have installed NedGraphics Fashion Studio Easy Coloring or Vision Easy Coloring Pro on your system, in order to have access to one of these application.

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You may have Fashion Studio Design and Repeat installed on your system. If you are using Color Reduction and Cleaning by switching from Design and Repeat, you will not be able to switch to Easy Coloring. You will have to run Color Reduction and Cleaning as a separate application to be able to use its module switching.

Display layout
The Display layout function in the Preferences menu allows you to customize the Master window (artwork view) display parameters. The dialog box looks like this:

The Artwork view area Open/Load Full window


When this check box is selected, the Master window (artwork view) will be maximized when opening a new project.

Size Proportion
This parameter allows you to set the proportion of the Master window (artwork view), with regard to the software window. As the 104

Color Reduction and Cleaning


size of the Detail and Preview windows depend on the size of the Master window, this option can also be used to define the size of the Detail and Preview windows.
Refer also to the Window Menu section to see how to resize and to arrange the windows.

The Zoom area Fit to view margin


Use this parameter in the Zoom area, to set the size, in pixels, of the margins to display when the zoom factor is Fit to view.

Zoom (+/-) step


This parameter determines the step between two consecutive clicks, when using the zoom icons. The value is the percentage of the zoom to be enlarged or reduced regarding the current value. For example, if the current zoom factor is 150% and the step value is 50%, clicking the Zoom + icon, the new zoom factor will be: 150+50%(150)=150+75=225 When you have finished making your choices in the dialog box, click OK to put the changes into effect, or Cancel to close the dialog box without any changes being registered.

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Window menu
Thanks to the Windows interface, it is possible to have several files open at the same time. This menu allows you to organize the various working windows of your currently active project, or the icons of different open projects, on the screen. Different kinds of organization are offered.

Cascade
Select Cascade in the Window menu to reorganize the various working windows of your currently active project by overlapping them. Every Title Bar will be visible.

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Menus Tile Horizontally


Select Tile Horizontally in the Window menu, to reorganize the various working windows of your currently active project by reducing them and displaying them side by side. The Master Windows take the size defined by the Size Proportion parameter in the Display Layout function, Preferences menu. The Detail and Preview windows of the current project are resized to fit horizontally under the Master windows.

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Color Reduction and Cleaning Tile Vertically


Select Tile Vertically in the Window menu, to reorganize the various working windows of your currently active project by reducing them and displaying them side-by-side. The Master Windows take the size defined by the Size Proportion parameter in the Display Layout function, Preferences menu. The Detail and Preview windows of the current project are resized to fit vertically, next to the Master windows.

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Menus Arrange Icons


This function will organize the icons of your open projects, in case you opened more than one project. Before using this function, reduce the working windows to icons by selecting one window and clicking on the Reduction button in the right hand corner of the windows title bar. Repeat this process for all the working windows. To tidy up these spread-out icons, select Arrange Icons in the Window menu. The icons now line up with each other at the bottom of the screen.

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Color Reduction and Cleaning Opened windows area


The lower side of the Window menu stores a list of the currently opened windows. Select any of these windows to easily switch from one opened project to another. The selected project will become current, and will keep its own windowsarrangement, last chosen (cascade, horizontally tiled, vertically tiled).

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Help menu
Help Topics
Displays on-line Help for the application, including the Answer Wizard, which will allow you to type in requests for help in your own words. Select Help Topics from the Help menu or use the keyboard shortcut F1 to use this function (if available in your version of the software).

About Color Reduction and Cleaning


To find information about the program version, click on the Question Mark icon in the Standard toolbar or on Help About Color Reduction and Cleaning in the Help menu.

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TOOLBARS
Standard Toolbar

The standard toolbar provides quick access to basic commands.

For more information on these functions see File menu, Edit menu and Help menu in the Menus section of this guide.

Cut: Not implemented Copy: Not implemented Paste: Not implemented Print: Prints one copy of the active document using the current print settings. Help: Display information about the program version. Help Tip: If available, this command shows tips for a menu command or a screen item. First click this button and then click the command or item you wish to see the tip for. Undo: Click on the Undo icon to cancel the effect of the last modification made on the current file. Redo: Click on the Redo icon to cancel the effect of the cancel command.

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Toolbars

Separation Toolbar

For more information on these functions see Separation menu in the Menus section of this guide.

Set Sample Number: Enter the number of samples for the current separation project. Pick Points: Enables the Pick Points color selection method. Pick Circles: Enables the Pick Circles color selection method. Lasso: Enables the Lasso color selection method. Next Color: Enables the Next Color option. View Sample: When clicked, displays the samples for each output channel. Quality: Select the quality level to apply when clicking on the Compute button. Auto Clean: Enables the Automatic Cleaning check box of the Check list dialog box. Auto Smooth: Enables the Automatic Smoothing check box of the Check list dialog box. Check List: Displays the Check List dialog box. Compute: Proceeds with the color reduction process according to the current parameters.

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Cleaning Toolbar

Cleaning tools
For detailed information on how to use each of the tools see Cleaning tools in the Menus, Cleaning menu section of this guide.

Clear Under Pencil


Enables the Clear under the Pencil cleaning selection method.

Pencil Options
Displays the Pencil Options dialog box which allows you to modify the pencil parameters.

Zone Cleaning
Enables the Zone Cleaning selection method.

Lasso
Enables the Lasso cleaning selection method.

Global Cleaning
Enables the Global Cleaning selection method.

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Selection by Color Cleaning
Enables the selection of the color upon which the cleaning will be processed.

Cleaning methods
For detailed information on how to use each of the methods see Cleaning methods in the Menus, Cleaning menu section of this guide

Fill Cleaning
Enables the Fill function, to fill selected areas with chosen colors.

Cleaning Noise
Enables the Cleaning Noise cleaning method.

Cleaning Outlines
Select the Cleaning Outlines cleaning method.

Cleaning Horizontally
Enables the Cleaning Horizontally cleaning method.

Cleaning Vertically
Enables the Cleaning Vertically cleaning method.

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Cleaning Colors
Enables the Cleaning Colors cleaning method.

Set Cleaning Intensity


Set the Cleaning Intensity parameter for the following four cleaning methods. Noise, Outlines, Horizontal and Vertical cleaning

Global Smoothing
Smooth the whole image. A message box appears asking for confirmation.

Multiple Selection
Enables the Multiple Selection option. Click to select: the button will appear as pressed in. Click again to deselect (toggle type). When selected, this option will allow you to select more then one color, by clicking the desired colors in your palette, or right in the design. The selected colors will be marked in the palette. Use this function for example before using the Film function, and see the coverage of the selected colors. When enabled, this function will activate the Select All, Reset All, Invert All buttons in your cleaning palette.

Pick Color
Enables the Pick Color option.

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Presentation Toolbar

These functions provide quick setup of your working windows and display mode.

New window
Creates a new Detail window that displays an enlargement of a section of the design.

See New Window, Center View in the View menu, Menus section of this guide for more information about this function.

Pick center
Centers a Detail window. The active window must be a Detail or a Preview window.

See New Window, Center View in the View menu, Menus section of this guide for more information about this function.

Tile horizontally
Reorganizes all Detail windows under the Master window.

See Tile horizontally, in the Window menu, Menus section of this guide for more information about this function.

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Color Reduction and Cleaning Tile vertically


Reorganizes Detail windows on the right hand side of the Master window.

See Tile vertically, in the Window menu, Menus section of this guide for more information about this function.

Show/Hide Palette
Displays the Separation or Cleaning Palette when on.

See Separation/Cleaning palette, in the View menu, Menus section of this guide for more information about this function.

Sample pop-up menu Separation mode

Delete all samples from all channels While in separation mode, right-click in the empty gray area of the Separation window to bring up this menu:

Selecting this option will delete all samples from all present channels. The channels will show empty (white) spaces, waiting for 121

Toolbars
you to redefine the channel colors. Use this option to re-start your work on the current project. Delete all samples from current channel Right-clicking in any of the channels area will display this pup-up menu:

The new option you have here is Delete all samples from current channel. Selecting this option will delete all samples just from current color channel. Select again the colors for the current channel. Right-click a sample Circle or Lasso selection area in the Main or Detail window to see this pop-up menu:

The new option you have here is: Delete all samples from this circle Selecting this option will remove the sample selection associated with the selected point, circle or lasso color sampling.

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Cleaning mode
While in cleaning mode, right-click anywhere in the Cleaning palette area will display this pop-up menu:

Multiple selection . The Select to activate the Multiple selection function corresponding Cleaning tools toolbar button will be set on, and a tick mark will be present in front of this option next time you use it. Select again to give up the Multiple selection function.

Film

See Multiple Selection in the Cleaning methods, Cleaning menu, Menus section of this guide for more information.

Enables the film options for the active Detail window.

See Film mode, in the View menu, Menus section of this guide for more information about this function.

Film Options pop-up menu


This pop-up menu can always be called by clicking the right mouse button in any window. Some of the options are only available for particular windows.

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Separation mode: these options are only used for the Preview windows. Cleaning mode: all the windows can be visualized with these options. To make all these options available, the Film mode must be selected. Use the Film mode function in the View menu, or the corresponding button in the Presentation toolbar to select the Film mode. The five grouped options are for the display of the background colors. They are designed to help in the film visualization. Note that throughout this section we will refer to selected channel colors as foreground colors, or colors of interest that will be highlighted by the Film function. The colors referred to as background colors, are the unselected channel colors of your image, of less interest with respect to the Film function.

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Zoom In
Just as the corresponding function in the Zoom toolbar it enlarges the view of the active window with the value set in the Zoom (+/-) step field of the Preferences dialog box.

See Zoom in, Zoom toolbar in the Toolbars section of this guide for more information.

Zoom Out
The same usage as the corresponding function in the Zoom toolbar. It reduces the view of the active window with the value set in the Zoom (+/-) step field of the Preferences dialog box

See Zoom out, Zoom toolbar in the Toolbars section of this guide, for more information on this function.

Zoom Level
The same usage as the corresponding function in the Zoom toolbar, selecting the zoom level for the current window.

See Zoom in, Zoom toolbar, in the Toolbars section of this guide for more information about this function.

Film Palette
The same function as the corresponding function in the Presentation toolbar, and the Film mode function in the View menu, entering Film mode operation.

See Film mode, View menu in the Menus section of this guide for more information.

Select this option to enable all the following options and to customize Preview windows. 125

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Channel in dark
This function will display the current film color in black. If turned off, the current color channel will be displayed with its own color.
Useful in cleaning mode to see more clearly parasitic pixels in drawings. When background colors (un-selected colors) are in gray scale, changing the current film color to black is not a good idea. The difference between foreground (selected colors) and background (un-selected colors) will not be pronounced enough, and confusions are a risk not worth taking.

Drawing colors
Displays not-selected color channels (background colors, or colors not to be highlighted by the Film function) just as they are in your image.
This option is useful when working on drawings with few colors or with graduated shadings. In the preview window you can see if a graduation color is missing or not in the separation.

Technical colors
Displays the drawing by modifying the colors. The new colors are highly saturated, so any difference between the colors is obvious.
Technical colors are useful when working on drawings with many close colors or with complex gradations.

Gray levels background


Changes the color view by replacing un-selected (background) drawing colors with gray scale.
Using gray scale in cleaning mode allows you to see shapes and color interference more clearly.

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Pastel background
Modifies the color view by replacing un-selected (background) drawing colors with pastel shades.
The effect of changing drawing colors to pastels is nearly the same as changing to gray scales but in separation mode, when working on samples, it is useful to see colors crossing in a gradation.

Monochrome
Modifies the color view by making the un-selected (background) channels white, and the selected (foreground) color channel black.
Use this option when your goal is to very precisely identify the spreading of a certain color throughout your project.

Share selection
If this option is selected, the Film options for the active window are applied to all the Preview windows of the current project.
Deselect this option in order to be able to have different film viewing options for each open window of the same project.

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Module Toolbar
This toolbar allows quick jumps between Fashion Studio modules in order to allow you to perform specific tasks (cleaning, coloring, layout, design changes) on your current design image. The status of the toolbar buttons and the availability of the jump functions depend on specific factors as: Your current Fashion Studio application and the opening mode (direct or from within another module). The current settings in the Preferences menu, Define module switching function. The design open status (no design loaded, or at least one design open). The design image processing status (for example Cleaning mode or Separation mode). The applications you have installed on your system.

No project open

The Separation button is pressed-in, letting you know that this is the next available mode.

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The Separation button is pressed-in, letting you know that you are currently in the Separation mode. No other jump button is available until you have performed your color separation.

Cleaning mode

The Cleaning button is pressed-in, letting you know that you are currently in Cleaning mode. The Coloring button is available allowing you to make a quick jump to the coloring application indicated in the Define module switching function of the Preferences menu.

See the Preferences menu, Define module switching function for more details about these options. See Coloring in the Cleaning menu for more information about the possible jump applications. Note that if you reached Vision Color Reduction and Cleaning through a jump from another Fashion Studio Module (Vision Design and Repeat or Vision Design and Repeat Pro), the only available button is the one corresponding to the caller module. While in the coloring application (Vision Easy Coloring (Pro)) you can save your current project as a separate file ('Save' function available, or 'Save as' if working with a new project or with a read only file).

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Toolbars Fashion Studio Communication Layout


Here is a chart presenting the communication system between the modules of the Fashion Studio application group.

Vision Color Reduction and Cleaning can basically initiate communication with two applications: Vision Easy Coloring (color oriented, colorway, color grouping etc.). The scanning software on your machine (Twain application).

Communication with Vision Storyboard and Cataloguing can only be made under Vision Color Reduction and Cleaning Pro (Printing Studio module).

Vision Color Reduction and Cleaning can be called from within Vision Design and Repeat.

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Zoom Toolbar

This tool bar provides versatile, quick zoom-factor setting operation.

Zoom level
The function allows selection of the zoom level for the active window. You may use this function in three ways: Click the arrow to select one of the offered options. A drop down list will open allowing selection of one of the preset zoom levels. Use the scroll bar to see more options. Among the options: Fit to View will zoom your project to the required level so that it will completely fit your current view window. Life size will zoom to the real dimensions of your working image.

Click in the zoom level window and input the desired zoom level from the keyboard.

This function is more powerful than the Zoom In and Zoom Out functions because the reduction factor can be set directly.

Use the Film pop-up menu: the first three functions in this popup menu are zooming functions (Zoom In, Zoom Out, Zoom Level).

See Film Options Pop-up Menu in the Film, Presentation Toolbar section of this guide for more information about this function.

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Enlarges the view of the active window with the value set in the Zoom (+/-) step field of the Display Layout dialog box in the Preferences menu. Click in the windows you want to magnify to select. Then click the to magnify. Zoom In button

See Zoom (+/-) step, Display Layout, Preferences menu, in the Menus section of this guide, for more information about this function. The Detail and Preview windows will be zoomed together to the same zoom factor, if one of them is selected for the operation.

Zoom Out
Reduces the view of the active window with the value set in the Zoom (+/-) step field of the Display Layout dialog box in the Preferences menu. Click in the windows you want to reduce to select. Then click the to zoom out. Zoom Out button

See Zoom (+/-) step, in the Display Layout, Preferences menu, in the Menus section of this guide, for more information about this function.

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Offers a quick and visual method of zoom factor setting: just click and drag the slider left or right, then release to adjust the level of zoom while inspecting the image until the desired level is acquired.
You can also click the slider then use the directional arrows on the keyboard to move the cursor right or left.

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USING THE FILE ATLAS WINDOW


In the various dialog boxes used for opening or importing an image file, Color Reduction and Cleaning provides a Browse button so that you can display thumbnail views of all the image files in the current folder. This is invaluable if you dont know the file name of the image you are searching for.
Note that if you use the Browse button from the Open Scan function only RGB files will be displayed by the browser thumbnails. Using the Browse option from the Load Image function all image files will be displayed.

On clicking the Browse button the File Atlas Window appears displaying thumbnail views of all the image files in the current folder (both RGB and LUT files will be displayed). The current folder is also represented in the File Atlas Window and appears as an open folder (Fig. 1). Click it to move up a level in the folder tree. Closed folders may also be displayed (Fig.2). Click a closed folder to view its contents.

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

A scroll bar is provided in case there are more thumbnails than the window can hold. If you double-click a thumbnail view it will either be opened directly, or will be designated as the file to be opened in the dialog box that you left before browsing thumbnail views.

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Using The File Atlas Window


When the File Atlas Window is open, you can move more rapidly around the folder tree by right clicking to obtain Browse Pop-up Menu, as now described.

Browse Pop-up Menu

This pop-up menu is obtained by right clicking in File Atlas Window. Its commands enable you to browse thumbnail views more easily: The Browse Pop-up menu commands are as follows: The Directory command displays a dialog box for changing the folder in which to browse the thumbnail views. Click the Up One Level button to climb the folder tree or double-click a folder to show the folders it contains. Alternatively click the down arrow of the Look in field to show the folder tree and then click the part of the tree where you want to go to. Choose a folder where you want to browse thumbnail views by double clicking it, and then by clicking the Set button. You are returned to the main File Atlas Window, where file thumbnails for the folder you selected are now shown.
It is faster to use this than clicking on the folder icon in the File Atlas Window because it avoids creating thumbnails of the files for each folder you browse through.

Use the Sort By command to sort the thumbnails by name, type, date or size to change the order in which they are displayed.

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COLOR CHANNELS
Color Channels is a specific tool used to modify the current color (channel, screen) in most of NedGraphics applications. In Color Reduction and Cleaning it may be used only while in Cleaning mode.
While in Cleaning mode, double click a color in the palette to launch the Channel Settings module. You will not be able to call the Color Channels function while in Film mode. Deselect Film mode before trying to use Color Channels to change colors.

See Film mode in the View Menu, Menus section of this guide for more information about this function.

The color channels appear as shown. To make the adjustment using, for example, RGB color channels instead of HSV, right-click the color channels, and select RGB from the pop-up menu that appears.

Select Colored if you want to see the colors in the window, select Large Display if you want a large Color Channels dialog window.

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Color Channels
Modify the color by moving the sliders on each channel, which appear as white cross-bars. A slider can be moved either by dragging or by clicking the location where it is to move to. The figures at the bottom of each channel vary according to whether the slider is at its maximum or minimum position. If you prefer, you can directly input numerical values for the H, S, V parameters, clicking in their corresponding field and introducing the values from the keyboard.

The color chip under the color channels shows the resulting color, and the code below that is the Vision Color Chart code for the color.
This color code is the code chosen in Easy Coloring (for HSV or hCL). For example the color H339 S64 V86, or h360 C45 L76 will have a color Vision code 339F7C3.

The corresponding color is automatically changed to the new color.


For some monitors where 16 million colors cannot be shown, the color channels themselves may appear bizarrely colored. To avoid this disconcerting effect, right-click the color channels to obtain a pop-up menu, and click Colored so that the standard colored display for the channels is de-selected. Click again to return to the colored mode.

HSV
The color codes used in the Color Palette of the Vision applications, are part of the coloring modules of NedGraphics, such as Easy Coloring, Easy Coloring Pro or Simulating Printed Fabric. The HSV code describes a color in terms of: Hue: from 0 to 359. This value determines the position in the color spectrum (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, magenta, violet). Saturation: indicates the lightness of the shade with values from 0 to 100 (light for 0 and dark for 100).

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Value: from 0 to 100. This value indicates the luminosity of the color. Its effect is independent of the hue and saturation. At zero luminosity any color becomes black. At maximum luminosity (100) any color becomes white. Selecting HSV from the pop-up menu will put a checkmark sign in front of the option to highlight the current selection.
If you have also installed on your system modules of NedGraphics Printing Studio and chose to use the hCL color space in one of these modules, the same color code will be used by default in your Fashion Studio application, and will replace the Vision Chart code on the bottom of the Color Channels dialog window.

Selecting HSV from the pop-up menu will put a checkmark sign in front of the option to highlight the current selection.

RGB
The RGB color system will allow the composition of any color using different degrees of Red, Green and Blue components (as emission colors). A zero value for all components will produce black. Of course, the maximum value for the same parameters (that is 255) will produce white. Selecting RGB from the pop-up menu will put a checkmark sign in front of the option to highlight the current selection.

CMY
In a similar way with the RGB system the CMY uses the Cyan, Magenta and Yellow components emitted by a color to create it. As compared to the RGB though, when all the parameters have a zero value, the resulting color is white, and at the maximum (255) value, the result is black.

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Color Channels
Selecting CMY from the pop-up menu will put a checkmark sign in front of the option to highlight the current selection.

CMYK
This system works very similar to the CMY. A fourth component is the black, and of course, helps in producing the black color. Selecting CMYK from the pop-up menu will put a checkmark sign in front of the option to highlight the current selection.

hCL
The hCL is a color system based on absolute colors. The C values (representing the color) range from 0 to 140. The L values (representing the luminosity) range from 0 to 110. The H value has a range from 0 to 360. When all three values equal zero, you have a black. Selecting hCL from the pop-up menu will put a checkmark sign in front of the option to highlight the current selection.
Note that for this color space the parameter values are displayed and controlled using two decimal digits.

XYZ
The XYZ is also an absolute color space. It permits obtaining any color as a function of the three X, Y, Z parameters (in a 0 to 140 range). These are the international standard CIE D65 2 degree color coordinates.

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Selecting XYZ from the pop-up menu will put a checkmark sign in front of the option to highlight the current selection.
Note that for this color space the parameter values are displayed and controlled using two decimal digits.

Lab
Lab is also an absolute color space. The L corresponds to the luminosity (0 to 110 range), the other two (a and b) are independent, arbitrary parameters (-140 to 140 range). These are the international standard CIE D65 2 degree color coordinates.
Note that if you save your design image as a TIF Lab file, these limits will be changed as follows: L in the 0 to 100 range, a and b from -128 to 127.

See The File Formats tab from the Save Scan as function description (File Menu, Menus section) for more details about the file saving options.

Selecting Lab from the pop-up menu will put a checkmark sign in front of the option to highlight the current selection.
Note that for this color space the parameter values are displayed and controlled using two decimal digits.

CMYK%
This mode is similar to the CMYK with the only difference that the color parameter values are percentages of the maximum CMYK channel limits.

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Color Channels
See CMYK in this section for more details about this color mode.

Colored
For some monitors where 16 million colors cannot be shown, the color channels themselves may appear bizarrely colored. To avoid this disconcerting effect, right click the color channels to obtain a pop-up menu, and click Colored so that the standard colored display for the channels is de-selected.

Enhanced Display
Using Enhanced Display in Non-Delta mode
If you are working in Kodak calibration mode (set in Vision Easy Coloring Pro), or in None calibration mode, using this option in the Color Channels popup menu will produce an enlarged Color Channels window, allowing better resolution in visually selecting colors using the color bars (sliders).

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Using Enhanced Display in Delta calibration mode
The Delta calibration mode is only available for Printing Studio applications (Vision Color Reduction and Cleaning Pro, Vision Easy Coloring Pro, Vision Design and Repeat Pro, Vision Easy Knit, etc.) and beside a high quality and friendly color calibration process, it also offers a special Color Channels working mode. If you are working in Delta calibration mode, (set in Vision Easy Coloring Pro), you may use the Enhanced Display mode with other versatile options as printer, production, display gamut curve, etc.

See the corresponding documentation of the Printing Studio applications for more details.

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GLOSSARY
256 color format Absolute color file Also known as an image having a palette or an LUT file, this file format uses 8-bit color definition. A mathematical definition of color used, for example, to compare the color displayed on a monitor with that produced by a color printer.

Absorption level The color resulting from printing on fabric with a (see also opacity) given colorant depends on its opacity and the extent to which the colorant is absorbed i.e. its absorption level. This is measured as a percentage between 0 and 100%. The absorption level at a given point on the fabric depends not only on the fabric type and the colorant, but also upon whether other colorants have already been absorbed. Antialiasing A smoothing function which can be used to improve the quality of an image displayed on a computer monitor, or as printed. Also known as high quality. An abbreviation for background color.

Backcolor

Brushing (see also Treatment of fabric to change its surface texture, similar to napping. "finishing") Channel Colors The colors of a particular colorway, which are intended to correspond with those of the fabric design once printed. The channel settings of a fabric printing project comprise some or all of the following parameters:

Channel Settings

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Glossary
The number of screens and the order in which they are to be printed (to be changed only in certain cases) Designation of screens (and/or fabric) resulting in each channel color The color of the fabric and each screen Screen mesh size The name of the fabric and each screen Click To click an item means to place the mouse pointer or cursor over the item, and to press and then release the left mouse button without moving the mouse. You click to choose or select an item, or to operate a tool. Put in order or sort (used in relation to the output of pages from a printer). A color library that can be customized for future use. A slider for color adjustment. A pattern, or image based on a main color, shades of a color, or a specific set of colors. Color of varying tone = color graduation = gray tone = gray level ( flat tone).

Collate Color Atlas Color Channel Colorway Continuous Tone

Counter Sampling Producing a computer image from a real sample (for example a piece of fabric) using processes such as scanning and color reduction. Covering Colors A fabric colorant having a high level of opacity, typically printed last. See also "opacity".

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Dongle Double-click An anti-pirating device, also known as a hard lock key. To double click an item means to click it rapidly two times. This action is used in certain selection procedures and for launching certain functions. to drag means to move the mouse while holding down the left button. This action is used with certain tools to select an area of the screen, and also forms part of the action drag and drop. to drag and drop an item means to click the item, drag to a new position on the screen, and then release the mouse button, so that the item is moved to the new position. You can move whole windows with this technique by dragging and dropping the title bar, similarly drag and drop the edge of a toolbar to move it to a different location on the screen. Paint or color. Also see Picks Abbreviation for Frequently Asked Questions. A transparent sheet containing components of a gray tone or flat tone image for engraving one of a set of printing screens. Digitized as image files, a complete set of films can be used as the basis of a printing project in Simulating Printed Fabric. Treatment applied to fabric to change its appearance texture, or other qualities. See flat tone.

Drag

Drag and drop

Dye Ends FAQ Film

Finishing (USA) Finish (UK) Flat Color

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Glossary
Flat tone Color with no graduation ( gray tone, continuous tone). Curve for defining luminosity and contrast. Color gamut for a device (such as a printer or monitor) is the range of colors it is capable of reproducing. It is typically much more limited than the range of colors perceptible to the human eye. and See Continuous Tone. See Antialiasing.

Gamma Gamut

Gray level Gray tone High Quality HSV System

Color With this system any color can be defined in terms of a combination of three figures : Hue this figure is used to situate the color in the chromatic spectrum. It may be considered in terms of colors of the rainbow : on passing gradually through the rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet) the figure varies from zero to 359. Saturation this figure is used to indicate the extent to which the color is dilute (minimum value zero) or rich (maximum value 100). Value this figure indicates the luminosity of the color. Its effects can be considered independently of hue and saturation. Thus, if you take any color and reduce its value to zero, it becomes black. Similarly, increasing the value of any color to the maximum of 100 changes it to white.

Hue

See HSV Color System.

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Incrust To merge or overlay. This is a software function for combining images, normally after making their respective backgrounds transparent. = initialize grouping. = true size = real size = full size. White Used in color calibration, Media White Point is the absolute color of a shade of white intended to represent the white of the paper or fabric to be printed on. The media white point should preferably be measured using a spectrophotometer. The color resulting from printing on fabric with a given colorant depends upon its absorption level (see "absorption level") and upon its opacity. Opacity is measured as a percentage between 0 and 100%. A colorant with a high opacity will tend to mask the color of the fabric and any colorants already added, even on areas of the fabric where it has a low absorption level due to previous absorption of several other colorants. Function for designating colors and patterns. Also see Ends = checkered fabric. A pattern of dots printed in order to create a gray tone or continuous tone. (See gray tone and continuous tone). A variety of different rasters are used industrially in fabric printing. A device on a loom by means of which threads are drawn between the separated threads of the warp.

Init grouping Life size Media Point

Opacity

Pattern Affectation Picks Plaid Raster

Reed

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Glossary
Resist A resist is printed on fabric in the same way as dyes and other colorants. It may itself be colored, but has a principal function of preventing or limiting the absorption of other dyes and colorants. With this system any color can be defined in terms of the proportions of red, green and blue light emitted. When the figure for each of these is zero, the color is black. The same logic shows that increasing the red, green and blue levels to their maximum level of 100 gives white. to click the right mouse button when the cursor is over the area of the screen you are using. Typically this is in order to obtain a pop-up menu =smear.

RGB Color System (See also HSV Color System)

Right-click

Smudge

Spectrophotomete Apparatus used to determine the absolute color reference of a color. r Spot Color Technical colors Trapping See Flat Tone. Colors that are used to symbolize information, and which do not represent real fabric or image colors. Enlargement of the area to be printed with a particular color, in order to avoid the possibility of blank (unprinted) areas of textile between zones printed with different colors. By preference, trapping should be applied to light colors so that they overlap the dark colors, rather than the converse. See HSV Color System

Value

White Graduation = "white gradient" = fade into white

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Wizard Zoom level A series of dialog boxes which appear one after the other to guide you through a procedure. = zoom factor, the magnification at which a project view is displayed on-screen, for example, 100% or 50%.

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APPENDIX A: ADDITIONAL FILE FORMATS


Depending on the type of the file you open for a new project, and then save, Color Reduction and Cleaning will automatically create and save some of the following connected files, with special destinations, each holding specific information. The following table shortly presents these file types, and their destination: Standard Image File-types
.TGA .TIF .BMP/DIB .DES/PAT Standard image format (parent file) Standard image format (parent file) Standard Microsoft image format (parent file) NedGraphics Design file formats

Colorway Information File-types


.MCA .MCD .MCT Colorway information LUT (child file for TGA) Colorway information LUT (child file for BMP/DIB) Colorway information LUT (child file for TIF)

Repeat and Resolution File-types


.DSA .DSD .DST Repeat and Resolution information (child file for TGA) Repeat and Resolution information (child file for BMP/DIB) Repeat and Resolution information (child file for TIF)

Thumbnail File-types
.TMA .TMT .TMD Thumbnail file (child file for TGA) Thumbnail file (child file for TIF) Thumbnail file (child file for BMP/DIB)

Fashion Studio Proprietary Image Information File-types


.HR2 .VAR Proprietary 124 colors image file of Fashion Studio: Image information Proprietary file of Fashion Studio: Colorway information (child file of .HR2)

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.HR1 .INF Proprietary file of Fashion Studio: Repeat and Resolution information (child file of .HR2) Proprietary file of Fashion Studio: (child file of .HR2)

Other File-types
.CWY .PAL .TXT .DLS Artwork Colorways in HSV or RGB format Artwork Color Palette in HSV or RGB format Painter Color Palette in RGB mode. NedGraphics palette samples format

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APPENDIX B: SUGGESTION SHEET FOR COLOR REDUCTION AND CLEANING


Contact Name: Date : Application: Description: Company: Suggestion No : Application Version:

Interest:

What would you like to do?

What do you do at the moment?

How long does it take?

How often do you do it? Reserved for use by NedGraphics

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Appendixes
No: Project Manager: Date:

Reception Date:

...../...../.....

RESERVED FOR USE BY NedGraphics


Developer in charge: Modification for Version: Modification Date: ...../...../.....

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Color Reduction and Cleaning

APPENDIX C: ANOMALY REPORT FOR COLOR REDUCTION AND CLEANING


Contact Name : Date: Application: Application Version: Language : Operating System: Language: #Colors in ScreenConfig: Size in Screen Config : #Screens (if you use more than one): Description of the problem: Company : Anomaly Report N : API Design Version: API Tools Version: Processor Type : Available Memory: Current Disk Space: System Font Size :

Frequency: How can it be reproduced? (step by step)

Type of problem :

Causes Crashing 8

Doesnt Cause Crashing 8

Yes Have you ever used this function without 157

No

Appendixes
problem in a previous version? If yes in which version: Has your system configuration changed recently? If yes, how has it changed: 8 8 8 8

For use by NedGraphics only No: Project Manager:

Date:

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Color Reduction and Cleaning

INDEX
1 16 million colors ..........138, 142 A About Color Reduction and Cleaning .......................113 access code.............................11 Anomaly Report ...................157 Area selection.........................47 Arrange Icons .......................110 Auto Cleaning ........................78 Auto Smoothing .....................78 B Browse button ................38, 135 Browse Pop-up Menu...........136 C Cascade ................................107 Center View ...........................65 Channel in dark ....................126 Check List ..............................79 Circle......................................76 Cleaning Intensity ..................97 Cleaning menu .......................85 Cleaning Palette .....................72 Cleaning Toolbar .................117 Clear active Sample ...............84 Close.......................................36 159 CMY ....................................139 CMYK..................................140 CMYK% ..............................141 Collate....................................40 Color ......................................96 Color Channels ....................137 Colored.................................142 Coloring ...............................101 Colorway Selection................42 Combinations and sequences of keys ......................................6 Command names......................6 Contents tab ...........................10 Copies- number you wish to print ............................................39 Copy.......................................62 Cut..........................................61 D Detail......................................17 Directory command..............136 dongle.....................................11 Double-click.............................7 Drag..........................................7 Drag and Drop..........................7 Drawing colors.....................126 E Edit menu ...............................61 Enhanced Display ................142 Enhanced Display ...............142 Exit.........................................59

Index
F File Format tab ...................... 37 File menu............................... 27 Filling ...................................... 92 Film Mode ............................. 65 Film Options.......................... 46 Film Options pop-up menu.. 123 Film Palette ......................... 125 G Global Cleaning..................... 90 Global Smoothing.................. 99 Gray levels background....... 126 H hCL...................................... 140 Help ....................................... 10 Help button............................ 10 Help menu ........................... 113 Help Topics ................... 10, 113 Horizontal.............................. 95 HSV ..................................... 138 I Image Parameters tab ...... 32, 39 Image Properties.................... 54 Index tab ................................ 10 Installation and Start-up ........ 11 K Key names ............................... 6 L Lab........................................141 Lasso ................................77, 89 Lasso Cleaning .................19, 20 Load Image.............................33 Load Sample...........................84 M Main window .........................23 Merge Scan.............................34 Module Toolbar..............67, 128 Monochrome ........................127 Multiple Selection ................100 N Network printer ......................51 New View...............................64 Next Color ..............................78 Noise ......................................92 O on-line help.............................10 Open Scan ..............................28 Outlines ..................................93 P Page Options ..........................44 Paper size ...............................39 Paper source and orientation ..52 parallel port ............................11 Paste .......................................62

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Color Reduction and Cleaning


Pastel background ................127 Pencil......................................87 Pencil Options ........................88 Pick Center.............................20 Pick Circles ............................17 Pick Color ............................100 Picture Book Window..........135 Pixel .......................................58 Point .......................................75 Presentation Toolbar ............120 Preview window.....................17 Print........................................36 print in repeat-mode ...............47 Print Preview..........................50 Print Setup..............................51 Print to file .............................37 Printable area of the paper .....39 printer cable ...........................12 Printer- choosing an alternative ............................................37 Process ...................................83 R Rectangle................................89 Redo .......................................61 Reset All Samples ..................84 Resolution for your printer32, 39 RGB .....................................139 Right Click ...............................7 S Sample pop-up menu............121 Save Image .............................34 Save Sample ...........................84 Save Scan as...........................30 Saving Image as .....................35 Search tab...............................10 Sections ....................................6 Selection by color ..................90 Separation menu.....................75 Separation Palette ..................69 Separation Sample .................71 Separation Toolbar.........68, 116 Shared selection ...................127 Sort By command.................136 Standard Toolbar..................115 Status Bar .........................10, 67 Suggestion............................155 Symbols....................................6 T Technical colors...................126 Terms and Conventions ...........6 Thumbnail views..................135 Tile Horizontally..................108 Tile Vertically......................109 Toolbars .........................66, 115 Tutorial...................................15 U Undo.......................................61 Units.......................................58 V Vertical...................................95 View menu .............................63

161

Index
W Whats this? button ............... 10 Window menu ..................... 107 wizard .................................... 11 X XYZ..................................... 140 Z Zoom In ..................74, 125, 132 Zoom level....................125, 131 Zoom Out ...............74, 125, 132 Zoom Slider..........................133 Zoom Toolbar.......................131

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