PAL MENU

Palette editor / setup LEFT CLICK (Key:'P') Displays a menu where the following options are available: - Palette: Allows you to choose a color-block to edit. If you click with the right mouse button, you'll choose a new Back-color. - Gauges: Allow you to modify the current selection. - RGB or HSL above the gauges: Switches between RGB and HSL color spaces. In HSL mode, the three sliders allow you to set the Hue (tint), Saturation (from grayscale to pure color) and Lightness (from black to white). - numbers below the gauges: Allows you to type in a new color in hexadecimal RRGGBB or RGB: ie. to get blue, you can type either 0000ff or 00f. - "+" and "-": Allow you to lighten or darken the current selection. - Swap: Swaps the current selection with another color-block. Click on the beginning of the new color-block. - X-Swap: Works as above but modifies the picture so that it looks the same. This may be useful if you want to sort your palette. - Copy: Copies the current selection to another color-block. Click on the beginning of the new color-block. - Histo: Opens a screen showing how much of each color is used in your image. Clicking a color selects it and closes the screen. - Flip: Swaps the colors of the current selection so that the first colors become the last ones. - X-Flip: Works as above but modifies the picture so that it looks the same. - Sort: Sorts the colors : * Hue/Light : By H then L, in the HSL color space. * Lightness : By descending perceptual lightness. The calculation is not the same as the L of HSL space, it more precisely represents how the human eye find the color 'luminous'. * Histogram : How much the color is used in the image (descending) Note that you can choose a range of colors before sorting, and instead of the whole palette it will sort this range. - Used: Toggle small white indicators next to each color which are actually used, i.e. if there's at least one pixel of the image which is painted in this color. - Neg: Transforms the current selection into its reverse video equivalent. - Gray: Transforms the current selection into its gray-scaled equivalent. - Spread: Computes a gradation between two colors. If your selection is only made up of one color, select the second color in the palette. Otherwise, the two colors used will be its extremities. - Merge: The selected range of colors becomes an average, weighted according to how many pixels use this color. Then all the pixels get replaced by the first color of the range. This function is generally used on colors which are too similar, then you can recycle the unused palette entries, or use 'Reduce to - Unique' to clean up. - Zap unused: Erases the unused colors with copies of the current selection. (The keyboard shortcut for this button is <Del>). - Reduce: Allows you to reduce the palette to the number of colors you want (and modifies the picture). - EHB: Amiga Extra Half Bright. Sets colors 32 to 63 to half tones of colors 0 to 31. - Undo: Allows you to recover the last modifications made on the palette. Note that it can't undo the changes that affect the pixels (remapping), you'll need to Cancel them. If you press <Backspace>, the program will replace, as well as possible, some unused colors by the four default colors of the menu. The image won't look altered because the modified colors (in the case they were used on a few points) will be replaced by the closest colors in the rest of the palette. This option is really useful when you modify the palette so that there are no colors that fit for the menu (eg: "Zap unused" while very little colors are used in the picture; or "Reduce" with a very small number of colors). If you press '`', the menu will disappear and you will be able to pick up a color from the picture easily. Press <Escape> to cancel. If only one color is selected (not a block), '[' can be used to select the previous Forecolor, ']' the next Forecolor, Shift+'[' the previous Backcolor and Shift+']' the next Backcolor.

PALETTE OPTIONS

RIGHT CLICK (Key:Shift+'P') Opens a menu from where you have the following options: - Colors for best match: A menu in which you can select the colors that have not to be used for smoothing, for the transparency mode, and for remapping. - User's color series: A menu in which you can define color series for next/previous user color shortcuts. It's the same settings than the shade mode. After you have some color ranges defined in this screen, you can use those shortcuts to move to the next or previous color according to your ranges: Foreground color Next : '=' Previous: '-' Background color Next : Shift+'=' Previous: Shift+'-' - Palette layout: Lets you customize the palette that appears on the right of the menu. You can choose the number of lines and columns. If you want the colors to run top to bottom, check the 'Vertical' button, otherwise the colors runs left to right. - RGB Scale: Lets you set the scale of the R G B sliders in the palette screen. You should normally leave it at 256 to get the full 0-255 range, but if you want to constrain the palette to the capabilities of some specific computers and consoles, you can choose eg: 64 : VGA 32 : SNES / GBC / GBA / DS 16 : Amiga / STE / Apple IIgs / Game Gear 8 : MSX2 / ST / Mega Drive / PC-Engine 4 : EGA / Master System 3 : Amstrad CPC