Image Tutorial

Lesson 2. Creating Color Variations

We are now going to create a different color variation to the doll set created in lesson 1. If you are continuing from lesson 1 you can skip to step 3. Otherwise, ensure that UltraKiss is showing the main logo screen. Close any existing data set. This lesson requires editing of the KiSS set so ensure that the Edit Enable toggle button on the toolbar is set.
Use File-Open to load the configuration file CNF1.cnf from the Tutorial/Edit Image directory or the directory you used in lesson 1. This will load the doll set that you created in lesson 1.
Select the doll and all its clothes. Position your mouse above and to the left of the doll, hold down the alt key, and drag to create a selection box that fully contains the doll. Release the mouse button and all items will be selected and shown with blue marquee boxes. Note that this procedure has purposefully not selected the background picture.
Use Edit-Copy or Ctrl-c to copy the selected objects to the clipboard.
Next, use Edit-Add Page to add a new page to your set. UltraKiss will automatically switch to view this empty page.
Use Edit-Paste or Ctrl-v to paste the selected objects into this page. You should see the doll appear with all its clothes. The background color of the page should be the background color of the first palette file referenced in the CNF. You should use Edit-Unselect All or right-click with your mouse anywhere on the background to remove the selection boxes.
Next, use Edit-Past or press Ctrl-v again to paste another copy of the selected objects into this page. You should see blue selection marquee boxes appear once more as the second copy is pasted over top of the first copy.

Hold the shift key down and drag the second copy to some other location on the page. With the shift key down all selected items are moved simultaneously. If you make a mistake and forget to hold the shift key down, use Edit-Undo or press Ctrl-z to undo your last change and try again. You can right-click with your mouse anywhere on the background to remove the selection boxes after the doll is moved.

This paste operation has created new object numbers with duplicate ambiguous cel images for all selected cels. You can see the duplicate references in the KiSS configuration file if you use View-Active Configuration or press F11.

When you are satisfied with the positioning you should commit these changes by doing an Edit-Write Page. This will establish the initial positions for all new objects so that a View-Reset will restore the objects to their current positions.
You should now have two copies of the doll. We want to change one of the shirt colors. On one of the dolls right-click on the shirt and select Image Context-Edit Palette. This will invoke the Color Editor tool to change palette colors. You will see two copies of the shirt in the preview panel because each image cel is currently associated with the same palette file. We are going to change the color of the shirts and create a new palette file for one of the images.

If the images in the preview panel are too small to work with, use the magnifying glass tool in the Color Editor image preview panel to increase the image size.
Select the eyedropper tool in the Color Editor image preview panel. Position the eyedropper over a light blue color in one of the shirts and click. This highlights the color in the palette panel and also sets the active color in the toolbar.
Drag the HSB slider to near the 60% value. All similar hue colors to the active color in the palette will be selected. This should be the complete set of blue boxes in the middle of the palette and perhaps a few outlying colors. You can remove the outlying colors from the palette selection by pressing Ctrl-right click on each outlying box.
Choose a nice green color from the Color Chooser panel. All the selected colors in the palette will change to match the tint of this color. The preview image will also change to show the shirt in the new color. If the image does not look good, you can Edit-Undo the color change and try again, repeating from step 9.
When you are satisfied with your changes use the Color Editor File-Save As command to save the new palette. Enter the name 'greenshirt.kcf'. and save the palette in the same directory that contains the image cel files. When the palette file is saved you can close the Color Editor with File-Exit. When prompted to apply the changes to the current set, answer No.
On page 1 of the set select one of the shirts with an alt-click. Use Edit-Cut or Ctrl-x to remove the selected object from the page.
Use Edit-Import Image to New Object and select the shirt.cel. When prompted for the palette, choose greenshirt.kcf. Position the new imported shirt properly on the doll.
Use Edit-Adjust Layering to properly layer the green shirt. Drag the top line for shirt.cel down to the other instance of shirt.cel in the list. When this is done the bow should show in front of the new green shirt.
Use File-Save As to save your work. Save the new KiSS set to the Tutorial/Edit Image directory or a directory of your choice. Change the name to CNF2.cnf. You can overwrite any existing element of the same name.

Next Document: Image Tutorial Lesson 3
Prior Document: Image Tutorial Lesson 1