This module is not intended to replace other graphic image applications, as the main purpose of this software is not printing. This module was created many years ago to help the designers with the image cleaning. Today, some of the mostly used features of this module are integrated on the main software application (the digitizing application) to make it more complete and productive. Therefore, this module has become a tool of little relevance to designers.

➢Select an Image

➢On the the tooltab LAYOUT, click on IMAGING.

1

Ribbon Tools

Contains the tools, grouped in menus or dropdown buttons. These elements allow you to access almost every tool and function of the editor. It contains tools to create shapes and figures, transformations, effects, etc.

2

Working area

The image area. It displays the opened image with a real time result simulation upon any changes made.

3

Satellite View

Shows a thumbnail of the opened image if zooming to such a point that you cannot visualize the entire image within the Working Area. There is a box in the thumbnail image, which will help going through the image when the zoom is applied. If you drag on the Satellite view box, the image will move along the main window.

4

Final Color Selection/Sequence view

In bitmap mode, it allows to specify the amount of final colors and different shades. In vector edit mode, you can see the Sequence View, which shows the layout of shapes forming the design.

5

Color Selection bar and Status bar

Shows a list of colors to assign to fills or outlines. The status bar displays data related to the opened design or the area/ element selected.

The Draw box offers different elements to draw on the working area: Lines, Rectangles, Curves, Polygons, Ellipses, etc.

This tool is only available in the bitmap edition mode.

Click to draw a pixel point using the primary color. Right click to draw a pixel point using the secondary color.

This tool draws a line.

Before drawing it, select its shape, by modifying the line type and its thickness. You can do this from the Format box.

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Select a primary and a secondary color. Also, select the line type to use in the outlines. To draw a rectangle or ellipse, click on the working area and keep the mouse button pressed, while you drag the mouse pointer diagonally in the desired direction.

You can draw rectangles and ellipses without outline, empty (just outlines) or filled and with an outline, according to the option selected from the Format box.

If you use the left mouse button, the primary color will be used to draw the outlines of the polygon, and the secondary color will paint the filling area. To invert the colors, use right mouse button to drag the mouse cursor.

This tool creates a freehand line, like a manual drawing. Choose the line type to use for the outlines, press and hold the left mouse button and drag the mouse cursor.

If you use the left mouse button, the primary color will be used. Use right mouse button to to use the secondary color.

This tool creates a polygon. It creates complex shapes using Bezier curves.

Select a primary and a secondary color, since this type of figures use both. Also, select the line type to use for the outlines. To draw a polygon, click and hold the left mouse button on the working area, then drag the mouse cursor to display the straight line drawn on screen. Click on the drawing area where you want to place a new line handle .

Repeat this operation as many times as necessary, until drawing the desired figure. To finish, click on the starting point of the figure. You can also drag the mouse pointer at the moment of each click. You will modify the handles of the node created, forming curved lines.

If you use the left mouse button, the primary color will be used to draw the outlines of the polygon, and the secondary color will paint the filling area. To invert the colors, use right mouse button to drag the mouse cursor.

Type the text in the main frame of the box, choose the typography, size, style (bold, cursive or underlined) and alignment. The result will appear within the text box. Before confirming anything, drag the box towards the suitable location in the graph. You can also adjust both height and width by dragging its borders.

Confirm the text insertion by clicking on the button located in the right corner of the Text Options box.

This tool is only available in the bitmap edition mode. Select this option whenever you want to paint an entire area with only one same color. When activating this tool a floating box will appear. It allows to modify the color tolerance.

Color tolerance: It helps to control the pixels over which the tool will operate, by painting it with the color of the paint can. Tolerance means the color palette that will be applied when clicking on a pixel. If you set the tolerance value in 0 and you click on a pixel, only the adjoining pixels with exactly the same shade will be painted. However, if for example you define a higher value, the amount of pixels will be increased as well, thus applying a larger color palette.

In order to refill with the foreground color, click the left mouse button. To draw with the background color, click the right mouse button.

If the figure that you are refilling shows an opening in any of its edges, the color will filter to the rest of the drawing area. To detect and close the opening, use the Zoom or the Magic Wand selection tool.

This option copies the color of an area or an object when you click on it. Clicking the right mouse button, the color will be copied as background color, whereas if you click Images and Vectors the left mouse button the color will be copied as primary color.

Activate this tool to delete part of the drawing, keeping the left mouse button pressed when dragging the pointer to paint the area you wish to erase. This area will be painted in the background color. Doing the same but clicking the right mouse button, you can erase only those areas painted in a primary color.

The tools of the Selection box allow you to select one or several image sectors in order to work on the selected area. After carrying out a first selection, you can repeat the operation by pressing the Ctrl key. You can carry out a series of tasks on the selected area (bitmap mode) or selected objects (vector-based mode): copy and paste, convert to block, insert bitmap-type elements in a section/s (without altering the rest of the graph), etc.

•Select All

It performs a complete selection of the open image. It is available in both bitmap edition mode and vector-based mode.

•Select with Rectangle

Allows to select areas with a straight outline. It is only available in the bitmap edition mode.

•Select with Free Hand

Use this tool to select an area freely. It is possible to apply both bitmap edition mode and vector based mode.

•Magic Wand

It allows you to select pixel areas that have a similar color. Choose the tolerance level you will use in the selection, such value will be applied in a similar way to the procedure with the paint can creation tool. It is only available in the bitmap edition mode.

•Invert Selection

It selects the handle that is outside the current selection (the unselected pixels are now selected), while the current selection is canceled. It is only available in the bitmap edition mode.

•Enlarge and Compress Selection

With each click you make you expand or compress the selected area, making the selection bigger or smaller, respectively. Available in the Bitmaps edition mode.

•Unselect

It is used to undo a selection. This option is available in both edition modes.

•Block with Region

It forms a single unit with the selected area, separating it from the rest of the figure. In doing so, you will be able to drag the figure, expand or compress it, rotate it, etc.

Add Color from Palette: It opens the colors box to search for a color in the list or customize one.

Add color from Picker: It allows to obtain a sample of any pixel color by clicking on it.

Load from Image: It loads all the colors that form the open image.

Clear Selected / Clear All: It deletes all the colors or the selected ones from the "Final Colors" panel.

Combine Selected: Creates a single color as from the selected colors. All these colors are transformed into the first color selected.

Replace by Nearest: Tracks and replaces the color(s) selected in the "Final Colors" panel by the most similar one.

Replace by Neighbor: It is useful to delete sectors of the image, since it selects the closest color of a selection to paint it in a similar shade.

It is not recommend to use this tool with very dirty images or with a great number of colors.

Color Magic Wand: It is useful for selecting an area with identical or similar color (depending on the tolerance level selected) to the shade of the sector marked.

Clear Selected: It deletes the selected colors from the "Colors Selection" panel.

You can adjust the color by applying color filters and effects. These filters change the color composition in the image and they be accessed from from the "Effects" group, by clicking on the  "Color Effects" or the "Special Effects" button.

The "Color Effects" has three tabs (Original, Sample and Both) below the image simulation.

The "Original" tab shows the selection without any modifications. The "Sample" tab shows the result after applying an effect. The "Both" tab shows a combination of the two previous tabs. Some Zoom tools You can also apply different Zoom options from the upper left corner.

The bottom left side shows the color effects available to apply. In general, the intensity degree applied is defined using the sliding controls at the right side.

•Hue, Contrast and Saturation

The "Hue" control works over the shade (color) of the selection. The "Contrast" control marks the difference between the clear and dark areas. Sliding the control to the right increases the contrast (color difference) between areas. Sliding the control to the left decreases the contrast. The "Brightness" control changes the brightness of the image. The "Saturation" control works over the color saturation. A lower saturation makes the image more gray and vice versa.

•Histogram Contrast

The histogram is a representation of the image brightness. This method is used to achieve an optimum image contrast using a percentage control.

•Histogram Equalization

It is similar to the above. It can be used to improve the details of the dark area of an image. It does not have any controls.

•Intensity Detect

Allows to dramatically change the lower and higher tones of the image, according to the values defined in these two controls.

•Intensity Expansion

It increases the color grading when increasing brightness. It does not have any controls.

•Gamma Correction

It modifies the hue levels in an image to provide a specific tone correction.

•Color Reduction

Allows to reduce the amount of colors applied to an image when moving the slider to the right, leaving aside those less used. Check the Grayscale option to convert an image colors in a palette of 256 (or less) gray tones.

•Invert Color

It inverts the color of the image.

The "Special Effects" has three tabs (Original, Sample and Both) below the image simulation.

The "Original" tab shows the selection without any modifications. The "Sample" tab shows the result after applying an effect. The "Both" tab shows a combination of the two previous tabs. Some Zoom tools You can also apply different Zoom options from the upper left corner.

•Emboss

Applies an emboss effect on the image. You can select the direction and intensity of the effect.

•Mosaic

The image will split into color blocks to obtain a pixel aspect, depending on the intensity of this effect.

•Average

Applies a diffuse effect, changing the focus of the image.

•Median

Performs a color simplification that can be useful before vectorizing a bitmap image, similar to a handmade paint.

•Sharpen

Allows to focus and highlight the edges, emphasizing the details of the outlines.

•Posterize

Used to make special color effects in the image, allowing to specify a number of brightness values for each color channel.

•Add Noise

Allows to modify the granular appearance of the image, adding noise according to the value entered. It also allows to select color channels on which the noise will be applied (red, green, blue, or all).

•Remove Noise

Modifies the granular appearance of an image, eliminating the noise.

•Underlay

It is used for loading a graphical file to combine it with the image.

This is an image obtained with a scanner and has the typical imperfections that come up when using these devices.

As a result, we will obtain the image shown below:

Click on the "Color Effects" tool to open its window. Then, click in the "Colors Reduction" box. The reduction levels will vary from one image to the other.

In the example, we have assigned a value of 8 for the "Color Reduction" control and "19" for the "Color Tolerance" control.

The result offers an improved brightness as compared to the original image.

First of all, click on the magic wand.

Drag the mouse cursor towards the image. The pointer becomes a magic wand. This tool opens the Tolerance box, that allows you to select a specific color range between adjacent pixels. Click on a blue area in the image.

The aspect of the dotted line will be partially highlighted by the dots. Since we will need to make a selection of the different shades of blue, we will increase the tolerance level.

Move the tolerance control to the right in order to increase the color range, this will make the selection to include of the colors in a blue shade and treat them as a unit.

Again, click on the blue color area. After increasing the tolerance, the selection now covers the entire blue area (up to the outline that limits with the green color).

Once you have achieved the correct selection of an image area, you will be ready to continue.

In the image below, you can see that the selection includes different shades of blue.

In the "Colors of Selection" box, click on the "Combine Selection" tool. This option combines the selected color and create creates a single color.

During the color color selection, pay special attention to the first color you select, since all of the other colors will be converted into this one. Then, repeat the process with the rest of the blue areas, including the fonts.

If, during the color selection, you notice that the range is the suitable one but some small areas remain unselected, you can increase the selected surface by clicking on the Selection ++ (Enlarge) tool as many times as necessary.

In order to change the background shade into a “pure" color, select all the colors in the Colors of Selection box, selecting the lighter color first (in this case the whiter color). Then, click on the Combine Selection tool.This will create a single color with the selected colors. The final color will correspond to the first color selected.

For the selection of the complete orange color range of each letter, use the magic wand tool with an a adequate tolerance degree. After selecting the first letter, press the SHIFT key to select the rest of the sections, until you complete the word.

For example, take a look at the the letter "a" (left figure). You will notice that the upper and lower sides of the font are extremely thin. This, which at first sight seems to be fine, once embroidered can lead to a needle break.

Therefore, it is necessary to make the letters thicker to obtain a more dense and appropriate embroidery design. For this to happen, we will use the Expand tool.

Click on it as many times as necessary. Each time you do it, the selection will enlarge 1 pixel, therefore increasing its original size.

Select the "Pick Color" tool.

Place the mouse cursor on any of the letters. Try to select a plain color by clicking with the right mouse button. This will pick the text color as a secondary color.

You will see the color of the text appears as a background color in the "primary/ secondary colors selection".

Press the DEL key to disable the selection. The entire selection will appear as the secondary color.

In the Final Colors Selection box click on the Delete All button to remove all the colors that are displayed in this section by default.

From the Final Colors Selection box, click on the dropper to start the selection.

Click on the suitable areas to select the colors you want to maintain. In this particular case, these colors are: white, magenta, blue, orange and green. The colors list is updated with the selected colors.

These five colors are the ones of the future design. All of them are well differentiated and correspond to the standard shades of the design, and not to those created after the digitizing process (scanning).

Open the Selection box on the left panel and click on the Select All option.

You will observe a dotted line along the outlines of the entire image. From the Colors Selection buttons, click on Replace by nearest.

Some sectors of the design can still be pixeled and show some defects. Then, the last step will be the correction of these small imperfections.

In order to improve these details, you will use the standard drawing tools: paint: paintbrush, dot, line, etc.