| Our Tutorials and Procedures go over many of the most commonly used tools in A.P.E. but as you may be aware A.P.E. has hundreds and hundreds of different tools, filters, and effects that can be used to make your images awesome. Here we’d like to just briefly mention some of these cool tools and other neat features that you might want to experiment with on your own. |
| Ever wish you could paint as well as some of the great impressionist painters? Well that might be hard but using the Impressionist Brush Tool you can make your A.P.E. images have that awesome impressionist feel. Try it out on photos or your own drawings. The Impressionist Brush can be found by either clicking and holding on the Brush Tool on the left toolbar until you are given three different brush options, or just click on the Brush Tool and then on the top toolbar you will see a choice for the Impressionist Brush. | |
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| The Gradient Tool is a fun tool that can be used to make cool backgrounds and fill shapes with interesting color blends. Still the number of custom gradients that come with A.P.E. are limited... but you can make your own. After choosing the Gradient Tool from the toolbar on the left side of your screen go up to the top toolbar and find the dropdown option that lets you pick gradients (this dropdown option will display a current gradient that is formed by the foreground and background colors you are using). Instead of dropping down this menu double click right on the displayed gradient. A dialog box titled Gradient Editor should pop up. In this editor you can design your own custom gradients. By using the gradient slider bar in this dialog box you can make all sorts of combinations of colors. If you create a gradient you really like click New in the dialog box and that gradient will be added to the custom gradients you have available. When you are done playing around or have made what you like simply click OK to get out of the dialog box. | |
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| Located at the bottom of the left toolbar are two tool option areas these areas include the Blur, Sharpen, Smudge Tool (top option) and the Sponge, Dodge, Burn Tool (bottom option). Check these tools out as they can be very useful for adding little details or making small edits on your images. All these tools work more or less like the Brush Tool but instead of painting something new they make subtle changes to an already existing image. Also check out the top toolbar when you use these tools, there are some little options that can be adjusted up there. | |
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| Type Mask Tools can be found by clicking and holding down on the Type Tool located on the left toolbar. Type Mask Tools work like a mix of type and selection to select an area in a word form. By using the Type Mask Tools you can create fun looking text either by selecting a certain textured area or by applying filters and effects to the text selection. | |
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| The Stamp Tools (Clone and Texture) are neat tools that allow you to copy parts of an already existing image and then paint the copy down either somewhere else on the same workspace or on a completely different workspace in A.P.E. By adjusting the opacity of the Stamp Tools you can overlay portions of an image on another image. The Stamp Tools are fun to use on editing pictures of people and merging different faces. | |
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| By going to Image --> Transform on the file menu you can reshape and adjust your whole image. Free Transform allows dragging and changing of your whole image in a number of ways while an option like Skew limits you to a specific field of transformation. Using these options can provide a large number of different outcome and allow you to manipulate your image so as to fit to your preferences. |  |
| Always remember the top toolbar above your workspace. That toolbar becomes different for every tool that you choose from the left. By playing around with some of the options on the top toolbar you can make a single tool do all sorts of different things. Consider the simple Brush Tool. After choosing this tool you have a specific top toolbar. By clicking on the dropdown menu next to the word "Mode" you are presented with a number of various choices such as Overlay, Difference, and Saturation to name a few. By choosing one of these options you are cahnging the Brush Tool from a simple drawing device to a complex editing tool that can completely change the way an image looks. By choosing Difference for example, the Brush Tool takes the color you have chosen to paint with then finds the difference between that color and the colors you paint on in an image. The best way to learn the different things that can be done with the top toolbar is merely to experiment seeing as there are a vast number of options each with several variations of use. | |
| A.P.E. is an incredibly advanced and complex program with many tools and effects. There is no easy way to explain and learn how to use every tool that the software provides. One of the best ways to familiarize yourself with A.P.E. is to play around with all the various tools that are included. By playing around you are likely to discover all sorts of things that A.P.E. can do to make your images look interesting, fun, and professional. |
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