2. After Installation and opening, the program will look something like this:
If you want to change the background color, you can, but I prefer to work with a white background.
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3. Use File/New to open a new image file that is 256 X 1.
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4. Go to the top menu and click on the number’s menu to the right of the magnifier icon to zoom into the image file as much as possible. It only goes to 32X, and that’s enough.
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5. We’re now going to set the alpha color, which is the background color in the ColorMap. In this instance, I’m going to make the alpha/background color pure black.
Use the scroll bar at the bottom of the workspace to make sure you are at the far left of the long line of pixels, because the first pixel on the left determines the alpha /background color of the CM.
To set this alpha color to black you will use the Paint Brush tool located along the left side of the Ultimate workspace. By putting your cursor on the Paint Brush Icon, and HOLDING THE LEFT MOUSE BUTTON, it will reveal a sub menu of 3 different Paint Brushes. You want the last paint brush in the selection, which reads “Single Freehand”. Just click on the last Paint Brush icon to make it active.
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6. When you activate the SingleFreehand Paint Brush, a new Tools menu will open, usually at the bottom of the screen area. It may already be open when you first opened your program. This new Tools menu serves as a supplement to the Icons on the left of the workspace and to the menu floating over the top of the workspace. This new bottom menu gives you details about the tool you just opened, which in this case is the SingleFreehand Paint Brush.
You want to change the default settings of this Paint Brush tool using this bottom menu. Drag the Transparency setting all the way to the left. You want no transparency in the Paint Brush at this point. You want to reduce the size of the Paint Brush to 1, which means you are going to be painting just one pixel at a time.
Refer to the photo above for further reference as to the location of these changes.
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7. You’re now going to select your first color, which in this instance is pure black. My paint brush had been in use earlier, and it shows a kind of crimson color in the Color Swatch at the menu on the left of the workspace, which I’m going to change because I want the alpha color to be black.
To change a color, just DOUBLE-CLICK on the Color Swatch Icon on the left. The arrow is pointing to its location. This will open up the color selection menu.
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8. You can select the paint color using several methods. First, you can enter the RGB numerical values. You can also enter the Hex values, or the HSV. Let’s stick with the RGB values if you want to enter numbers.
Or, you can just click on the colored square or anywhere around the colored circle. The new color should reflect in the Color Swatch on the Left of the Workspace. If you happen to click on the colored circle and nothing happens, just click on the big color square. I noticed this little quirk.
I’ve now selected black as the color with which to paint.
Click “Ok” to close the color menu.
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9. Now simply move the cursor over to the first pixel and make a left mouse click to set that first pixel to pure black … or to whatever color you want. Make sure you are at the far left of that long line of pixels (see the arrow pointing to the bottom scroll bar.)
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10. You are now ready to add the gradient colors. The quickest method I came up with using this Ultimate Paint program is to use the Airbrush tool. The icon for the Airbrush tool is located along the left side of the workspace, as shown by the arrow. Make sure you don’t choose the Spray Paint tool. Hold down the left mouse button on the ICON to see the sub-menu selection appear, and choose the AirBrush tool.
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11. If you look to the bottom of the workspace, you’ll see that the Airbrush Tab has been added to the Tools menu. You can select the area to spray by simply changing the Radius number located in this Tool menu. I’ve set it to 20 pixels, which means that the spray will only cover twenty pixels at a time.
I’m going to make my first gradient based on a crimson color. The trick to this SprayBrush tool is using multiple clicks. When you first click on the long line of 256 pixels, it will apply only a light coating of the selected color to - in this case - 20 pixels. That color will be thinned out to the left and to the right. By continuing to click, you apply more depth of that color and the gradient will change accordingly. Three or four clicks and you’ve made a simple gradient with the originally selected color.
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12. In the following photo, you’ll see that my repeated clicking has deepened the color, but also spread over the alpha black color, which means I’ll have to go back and fix that later. I just started my AirBrush a little too close to the last pixel.
To continue, just move along the long line of 256 pixels applying any color with any length of spread you want. The length of the gradient is dependent on the Radius number on the AirBrush Tool menu. So if you want a ColorMap that is nothing more than different shades of the same color, just expand that Radius number.
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13. When you reach the end of that 256 line of pixels, it’s time to set the default Pen color, which is the last pixel in that line. In this case, I’ve ended with a gradient of blue colors. To change that last pixel to a bright yellow, just reverse the process you used at the beginning of this exercise. Go back to the SingleFreehand Paint Brush, change colors to a bright yellow, and click on the last pixel.
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14. Finally, use File/SAVE AS to save this file as a .png file. Notice the settings in this final photo.
Your new ColorMap is finished.
There are other ways to make a gradient line of colors using Ultimate Paint, but this was the quickest and simplest approach I could devise.