User manual ARCSOFT COLLAGE CREATOR QUICK START GUIDE

[. . . ] ARCSOFT PRODUCT FAMILY ArcSoft PhotoStudio ® Awesome photo editing for the home or office. Work with layers and enhance your photos in a number of ways. ArcSoft VideoImpression TM Create multimedia presentations by combining photos and video clips with audio, text and scene transitions. Macintosh OS 8. 6/9/X. ArcSoft PhotoImpression TM This all-in-one solution blends powerful photo editing with project templates and a slick, easy-to-use interface. [. . . ] It's basically a fancy term that has been adopted to describe these things. Driver: Drivers are actually programs or files that are placed on your computer whenever you install a CD that comes with a piece of hardware. A driver basically tells the computer what device you have, and is responsible for transferring data back and forth from the device to your computer. Every piece of hardware you have on your computer has a driver. Your printer, your video card, your modem, your sound card. . . all of these devices have a driver installed on your computer that tell it exactly what the device is, what it does, and how it does it. When you installed your flashy new digital camera software, the drivers for the camera were installed as well. You can acquire photos from your devices through Collage Creator, but the device driver is doing the actual downloading or acquiring. Whenever you acquire photos, the program basically sits and waits while the driver for your device goes to work. If you're having problems downloading/acquiring images, contact the manufacturer of your camera (or other hardware device) to see if they have an update. Most companies have their drivers available for free download on their Web site, and update them whenever issues arise. · · · -2- Collage Creator Quick Start Guide Getting Started Now that you have an understanding of some of the terms that are used when referencing digital photography, let's get started!The photos in that folder will appear as thumbnails. In general, it's a good idea to keep all of the images on your computer stored in one location. It's good to create subfolders so that you can categorize them, but generally, you'll want them all readily accessible. The My Documents folder is a great place to use because it's easy to remember and find. -4- Collage Creator Quick Start Guide If you choose the From Album option, simply choose the album from the pull-down to see the available thumbnails. To create a new album, choose "< New >. " You can then use the Add and Acquire tools to add to your album. Consult the Interactive Help file within the program for more specific directions. Note: It's important to remember that albums do NOT store images; they merely reference where they're stored. You can create an album that contains thumbnails of images stored in a wide variety of locations. Albums provide you with a great to organize your photos by date, occasion, etc. Once you have your set of images listed in the pane on the left side of the screen, you can click and drag any thumbnail to the main workspace to add it to your collage: -5- Collage Creator Quick Start Guide Here are a few commands that can help you quickly organize the photos on your collage: Moving a photo: Click and drag any photo on the main workspace to move it about the page. Rotating a photo: Click and drag the rotate anchor to spin the photo. Resizing a photo: Click and drag any of the corner anchors to resize the photo. -6- Collage Creator Quick Start Guide Layers Since collage pieces can overlap, you're provided with the means of altering the stacked, or "layer" order of the photos. Move a selected piece up or down in the layer order by clicking the respective layer button. You can also click the Layers button to see a visual representation of each layer. [. . . ] You'll want to use this option if you have to stop working on your project, or if you feel that you may need to fix or change parts of it at another time. Save as a standard image file if you would like to email your collage to friends or family. They won't be able to read project files. Collage Creator Walk-Through ­ Saving Collage Pieces Printing images is a snap. The preview that you see is exactly how the page will print. [. . . ]