HunterRose

Thanks for the kind words Mission. if anyone is interested - Episode 8.5 is a "Choose your Own Adventure" Here: http://www.tfans.com/talk/index.php?showto...ndpost&p=760109 (dont ask why its called 8.5)

easy answer to this M is to imagine that each layer is like a Transparency. you can create up to 99 layers per project. The benefits of this is that you can move or alter Layer 1 with out affecting layer two. If you use the menues at the top you can "View-show layers" EVERY PDX project starts with 2 layers - 1 = your project and 2= text. (PDX treats text as its own special entity) Just try this you can adjust and move the text around with out affecting your project at all. Now for examle if you wanted to copy another picture onto your existing project (say a flower) - you now have 3 layers! 1= Project 2= Flower 3= Text (again is always seperate and always on top of all layers) Now you can resize, rotate or otherwise adjust the "flower" layer with out affecting your other two layers. you can even make the flower transperant so that the ghost image sits above or behind your first layer. i dont know if that made any sense - but take items from your "Hold" area or the "open projects area" you know that collum on the far left hand side of the screen and just pull them into your project workspace. you will see that each one sits on its own layer and can be manipulated with out affecting the rest of the image. open your View-Show layers it will help to visualize the process!! Hunter p.s - if you want to see the kind of stuff i do then you can check out my online comic for free at: Chapter One: http://www.tfans.com/talk/index.php?showto...ndpost&p=569617 Chapter seven: http://www.tfans.com/talk/index.php?showto...ndpost&p=682394 (click at the table of contents at the bottom of any page to see any chapter in the series) All of these pages were done in PDX!!!!!

Problem is -doing the sorts of things i have been doing - Using MS-Paint would be simmilar to building a house of cards while wearing boxing gloves. By the way - i was asking about "Text" effects earlier. Now i am using PDX4 but this should also work in PDX2. As we know text effects in PDX# are fairly limited - HOWEVER there is hope. Type out your text and font as usual. size it the way you want it etc. NOW - SAVE AS.... and save a copy of your project as a !!Photoshop!! document NOT a PDX! (its also a good idea to save as.... normal too). Close your document. Now, when you reopen it. All of your text will be recreated as an IMAGE on its own layer!!!! Yoou can now take that text/image layer and treat it just like any other image layers. distort it - out line it - fill it with patterns. etc.

Mora - You are better off just going with PDX 4! Also for ANYONE who uses these programs - invest in a PDX (any version) "For dummies" book by Julie Adar King (sp?) Absolutely invalualble. You can find them for like .75 (plus shiping) on Amazon! My PDX skillz doubled a day after receiving my copy!!!! Mora PM me and i might be able to copy the PDX 4 for you....

thats exactly what i was trying to describe - before - my point is that lots of times it comes out muddy. and i do not believe that "PhotoDeluxe" has a"stroke" or "drop-shadow" effect for its text.... that must be only for the full photoshop version.... what i have been doing lately is creating a new layer and then using the rectangle tool to create a box just about the size of the text (maybe a hair smaller) and then using the transparency to take it down - what happens is that if its a contrasting color (Black/White) it gives just enough cloud for the text to pop out and not get eaten by the image. meanwhile since its smaller than the text - and slightly transperent (50-60% for example) - it doesnt look too obtrusive to the rest of the image. Thanks all - by the way i am liking my PDX 4 much better than PDX2.... Hunter

New Question: When using Text on multi colored backgrounds it is often hard to read the text. If a background fades from light to dark - then my white Text cant be read on the lighter parts and the black text cant be read on the darker parts etc. The two techniques i have used to solve this is A) typing half my words in one color and half my text in another color (but doesnt help if the gradation is top to bottom...) Lay a duplicate tex over the original using contrasting colors - the only problem with this is it tends to come out "muddy" Does anyone know of another technique? or is there a way to "outline" text??

Well for now it seems to be holding - I played with the memory usage and the Scratch discs. i have also started building the more complex panels idividually so that by the time i get to the page level each panel (which might have been ten layers to build) is only 1 or 2 layers by the time its on the full page. As far as getting PS7 (i assume you are saying Photoshop 7) As i stated before - i can not afford taht in money or time right now as i am in the middle of a weekly comic strip. It is definitely something to consider for the first of the year though. New Question for everyone - anyone know of any "plugins" that might be useful for a PDX user? i have seen some sites that advertise that their plugins are compatible with all types of programs... but also a lot of them are jsut the same ones i already have.... Suggestions? Thank you fo revery one

Okay guys! I managed to score PDX #4 off of a friend. Overall I do like it better and was able to finish this weeks project with it. However.... It seems to want to crash on me regularly. I have tried a number of different settings for how much Memory should be aloted to PDX... but it still crashes. At first it was only when i used Text. Now it wont let me open one of mypages at ALL. **What settings do you reccomend i set it at?? If i set it to more than 65% it says my scratch disk is full which is impossible since i have a 250GB HD (125/125 partition) and I know there is enough RAM to run the stupid thing... the only other thing i use while using PDX is WMPlayer and sometimes AIM. FYI- i am making an online comic strip and my average page size is 14" x 20" EDIT: i am using approx. 60-100 layers per page <rolls eyes - i know i am probably just expecting too much from the program...> Thanks for all the help Now with Bootstrap's suggestion - am i better off going back to PDX2?

OK Moonlit - that didnt work for me... but i have a friend who said he would give me his PDX4.0 - so hopefully that will work... Any things in this "Facelift" i should be aware of? anything i should be warned about? Excited about? Thanks again to everyone

Wow! Thanks guys I am going to try Moonlit's suggestion (not sure if i can track down the 4.0 - but will try that too)

This really sucks cause i am in the middle of a project and cant "buy" and "learn" a new system right now. I need to finish this - so basically my RAM purchase is useless to me for the next 10 weeks! Crapola... I know its been covered above in the thread but what do you reccomend for a replacement. I need to composite many pictures from different sources and and use most of the basic filters: brightness/contrast. Color Saturation. **TEXT**, opacity, blurr, etc... Hutner And Thank you very much for your help

Thats just it - i used Crucial to check my computer for the proper RAM. Both my BIOS and XP acknowledges the new RAM. Everything seems to work just fine. Even my ATI Video player works better (used to like to crash) Why would Only Photodeluxe bug out??? Hunter

hello I have been using PhotoDeluxe 2.0 for some time now. I have also been running it on my XP machine for the last 2 years. I like this program a lot and am hesitant to give it up.... For the most part it works Great but- I just upgraded my RAM. I had 512MB and now have 1GB. Everything else in my Computer seems to be working just fine- chugging along, happy as can be BUT now Photodeluxe creates an Error Message when i open it that says: "There is not enough RAM to open PhotoDeluxe" Why would it say that? is there ANY way around this?? Thanks in advance Hunter