Main Screen

The buttons across the top...

• The Preview button at the top shows your creation tiled across your desktop, with a variety of colored text samples. Just click your mouse anywhere on the desktop to return to the main screen.
• The Borders button opens the left border creation window. Use this after you've achieved the pattern you want.
• The Buttons button opens the button making window. Use this after you made and saved the background you want. There are some good tips on making buttons in the HELP file.
• The Wallpaper button sets the current Final Image as your desktop wallpaper.
• The Skin button skins Internet Explorer, Windows Explorer, and Outlook Express with the current Final Image.
• The Clear button clears all Image windows.
• The Option button opens a window that allows you to set the program color, set the saved image quality level, restore the program default color (yes, you can change the gray to anything), remove Background Magic wallpaper from your desktop, repair image tiles, turn off the opening sound (it's really cool!), remove the Explorer skin (only visible if you've skinned the durn thing), view the users license and register the program if you haven't done so and want to upgrade from the free version.
• The Help button opens a searchable help database and tips file.
• The Save button saves the current image in the Final Image preview window.
• The Exit button...come on now, you know what that's for.

Moving down, there are three large image windows. You load the images of your choice in the Image 1 and Image 2 windows, and the Final Image window shows the blend of the two. The slider underneath the 3 windows sets the blending balance.

You load the first two windows with images by dragging and dropping them from the scrolling thumbnail archive of images in the longer window at the bottom of the program. If either of the first two Image windows are empty, you can also double-click the images in the lower window to load them.

On the right, you'll see the Image Adjustment area. Notice in this screen shot the Final Image window is in bold type. That's the window the adjustments will be applied to. You can make adjustments to any of the images, just click inside the window you want apply the adjustment to and the window name will turn bold, indicating any adjustments will be applied to that window.

• The Emboss button embosses the image, not in the old gray mode, but in full color mode.
• The Erode button breaks apart the image a bit, kind of like it was lightly sand-blasted.
• The Invert button invert the colors, this can be dramatic!
• The Sharpen button sharpens the image a tad, similar to Emboss but with less emphasis.
• The soften button softens the hard edges in a tile.
• The Flip button flips the image horizontally.
• The Rotate button rotates the image 90 degrees clockwise.
• The Brightness slider adjusts the brightness...go figure.
• The Red, Green and Blue sliders adjust those colors, are we onto something here?

Between the Image Blend Slider and the image tiles are three more buttons.

• The Show Favorites button will show only the images you add to your favorites. You add images to your favorites list by right-clicking one and selecting "Add to favorites."
• The Load Color Tiles button lets you load a solid color into an image window.
• The Import/Remove button lets you add or remove images if you have upgraded to the PRO version.

By flipping and rotating images, you actually have many more patterns and textures to work with than the number of images in the program would indicate. Similarly, by inverting the colors of the images in windows 1 and 2 you add many more possibilities to the blending possibilities. For example, a texture with dents will become a texture with bumps when the image is inverted. Cool, huh!

Because of the required precision for a background to be seamless, some of the effects such as soften and emboss work better on some images than others, and some not at all. On all images, applying an effect too many times will cause it to lose it's seamlessness. This is not a flaw in the program, it's due to the precision required for seamlessness.