CardGFX
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The
Graphics Muse Tools
CardGFX |
Welcome to CardGFX Online from the Graphics Muse!. CardGFX is a plug-in for the GIMP that lets you easily convert a single image into a format suitable for printing on Business and Greeting Card stock or regular paper. You can determine page characteristics such as width and size and printer resolution as well as set the number of rows and columns your card stock contains. You can also get an idea of how big an image to create before you start!
CardGFX works by copying an existing image and scaling it to fit a single card, based on the size of the page and the number of rows and columns on the page. It then creates a new image window. The scaled copy of the original image is sharpened, if requested, and copied to the appropriate spots on the new image. Borders are added, also if requested, right before the new image window is displayed. All thats left is for you is to print the new image!
On this page you'll find everything you need to know in order to get started with and make the most use of CardGFX. Once you've gotten the hang of this plug-in, be sure to check out the other GFXMuse Tools plug-ins:
Table of ContentsBefore getting started we should get a little terminology under our belt. First, I'll be referring to each element in a row/column of the final image as a "grid square". Each grid square is essentially one business card or one side of a greeting card, for example. A grid square also has adjustable "grid margins". The original image will be scaled to fit into a single grid square and within the specified grid margins. The grid margins are different from the "page margins". Page margins are the areas between the edge of the paper and where the grid squares begin. Got all that? Ok, lets see how to use CardGFX.
Page Options, with Page Adjustments
showing some selected grid squares.
The CardGFX interface is fairly intuitive. First, there are two pages in the opening dialog: Page Options and Grid/Image Options. The first page, Page Options, allows you to configure how your printed page is set up. Starting in the upper left corner of this page you'll find the Page Adjustments frame (frames are outlined with a thin, raised line). This frame displays both the current page configuration information as well as allows you to interactively update the page width, height and margins. More on using this frame a little later.
To the right of the Page Adjustements, just below the Graphics Muse logo, are the Page Dimensions width and height input fields. You can type page dimensions in these fields if you want, or they will automatically be udpated when you make changes in the Page Adjustments frame.
Below the Page Dimensions fields are the Row and Columns settings. Clicking on the arrow buttons will increase or decrease the numbers of rows or columns. Below these are two buttons labeled Select All and Clear All. These buttons are used to select or deselect all the grid squares in the Page Adjustments frame. More on what selecting a grid square means when we talk about using the Page Adjustement frame a little later.
Below the Page Adjustments frame is an informational field showing the Projected Size that the new image will be in kilobytes (1024 bytes) when it is created. The default shows an image size of 11.822MB - quite large but this is necessary to get a reasonable print image at the default resolution of 360 DPI. This information is displayed to give you an idea of the amount of memory you will be using to create the new image. Note that CardGFX, like most tools used to generate printable images, is quite a memory hog.
Images destined for a printer need to be created based on the printer resolution, not the screen resolution. Computer monitors use 72 Dots Per Inch (DPI) but printers can use up to 1400 DPI or more. The Printers DPI frame allows you to specify the printers DPI using either the slider or the text input field, whichever you prefer. The DPI setting is used to calculate how large to scale the copy of the original image in order to fit into the grid square inside the grid margins. You can see how large this scaled copy will be by looking at the Suggested Size inside the Source Image frame, just below the Printers DPI frame. This information is useful because you would, optimally, like to create the original image at the suggested size so that scaling is kept to a minimum. Excessive scaling will distort the original as it will appear in the new image window.
The last frame of the Page Options page is the Page Margins frame. These four fields can be used to manually specify the margins on the printed page. The toggle buttons are used to select the active margin in the Page Adjustements frame. Again, we'll cover this frame in more detail after we talk about the Grid/Page Options page.
The second page provides fewer options and is used to specify configuration options for individual grid squares. Like the first page, this page offers a preview frame, labeled Adjust Grid Square Options, with margin settings. To the right of this frame is the Grid Square Margins frame. Like its counterpart on the first page, this frame offers the user a chance to adjust margins except this time the margins are in the individual grid squares.
The grid square margins can be used as a boundary around the image copy in the final image. To draw this boundary you need only select the Add Border To Margin Line toggle, just below the Sharpen Amount frame. This border is drawn last, after the image copy has been sharpened but before the final image is actually displayed.
Beneath all these options on the Grid/Image Options page is a menu for selecting which image to use as the original, source image. Any image window can be used, be they RGB, Indexed or Greyscale images. The source image need not be the image from which the CardGFX plug-in was started.
Using The Page Adjustements Frame
You can interactively adjust the page size and margins by clicking and dragging within the framed outline in the Page Adjustments frame in the Page Options page of the main dialog. This frame contains the physical page, represented as the white block, the margins, and the row and column dividers. Additionally, you can interactively select which grid squares in the final image will receive copies of the original image.
In the upper right corner of the white page you will see a small box outlined in black. This is the Page Grab Box. Clicking within this box enables the page resize mode for the Page Adjustments frame. Just click inside the box and drag the mouse around to watch the page be resized. You can see the page dimensions being updated in the Page Width and Page Height fields to the right of the Page Adjustment frame. In order to allow finer adjustments to the page the amount of movement of the mouse does not correspond exactly to the amount of change in page size, so don't be suprised if you find the pointer needs to be moved outside of the Grab Box in order to change the page size a specific amount.
Margins are displayed in the Page Adjustments frame using the horizontal and vertical lines that extend to the edges of the frame (ie beyond the white area of the page). Three of these lines are dashed lines and one is solid - the solid margin line is the active margin. Clicking the left mouse button anywhere within the frame except the Page Grab Box will allow you to drag the active margin up or down (for the top and bottom margins) or left and right (for the side margins). To change the active margin, click on the appropriate toggle button in the Page Margins frame. When you click on one of the toggles the new active margin turns to a solid line and the rest become dashed lines. You can also type in margin widths directly in their respective fields in the Page Margins frame.
Page margins are specified in inches, since this is likely to be how they are specified with the paper stock you will be using. Converting inches into DPI is simple enough - just multiply the inches by DPI. However, you shouldn't need to do such conversions as CardGFX will take care of that for you.
CardGFX can be used to create a complete page of cards, such as business cards, or partial pages. Greeting card stock is often broken into 4 squares with printing done on both sides of the stock. CardGFX lets you select only the grid squares in which images will go on one side. To do this, click with the right or middle (either should work) mouse button inside one of the grid squares. A small red circle will be drawn in the selected box. The selected squares will be the ones which have copies of the original image copied into them in the final image. You can disable squares by clicking on the square again. Alternatively you can use the Grid Square Selection buttons to select or deselect all of the grid squares at one time.
Using the Adjust Grid Square Margins frame.
Using the Adjust Grid Square Margins frame in the Grid/Image Options page is just like using the Page Adjustements frame on the first page. The only differences are that the white page size cannot be changed and there are no grid square selections here. Like the Page Adjustments margins, the Grid Square margins are specified in inches.
Resetting Options To Their Initial Settings.
Resetting options to their default settings can be done by clicking on the Reset button at the bottom middle of the CardGFX dialog window. This button can also be used to update the Source Image menu in the Grid/Image Options page. This may be necessary, for example, if you have opened new Image Windows after having started the CardGFX plug-in.
Additionally, if you change the number of rows or columns then all selected grid squares are deselected. Note that none of the other fields are reset, although they may be adjusted to reflect the new size of individual grid squares.
Running CardGFX, Showing Status and Closing The Window.
Once you've made all the adjustments you need to your page just click on the OK button at the bottom left of the dialog window. This will start CardGFX on its way to creating the new image window. Because the scaling and copying process can take quite some time, especially on memory limited or slower processor systems, it is not always obvious that anything is happening. If you want to be certain that CardGFX is working, open the Status Message Dialog before you click on OK. Click on the Show Status button to open this dialog. When you do so a small window will open and the Show Status button will change to Hide Status. You can then click on the same button to hide this new dialog or click on the Close button in the Message dialog to close that window. The Status Message dialog is informational only. Its just there to make sure you get some idea that CardGFX hasn't locked up on you while its working!
CardGFX doesn't work quite like most of the other GIMP plug-ins you are used to - it doesn't close immediately after you have used it one time. This way you can experiment a few times to find the right configuration for your new image without having to restart the plug-in each time. To close the window, simply click on the Close button at the bottom of the main dialog. Additionally, because the normal GIMP Progress Update dialog cannot be closed without closing the plug-in dialog the CardGFX plug-in (and all GFXMuse Tools plug-ins) uses its own Status Message Dialog to show processing status.
CardGFX can use all of its defaults but still requires some input from the user. At a minimum, at least one grid square must be selected. If no grid squares are selected and the OK button is pressed, CardGFX will present an error dialog stating what needs to be done (which is to select at least one grid square).
Another possible problem is that the currently selected source image, from the Grid/Image Options page, may no longer exist. This might happen if you have closed the Image Window before processing it with CardGFX. If this happens, CardGFX will recognize the source image window has gone and pop up an error dialog. When it does this it also rebuilds the menu of images in the Grid/Image Options window. Simply select another image and proceed as usual.
Finding Out How Big To Make Your Original Source Image
Since scaling images can cause quite a bit of distortion you may want to start out by first creating an image that needs little or no rescaling. To do this you can open the CardGFX window and make the page adjustments for your expected output image. Then look in the Source Image box on the lower right of the main CardGFX dialog window. The Current Size shows the size of the current source image. The Suggested Size is the size the image should be if you want to prevent unwanted scaling distortion. Just make sure your source image is the suggested size and you'll be ready to rumble!