India Ink

Flaming Pear Software

What it does
India Ink is a plug-in lter for paint programs. It converts color or greyscale images into several unusual styles of black-and-white halftones suitable for black-and-white printing.

What it does How to install Quick start Controls Other controls Memory dots Hints Versions How to purchase Questions

How to install
Illustrated installation instructions are online at www.amingpear.com/faq.html . To use this software, you need a paint program which accepts standard Photoshop 3.02 plugins. Just put the plug-in lter into the folder where your paint program expects to nd it. If you have Photoshop, the folder is Photoshop:Plugins:Filters or Photoshop:Plug-ins. You must restart Photoshop before it will notice the new plug-in. It will appear in the menus as Filters->Flaming Pear->India Ink.

Most other paint programs follow a similar scheme. If you have Paint Shop Pro: you have to create a new folder, put the plug-in lter into it, and then tell PSP to look there. PSP 7: Choose the menu File-> Preferences-> File Locations... and choose the Plug-in Filters tab. Use one of the "Browse" buttons to choose the folder that contains the plug-in. The plug-in is now installed. To use it, open any image and select an area. From the menus, choose Effects->Plug-in Filters->Flaming Pear->India Ink. PSP 8, 9, X, XI, and X2: Choose the menu File-> Preferences-> File Locations... In the dialog box that appears, choose Plug-ins from the list. Click "Add." If you are using PSP 8 or 9, click "Browse". Now choose the folder that contains the plug-in. The plug-in is now installed. To use it, open any image and select an area. From the menus, choose Effects->Plugins->Flaming Pear->India Ink.

Quick start
When you invoke India Ink, a dialog box will appear.

If you just want to see some effects quickly, click the dice button until you see an effect you like; then click OK. Using the dice is the easiest way to use India Ink. If you want to hand-tune your own effects, it helps to learn the controls:

Controls

Style: Several different styles of halftone are available.

diffusion

noise

ripple

arabesque

wave

arabesque

round

basketweave

crosscut

maze
5

xor

splatter

ow

hatching

shards

bubbles
6

poster tone 1

poster tone 2

Bayer

Ostromoukhov

spots

netting
7

Hyper A

Hyper B

original image

Some of the styles do not make use of all the other controls; so when you choose such a style, some other controls may become inactive.

Scale: Lets you magnify the halftone pattern by 1x, 2x, or 4x.

Line: This control lets you choose ve different line weights. It has a slightly different effect with each style, so be sure to experiment.

Gamma: Some styles draw light areas and dark areas with different patterns. The gamma control lets you draw dark areas with the pattern used for light areas, or vice versa.

Warping: Some styles let the colors in the image warp their pattern; the warping controls says how much.

Angle: For warpable styles, the angle control sets the direction of warping. (Except for the style wave, where it sets the angle of the wavy pattern.)

Sharpen: This lets you increase the contrast of edges in your image. Many images look better with some sharpening. It also improves the warping of some halftone styles like "basketweave".

Diameter: Controls the width of the contrasty area around edges.

Other controls
Dice: This randomizes the settings. Click it as much as you want to see different effects.
dice

Reset: Gives you the factory settings.

Glue: Lets you combine the result image with the original, instead of replacing it. The next-glue button advances to the next glue mode.

next glue

Send to photo manager: Sends the result to iPhoto (on Macintosh).

send to photo manager

Export to PSD: Renders the result to a .psd le.

Make Gallery: Builds a web page showing all the presets in a folder that you choose.

make gallery

Plus, % and minus buttons: If the selected image area is bigger than the preview, these buttons let you zoom in and out. Drag the preview to move it.

Load preset: Presets are les containing settings. To load one, click this button and browse for a preset le.

load preset

Save preset: When you make an effect you like, click this button to save the settings in a le.

save preset

Undo backs up one step.

undo

Info: briey explains the controls.

Three more buttons: OK: Applies the effect to your image. Cancel: Dismisses the plug-in, and leaves the image unchanged. Register: Allows you to type in a registration code and remove the time limit from the demo.

Memory dots
Although you can save your settings permanently to les, you can also stash settings in memory dots. Click an empty dot to stash the current settings in it. Click a full dot to retrieve its settings. Hover the mouse over a dot to see what it contains. Option-click to erase a dot on Macintosh. Right-click to erase a dot on Windows. If a dot is orange, India Ink's currently using that dot's settings. Dots remember their contents until you erase them. If you'd rather make a temporary dot that forgets when you exit India Ink, control-click it. Temporary dots are square. When you start India Ink, it puts the starting settings in a temporary dot. That way it's easy to start over without exiting the plug-in. On Mac, you can drag-and-drop settings les from the central memory well. You can build a web page showing how the current image would look with every memdot setting. Just option-click (Mac) or right-click (Windows) on the big memdot image.
memory dots

empty full current temporary

11

Version history

Version 1.993 December 2009 64-bit version for Windows. Adds the Hyper A and Hyper B styles.

Version 1.992 June 2008 Fixes horizontal stripes that can appear when sharpening is used.

Version 1.991 June 2008 Fixes vertical stripes that can appear when sharpening is used.

Version 1.99 May 2008 Adds convenience features to the interface. The Mac version is resizable.

Version 1.98 June 2007 Fixes a Macintosh problem where the plug-in could have bad settings or crash when installed on a machine for the rst time.

Version 1.97 March 2007 Fixes a problem in the Macintosh version where a blocky appearance results from sharpening. Fixes a Windows problem where the plug-in wouldn't remember its registration when it was installed in one user account but activated in another.

Version 1.96 March 2007 Universal binary for Macintosh. Preset les have icons. Works as a Smart Filter in Adobe Photoshop CS3.

Version 1.95 July 2005 Adds previews in the le chooser. Two new glue modes.
12

Version 1.94 October 2004 Fixes a problem in 16-bit mode where only part of the image would be processed.

Version 1.92 September 2004 Adds spots, netting, and spider styles. Previews better resemble the nal result.

Version 1.9 May 2004 Works faster, works with 16-bits-per-component color, and has new glue modes.

Version 1.85 December 2003 Recordable as a Photoshop action.

Version 1.8 September 2003 Makes the preview larger; adds more glue modes and the next-glue button.

Version 1.75 March 2003 Adds new styles: poster tone 2, Bayer, and Ostromoukhov.

Version 1.72 February 2003 Fixes a crash that could happen when using the menus under Windows XP.

Version 1.71 December 2002 Adds new glue modes: Hard Light, Overly, Superlay, Exclusion, Color, Luminance, Linear Light, and Pin Light. Fixes the appearance of text in the interface when running under Mac OS X 10.2.3 . Removes the zoom controls, which did not give properly shrunken previews.

13

Version 1.7 December 2001 Adds the 'poster tone' style and adds previews to the preset browser.

Version 1.6 September 2001 Adds an Undo button.

Version 1.5.2 July 1999 Improved compatibility with non-Photoshop paint programs.

Version 1.5 February 1999 Built-in image sharpening and improved pattern warping.

Version 1.4.6 June 1998 Improved stability, and added the conversion utility for settings les.

Version 1.4.5 May 1998 Fixed another display bug similar to 1.4.1.

Version 1.4.1 March 1998 Fixed a display bug that made the text vanish from the popup menus under Mac OS 8.

Version 1.4 December 1997 Added the preview, the presets, and the glue modes.

Version 1.3 December 1996 Added the styles shards and bubbles.

14

Version 1.2 November 1996 Added the style hatching, and redesigned the interface.

Version 1.1 October 1996 The rst public release, with 13 halftone styles.

How to purchase
You can place an order online here. A secure server for transactions is available.

Questions
The software, documentation, and supporting materials are made by Flaming Pear Software. Answers to common technical questions appear on our support page, and free updates appear periodically on the download page. Trouble with your order? Orders are handled by Kagi; please contact them at admin@kagi.com . For bug reports and technical questions about the software, please write to support@amingpear.com .

2009 Flaming Pear Software

15