This picture editing tool shows however some imperfections: the most flagrant shortcoming is its sluggishness.
Pictures may be collected in a private or a public library with the help of the
Estimated time: 40 minutes.
In order to practice drawing and editing of drawings while you read this, you are invited to open an Operation Tool first, and then to open an empty Rembrandt document by clicking the [New Picture] button. Adjust the size and the position of the picture to make room for viewing this text and the empty picture on your desktop. You will most probably need a very small surface picture to practice. If you are working in tracks, open the the picture directly in the system track or move it there.
The Rembrandt document is very similar to the familiar text document viewer. Noticeable differences are: the mouse focus, the caret, the menu bar and the properties of the special purpose editor.
The mouse focus, or simply mouse, is a cross formed by intersecting horizontal and vertical line segments. It appears as soon as the mouse focus crosses the boundary of the picture. The caret, or insertion point, is set as usual by clicking the left mouse key. It is also a cross, but rotated by 45 degrees. Text may be typed in from the keyboard at the insertion point, but it cannot be edited in place. The backspace key for instance, is inoperant. To switch to another font, you have to set the system font with the command System.Set Font fontName. The menu bar layout is described in Editing a picture.
Most of the work can be performed with mouse clicks or interclicks - keyboard input is rarely needed, sometimes used.
The following description reflects the panel division described earlier.
Finally, a freehand arbitrary line can be drawn by dragging on the right mouse key, a limit case of polygonal line.
Attributes: color, width, mirror.
Draw a rectangle : Move the mouse to the starting point of the rectangle in the picture, and press the middle mouse key. Now, as you move the mouse around, you will notice a rubber band rectangle with one end fixed on that point and the diagonally opposite end following the mouse. When the rectangle has the correct size, release the mouse key to fix it.
Attributes: color, width, filled.
Draw a circle : Move the mouse to a point in the picture which will become the centre of a circle, and press the middle mouse key. Now, as you move the mouse around, you will notice a rubber band circle with it's center fixed on that point and the circle's perimeter following the mouse. When the circle has the correct size, release the mouse key to fix it.
Attributes: color, width, filled.
Draw with a pen : Move the mouse to a point in the picture, and drag on the middle mouse key to draw a freehand line until the mouse key is released.
Note: This line seems to have the same properties as the limit polygonal line, however it is drawn using a single mouse key, and it can be doubled.
Attributes: color, width, double, mirror.
Erase color : Move the mouse to a point in the picture where you want to start erasing a specific color, and press the middle mouse key. Now, as you move the mouse around, every point covered by the round eraser is erased until the mouse key is released.
Attributes: color, width.
Erase : Move the mouse to a point in the picture where you want to start erasing, and press the middle mouse key. Now, as you move the mouse around, every point covered by the round eraser is erased until the mouse key is released.
Attributes: width, mirror.
Spray : Move the mouse to a point in the picture where you want to start spraying, and press the middle mouse key. Now, as you move the mouse around, droplets of the selected color are sprinkled randomly within the specified width, until the mouse key is released.
Attributes: color, width, double, mirror, spray.
Smear : Move the mouse to a point in the picture where you want to start smearing, and press the middle mouse key. Now, as you move the mouse around, spots of the selected color are smeared within the specified width, until the mouse key is released.
Attributes: color, width, smear.
Stamp : Copies the contents of the clipboard any number of times at specified locations. Move the mouse to a point in the picture where you want to insert (paste) the clipboard contents, and press the middle mouse key. Drag on the key to move the clipboard picture. Interclicking the left mouse key copies the clipboard to the picture. The operation is not performed if the clipboard is empty.
Attribute: none.
Clone :
Attribute: width.
Pick a color : Move the mouse to a point in the picture where you want to pick a color, and press the middle mouse key. Now, as you move the mouse around, you will see the picked color appear in the rectangle, in the Color Tool section. When you release the mouse key, that color will be used for the next operations until it is changed again. Also, when the mouse key is released, the last operation selected is active again.
Attribute: none.
Fill a closed area : Move the mouse to a point inside a closed area to fill with a specific color, and press the middle mouse key.
Attribute: color, mirror.
Undo last operation : reverses the last operation. This applies to all of the drawing operations described before, except picking a color, and also to the operations on a selection move and cut.
Attribute: none.
The three following buttons are radio buttons.
[Move] Move or copy the selection. Move the mouse inside the picture, and press the middle mouse key. Drag on that key until the new position is reached, then release the mouse key to end the operation. If you interclick with the left mouse key before releasing the key, the selection is copied at the new position (instead of being moved).
[Scale] Scale the selection. Move the mouse inside the picture, and press the middle mouse key. A rubber band rectangle showing the new dimensions of the selected area appears. Now, as you move the mouse around, one corner of rectangle will follow the mouse. The current scaling, relative to the original size, is displayed in a highlighted text field, in the form "X: 79 % Y: 114 %". When the correct scaling is obtained, release the mouse key to end the operation. The transformed selection is presented in a new unnamed picture frame, thereby leaving the original picture unchanged.
[Rotate] Rotate the selection. Move the mouse inside the picture, and press the middle mouse key. A rectangle showing the dimensions of the selected area appears. Now, if you move the mouse horizontally to the right, the rectangle rotates anticlock-wise. Conversely, it rotates clockwise when the mouse moves to the left. The current rotation angle is displayed in a highlighted text field, in the form "xy". When the correct rotation angle is obtained, release the mouse key to end the operation. The transformed selection is presented in a new unnamed picture frame, thereby leaving the original picture unchanged.
[Mirror vertically] Mirror the selection with respect to the horizontal axis.
The transformed selection is presented in a new unnamed picture frame, thereby leaving the original picture unchanged. If there is no selection but a picture is marked, the entire picture is mirrored. If there is no selection and no marking, no action is performed.
[Mirror horizontally] Mirror the selection with respect to the vertical axis.
The transformed selection is presented in a new unnamed picture frame, thereby leaving the original picture unchanged. If there is no selection but a picture is marked, the entire picture is mirrored. If there is no selection and no marking, no action is performed.
[Make icon] Make an icon of the selected area. Click on the little square in the iconizer to flip it, and key in the width and height of the icon in pixels. The default dimensions are 32 * 32.
The transformed selection is presented in a new unnamed picture frame, thereby leaving the original picture unchanged. If there is no selection but a picture is marked, the entire picture is mirrored. If there is no selection and no marking, no action is performed.
[Print *] Print the marked picture on the printer defined on the other side of the iconizer. Click on the little square in the iconizer to flip it, and key in the printer name. The default value is "LPT1".
The next three buttons control operations making use of the clipboard.
[Cut] Cut the selected area from the picture and copies it to the clipboard. No action is performed if there is no selection.
[Copy] Copy the selected area to the clipboard. No action is performed if there is no selection.
[Paste] Paste the contents of the clipboard in a picture, set the caret first. The caret's position determines the lower left corner of the pasted area. Then, clicking on this button, inserts the clipboard contents at that position. No action is performed if the caret is not set, or if the clipboard is empty.
[New Picture] Open an unnamed Rembrandt document, ready for editing a picture. The picture is either the selected area of a picture or by default, an empty picture. Click on the flip button in the iconizer to flip it, and key in the width and height of the picture in pixels. The default dimensions are 640 * 400.
[Show] Update the list of currently available pictures in the list gadget. A picture in this list may be opened directly by middle clicking on it.
The [Dither] iconizer is used to change the colors of the marked picture as follows:
Click on the flip button in the iconizer to flip it, and adjust the intensity and the saturation of colors with the sliders.
The buttons have the following meaning:
[Load Palette] loads the display palette from the marked picture.
[Store Palette] stores the display palette in the marked picture.
[Darken] darkens the display palette.
[Lighten] lightens the display palette.
[Reset Palette] resets the display palette to its standard value.
[Reset Color] resets the selected color to its standard value.
The menu bar features two buttons used for zooming.
[+] magnifies the selection, or the entire picture if there is none. The button may be clicked 5 times in succession to obtain a magnification of 16. This makes it very easy to retouch pictures pixel-wise.
[-] reduces the entire picture. The button may be clicked a maximun of 5 times in succession until the original size is restored, and not beyond.
Useful hint: to ease picture retouching, make a copy of the picture first, then magnify either of the two views as required. Whatever is retouched in the zoomed picture will be reflected in the original.
Clicking the right mouse key (anywhere in the viewer) selects the entire picture. The cursor changes to a flat hand and the entire white area is surrounded by a frame. Clicking again, deselects the picture and restores the cursor.
Pressing the key and dragging on it, tracks the selection which is delimited by a rubber band rectangle. When the key is released, a selection frame is drawn. When copying a selection, the caret may be set in a Rembrandt document different from the viewer containing the selection.
Moving the white area in the viewer can be done in two ways. First, select the entire area with a right mouse click, then press the middle mouse key and drag. Second, if the area does not cover the viewer entirely, place the mouse focus outside the area, press the middle mouse key (the cursor changes to a flat hand), and drag. In both cases, when the white area is correctly positioned, release the key.
When editing is completed, name the picture by editing a name in the nameplate and store the picture. Picture names must be suffixed with ".Pict".
To print a picture you may either: