New Idea with explaination: ImageColor!!

[JosephB2000]

In this Forum I will introduce to you two new Option Ideas: ImageColor and ImageExpand.

ImageColor is a bit like Image Tint, but instead of tinting the image, it COMPLETELY paints over it. If you write a value of 255,255,255, then the image would be completely white!

ImageExpand is like going to photoshop and expanding a selected area by a number of pixels. If you write a value of 10, then the image would be 10 pixels spread apart, or 10 pixels bigger on every spot of that Image.
Negative numbers would only contract the image by the value.
(And BTW this is not the same as just expanding its Width and Height, photoshop users should know that :P)

(This doesn't work seeing how it uses non-existent Options)

Code: Select all

[Rainmeter]
Author=JosephB2000
Update=1000

[ParrotFrame]
Meter=Image
ImageName=#@#Images\Parrot.png
X=0
Y=0
ImageExpand=6
ImageColor=255, 255, 255

[Parrot]
Meter=Image
ImageName=#@#Images\Parrot.png
X=3
Y=3

As you can see, the ImageColor is set to 255,255,255, making the Frame white.
Also the Parrot Meter is set to 'X=3' and 'Y=3' because the ImageExpand of the Frame is 6, so the Parrot is centered.

The skin above would produce this Image:



(I made the image using photoshop, this isn't the product of the skin above)

These ideas would allow the frame to shape itself into the image, instead of having a simple squared frame...

If you need more information, please ask me!

[VasTex]

Being very familiar with Photoshop myself, I'll admit that these features would be useful, but I'm not sure if they're within the scope of Rainmeter's abilities.

I understand what you're trying to accomplish and I'm still not sure it would be possible to implement, not easily at least.

The 'Image Color' feature is essentially a 'Clipping Mask' in Photoshop. What this does is basically lay a color, or another image, on top of the visible pixels in the main image while ignoring the fully transparent pixels.

The 'Image Expand' feature you're looking for is another feature in Photoshop called a 'Stroke'. This essentially adds a large, colored border around the entire image.

All in all it looks like what you're trying to accomplish is an 'Image Stroke' effect by layering a white, larger version of your image below the main, colored version. Again, this could be condensed into a simple request for an Image Stroke option.

However, all of that aside I'm still not sure if this would be feasibly possible in Rainmeter. Rainmeter is not an image editing program and although it's a powerful program I'm unsure if it's that powerful.

[JosephB2000]

Being very familiar with Photoshop myself, I'll admit that these features would be useful, but I'm not sure if they're within the scope of Rainmeter's abilities.

I understand what you're trying to accomplish and I'm still not sure it would be possible to implement, not easily at least.

The 'Image Color' feature is essentially a 'Clipping Mask' in Photoshop. What this does is basically lay a color, or another image, on top of the visible pixels in the main image while ignoring the fully transparent pixels.

The 'Image Expand' feature you're looking for is another feature in Photoshop called a 'Stroke'. This essentially adds a large, colored border around the entire image.

All in all it looks like what you're trying to accomplish is an 'Image Stroke' effect by layering a white, larger version of your image below the main, colored version. Again, this could be condensed into a simple request for an Image Stroke option.

However, all of that aside I'm still not sure if this would be feasibly possible in Rainmeter. Rainmeter is not an image editing program and although it's a powerful program I'm unsure if it's that powerful.

I know that ImageExpand would be quite hard to implement, it is possible, but hard.
The ImageColor though must be really easy to implement.

And I know about the Stroke effect in photoshop, and I thought about doing an 'ImageStroke' Option instead, but the purpose of these ideas aren't only to make a custom white frame, but you can do cooler things.

E.G The ImageColor can be used by itself to make a custom image out of Rainbow Strips

[iNjUST]

The ImageColor option you are looking for should be nearly fully implementable using a combination of ImageTint and ColorMatrixN.

The ImageExpand option isn't very feasible from my (limited) understanding of how Rainmeter and Direct Draw is programmed to draw images. You can achieve something close to what you want by drawing an image twice, once at normal size and once bigger (underneath) set to a solid color using ColorMatrixN. But it won't be a perfect, even stroke.

[JosephB2000]

The ImageColor option you are looking for should be nearly fully implementable using a combination of ImageTint and ColorMatrixN.

The ImageExpand option isn't very feasible from my (limited) understanding of how Rainmeter and Direct Draw is programmed to draw images. You can achieve something close to what you want by drawing an image twice, once at normal size and once bigger (underneath) set to a solid color using ColorMatrixN. But it won't be a perfect, even stroke.

Still, having that ImageColor Option would be simpler and useful, because most skin creators know nothing about the ColorMatrix :P

And yeah having a bigger image (as I said in the main post) is not as good as ImageExpand because ImageExpand expands the image in all directions, the W and H only expands it upwards and sidewards :/

Still if any of the Developers implemented these, wouldn't that be cool...