The Hidden Tools™

For Picture Publisher 10 DCE

And Corel Photobook

 

Updated 8/5/05  10:30 PM EST

Tools listed below are either enabled by The Hidden Tools™ for

PP10DCE/Photobook, or *can be added from the

Picture Publisher 10 Pro 30 Day Demo.

 

The list does NOT show the tools that are normally available

without The Hidden Tools™ update.

 

There is a LOT of information here, PLEASE read it carefully. If you need to know about anything in particular, please email me.

Once the Hidden Tools are enabled, they will always be immediately available when you load PP10DCE/Photobook, MOST just a mouse-click away.

  1. Bevel Factory (Custom Picture Frame Borders)
  2. Split Image into Hue, Saturation, & Luminance Channels
  3. Split Image into Red, Green, & Blue Channels
  4. Split Image into Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, & Black Channels
  5. Convert Image to 32 bit CMYK
  6. Convert Image to 64 bit CMYK
  7. Convert Image to 16 bit Grayscale
  8. Convert Image to 48 bit RGB
  9. Modify Color Maps (Color & Grayscale Gamma and         Color Channel Adjustment)
  10. Joystick Precision Contrast & Brightness Adjustment
  11. Joystick Precision Color Balance Adjustment
  12. Threshold
  13. Posterize
  14. Share Media (Similar To Photo Album)
  15. More Than 5 Levels Of Undo (Unlimited?)
  16. Edit Color Palette
  17. Load/Save Mask
  18. Chroma Mask (Create Mask based on Color)
  19. Remove Holes In Mask
  20. Smooth Mask
  21. Crop To Mask
  22. Merge Mask (Fade In/Out Effect)
  23. Mask Transform
  24. Mask Point Edit (Fine adjustment of masks)
  25. Mask Channel Editing
  26. Rectangular Area Color Probe
  27. Multi Spot Color Probe
  28. Measure Tool
  29. Macro Record/Play
  30. Edit Macro
  31. Play Macro On A Batch Of Files
  32. Hue Map
  33. Histogram
  34. Image Healer
  35. Create Custom Textures
  36. Create Custom Brush Tips
  37. Edit AVI Movie Frames
  1. Color Shields (Protect/Adjust Specific Colors)
  2. Vector Path Tool
  3. Align Objects Tool
  4. Position Objects Tool
  5. Group/Ungroup Objects
  6. Lock/Unlock Objects
  7. Combine Selected Objects Together
  8. Combine Selected Objects With Base
  9. Feather Objects
  10. Object Properties (Change Rollover settings)
  11. Precision Object Rotation
  12. Flip Objects
  13. Crop Objects
  14. Alpha Channel Editing
  15. Show Task Manager
  16. Show/Adjust Grid
  17. Snap To Grid
  18. GIF Animator (Limited Function)
  19. Create Scanner Calibration Map
  20. Create Printer Calibration Map
  21. Apply Calibration Maps
  22. "Paste At" Tool
  23. Average Interpolation
  24. Spline Interpolation (For less "jaggies" when resizing an image)
  25. Copy To HTML Image Map
  26. Edit Web Element
  27. Export To Web Page (Image Slicing & Rollovers - See #4 below)
  28. Web Image Optimizer
  29. Show/Hide Guidelines that already exist in a PPF Image file
  30. Snap To  Guidelines that already exist in a PPF Image file
  31. Web Styles (Create Web Page)*
  32. Paint Studio*
  33. Texture Warehouse*
  34. Contact Sheet Wizard*
  35. HTML Slideshow Wizard*
  36. Advanced PrePress Options (Print Styles with Automatically applied Calibration Maps, Trim and Registration Marks, Step Scale, etc. If this is important for you, please email me for more detail)

The Major Differences Between

PP10DCE/Photobook With The Hidden Tools™

And Picture Publisher 10 PRO

Most of the tools listed below, which are only available in PP10PRO, are either very specialized in their purpose, or essentially unnecessary, and many have workarounds. I have done my best to make the list below complete and accurate, and I have included detail (as necessary) to assist you. If you need to know whether a Specific Tool is available or not in PP10DCE/Photobook with The Hidden Tools™, please email me. I'm happy to answer your questions as I want you to be happy with your purchase.

 

  1. Channel Mixer - This is used for customizing how grayscale images are created from color images. You CAN get similar effects by Splitting the Channels, adjusting, and Recombining them (or just using one of the split channels). Channel Mixer is not a tool for the average user.

  2. Channel Manager - Another specialized tool that the average user will ignore, for working with the Color Channels of an image. Some of this you CAN do by using Channel Splitting and Recombining.

  3. Frame Manager - This seems to be mostly for working with Rollover Effects for web pages. I'm not certain about how necessary this tool is for this purpose as I have been able to create Rollover Effects without it.

  4. Image Slicer Tool and Rollover Object Properties Box - (You actually CAN do Image Slicing, and Nice Rollover Effects if you are using The Hidden Tools™. By using the Object Properties Dialogue Box to set Rollover Properties, and Export To Web Page (#64 above), you can have Photobook generate a Sliced and Mapped image with HTML & Javascript. Then you can edit the HTML & Javascript to add extra options, and edit the generated Rollover images to produce the effects you want. Not quite as complete as PP10PRO, but still VERY useful).

  5. Guidelines - (Handy to have, but not what I would call "necessary". If you have a PPF file that contains Guidelines, you CAN turn them On/Off, and use Snap To Guides, but you CANNOT move them or change their color. If you need a SINGLE Guideline once in a while as a positional reference, you can use the Measure Tool to draw a Non-Printing line for this purpose.)

  6. Advanced Adjustments For Lighting Studio - You DO get a nice collection of presets with this tool that can be adjusted, and Saved. You Can also import PP8 custom settings. Advanced adjustments would be nice to have but this tool is still Very useful as is.

  7. Advanced Adjustments For Particle Studio - Most users probably won't get much (any?) use out of Particle Studio, so the lack of advanced adjustments doesn't really matter.

  8. Advanced Adjustments for Lightning Effect - This effect includes a bunch of pretty cool presets that should keep most users fairly happy. You CAN adjust Bolt Color, Glow Color, Sharp Mode, Follow Mask, and Seed. The lack of advanced adjustments will disappoint some, but most should be fairly content. Adjusted Presets CAN be Saved.

  9. Command Center - Since The Hidden Tools restores the MACRO Recorder functions, you can start recording when you start editing. If you decide that you want to go back to a certain point, you can REVERT the Image, Edit the Macro to Disable or Delete everything after the step you want to go back to (OR specific steps in the middle of a sequence) and then Play the Macro to "rebuild" the image. If your main use of Command Center is as a LARGE UNDO List, The Hidden Tools™ gives you the ability to set the number of UNDO steps available (I have tested it up to 30 and I'm sure it will go much higher).

  10. Advanced Adjustments for Tone Balance - (LOAD, SAVE, Auto-Clip, Separate Color Channel Adjustments, etc.). For most users the available Master Channel Tone Balance will probably be sufficient. You CAN also spilt the image into the separate RGB Channels, Tone Balance each individually and recombine them. While this isn't as convenient as having the separate Color Channels in the Advanced Adjustments with live preview, it still gets the job done.

  11. Kodak CMS (Color Management System) - This allows you to use ICM "Profiles" that contain calibration information for scanner, printer, monitor, etc. to set color standards that match your software to your hardware. For many users, this is not necessary (I haven't needed it for nearly 10 years). One instance where where you would need this is if you have an older inkjet printer and use specialty inks from Lyson, Lumijet, or others because these ink's colors can be different enough to cause poor quality prints if you don't use custom ICM profiles. Many of the Newer Printer and Scanner Drivers for WINDOWS XP have options for using ICM/ICC Profiles (Windows XP has Color Management built-in), so it is NOT necessary to have it in your image editing software. If you are using the more generic Ink Refills such as JetTec (available at Staples), you won't need this because they very closely match the Inks that they replace. If you KNOW that you REQUIRE CMS support IN YOUR IMAGE EDITOR, then you should be looking for PP10PRO.

  12. Precision Object Sizing Dialogue Box - If you need to Precisely size an object, you can't. You can still use the regular object sizing method (drag handles around the object), which is just fine for most users.

  13. Create/Edit Custom Gradient Fills, Image Spray Collections, Brush Styles - Looks like the workaround will involve using PP8 as the creation tool, then manually adding the data into PP10DCE/Photobook's configuration. Documenting this isn't high on my list of "things to do" since PP10DCE/Photobook comes with a nice collection of presets, which should keep most users fairly content.

  14. Create/Edit Toolbars - For those of us that like to have custom Toolbars, this is a loss. The Hidden Tools includes a set of Custom Toolbars. If you Really want them YOUR way, I can help give that to you.

  15. Less Options Available for Saving As a PPF  - Since The Command Center has been disabled, the only options available for this file format are Compress Image, and Save Mask Channel. I AM working on this, but I cannot guarantee that I will be able to enable any more options.

  16. Copy To Texture OR Brush Tip - (For creating custom Textures and Brush Tips) The workaround for these tools is fairly simple and instructions are included in The Hidden Tools™.

  17. Paint Mask On Object Alpha from the Paintbrush Mask Tool on the main toolbar - While this can be a handy tool, it is NOT necessary since you CAN do the same thing by selecting the Edit Object Alpha Hidden Tool and applying the mask from there.

  18. Import Image From File - The easy workaround for this is to open the image you want to import, hit CTRL-C to Copy it, and then Paste it into the image you are working on. No big deal.

  19. Export Object(s)/Image To New File - Again, no big deal on the workaround. Just select what you want to export, select Copy To New File, and Save it.

  20. Create A Clipping Path - I honestly don't know what you would use this for. It involves EPS files.

  21. Show/Hide Text, and Zoom, in the Web Pattern Viewer - I don't use the Web Pattern Viewer, so I don't know how much of a loss this is. There may be ways to work around this if you really need to.

  22. Low Resolution Mode, and Fastbits - These two editing modes were designed into Picture Publisher a long time ago for people with slow CPUs and little RAM and really are of little, or no use with the high powered computers we have today.  I have used Photobook with The Hidden Tools on my old Pentium 200 Laptop with 72Meg RAM and yes it is slower than my AMD 2600 machine with 1 Gig RAM, but it isn't so horribly slow that I would need these tools.

  23. GIF Animator - While The Hidden Tools™ restores partial access to this tool, you can only create and save animated GIFs. You cannot open or edit existing animated GIFs. This isn't as bad as it sounds. If you already have PP8, then you have the fully functional tool there, which isn't all that great. I have played around with the GIF animator that came with Ulead PhotoImpact7 and found it to be much better. If you want to create/modify animated GIFs, find a better tool to use than the one in PP8 and PP10PRO.