Aquatint Manual

Aquatint User Manual Last modified September 1, 2004. By Ben Haller. Copyright © 2004 Stick Software. [ This is the PDF version of Aquatint's manual, for printing and offline use. For an online HTML version of this manual that may be more up to date, please visit http://www.sticksoftware.com/software/AquatintManual.html. ] Aquatint is an application designed to assist you in creating images that fit in with Apple's Aqua user interface appearance. This manual assumes that you have already downloaded a copy of the latest version of Aquatint, version 1.1; if not, visit Aquatint's main page at http://www.sticksoftware.com/software/Aquatint.html. It also assumes that you know all the basics of using the Macintosh in Mac OS X, including using the mouse, menus, and windows, and opening and saving files. Finally, you will need a graphics application of some sort to create your "stencil" images; this is described in more detail below in the section "Making a Stencil". This manual is somewhere between a tutorial and a reference manual. If you are using Aquatint for the first time, it is recommended that you read through the sections in order, as they do build on each other. However, once you have the gist of Aquatint, you can jump into any section for a refresher on the topic it covers. The sections kind of assume you are working through the tutorial in Aquatint as you read, but enough example images and UI snapshots are provided that you probably don't need to do that if you don't want to. Please send comments on this manual to us at support@sticksoftware.com. Thanks! Contents Page 2. Installation & Setup: Where and how to install Aquatint Page 3. Introducing Dave: An introduction to Aquatint's document window Page 5. Shadowing: The shadow controls Page 7. Transparency: The alpha control Page 8. Glossiness: The margin control Page 9. Color & Contrast: The appearance controls Page 11. Rainbows: How to capture your very own Page 13. Making a Stencil: A quick guide Page 14. The Action Menus: Power-user operations Page 17. Presets: Duplicating standard Aqua appearances Page 18. Preferences: Expert customizations Page 19. Documents: The Aquatint document model Page 20. Advanced Stencils: Limitless possibilities Page 22. Notes: A few additional thoughts Page 23. Registration: Aquatint and the Shareware model Installation & Setup: Where and how to install Aquatint To install Aquatint, simply copy it to your local hard drive. It does not need to be installed anywhere in particular; you can put it wherever you like. However, /Applications and ~/Applications are standard folders for applications in Mac OS X which may be used (where the '~' symbol represents the current user's home directory). Typically, / Applications contains applications that are installed system-wide for all users of the machine, while ~/Applications contains applications private to the current user. Drag Aquatint from the disk image it is distributed on, into the folder …