Preset Viewer User Guide
Contents
Introduction
Preset Viewer was written for designers with multiple preset files for design products such as Adobe Photoshop and other similar software to browse effortlessly and effectively for the image they want. This first release has been designed for Windows users on XP and Vista platforms (although other Windows platforms may work fine, they are untested and mostly unsupported). You must also have an active internet connection and valid email account to register the software.
Preset files supported in this version are .ABR (brushes) .PAT (patterns) .CSH (custom shapes) .ACO, .ACT, .ASE (swatches) in all version formats up through CS3, including 8,16 and 32-bit images with or without an alpha layer (even compressed). Grayscale, Indexed, RGB, CMYK and LAB colorspaces are supported. (Note: computed brushes are not supported at this time, and 'dual brushes' are separated into their components, not shown as a compound brush.) In addition, the software can export any .ABR, .PAT or .CSH image(s) into a brush file or into a set of .PNG files.
Also, you can designate keywords for files, and have them sorted in lists making them even easier to find.
Additional features include:
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- Load presets into your default design program with a single click.
- Change foreground and background colors.
- View presets in thumbnail, filmstrip or tiled mode with a variety of sizes for each option.
- Use transparent alpha or the standard 'checkerboard' pattern.
- View enlarged images with or without a smoothing filter.
Startup
When you first start the application, a dialog box appears for registration. It will look something like this:
(The grayed-out big number is a number given to your machine by the application, dont worry, its quite safe to pass around, there is no personal information in there. Even if someone tried to use it for registration, it wouldn't work on THEIR machine, only yours.)
Click the 'Register Software' button and you will be sent to the web registration page where you enter your information and then will be sent an email with your serial code. Copy the serial code from the email and paste it into the form, click 'Validate Serial Code' and voila, you are registered. The application should start automatically after it is registered. In the event that it does not, email support to resolve the issue.
Next, a dialog will be shown to notify you that the application is set to scan all your drives and folders. As this can be useful, it also takes a while and is usually unnecessary if you know where most of your presets are located. It looks like this:
Click the 'Skip' button if you would rather handle this later, or click the 'Yes' button to change this setting. It is recommended to take care of this now.
Search Folder Properties
This dialog is for telling the application what folders it should and should not scan for presets. It looks like these:
Notice the check box towards the top-left of the first dialog. When this is checked, all drives will be scanned every time the application starts. If it is unchecked, you can add and remove folders to/from the two lists. The first list is for folders you want scanned. The second list is for folders you dont want scanned. Generally, the second list is to designate drives that don't need scanned and/or subfolders of the first list that dont need to be scanned, but many combinations can be used. Simply click 'Add new folder to list' under 'Folders Searched' (provided that you have unchecked the 'Search All' check box) and a dialog will appear allowing you to pick a folder on your system. Choose one and click ok, then you have a folder in the list. Click ok on this dialog and the application applies the changes you made and diligently starts searching all over again. Once you have your folders picked out to search/not search the drive scan takes no time at all.
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Layout
The main application window looks like this:
Here we have selected the 'Patterns' tab in the file pane, and have selected the file 'Patterns.pat' that has been loaded and drawn in the display pane (Notice there aren't any subfolders used in the patterns tab, only folders you put in the search list. This greatly speeds up viewing. Subfolders are present in the 'All' tab.) We selected the 'Thumbnails' tab on the display pane and have selected the 'large thumbnails' button on the toolbar.
Here we have selected the 'Shapes' tab in the file pane, selected 'Symbols.csh' for viewing, selected the 'Tiled' tab in the display pane and clicked on 'Display 8 tiles across' button on the toolbar.
Here we have selected the 'Brushes' tab, selected 'Special Effect Brushes.abr' to view and selected the 'Filmstrip' tab for display. All the thumbnails are in a scrollable list on the bottom with one image enlarged. The toolbar button 'Fit to window' has been selected so we can see the image as big as the window allows.
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Color changing
Now change the colors by using a swatch thas was found by the scan:
First, select the 'Swatches' tab, then select a swatch file (.ACO, .ACT and .ASE types are supported.) This opens into a palette at the bottom of the file pane. Left click on a color and the foreground color of the image(s) changes (for brushes and shapes, patterns don't change their foreground color). Right click on a color and the background color changes, easy, and quite striking. (Just remember that if you left click and right click on the same color your image(s) will seem to dissappear.)
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Exporting
Although exporting is one of the more advanced features of the software, it is truly easy to accomplish, look at this:
Here we have selected the 'Create Brush Set' tab in the display pane, then opened a few different files and added images to the set (the big gray part of the display pane.) Adding an image to the set is as easy as double clicking it in the thumbnail strip at the bottom. (remove from the set by double clicking the image already in the set.) As you can see, we have 2 patterns, 2 brushes, and 2 shapes in the set.
Next, click on the blue floppy disk on the toolbar, a dialog opens that allows the user to name the file, for this example the file is named 'test'. Use File->Open on the menu to open the new file (or you can restart the drive search to make it appear in the file tabs). Shown in the following screenshot are those images as a brush file:
Next, select the 'Create Brush Set' tab again and click on the red floppy disk. A dialog box will appear asking for a folder name. A new folder was created and named 'test'. After clicking 'ok' the software exported the image set into .PNG files and placed them in the new folder:
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Keywords
Another attribute of this software is the use of keywords for organizing. First select an image file, for example the custom shape file named animals. Now right click on the image of the cat, this dialog appears:
Some useful information is given: preset type, name, colorspace etc. The empty box is available for typing keywords. For example: cats.
Left click 'ok' and select the 'Keywords' tab in the file pane:
Now you can add more keywords to this file, or to other files. Use any keyword that describes images in the file. Before you know it, you will have hundreds of keywords organizing all your presets into easy to find categories. Use the drop-down list on the image properties box to see all the keywords you've used so far and left click on one to add it to the list. You also have basic editing functions in the list: cut, copy, paste, undo etc.
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