Sinedots IICreated October 10, 2001. Last
update November 16, 2001 © Copyright Moon's Designs
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Philipp Spoeth has done it again with a new updated version of the Sinedots filter. I was one of the chosen to test out this wonderful new filter and I must say that it has been quite difficult to keep from telling the World about it! Sinedots II is totally different from the original Sinedots and that is why I am making this tutorial, to help you get started. Philipp does provide an excellent Read-Me with the filter but I also realize that most read-me's are not read. *grin* If you find any "bugs" in the filter or have suggestions that you would like to pass on to Philipp you can e-mail him here. 11-15-01 Version 3 of Sinedots II is now available. This latest update includes Undo/Redo buttons, last used feature and presets. You will find all updated features below in RED. Version 2 updates are in BLUE. The Sinedots II filter is FREE! and is not to be redistributed in any commercial way without contacting Philipp first. I find it quite generous of him to make these filters for our use and no cost, please let us not abuse this. In the first two versions Philipp did not offer presets for the Sinedots II filter. The PSP Plugins group ran a contest for members to send in their presets and Philipp has included those presets in Version 3. Your presets for the original Sinedots will NOT work in Sinedots II. This tutorial is written in and for PSP Version 7.04 and assumes you have a working knowledge of PSP and filters. I am sure this can easily be done in Version 6 with a few adjustments in paths but I have only used Version 7 so I can't make promises *S* You will need: JASC's PSP (30 day free trial)- You can get it HERE Set up a new folder called Sinedots in your Plugins folder. Unzip the Sinedots II filter into your Sinedots folder. You can have BOTH versions of the Sinedots filter on your system, there is no need to uninstall the one to use the other.
Let's get started. Sinedots II is much more versatile than the original Sinedots as it works on a colored or transparent background, on a graphic and on a new layer. You can make it different colors, adjust the gamma and use different blend modes. Let's open a new image. You can choose any size that you like, I used 250x250, 16 million colors and a transparent background. Go to-->Effects-->Plugins-->Dragonfly-->Sinedots II. The following screen will appear. You will know that you have the latest version by looking on the top where you will see V1.03 and on the lower left where you will see the undo redo buttons.
You also get a preview screen that will appear to the right of the above screen. I have it shown below to make it easier for you to view. In version 3 Philipp has included the last used feature. Now when you bring up your Sinedots II the very last preset that you used will be in your preview screen. This will be so nice if we forgot to save it before!
To access the presets that
are included with Sinedots II version 3, go to the bottom of your
screen and press open.
After you open your .cfg file you will need to click on the scroll button next to the empty white area to view all of the presets available to you. As you play around with the sliders or the random button and find something you like you can save that new preset by pressing save. A message box will pop up for you to enter the name you want to save it as, press OK.
I want to thank Cathy of Cathy's
Corner for providing a second way to save your settings without
having to use my presets. This is how she did it. "Once I had
the setting I wanted, I took a shot and the following worked: ** TO LEARN MORE ABOUT SAVING
AND ACCESSING PRESETS PLEASE GO HERE! ** When you find a new setting that you want to save, click on the save button and a screen will pop up requesting a settings name. That setting will then be saved into the settings file currently opened. If you choose a name that you already have it will ask you if you want to override the current setting. Selecting an entry from the dropdown box will load that setting for you. You can change the color of your original setting by going to color (see more about color below).
Let's look at some of the features that Sinedots II has.
The outer density is set at 10, but when you click on the slider it will go to 2 as this is as high as the slider can calculate. You can enter any amount up to 10 in the field. Add factor determines the amount of the color value you want added to the image. The weights determine height and width of your Sinedots. NOTE: There is now a randomize button just below the weights. When you click that on it will randomly change the settings you have. This works great for presets you already have set up and want to play some more with them *smiles* The color doesn't change so if you want to change the color you will have to do that yourself.
These are your angle offsets.
The inner angles determine the positions and distribution pattern. Play around with these and all of your sliders and you will be amazed at what you will come up with.
Blend Modes - Philip has included several blend modes with Sinedots II. The blend modes determine how your Sinedots is blended to the input image. I have found that some work better than others and it also depends on if it's being used on colored or transparent layers (black works best). The blend modes were originally included for AfterFX but most work quite nicely in PSP. Above are the blend modes available.
One of the more exciting features, in my opinion, is the ability to add color right to your Sinedots pattern. Left click on the color and your color palette will come up for you to choose a color that you would like to use. Right click on the color and you get the eye dropper so you can choose a color from your preview window.
Gamma ~~ Gamma Correction. The slider goes from 0-3.
There is also an antialias and clip color selection. Antialias checked enables non perfect antialias. Clip color checked means color is not allowed to exceed the selected color. Personally I have not used the clip color very much in testing. I am very excited about this new filter and all that it has to offer. Be assured that I will be creating more tutorials for this filter as I did for the original Sinedots. You can also count on Peg W., Lilly, Rosie, and I am sure many others to be creating tutorials for all of us to use. I hope that this "How-To" tutorial has been useful for you and that you will get hours of pleasure from this new filter. I know that I have been having a blast! I am updating this tutorial September 7, 2002 10:46 AM (PDT) If you have any problems, comments or questions please do not hesitate to E-mail me.
If you would like to use this tutorial for group settings, please contact me. Just click on the above mail slot *S*
Tutorial written and created by Patti Wavinak
for Moon's Designs. These Tutorials are copyrighted by law. You may
LINK to them only. You may not remove any of the graphics, zip files
or html within these pages to reproduce these Tutorials, without the
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