Bitmap vs.Vector
Image Formats

Color It! Tutorial

Part 1: When to Use Color It!

Part 2: Proper Plug-in Placement

Part 3: A Sample Scan with Color It!

Part 4: After the Scan: Saving, Printing, Re-Sizing

Part 1: When to Use Color It!

Color It! is an image editing program ideal for scanning pictures or making photocopies of important documents. Once a picture or document has been scanned, it can then be saved for later retrieval, printed out, or used with other programs.

Part 2: Proper Plug-in Placement

The Color It! program uses a type of scanner driver known as a plug-in. A plug-in, much like the name suggests, "plugs into" an application program. That is to say, it is placed within a special folder within the program, and when the program is started, the plug-in is initialized for use by the program.

For the most part, the plug-ins for the scanner are installed as part of the CD that also installs the image editing and OCR software. Usually, the installation program will display a screen prompting the user to choose the plug-ins folder where the plug-ins should be installed.

As shown in the above illustration, there is a strong possibility that most systems will have multiple plug-ins folders. It is recommended to select the plug-ins folder from the list that corresponds to the Color It! program, since it is the one that came with the scanner, but another image editing program that also uses plug-ins, such as Adobe PhotoShop, could be chosen instead.

(NOTE: The example shown may not match every scanner installation. Some early installations installed the plug-ins into the Color It! program automatically, and did not give the user a choice.)

A common mistake when using Color It! is installing the plug-ins into another program intentionally or accidentally. To verify if the plug-ins are correctly installed, follow these steps:

1. On the Macintosh hard disk, locate and double-click the Color It! folder.
   
2. In the Color It! folder, double-click the Color It! Stuff folder.
   
3. In the Color It! Stuff folder, double-click the Plug-ins folder.
   
4. The plug-ins folder should contain one plug-in with the name of the scanner (e.g. 1200 III SP) and may also contain an item called the Color Sync Filter. While the filter is optional, the scanner plug-in must be present in order to use the scanner with Color It!. It cannot be in another folder in the plug-ins folder or the program will be unable to initialize it.
   
5. If the scanner plug-in is not in the Color It! folder, then it should either be reinstalled from the original CD, or if it is in an alternative location, moved into the Color It! plug-ins folder.

Part 3: A Sample Scan with Color It!

1. Open the Macintosh hard disk and the Color It! folder and locate the Color It! icon. The icon resembles a paintbrush making a rainbow-striped stroke. Double-click the icon to launch Color It!
2. If this is the first use of Color It!, then it will open with a Registration screen. Type in the name and organization of the user and click the Register button. If the system has Virtual Memory enabled, Color It! will also display a first-time message regarding file sizes. Click the OK button to continue.
3. Color It! opens with a blank "Untitled" window and a set of default tools.
4. Click on the File menu and choose Scan/Import. A submenu will appear with the choices for TWAIN Acquire and Select TWAIN Source. Just below these entries will be the name of the scanner’s plug-in. Click on the plug-in name and the plug-in interface will appear. The plug-in interface features scanner settings on the left and a preview window on the right.
5. Open the lid of the scanner and insert the item to be scanned. It should be placed face down on the glass, lined up with the right-hand corner of the bed.
6. Close the lid of the scanner and click the Prescan button on the Scanner Settings screen. The scanner will make a pass and display a preview version of the image in the preview window.
7. Along with the preview image, the preview window will also contain a dotted line box known as the crop frame. The crop frame determines what exactly will be scanned, and only those items within the frame will be scanned.
8. Adjust the crop frame by placing the mouse cursor on the edge of the frame until the cursor becomes a double-ended arrow. Once the cursor has the two ends, click and hold down the mouse button and drag the side of the frame up/down or left/right until it lines up with the edge of the image. Repeat this until all four sides of the frame are lined up with the edges of the image.
9. Click the Scan Mode button on the scanner settings window and choose a setting:

• Color is for color images from photographs, books, or magazines.
• Gray is for black and white photographs, for color items made to look black and white, or for drawings and patterns employing shading and texture.
• Line Art is for black and white text or drawings that have no shading or texture. They are pure black or white.

10. Click the Resolution button on the Scanner Settings window and choose a resolution in dots per inch (dpi) for this scan. Some resolution tips:

• Color images should be scanned at 72-100 dpi for the majority of general uses such as wallpaper, e-mail and web pages. For high-quality printing, they can be scanned at 150-250 dpi.
• Gray images should be scanned at 72-100 dpi for uses such as wallpaper, e-mail and web pages. They can be scanned at 150-300 dpi for most high quality printing, and in some cases the dpi can be as high as the maximum grayscale resolution of the printer, usually around 600 dpi.
• Line Art images should be scanned at 300 dpi for sharp reproductions of drawings and text documents.

11. With the scan settings selected, click the Scan button. The scanner will now scan the image into the Color It! program.
12. Once the scanner has completed its scan, the image will be shown in the center of the Color It! screen in a new "Untitled" window.
13. This finished image can now be printed, re-sized, saved or edited with the Color It! tools.

Part 4: After the Scan: Saving, Printing, Re-Sizing

Once an image is scanned, image editing programs such as Color It! can be used to manipulate the image. The set of tools in the Default Tools window are used to paint new colors on an image, select areas of an image, or add text to an image. The Tools are explained in detail under the Help menu and in Color It!’s on-line manual (found in the Color It! folder).

Along with image manipulation, the other common tasks performed by Color It! are saving images, printing images and re-sizing images.

1. With the image in the "Untitled" window, click on the File menu and select Save As.
2. The Save As dialog box will appear.
   
   
   The first option is the location for the saved file. The window at center shows the contents of the currently selected disk or folder. Double-clicking on a disk or folder in the window will open the disk/folder and select it as the location to save the file to. To the right is a display of the currently selected disk, a button to select the Desktop and a New Folder button.
3. The next item is the filename. This is entered in the line under the heading "Save image as:". The filename can contain up to 31 characters, including spaces and punctuation characters, and should be something easy to remember.
4. The next selection is Format, which refers to the type of graphic file the image will be saved as. Clicking on the arrows displays a list of all of the formats available for the image being saved. Each type of format offers different features and compatibility with different applications. It is important to choose the type that best suits the purpose of the image. The Options button to the right will be available whenever a format is chosen that has a user-defined option, such as file compression.

• TIFF – Also known as tagged image file format, TIFFs are widely used for saving RGB True Color images. TIFFs can also be compressed to save disk space.
• Macintosh PICT – The PICT format is the most common used in Macintosh computers. Almost all Macintosh compatible programs that can use or display images can interpret PICTs, including such standards as Simple Text.
• PostScript Ò – This format is used for images that are to be printed out on a PostScript compatible printer.
• Paint – This format is used to create images compatible with MacPaint.
• PhotoshopÔ 2.0 – This format creates an image compatible with Adobe Photoshop 2.0.
• PhotoshopÔ 2.5 – As above, but the 2.5 version offers compression as part of its options.
• StartupScreen – This format creates images that can be used as the display shown when the Macintosh is booting.
• PhotoneÔ Prepress – This format would be used to save high-quality images that are going to be used as color separations for professional printing projects.
• Scitex CT – This format is used to create grayscale and CMYK images.
• QuickTimeÔ PICT – The format creates images for use with QuickTime multimedia.

5. Once the format and appropriate options are chosen, click the Save button. If everything is correct, the filename will replace the "Untitled" above the image.

Special Note: When saving to a floppy disk, remember that a typical floppy can hold only 1.4 MB or less. Images scanned at high resolutions usually will be too large to fit on a floppy without using compression. Scanning images at lower resolutions, like 72-100 dpi, will keep the file size down and allow the image to be saved to a floppy disk.

1. With the image displayed in Color It!, click on File and select Print. The Print dialog box will appear.

2. The upper half of the Print window contains options specific to the printer being used, such as the Color StyleWriter 1500 used in the example. Verify that the correct printer is listed along the top of the window. To use a different printer, click on the Apple menu and select the Chooser. Click on the appropriate printer name in the Chooser.
3. The lower half of the window, after the dotted line, are the Color It! options. The set of radio buttons on the left are for choosing the print style. Some of these items may not be available depending on the system and the type of printer being used. For instance, a PostScript compatible printer will allow use of the PostScript options.
4. The options to the right of and below the print style include (Note: Many of these options were meant for laser printers, and may not apply to desk and inkjet printers.):

• Screen Ruling – Measured in LPI, lines per inch, the Screen Ruling can determine the clarity of images by increasing or decreasing the number of lines in a given printed image.
• Angle – The direction, in degrees, of the screen ruling.
• Spot Function – This selects the type of ruling, Circle, Square or Line.
• Optimize for 300 DPI Printer – When this box is checked, it adjusts the appearance of grayscale images for use on a 300 dpi laser printer.
• Use Screen Default Settings – Checking this box makes Color It! rely on the print settings for the printer instead of its own.
• Preview – The Preview button displays a version of the image before it is printed.

5. Once everything is set, click Print to send the image to the printer. It takes a few moments for most printers to print a picture.

Re-Sizing an Image

A common misconception is the difference between the size of an image on the screen, and the actual size of the image. The main reason for this is the way image editing programs display images and compensate for certain resolutions.

Most monitors have a resolution of 75 dpi. If an image created at a larger resolution, say 300 dpi, is displayed, the limitation of the monitor makes the image appear larger than it really is.

Many image editing programs deal with this problem by displaying the new image within a window in the image editing program, allowing the user to see the entire picture at once without having to scroll the screen. If this image is larger than the size of the window, the program labels the window with a size percentage or ratio.

Color It! does not place the image within a smaller window, and instead elects to show the entire image actual size, despite how large it may appear because of high resolutions. Due to this, it is not uncommon to scan a picture of a fantastic landscape, and then have only a corner of the blue sky appear taking up the entire screen. Color It! has a zoom feature to adjust the on-screen size of an image so that it may entirely fit. The zoom is located in the lower left corner of the image window and features an image ratio, such as 1:1 and an up/down adjustment. The ratio has a down arrow that can be used to select a new ratio (2:1, 1:8, etc.) or the Fit option, which fits the image within the active window. The icon to the right of the ratio, which looks like a small mountain, is the Up/Away zoom. This zooms us farther from the image, as if we were moving away. The next icon, which looks like a mountain up close, is the Down/In zoom. This zooms us towards the image.

The common mistake often made is the thought that if a 1:1 ratio is actual size, then 2:1 must be twice as large. This is true for on the screen, but when printed, the image is still the original size. The same mistake is made with resolution. Because 300 dpi appears larger on the 75 dpi display, it is often thought that it will print larger. A printer, usually able to handle higher resolutions, will print it at the original size, just of a better quality.

The actual size of an image is reflected in pixels, inches, centimeters, picas or points, and the way to change it is as follows:

1. With the image in the Color It! window, click on the Image menu and select Scale.
2. The Scale dialog box will now appear.
   
   
   The left side of the Scale window shows the Width and Height of the original image in the measurement units shown below on the Units selection. To change the unit of measurement, click on the up/down arrows and select pixels, inches, centimeters, picas or points.
3. To the right of the original image width and height is the Scaling Percentages and the New values for Width and Height. There are two ways to change the image size, by percentage or by value.
4. To change an image by percentage, simply highlight the percentage for either width or height and then type in a new percentage (50% would be half, 200% would be double.). To change an image by value, type in a new value (in the appropriate unit of measure) into either the width or height line. In both methods, the height or width will adjust automatically to whatever is entered for the new height or width, and vice versa. This keeps the image from being stretched or distorted. To allow the image to be distorted, uncheck the Keep Aspect Ratio box.
5. After entering the new size, click the Scale button. The active image will change to the new size and can be saved or printed at this size.