GraphicWorks 2.0 - Make CafePress Graphics Quick and Easy!

FREE DEMO Version

GraphicWorks 2.0 DEMO	(File Saving Disabled)	FREE

I strongly recommend you download and install the free demo version first, to be sure your system is able to run it.

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GraphicWorks 2.0 is a simple graphics utility that was designed for people new to graphics production who want to make graphics for CafePress products.

You can make graphic canvases at the sizes necessary for all the CafePress products.
You can create clockfaces with numerals in whatever font, size, color or style you want.
You can generate high-resolution calendars! Perfect for printing on posters or prints.
A quick and easy dialog box to make simple text graphics for t-shirts and bumper stickers with no muss, no fuss.
Assorted standard image processing abilities are built-in like sharpen, blur, rotate, crop, etc.
Supports transparent backgrounds- make a flat graphic with a masking color into a transparent one with one click. Flatten a transparent graphic with one click.
Creates 2-sided mug graphics with a single click!

Plus, if you just make simple text graphics and not anything fancy, you can get a text-only version.

I strongly recommend you download and install the free demo version first, to be sure your system is able to run it.

Requirements:

Windows 2000, Windows XP, or Windows Vista.
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01 or later installed. Download Microsoft Internet Explorer. It does not need to be your default web browser- it just needs to be installed on your system.
Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 or later installed. The GraphicWorks setup program will install .NET 2.0 if it is not detected on your system. If you want to install it on your own, you can Download .NET 2.0 here.

UNICODE

For the UNICODE features, you also need to have a UNICODE font installed. "Arial Unicode MS" is on most people's computers, as it comes with Microsoft Office. If you have "Arial Unicode MS", you will see a little snowman here:

☃

more information on UNICODE

Clockfaces

This program allows you to create clock face graphics to print out for crafts, or to upload graphics to CafePress to put on clocks for sale.

The clock faces it generates can be used as templates to work from, or as final images to print out apply to the clocks themselves.

This was designed for, and is ideally suited for, the custom clocks you can design at CafePress. The clock face graphics this software creates are ready to either upload directly to CafePress, or to manipulate further in other graphics applications.

Even though it was designed for CafePress, it can be used to create clock faces for any need- such as texture maps to apply to 3D models, or to print out and use to decoupage a clock yourself!

Select hour numerals as standard numbers, upper case roman numerals, lower case roman numerals, dots, tick marks, and many other numeral types- you can even select your own numeral types. Have the numerals drawn with any of the fonts on your system, even dingbat fonts like Wingdings and Webdings.

How to make a Clockface:

When you make a clock face, the base graphic MUST be exactly square- the exact same width and height.

If you are starting with a blank canvas, be sure and create the new canvas exactly square.

If you open an existing graphic that is not square, you can select Image Size... from the Edit menu to crop or scale the graphic to a square.

You can use the options in the Filters menu to modify your graphic if you want before you put the Clock face on it.

If you don't have any base graphic at all, the clock face dialog box will make one 3000 pixels square, filled white.

Once you have your background, click the Clock button in the button bar.

The Clock Properties dialog box has two tabs- Hour Ring and Minute Ring.

On the Hour Ring tab you can select the numeral style. Most of the style options, including all of the foreign language options, require UNICODE support. Without UNICODE, you can only use the selections at the top of the list.

For the Hour Ring radius, don't go over 90% if this clockface is for CafePress. Unless you want the numerals to be partially covered by the edge of the clock, then go for it. Hey, this is art not science, so do what you want! :)

The numerals can be in their standard orientations, or they can be rotated completely around the clockface. Regular rotation makes the numbers on the bottom half upsidedown, or they can be "adjusted" so that the bottom numbers are flipped right-side up, and the 3 and 9 are not rotated.

The Minute Ring consists of an Outer Ring, an Inner Ring, Ticks, Dots, and Numbers. The size of the ticks and dots are determined by the distance between the outer ring and the inner ring. You can hide the rings and just have the ticks by making their thicknesses 0.

When the clockface is created on a background graphic, it makes a new window. To redo the clockface, be sure and select the original graphic as the active window first. If the clockface window is selected when you create another clockface, the new one will be rendered on top of the old one.

Calendars

How to make a Calendar:

The Calendar creation tool is the most involved part of GraphicWorks, but don't be intimidated by the options- try them, see how they look, and you can always go back, edit, and reapply.

Just like for the Clock face, you must create a canvas first, or accept the default size and background color it makes.

Click the Calendar button. You will see tabs for Year, Months, Weeks, Days, Holidays, and Moon Phases.

In the Year tab you select the year of the calendar and the layout and the shape of the months on the page. Normally, the months and days will be squares, and only part of the canvas will be covered by the calendar. The rest will be your picture. Instead, you can have the month and day cells stretched to completely fill the canvas area.

In the Months tab you set the properties of the month box, the month labels, the first month of the year, and the layout of the days of the month.

In the Weeks tab you set the properties of the day of the week labels and the first day of each week.

In the Days tab you set the properties of the day cells and the date numbers.

In the Holidays tab you can select to show the labels of holidays and the color, font, size, and position of those labels.

In the Moon Phases tab you can show moon icons, and set their size, color and position.

With all of the calendar options, and some creativity, you can create almost any kind of calendar you can think of.

Calendar Layout Examples:

(Of course, these examples are very tiny- yours should be larger!)

One Month Calendar

Year Calendar 1x12

Year Calendar 2x6

Year Calendar 4x3

Year Calendar 6x2

Simple Text Graphics

How to make a Text Graphic:

Click the T icon on the button bar.
In the Make a Simple Text Graphic dialog box, select the product the graphic is for from the list- this determines the size and shape of the canvas to create the text on.
Click the colored buttons to select the background color and the text color.
Click the "Pick" button to pick the font to use- the font size is not important- the text will be scaled and wrap to fit the graphic area.
If you want, you can use the "Advanced" tab to adjust the graphic size and the margins. You can even make the background transparent or use gradient fills in the text or background.
Click the "OK" button and there is your graphic!
Now you can click the "Save" button to save the graphic to a PNG file.

Filters

While not a full image processing application, GraphicWorks has a number of common and not-so-common image filters.

Adjustment Filters

Each of these filters were applied to the following picture:

Unaltered

Invert All

Invert Hue Only

Invert Value Only

Grayscale

Minimum Grayscale

Maximum Grayscale

Desaturate

WarmTone

ColdTone

Convolution Filters

In addition to the built-in filters, GraphicWorks supports 7x7 convolution matrix filters. If you don't know what that means, don't fret- it's just filters like blur and sharpen.

Each of these filters were applied to the following picture: