1. Open the wmf file in PSP.

   Note: Be sure you have 'Import vector data' and 'Apply dmoothing' checked in Preferences (File...Preferences...File Format Preferences, on the Metafile/Import tab). If the vector objects edges are still jagged when the shape file is imported, see notes after the next step.

2. With the Pick tool, select all objects in the image by clicking at (0,0) in the upper left corner and dragging all the way to the lower right corner. In the Layers palette, all objects comprising the image should now be selected.

   Note: Sometimes not all objects comprising an image are selected using this method. If an object is not completely surrounded by the Pick tool selection rectangle, it will not be included. Any missing objects can be added to the selection by holding down the SHIFT key and clicking on the object name in the Layers palette.

   If the objects still have jagged edges, once all objects are selected, right-click, choose Properties and check Anti-alias.

3. In the Layers palette, right-click on any of the selected sublayers, or objects.
4. Choose Group from the context menu - this will add a new sublayer called Group 1 just below the Vector 1 layer.
5. Rename the Group 1 layer to what you want to call the shape - this will be the name that will show up when you use the Preset Shape tool.
6. Choose File...Export...Shape to export the shape library.

   Note: It doesn't matter what name you use in the 'Enter file name' in the Export Shape Library dialog. This is just the file name and not the name that will appear in your shapes list (the name you used when you renamed the Group 1 layer is the name of the Preset Shape that will appear in your shapes list). However, it is an excellent practice to make these names match.

To retain the colors from the original image, ensure that 'Retain style' is checked on the Tool Options palette. And that's all there is to it.

Paint Shop Pro brushes come in two kinds: those that work on raster layers and those that work on art media layers. In this article we are concerned only with the raster-layer brushes; specifically with how to set their many options to get the behavior that you want. These brushes are:

• Airbrush
• Background Eraser
• Burn
• Change to Target
• Clone
• Color Replacer
• Dodge
• Emboss
• Eraser
• Hue Up/Down
• Lighten/Darken
• Paint Brush
• Push
• Saturation Up/Down
• Sharpen
• Smudge
• Soften

Please open a new image of 300 x 300 pixels, white raster background. The discussion to follow will make more sense with this image and two palettes in view. The Tool Options palette lacks room for all the brush options. The less well known Brush Variance palette contains more, some of which may surprise you. To make these palettes visible, press F4 and F11 respectively.

Our purpose is not to describe the individual options--Help does an adequate job of that--but to explain how they are collected into brush presets and brush tips, and how these collections interact.

1. Brush Presets

   Like most tools and dialogs in PSP, brushes have presets: named collections of options that you can pick from a list to quickly set many of the options for a brush. PSP comes with several presets and you can make your own.

   Presets that come with PSP contain settings for all the options on the Tool Options palette and all the options on the Brush Variance palette. When you create a preset, however, you may choose to omit any of the settings. When you save your preset, click the Options button to see the "Preset includes" pane, where you can click an option's diskette icon, marking it with a red X to omit it. (Note: you get just this one chance to omit an option in this way. You can, however, edit the script that implements it at any time.) What becomes of an omitted option? That story gets its own chapter later.

   PSP implements presets as scripts stored in files with the PspScript extension. To see the options in the script, find the presets folder with File > Preferences > File Locations > Presets. Open a script file with Notepad.

   A preset applies to just one tool, the one for which it was created.
   
   
   

2. Brush Tips

   A brush tip is another named collection of options that you can pick from a list. Brush tips differ from brush presets in several ways.

   A brush tip:

   • applies to any raster brush tool;
   • cannot set some options on the Tool Options palette;
   • does not let you select which options to include;
   • comprises two files: a tip image and an options script.

   A brush tip can set all of the options shown on the Brush Variance palette and the following options from the Tool Options palette: Shape, Size, Hardness, Step, Density, Thickness, and Rotation. Although you cannot choose individual options to include or omit, you can elect to include all the Brush Variance options or none of them.

   The shape of a tip may be one of the standard shapes (round or square) or it may be a custom shape. In the latter case, PSP saves that shape as a greyscale image in a file with the PspBrush extension along with the PspScript file that stores the options. Find their folder with File > Preferences > File Locations > Brushes.
   
   
   

3. Creating and Sharing Brush Tips

   PSP provides three ways to create a custom brush tip:

   1. File > Export > Custom Brush creates a brush tip from the active image (up to 999 x 999 pixels size), using the greyscale values of the image. The darker the image, the stronger the brush impression will be.
   2. "Create brush tip," a button on the brush tips drop-list in the Tool Options palette, creates a brush tip modified from the current brush tip. Double click a brush tip to make it current, adjust the brush options to suit, then return to the list and click this button.
   3. "Create brush tip from selection," another button on the brush tips drop-list in the Tool Options palette, creates a brush tip from the selected portion of the image. When no selection is present, PSP uses the entire image, equivalent to method a.

   "Export > Custom Brush" is a bad name for method a. It exports nothing. In fact, all three methods write the tip's files in the "Save to" folder specified in File > Preferences > File Locations > Brushes.

   To export your brush, you need to send one or two files. Look in the "Save to" folder with Windows Explorer for a file named "BrushTip_xxxxxxx.PspScript" where xxxxxxx is the name of the tip. Look also for the custom brush shape file named something like "xxxxxxx.PspBrush." (This file is absent when a tip uses one of the standard shapes, round or square).

   WARNING: PSP sometimes, but not always, generates duplicates of the PspBrush file with similar names, which may not be exactly the same as the name of the companion PspScript file. When there is any doubt, open the PspScript file in Notepad or another text editor and find the name of the correct shape file to export. It appears in a line beginning with 'CustomBrush'.

   To import a brush tip, copy the PspScript file and the associated PspBrush file, if any, into any convenient folder. File > Import > Custom Brush. Click Open and browse to the folder where you put the new files. You should see the PspBrush file there. Select it and continue the Import Custom Brush dialog, which copies the files into the "Save to" folder specified in File > Preferences > File Locations > Brushes.

   WARNING: Several brush tips can share a single PspBrush shape file. When you try to import one whose shape file is already present, PSP objects. Likewise, you cannot import a tip that uses the standard round or square shape, as it has no PspBrush file. In these cases, do it "by hand:" Use Windows Explorer to copy the PspScript file and, if present, the PspBrush file into the "Save to" folder specified in File > Preferences > File Locations > Brushes. Exit PSP and restart PSP. The new tips will appear in the drop-list.

   
   

4. Variance

   Default is not normal.

   Huh? That meaningless sentence is intended to draw your attention to the confusing labels and names in the Brush Variance palette. Let's translate them into more useful terms.

   "Option" is not a bad label, indicating what PSP option will be varied by your choice of setting. Color blend, Hue, Saturation, and Lightness refer to the Materials palette. The others refer to the Tool Options palette. "Color blend" is a misnomer that should be "Material blend," referring to how the blend of foreground material and background material varies with your choice of setting.

   "Setting" is easier to understand as "Is varied by." Read, for example, "Size is varied by pressure." The choices marked with asterisks are hardware tablet controls. Others are little demons inside PSP that make an option fade in, fade out, vary with direction, etc.

   "Normal" has nothing to do with what you, I, or the Corel designer consider to be normal. It means "none" or "nothing." Pick this setting to prevent variation of an option by any control. Read, for example, "Hue is varied by nothing." Note, however, that a non-zero Jitter will still make the option vary randomly.

   There are three ways to get the PSP default settings. To default just the variance options, select the brush tip named +Default or click the curved arrow on the Brush variance palette. To default all the options on the Tool Options palette as well, click the curved arrow in the Presets drop-list.

   The default settings are Normal for all but Size, whose default is Pressure. If you used PSP 9, which defaults to Normal for size as well, this may surprise you.

   Default is not normal.
   
   
   

5. Who Wins?

   Given all the ways to change a brush's options, which ones work when? Does a preset override a brush tip or vice versa? End the confusion by learning how PSP handles each method of change. PSP stores the settings in the Windows registry under a separate key for each raster brush.

   1. When you pick a preset from the drop-list, PSP copies its settings into the registry, excepting those settings that you marked to omit when you saved the preset.
   2. When you pick a brush tip from its drop-list, PSP copies its settings into the registry, excepting the Brush Variance settings if you chose not to include them when you saved the brush tip. PSP also copies the tip shape--round, square, or custom--into the registry.
   3. The Tool Options palette and the Brush Variance palette always show the registry values for the current raster brush tool. When you alter any setting in those palettes, PSP changes the registry to match.
   4. Whenever you fetch a raster brush tool, PSP gets its settings from the registry, even after exiting and restarting PSP.

   In short, the last to save is the winner.

• msvcrt10.dll and
• plugin.dll.

Though msvcrt10.dll is widely available, plugin.dll is the property of Adobe, and is typically installed with Adobe products. These files are installed in different places, depending on you Windows version:

• WINDOWS 98 or WINDOWS ME - install these files in the C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM folder.
• WINDOWS 2000 - these files go into the C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32 folder.
• WINDOWS XP - install these files in the C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 folder.

Alpha channels are very handy and give more precise results than using the Magic Wand tool to get selections. They are particularly useful on irregular shapes, complex selections, and any selection that has had antialias applied to smooth the edges. Another really cool thing about using alpha channels is they're available whenever you open the PSP image in which you saved them. And they're not only available to the image that contains them, but to any other image open in the PSP workspace at the same time! It's like a mask/selection lending library!

When you save the image in PSP format, the alpha channels are saved with the image, and will be available when you open the image again! If you save the image in JPEG or GIF format, and do not save it in PSP format, when you close the image, the channels and all the information they contained are gone forever! Zippo! Disappeared! All your work down the drain! So, if you go to the trouble to retain information in those alpha channels, save the image in PSP format! Incidentally, the PSP format is the only format, to my knowledge, that allows the user to save information in multiple alpha channels!

To save a selection to an alpha channel, choose Selections...Load/Save Selection...Save Selection to Alpha Channel to open the Save Selection to Alpha dialog box. The Add to Document panel contains the image name in the "Add to document" drop-list. Below the image name is a drop-list of all alpha channels in the document, if there are any. The Name panel contains the default name for the alpha channel - type a new name in the "Name" edit box to change this name. The Preview panel shows a preview of the selection being saved. Click the Save button to save the selection to the alpha channel.

To load a selection from an alpha channel, activate the layer on which you want to place the selection, and then choose Selections...Load/Save Selection...Load from Alpha Channel to open the Load From Alpha dialog box. To load a selection from the active image, leave the current image name in the "Load from document" box. To load a selection from another open image, use the "Load from document" drop-list to find the image, and highlight its file name. Then, in the drop-list below the document name, choose the alpha channel that contains the selection you want to load.

Note that the Load Selection From Alpha dialog allows you to either replace any current selection, add the selection in the alpha channel to the current selection, or subtract the selection in the alpha channel from the current selection. This might be useful in building selections of particular shapes.

To delete a selection that has been saved to an alpha channel in the active image, choose Image...Delete Alpha Channel. This opens the Delete Alpha Channel dialog. Select the alpha channel (selection) that you want to delete from the Alpha channel drop-list, or mark the "Delete all alpha channels" check box, and click the Delete button.

Look at the boxed entries at the bottom of the palette. The first of these, called Upper Left, contains the coordinates of the upper left corner of the selection. The second, called Lower Right, indicates the coordinates of the lower right corner of the selection. Either one or both of these sets of numbers will continue to change until you stop moving the cursor. The third pair of numbers, called Size, represents the actual dimensions of the selection expressed as width by height. This, too, will change as you move your cursor. Finally, the last number is the aspect ratio of the selection, which is derived by dividing the width by the height.

Note:If the selection is not a square or rectangle, the values in the Overview palette represent the corners and dimensions of an imaginary rectangle surrounding the selection, called the "bounding box" of the selection:

The above screen shot was taken as I made an elliptical selection. I've added the Overview palette from the same screen shot so you can see the values. I also drew in the "bounding box" of the selection in red - this rectangle represents the smallest rectangle that fully surrounds the selection. Note that the Upper Left value from the Overview palette represents the upper left corner of the bounding box (green arrow). Likewise, the Lower Right value represents the lower right corner of the bounding box (red arrow). I've left the rulers in the screen shot, so you can see that those values truly belong to the bounding box.

The same information seen in the Overview palette is also reflected on the right end of the status bar at the bottom of your screen:

In this case, the first pair of coordinates indicates the upper left corner of the selection and the second pair indicates the coordinates of the lower right corner of the selection. The equal sign is followed by the size of the selection, width x height, followed by the aspect ratio (in square brackets) rounded off to 3 decimal places.

The Overview palette provides similar information when you draw shapes using either the Rectangle, Ellipse, or Symmetric Shape tool. Here's a screen shot or the Overview palette for the Rectangle tool:

Strangely enough, the aspect ratio is not shown in the Overview palette, but it does show (on the right end of the Status bar at the bottom of your screen) when any of these tools is used.

Finally, when the Preset Shape tool is used to draw a shape, the Overview palette looks like this:

You'll notice the format is a little different here, with Start pos and End pos instead of Upper Left and Lower Right, and Width Height rather than Size. It's the same information - just different names used to identify it. Again, the aspect ratio is not provided in the Overview palette. Nor is it shown on the right end of the status bar, which provides color information. Instead, this information is provided on the the LEFT end of the status bar at the bottom of your screen. Here's the left end of the status bar captured at the same time as the above Overview palette:

Here's the process:

1. Choose Layers...New Mask Layer...From Image. Choose Source Opacity with Invert Mask Data unchecked. Ignore the slight change in the appearance of your image. This step will copy your image transparency to a mask.
2. Choose Layers...Load/Save Mask...Save Mask To Alpha Channel. The name you use doesn't matter. This step places the mask data in the alpha channel, which in turn means that a copy of the original image transparency ends up stored in the alpha channel.
3. In the Layers palette, right-click on the mask layer and choose Delete from the context menu that appears. Answer "No" to the dialog which asks "Would you like this mask merged into the layer below it?". This step gets rid of the mask, which was just a temporary intermediary for placing a copy of the transparency in the alpha channel.
4. Choose File...Save As. Select Truevision Targa (*.tga) as the save type. Press the Options button and make sure the Bit Depth is specified as 24 bits. For greatest compatibility specify Uncompressed. Then go ahead and save the file.

1. PSP samples using the square set by the Dropper 'Sample size' in the Dropper tool Tool Options palette in the following cases:
   • The Dropper tool is active and is being used for the sampling.
   • Sampling is being done by using the CTRL key + a painting tool (Paint Brush, Flood Fill, Eraser, etc.).
   • Sampling is being done from within the Material Properties dialog.
   • Simple sampling (without the CTRL key pressed) is being done from Effects and Adjustments dialogs that have color boxes.
2. PSP samples a single pixel, ignoring the Dropper 'Sample size' in the Dropper tool Tool Options palette in the following cases:
   • CTRL key sampling from the Materials palette Materials or Color boxes.
   • CTRL key sampling from Effects and Adjustments color boxes.
   • Smart Photo Fix (Advanced Options) sampling within the left preview pane.
   • Color Balance (Advanced Options) sampling within the left preview pane.
   • CTRL key sampling from the color boxes in the Vector Property dialog.

This explains why sometimes when you sample from an image, you don't get the color that's under the sampling dropper, which can be very frustrating. Depending on what tool is active, what dialog is being used, and whether or not you are doing CTRL key sampling, you might be getting an average of a group of pixels rather than the single pixel beneath the sampling dropper. If you are using any of the methods listed in #1 above, whether you were aiming for a larger-than-a-single-pixel sample or not, that's what you'll be getting. The "cure" is to set the Dropper tool 'Sample size' to 1 Pixel. Hopefully, in a future release of PSP, this sampling inconsistency will be corrected so that all sampling (other than that done directly with the Dropper tool) will be for the single pixel below the sampling dropper.

• To move any of the sides, click and drag anywhere along the side of the crop area rectangle - the cursor becomes a double-headed arrow
• To move the entire crop rectangle, click and drag anywhere within the crop area rectangle - the cursor becomes a four-headed move arrow
• To constrain the crop area to it's current proportions, check the "Maintain aspect ratio" check box on the Tool Options palette.

You can also move the crop area rectangle in increments using the arrow keys. The process is similar to that for moving selections or vector objects, with this exception - you first choose how you want the crop area rectangle to be moved by clicking one of the crop area rectangle handles:

• To move the entire crop area rectangle, click the center handle.
• To move one of the sides, click the edge handle on that side.
• To move either of two connecting sides, click the corner handle shared by those two sides.

Once you've selected a handle to guide your moving, the process is the same as moving selections or vector objects:

• To move the crop area rectangle (or a side of the crop area rectangle) one pixel, press any arrow key.
• To move the crop area rectangle (or a side of the crop area rectangle) 10 pixels, hold down CTRL and press any arrow key.
• To move the crop area rectangle (or a side of the crop area rectangle) 50 pixels, hold down SHIFT and press any arrow key.
• To move the crop area rectangle (or a side of the crop area rectangle) 100 pixels, hold down SHIFT and CTRL and press any arrow key.

  Note: The handle you choose or make active governs which arrow keys "work". For example, if you choose the edge handle on the right side of the crop area rectangle, the left and right arrow keys will move that side, but the up and down arrow keys will have no effect at all. However, if you choose the top corner handle on the right side of the crop area rectangle, the left and right arrow keys will move the right side left and right, and in addition, the up and down keys will move the top of the crop area rectangle up and down.

One additional caution - if the "Maintain aspect ratio" check box is selected, the moving process for the crop area rectangle is slightly altered. Even though you choose the edge handle on a particular side, when you click and drag that handle (or use the arrow keys to move that side) you will see movement of the crop area rectangle not only along that side, but also along both adjoining sides as well. This is necessary in order to maintain the aspect ratio of the original crop area rectangle. If you want to constrain the movement of the crop area rectangle to only one of the adjoining sides, choose the corner handle adjoining those sides rather than the edge handle on that side before you click and drag (or use the arrow keys to move) that side.

There is no comparable control in Preferences for toolbars, which dock automatically whenever they are dragged to the edges of the workspace. To prevent this from occurring, hold down the CTRL key while dragging the toolbar.

For a quick way to UNdock (or float) a docked toolbar or palette, double-click on its handle or title bar (you'll get the four-sided mover icon) - it will undock, and return to its last undocked position. To quickly dock an undocked toolbar or dockable palette, double-click on its title bar - it will dock to the top of the workspace, or its last docked position.

Note:: The handle size and position (toolbars) vary, depending on the size of the toolbar and whether it is vertical or horizontal. Here's what the "handle" looks like for my horizontally-docked Script toolbar, enlarged to 300% for easier viewing:

Note: In versions before PSP X, this function was available by right-clicking.

PointSize = ConvertedPointSize = ??
### Use the above line to set the Size for the font for the text
Display = 96
Prop = ScriptProperties()
if Prop['Host Version'][:2] == '11':
    Version = App.Do(Environment, 'GetVersionInfo')
    if Version['MajorVersion'] == 11:
        ImageInfo = App.Do(Environment, 'ReturnImageInfo')
        Resolution = ImageInfo['PixelsPerUnit']
        Units = ImageInfo['Unit']
        if Units == 'Inches':
            ConversionFactor = Display / Resolution
        else:
           ConversionFactor = Display / Resolution * 2.54
        ConvertedPointSize = PointSize * ConversionFactor


A few notes about this code:

1. It is only needed in cases where three conditions are met:
   • The script is running in PSP X or PSP XI.
   • The Host Version parameter in the script indicates this is a PSP X or XI script - that is, it contains 10 or 11 (there can be minor version information after the 10 0r 11, such as 10.02 or 11.01 - it's the 10 or 11 that's important).
   • The script is running the TextEx command.
2. In all other instances of scripts running in PSP X, the system makes the required conversions. If the Host Version contains anything other than 10 or 11, or is blank, or the text is being written using the Text command rather than the TextEx command, PSP makes the required conversions.
3. This code will not hurt scripts running in previous versions of PSP because it is only effective if both the Host Version and the running version are identified as being PSP XI. Nor will it impact scripts that contain the Text command. What it will do is prevent strange-looking text from happening in scripts identified as PSP X scripts, running in PSP X or PSP XI, with the TextEx command.
4. The first line of the code is used to assign the font size to a variable called PointSize - the ?? will need to be replaced with the size wanted for the font. At the same time, the same value is assigned to the ConvertedPointSize variable. This will prevent script errors when the ConvertedPointSize variable is incorrectly used in an instance when the conversion code does not run - either because the Host Version parameter does not identify the version as 11, or the Text command is being used, or the script is running from PSP 8 or 9.
5. Finally, the code contains a line near the beginning identifying the screen resolution as 96. This is the default screen resolution, and as such, will be the screen resolution used by most systems. However, some users will have changed this value to 120 (or a custom value) if 96 makes screen items too small to view comfortably. Users can determine their screen resolution setting in the following manner:
   • Choose Start...Control Panel...Display.
   • Click the Settings tab.
   • Click the Advanced button - the DPI setting can be found in the Display panel at the top of the dialog.

   Users who have something other than 96 here will need to change the first line in the conversion factor code to reflect this setting. If you as a script writer decide to implement this code, you will want to warn users of this. The alternative to having users manually edit the code to insert their DPI settings is having the script extract the screen resolution setting from the Registry. That alternative would require that scripts implementing this code run from a Trusted folder. In my opinion, that's not a safe alternative, so the associated code is not being provided.

The last step needed to implement this code is to change the PointSize parameter in the TextEx command from whatever it is, for example:

'PointSize': 24,

to:

'PointSize': ConvertedPointSize,

Thanks to the readers of the Corel scripting newsgroup for their contributions to this tip!

When you have finished rotating the selection, choose Selections...Edit Selection again to display the selection marquee.

This script aids in managing a collection of brushes. A custom brush consists of two files - a .PspBrush file which contains the actual brush impression, and a .PspScript file which contains the parameters used by brush:

• .PspBrush files are images, and can be viewed in the browser. A single .PspBrush file can be referenced by any number of .PspScript files. In the BrushWrangler script, the .PspBrush file is referred to as the brush tip file.
• .PspScript files are Python code, and (among other things) contain the name of the associated PspBrush file (the .PspScript file could also reference the standard round/square brushes, but that is not relevant here). In the BrushWrangler script, the .PspScript file is referred to as the brush settings file.

Brush tool presets are also .PspScript files, but are named differently and live in a different directory. Unlike a brush settings file, a tool preset is tied to a particular tool (airbrush, paintbrush, eraser, etc.). However, since a tool preset is a superset of a brush settings file, they can in some ways take the place of a brush settings file.

The brush dropdown on the tool options palette is populated by reading the brush settings file, so if a brush tip file is not referenced by any brush setting file the tip is essentially orphaned since the user has no way of selecting it (save by possibly a tool preset, which is only good for that tool). Conversely, a brush settings file or tool preset that references a non-existent brush tip file is useless since the brush tip can't be found.

BrushWrangler has the following functions:

1. It will detect orphaned brush tip files and either create a basic brush settings file so that the brush tip can be used again, delete the orphaned brush, or do nothing.
2. It will detect brush settings files that reference non-existent brush tips and optionally delete them.
3. It will detect tool presets that reference non-existent brush tips and optionally delete them.

1. Make sure File...Preferences...File Format Preferences, PNG tab, is set to "Load and save transparency to/from layer transparency".
2. Use File...Save As, choosing PNG Portable Network Graphics (*.png) in the Save as type drop-list.

Files saved in this manner will open in PSP XI, as well as in prior versions of PSP, with transparency preserved.

Note: I do not recommend editing the Windows Registry unless you are very comfortable with the process. If done incorrectly, this process may cause your PC to become unstable and even unbootable. If you decide to edit the Registry, all the usual precautions apply, including making a backup of the Registry first.

Here's the process:

1. Choose Start...Run, and type in regedit.
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Corel\Paint Shop Pro\11\Installer
3. Change the Data value for the Yahoo toolbar to 0