this is  : vermilion sands | photodesk feedback  : photodesk@iconbar.com hosted by  : the iconbar now  : updated  : wed 23 oct 2002 7:06pm bst sign  : the guestbook go  : home | introduction

Introduction

Like many others, when I first got Photodesk (Christmas 2001) I was captivated. It's a wonderful program. But the manual, while fine as a technical reference (which is all it claims to be), doesn't provide much in the way of examples. Searching the net reveals very little in the way of help, while there appears to be a long history of people asking on newsgroups how to achieve certain effects - sometimes very simple ones, sometimes highly complicated. It's clear that a little extra help would be useful.

These notes document my own learning process over the past few months, and hence are aimed at other beginners. Perhaps experienced users may find something of interest too. Most of the effects use Photodesk only (version 3.04), with occasional use of programs such as ChangeFSI, Draw and ArtWorks.

In what follows, I've tried to assume very little previous experience of Photodesk. But providing extremely detailed instructions all the time would be both repetitive and redundant, so some explanatory notes are needed.

I've used various conventions to try to make operations clearer.

• I've denoted the various windows within Photodesk like this: Image processing.
• If you need to click on a particular icon in a window I write Image processing:Gamma.
• Some icons are common to a number of windows. When I write Detail I mean the icon, and Preview means .
• Menus look like this: Copy:Selection>Load from>#4 Alpha, and Image processing:Gamma:Increase contrast. This means either click the menu button over the appropriate window, or click on the icon (it should be fairly obvious from the context which).
• Keystrokes are denoted thus: Ctrl-A. "Fix" means press the Space bar.

I make no claims that the methods used here are the best (or only) ones. There are many ways to do most things in Photodesk, and some effects can also be easily achieved using (say) ChangeFSI. But duplicating an effect in Photodesk has been, I've found, an excellent way to learn the program.

All feedback is very welcome - complaints, additions, suggestions, requests for clarification, or general chit-chat. Email photodesk@iconbar.com