Using Studio s Styles

 < Day Day Up > 

Using Studio's Styles

There are more extensive text-editing capabilities to explore, but if you're like me, you'll produce the most professional-looking titles by using styles contained in Studio's Looks browser.

When you create your first text title, Studio applies the default style at the top left of the Looks browser (Figure 10.23), which is open by default when you open the Title editor. Otherwise, to open the Looks browser, click the Looks icon at the left of the browser window or go to the Studio menu and choose Title > Album > Looks.

Figure 10.23. Studio's styles are a real blessing for creatively challenged individuals (like me); you can apply them to text and other objects.


As you scroll down the Looks browser, you'll see increasingly creative title presets. The upcoming tasks show you how to apply and customize Studio's Looks. Note that changing styles doesn't affect font, font size, alignment, or any other text attribute.

To apply a new look to text

1.

Select the text to adjust and click the gray bounding box to display the control points (Figure 10.19)

2.

Using the scroll bar on the right of the Looks browser, scroll down to the desired style (Figure 10.24).

Figure 10.24. Select the text to change; then select a new style, and you're done. Use the scroll bar on the right to scroll down the browser.


3.

Select the style with the pointer.

As soon as you select the style, Studio applies it to the selected text.

Tip

  • If you hover your pointer over any style, Studio displays a submenu containing eight styles with different combinations of color, edge, and shadow (Figure 10.25). Move your mouse, and the submenu disappears, or you can click the X in the upper-right corner.

    Figure 10.25. Hover your mouse over a style to see a submenu containing eight similar styles.



To customize a solid text color

1.

Select the style to customize (Figure 10.24).

2.

In the Looks browser, select the Custom tab (Figure 10.26).

Figure 10.26. Wait, there's more! You can even customize the styles. Note the Solid color, Gradient, and Transparent color swatches for the text face, edge, and shadow.


3.

In the Face section, select the radio button next to the solid-colored box with the Tool Tip Change Face Color.

4.

Click the solid-colored box.

Studio's Color selection dialog box opens (Figure 10.27).

Figure 10.27. Studio's Color selection dialog box. You can store your custom colors, a useful feature when you need to repeat them.


5.

Choose the desired color by selecting it from the Basic Colors or Custom Colors palette or by clicking a color on the spectrum.

6.

If you want, save your custom color by clicking the Add to Custom Colors button (Ctrl+A).

Saving your custom color helps you maintain uniformity as you work.

7.

Click OK to close the dialog box.

To customize a gradient text color

1.

Select the style that you want to customize.

2.

In the Looks browser, select the Custom tab.

3.

In the Face section, select the radio button next to the gradient-colored box.

4.

Click the Gradient box.

Studio's Gradient Selection dialog box opens (Figure 10.28). The boxes at each corner of the Gradient preview box control the gradient blend.

Figure 10.28. Here's where you edit the gradients. Each color box opens the Color Selection screen.


5.

Click any box to open its Color Selection dialog box. You can configure each of the four colors independently.

6.

Click the X in the upper-right corner to close the Gradient Selection dialog box.

To adjust text softness

1.

Select the style that you want to customize.

2.

In the Looks browser, select the Custom tab.

3.

In the Face section, select the solid or gradient radio button and adjust the face softness with the Face slider, viewing the results in the Preview window (Figure 10.29).

Figure 10.29. Use the softness sliders to control text strength; click the desired radio button to set shadow location.


Softness controls the definition of the text face. At 0 the face is completely sharp, while at 30 it's very indistinct, causing the text to blend into the background.

If you have text selected in the Title editor, Studio applies these modifications to the title in near-real time.

To adjust text edges

1.

In the Edge section, select the solid or gradient radio button and then change the text color as described in "To customize a solid text color" or "To customize a gradient text color" earlier in this section.

2.

Use the Edge sliders to modify the edge width and softness.

Width refers to the width of the edge, while edge softness, like face softness, relates to how sharply Studio defines the edge. The easiest way to get a feel for this is through experimentation.

To adjust text shadows

1.

In the Shadow section, select the solid or gradient radio button and then change the text color as described in "To customize a solid text color" or "To customize a gradient text color" earlier in this chapter.

2.

To modify the distances of the shadow from the original text and shadow softness, use the Shadow sliders.

3.

To change the position of the shadow, click the button for the desired Shadow location.

Tip

  • There are no customization options for the transparent text style.


To add a style to the Favorites Album

1.

Select the Favorites tab to open the Favorites Album (Figure 10.30).

Figure 10.30. The Favorites Album can come in very handy, especially when you decide to change a style.


2.

Click the Suitcase icon to add the currently selected style (Figure 10.31).

Figure 10.31. Click the Suitcase icon to save your current style.


Studio adds the style to the Favorites Album (Figure 10.32).

Figure 10.32. See the new style added to your Favorites.


To delete a style from the Favorites Album

1.

From within the Favorites Album, select the offending style.

2.

Click the Trash Can icon to delete the style.

Tips

  • Saving styles in your Favorites Album is very convenient when you're changing the styles of multiple objects. Otherwise, you have to hunt through the Looks browser each time you apply the style.

  • You can save any style in the Favorites Album; it doesn't have to be one that you've edited.

  • Think twice before deleting a style, because you cannot bring the style back with Undo.


About Text Scaling and Word Wrapping

Studio's text-resizing and word-wrapping controls (Figure 10.33) can be confusing at first, so I'll explain a couple of concepts that made them easier for me to understand.

Figure 10.33. Your shrinking, scaling, and word-wrap controls.


First, the top two controls, Shrink to Fit and Scale to Fit, are alternatives for managing text appearance, typically used when a text string doesn't fit into the desired space. This is shown in the top of Figure 10.34, where the text "Aiken-Rhett House" has too many characters to fit in the same space as "Beach and Pool" beneath it. Since they're both text menu buttons on the same page, I want their appearance to match as closely as possible.

Figure 10.34. Shrink to Fit doesn't distort the letters in any way, while Scale to Fit does.


One way to solve the problem is to remove characters from the title (like the word "House," for example) and fit it that way, and I may ultimately choose that approach. However, the Shrink to Fit and Scale to Fit functions provide two alternatives.

As shown in the middle of Figure 10.34, Shrink to Fit shrinks the text to fit it into the horizontal space without distorting the font. Obviously, the text size is slightly smaller, but the overall size and appearance is very similar to the Beach and Pool text string we're trying to match.

In contrast, with Scale to Fit, Studio scales the text to fit the available horizontal and vertical space, producing the larger, slightly distorted look on the bottom of Figure 10.34. This looks nothing like the "Beach and Pool," so it's not a good alternative in this application.

The word-wrapping controls operate like this. When you select Word Wrap On and then resize the text box, Studio resizes the box and rewraps the words to make them fit, but does not change the size. Figure 10.35 illustrates this point, working from the same starting point as Figure 10.34. Here, I selected Word Wrap On and made the box smaller. As you can see at the top of the figure, the text size is the same, but Studio adjusted the word wrap to make the text fit.

Figure 10.35. Select Word Wrap On, and Studio wraps your text for you, but doesn't change font size. Word Wrap Off returns you to the status quo.


Then I selected Word Wrap Off, and Studio disabled Word Wrap and converted a two-line title to a one-line title.

Between you, me, and the fencepost, I find Studio's word-wrapping controls unintuitive and not particularly useful, and I rarely use them. Instead, I insert carriage returns in my titles to control word-wrapping directly.


     < Day Day Up > 


    Pinnacle Studio 10 for Windows. Visual QuickStart Guide
    Pinnacle Studio 10 for Windows Visual Quickstart Guide
    ISBN: B001E08S6S
    EAN: N/A
    Year: 2005
    Pages: 189

    flylib.com © 2008-2017.
    If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net