Working with Paint’s Modifying Tools

Even if you have steady hands and a good imagination, you may want to modify your work. Paint offers several tools that can help you modify a drawing. In this lesson you will learn how to use Paint’s modifying tools.

Modifying a Drawing

As you have already learned in previous lessons, before you can edit an object, you must select it. Paint has two selection tools: Select and Free-Form Select, The Select and Free-Form Select tools perform essentially the same function: they select a part of a drawing so that you can modify it. The Free-Form Select tool is used to select irregularly areas; its icon shows a star shape.

To select a shape with the Select tool, first click the tool. Then position the crosshair just above and to the left of the object to be selected. At this position, press the left mouse button and drag the crosshair down and to the right until the dotted line completely encloses the desired selection. Be sure that the entire object is within the displayed dotted rectangle. Only the area within the dotted rectangle can be modified.

To select a shape with the Free-Form Select Tool first click the tool. Then position the crosshair near the object to be selected, press the left mouse button, and drag a line around the shape to be selected. Since you control the form the line takes, you can enclose as much or as little within the selected area as needed. Once you release the mouse button, a rectangular dotted line appears around your selection.

Working with Selected Objects

When an area is selected with either the Select tool or the Free-Form Select tool, the selection—called a cutout – can be resized, moved, cut, copied or further modified.

Resizing an Object

Paint allows you to easily resize a selected object. The selected object has handles that can be used to change the width or height of the object.

However, you should keep in mind these points:

• Paint will allow you to resize a filled object, but the resizing process leaves behind a rectangle of the fill color. You can erase this rectangle by using the Eraser (you’ll learn more about the Eraser shortly, but if you think you may have to adjust sizes of objects, you should create them as outlines and then use the Fill With Color tool to add the fill once you are satisfied with the object sizes.
• Because Paint creates objects one dot at a time, resizing an object can sometimes make the lines of the object very jagged. You are encouraged to create your objects as near to their final size as possible to avoid the “jaggies” that may appear when you resize.

Moving, Cutting, or Copying an Object

To move a cutout, place the pointer inside the selection rectangle. The mouse pointer becomes a four-headed arrow. Hold down the mouse button and drag the cutout to its new location. To copy a cutout, hold down Ctrl while dragging the cutout to its new location.

You can move or copy a cutout in one of two ways: transparently or opaquely (the default);

• When you move or copy a cutout transparently, any part of the cutout that is in the background color assumes the underlying color of the location to which it is moved or copied. To move or copy transparently, click the Draw Transparent icon in the selection area (see Figure 5-1).
• When you move or copy a cutout opaquely, all parts of the cutout retain their original colors at the new location. To move or copy opaquely, click the Draw Opaque icon in the selection area (see Figure 5-1).

If you want to use a cutout in a new drawing or an existing drawing, you can use the Cut, Copy and Paste commands on the Edit menu. First select the object to be cut or copied, and then choose the appropriate command. The cutout is stored on the Clipboard and is available to be pasted into another drawing. You can also use this process to paste a number of identical objects in the current drawing, as a way of ensuring consistency.

Using Copy To and Paste From

Paint offers two more ways to work with cutouts: the Copy To and Paste From commands.

The Copy To command on the Edit menu allows you to save only a portion of a drawing. To use the Copy To command, select the object or portion of the drawing you want to save, then choose Copy To from the Edit menu. In the Copy To dialog box, indicate where you want to save the object, give it a name, and choose a file type. The next time you open the file, Paint displays only the selected object.

The Paste From command allows you to specify where a pasted object will be located. When you paste an object from the Clipboard using the Paste command, the pasted object always appears in the top-left corner of the screen. To use Paste From, draw a selection rectangle where you want to insert an object and then choose Paste From from the Edit menu. In the Paste From dialog box, choose the name of the object you want to insert. Paint pastes the object in the selection rectangle you draw, enlarging the rectangle if necessary to accommodate the object.

Using the Eraser/Color Eraser Tool

The Eraser/Color Eraser tool has two functions. Eraser erases by changing all colors in is path to the current background color. To use the Eraser, first click it, choose one of the four eraser sizes shown in the selection area, and then drag using the left mouse button over the area to erase.

The Color Eraser erases only the selected foreground color by changing it to the selected background color. To use the Color Eraser, first click the Eraser/Color Eraser tool, check that the appropriate foreground and background colors are chosen, and then drag using the right mouse button over the color to be changed.

Step-by-Step 5.1

1. Start Paint, and open the Star file from the Templates folder. Save the file as Gala Flier lastnameinitial to the Assignments folder for this class and to My Documents.
2. Delete the yellow square behind the blue star, Use the Color Eraser tool for this task:

1. Select white as the background color if necessary: click white with the right mouse button.
2. Select yellow as the foreground color: click yellow with the left mouse button.
3. Click the Eraser/Color Eraser tool. Choose the largest eraser from the selection area. Press and hold the right mouse button as you drag the eraser across the picture. All yellow color should be erased.

3. Select the star and resize it:
1. Choose the Select tool.
2. Place the crosshair above and to the left of the star.
3. Press the mouse button and drag the dotted rectangle around the star. If the rectangle does not enclose the entire star when you release the mouse button, click any blank area to remove the selection rectangle and then start over. Your screen should resemble Figure 5-2.
4. Place the mouse pointer on the lower-right corner handle and drag upward and inward to reduce the size of the star by about one-quarter.
4. Create and position a copy of the object:
1. With the object still selected, place the mouse pointer anywhere inside the selection rectangle. The pointer becomes a four-headed arrow.
2. Hold down the Ctrl key and press the mouse button, and then drag downward and to the right until the copy of the object is no longer overlapping the original object. Release the Ctrl key and the mouse button. You now have two stars in the work area.
5. Save the drawing and leave it on the screen for the next Step-by-Step.

Hot Tip: If you hold down the left mouse button by mistake and erase some of the drawing, stop immediately and choose Undo from the Edit menu. Then begin, again holding down the right mouse button.

Saving a Drawing

You have learned that you save a drawing in Paint in the same way you saved documents in Notepad and WordPad. Choose Save As to save the drawing the first time or with a new name, or location; choose Save to store changes to an existing drawing.

The first time you save a drawing, you have an important decision to make, and that is what file format to use. Paint’s Save As dialog box contains the Save as type drop-down list shown in Figure 5-3. You can see that Paint offers you a number of options for saving your file, from monochrome bitmap to 24-bit bitmap. The 24-bit bitmap option gives you the most options for color and provides the best resolution, but files saved in this format can be very large. If you are working on a floppy disk, you may not be able to store many 24-bit Paint files to the disk. For the purposes of this course, the 256 Color Bitmap option provides adequate color range and resolution and results in files of manageable size.

Step-by-Step 5.2

1. Use the text tool to put the standard school header on your drawing.
2. Choose Save As from the File menu. If necessary, display the Save As type drop-down list and select 256 Color Bitmap. Key Gala Flier lastnameinitial in the File name text box, and click the Save button.
3. Exit Paint. If instructed, shut down Windows and your computer

Hot Tip: Be patient. It takes longer to save a drawing than to save a text file.