Flaming Pear India Ink Guide

India Ink

What it does

India Ink is a plug-in filter for paint programs. It converts color or greyscale images into several unusual styles of black-and-white halftones, suitable for black-and-white printing.

How to install

Illustrated installation instructions are online.

To use this software, you need a paint program which accepts standard Photoshop 3.02 plugins.

Just put the plug-in filter into the folder where your paint program expects to find it. If you have Photoshop, the folder is Photoshop:Plugins:Filters or Photoshop:Plug-ins. You must restart Photoshop before it will notice the new plug-in. It will appear in the menus as Filters->Flaming Pear->India Ink.

Most other paint programs follow a similar scheme.

If you have Paint Shop Pro: you have to create a new folder, put the plug-in filter into it, and then tell PSP to look there.

PSP 7:

Choose the menu File-> Preferences-> File Locations... and choose the Plug-in Filters tab. Use one of the "Browse" buttons to choose the folder that contains the plug-in.

The plugin is now installed. To use it, open any image and select an area. From the menus, choose Effects->Plug-in Filters->Flaming Pear->India Ink.

PSP 8, 9, and X:

Choose the menu File-> Preferences-> File Locations... In the dialog box that appears, choose Plug-ins from the list. Click "Add." If you are using PSP 8 or 9, click "Browse". Now choose the folder that contains the plug-in.

The plugin is now installed. To use it, open any image and select an area. From the menus, choose Effects->Plugins->Flaming Pear->India Ink.

Controls

When you invoke India Ink, a dialog box will appear:

Quick start
If you just want to make some effects quickly, click the dice button until you see something you like; then click OK.

Settings
Style: several different styles of halftone are available. (Some of the styles do not make use of all the other controls; so when you choose such a style, some other controls may become inactive.) Scale: Lets you magnify the halftone pattern by 1x, 2x, or 4x. Line: This control lets you choose five different line weights. It has a slightly different effect with each style, so be sure to experiment. Gamma: Some styles draw light areas and dark areas with different patterns. The gamma control lets you draw dark areas with the pattern used for light areas, or vice versa. Warping: Some styles let the colors in the image warp their pattern; use the warping control to say how much. Angle: For warpable styles, the angle control sets the direction of warping. (Except for the style “wave,” where it sets the angle of the wavy pattern.) Sharpen: This lets you increase the contrast of edges in your image. Most images look better with some sharpening. It also improves the warping of some halftone styles like "basketweave". Diameter: Controls the width of the contrasty area around edges.

Other controls

Dice This randomizes the settings. Click it as much as you want to see different effects.

Random seed Clicking changes only the random pattern of the waves, and leaves everything else the same.

Glue mode popup menu Lets you combine the water with the underlying image in various ways. Modes other than "normal" produce special effects. The next-glue button advances to the next glue mode.

Auto Preview When this box is checked, the preview automatically updates whenever you move any control. Turn it off if you want to save time.

Load preset India Ink comes with some presets, which are files containing settings. To load one, click this button and browse for a preset file.

Save preset When you make an effect you like, click this button to save the settings in a file.

Undo backs up one step.

Three more buttons:

OK Applies the effect to your image.

Cancel Dismisses the filter, and leaves the image unchanged.

Register Allows you to type in a registration code.

dice

random seed

next glue

load preset

save preset

undo

Version History

Version 1.97 June 2007

Fixes a problem where the plug-in wouldn't remember its registration when it was installed in one user account but activated in another.

Version 1.95 July 2005

Adds previews in the file chooser. Two new glue modes.

Version 1.94 October 2004

Fixes a problem in 16-bit mode where only part of the image would be processed.

Version 1.92 September 2004

Adds spots, netting, and spider styles. Previews better resemble the final result.

Version 1.9 May 2004

Works faster, works with 16-bits-per-component color, and has new glue modes.

Version 1.85 December 2003

Recordable as a Photoshop action.

Version 1.8 September 2003

Makes the preview larger; adds more glue modes and the next-glue button.

Version 1.75 March 2003

Adds new styles: poster tone 2, Bayer, and Ostromoukhov.

Version 1.72 February 2003

Fixes a crash that could happen when using the menus under Windows XP.

Version 1.71 December 2002

Adds new glue modes: Hard Light, Overly, Superlay, Exclusion, Color, Luminance, Linear Light, and Pin Light. Fixes the appearance of text in the interface when running under Mac OS X 10.2.3 . Removes the zoom controls, which did not give properly shrunken previews.

Version 1.7 December 2001
Adds the 'poster tone' style and adds previews to the preset browser.

Version 1.6 September 2001
Adds an Undo button.

Version 1.5.2 July 1999
Improved compatibility with non-Photoshop paint programs.

Version 1.5 February 1999
Built-in image sharpening and improved pattern warping.

Version 1.4.6 June 1998
Improved stability, and added the conversion utility for settings files.

Version 1.4.5 May 1998
Fixed another display bug similar to 1.4.1.

Version 1.4.1 March 1998
Fixed a display bug that made the text vanish from the popup menus under Mac OS 8.

Version 1.4 December 1997
Added the preview, the presets, and the glue modes.

Version 1.3 December 1996
Added the styles ‘shards’ and ‘bubbles’.

Version 1.2 November 1996
Added the style ‘hatching,’ and redesigned the interface.

Version 1.1 October 1996
The first public release, with 13 halftone styles.

How to Purchase

You can place an order online here. A secure server for transactions is available.

Questions

Answers to common technical questions appear on the support page, and free upgrades appear periodically on the download page.

Trouble with your order? Orders are handled by Kagi; please contact them at admin@kagi.com .

For bug reports and technical questions about the software, please write to support@flamingpear.com .