ccabbf71-6509-4a6e-ba32-803b07d198bf-app_icon_01e@1x.png

Peeler 1.0 Help


What is Peeler?


Peeler is a graphics app for "peeling" graphic images off of solid color backgrounds, much like peeling the backing from a transparent sticker. Peeler preserves the true artwork colors, and it allows you to adjust the transparency to recover opacity from the original image.


Peeler can also extract a layer of pure color from an image for easier color editing or isolation, or for screen and multiply operations in apps like Photoshop.


Who is Peeler for?


Peeler is ideal for logos and clip art that have a solid white or solid black background. It's also ideal for lifting illustrations or scanned artwork off of the scanned paper, such as for isolating a hand-written signature for compositing onto a digital document.


How does Peeler work?


Peeler generates a new transparent image with an alpha channel that is based on the level of white within the pixels, and it adjusts each pixel's saturation to compensate for any change in opacity. You can further control the overall opacity of the resulting image by adjusting the fully transparent point or fully opaque point, making regions in the image more or less opaque by compressing the dynamic range of the alpha channel. Note that Peeler does not generate a mask or clipping path that outlines and isolates the artwork like masking programs do. Rather, Peeler strips the colors off of the background so that there are no edge pixels contaminated with the background color as happens with these other masking programs.


Peeler can also remove the "gray" value from image pixels to reveal the image's pure colors on either a white or black background. This is helpful when editing color regions in an image, when trying to isolate colors or color casts in shadows or highlights, or for use as an extra layer for screen and multiply operations in apps like Photoshop.


For example, it is sometimes difficult to "see" color casts in very light areas or very dark areas, but by extracting the colors as a separate layer, it makes it much more obvious which pixels have color casts. You can then work more easily on this color layer to remove or desaturate colors, then use the "color" blending mode in Photoshop to apply the color down onto the original image to make your changes.


Further, you can use the color layer to enhance saturation in images without "blowing out" colors like is typical with normal saturation controls. Simply generate a color layer with Peeler using "Gray to White," and then place this layer above another layer in Photoshop and use the multiply blending mode to saturate and darken colors. Alternately, you can use "Gray to Black" and then use the screen blending mode to saturate and lighten colors. And you can stack multiple layers to enhance the effect without getting the blown-out result when using normal saturation commands.


Peeler can save the resulting image as a TIFF, PNG or native Photoshop PSD file. Peeler maintains color profiles and is intelligent about straight and premultiplied alpha.


How does Peeler work?


Peeler is an evolution of bergdesign's long-time Photoshop plugins - Peel Off White, Peel Off Black, Gray to White and Gray to Black. Over time, changes to Photoshop and its outdated Filter Factory plugin and Pixel Bender plugin have rendered our plugins unusable in Adobe CC, so we wrote a stand-alone app to perform the same job and provide increased functionality.


Peeler's Features


Peeler is elegantly simple - Just drag a file onto Peeler's window and select the desired operation from the pop-up menu at the top-right of the widow.


ccabbf71-6509-4a6e-ba32-803b07d198bf-Screen Shot 2016-04-11 at 4.54.54 PM.png


Peel Operations


Peel Off White - Converts a white background into transparency, allowing control of the alpha channel

Peel Off Black - Converts a black background into transparency, allowing control of the alpha channel 

Reduce White Matte - Converts a white background into transparency, allowing control of the white matting level

Reduce Black Matte - Converts a black background into transparency, allowing control of the black matting level

Gray to White - All gray values are pushed to white, leaving behind only colors on white

Gray to Black - All gray values are pushed to black, leaving behind only colors on black


When using Peel Off White or Peel Off Black, you can adjust the dynamic range of the resulting alpha channel to make colors more or less opaque, if desired. Simply drag the slider thumb for the Opaque point to the left to make pixels more opaque (pixels with alpha above this point become fully opaque), or drag the slider thumb for the Transparent Point to the right to make pixels more transparent (pixels with alpha below this point become fully transparent). To determine the current opacity of an area, simply move the mouse pointer over the image and observe the opacity value (Op) in the Pixel Info section on the right or the small indicator triangle underneath the slider. All alpha values between the Transparent Point and Opaque Point are then smoothly interpolated to preserve the gradation of any soft edges.


When using Reduce White Matte or Reduce Black Matte, you can adjust the opacity of the pixels by choosing the points at which the matte color is completely removed and/or where the matte color is left untouched. Simply drag the slider thumb for the Opaque point to the left to make pixels more opaque (pixels with alpha above this point become fully opaque by leaving the matte color in the pixel), or drag the slider thumb for the Transparent Point to the right to make pixels more transparent (pixels with alpha below this point become fully transparent by removing all of the matte color). To determine the current opacity of an area, simply move the mouse pointer over the image and observe the opacity value (Op) in the Pixel Info section on the right or the small indicator triangle underneath the slider. All alpha values between the Transparent Point and Opaque Point are then smoothly interpolated to preserve the gradation of the matte level.


Note: Peel Off White and Reduce White Matte will produce identical results when the Transparent Point is at 0% and the Opaque Point is at 100%, as will Peel Off Black and Reduce Black Matte. It is only when you adjust the Opaque Point that you will see the difference between the Peel Off operations and the Reduce Matte operations.


Rule of Thumb #1: If you want to preserve the lightness of colors in a logo, the Reduce Matte operations are your best choice because they will leave white/black matting in the pixels, better preserving the original appearance of the colors.


Rule of Thumb #2: The more saturated the colors, the better the result from Peeler. More saturated colors means that any soft edges will have a greater number of opacity variations in them, allowing you more adjustment to the opacity range before the changes visually degrade the image.


When using Gray to White or Gray to Black, you can adjust the saturation of the resulting colors, if desired. By default, the pixels retain the same saturation levels as the original image, but you can adjust the overall saturation within Peeler before saving the image.


Trim Edge Pixels


Peeler can trim excess pixels from the four edges to crop the resulting image. When using Peel Off White or Peel Off Black, this option will trim fully transparent pixels from the edges of the image, cropping the image to the smallest rectangle that contains the pixels with some opacity. When using Gray to White or Gray to Black, this option will trim white or black pixels from the edges of the image, cropping the image to the smallest rectangle that contains the pixels with some color.


Background Swatches


Screen Shot 2016-04-11 at 4.49.58 PM.png


Click a color/pattern swatch to change the background behind the image. Note that this does not change the peeled image itself - it only simulates the peeled image as composited onto this background. When the custom color swatch is selected, clicking it a second time will open the system color picker to change the color.


Panning & Zooming


Panning and zooming follow conventions from Adobe's suite of applications. You can use the keyboard to zoom in or out, fit-to-view or zoom to actual pixels. You can hold modifier keys and click once to zoom in or out, or you can click and drag to the left or right for "scrubby" style zooming. You can also use the zoom slider in the lower right corner of the window, or you can click on the plus and minus buttons on either side of the slider to zoom in or out, respectively.


Zooming In

 command  +  + 

 command  +  spacebar  + click

 command  +  spacebar  + click-drag to the right (for scrubby-style zoom in)


Zooming Out

 command  +  - 

 command  +  option  +  spacebar  + click

 command  +  spacebar  + click-drag to the left (for scrubby-style zoom out)


Spotlight Tip: If you have  command  +  spacebar  set to invoke the Spotlight search field (as it is by default in the Shortcuts tab of the Keyboard pane in System Preferences), you can first press the  spacebar  key and then the command key to zoom without invoking Spotlight.


Fit To View

 command  +  0  (command + zero)


Actual Pixels 1:1

 command  +  1 


Panning

 spacebar  + click-drag to pan around the view

Use two finger scrolling on a trackpad

Use the mouse scroll wheel to scroll up and down, or press the shift key while using the mouse scroll wheel to scroll left and right


Pixel Info


Displays the location, color and opacity values for the pixel underneath the mouse cursor.


x,y -> The row and column of the pixel in the image

Op -> The opacity of the pixel (0% = fully transparent, 100% = fully opaque)

r'g'b' -> The red, green and blue values of the pixel (with gamma), in integer format

rgb -> The linear red, green and blue values of the pixel (without gamma), in floating point format

hsb -> The linear hue, saturation and brightness values of the pixel (without gamma), in floating point format

h's'b' -> The hue, saturation and brightness values of the pixel (with gamma), in floating point format


Original Image


Displays the properties of the original image.


px -> The dimensions of the image in pixels, plus the bit depth of the color channels (bits per pixel)

dpi -> The pixel density in dpi (dots-per-inch)

pt -> The dimensions of the image in points

profile -> The color profile of the image (or the assumed profile if there is none)

alpha -> If an alpha channel is present, this indicates whether the alpha channel is straight or premultiplied alpha


Output


Peeler can save the resulting image as a TIFF, PNG or native Photoshop PSD file. Select the desired file format and simply drag the resulting image to the Finder's desktop to create a file. You can also choose "Save" from the "File" menu.


PNG files and Photoshop PSD files specify straight alpha but when generating TIFF files, you have the option of choosing straight or premultiplied alpha.


When copying data or dragging the image to another app, Peeler will also put that "flavor" of data on the clipboard. However, be aware that the OS X pasteboard server (the clipboard server) always seems to add a TIFF flavor to the clipboard data as well so that most any application can accept the clipboard contents even if the specified format is not accepted.


A warning about pasting into Photoshop: Currently, Photoshop alters image colors when receiving pasted data from the clipboard that has an alpha channel. When receiving clipboard data from other apps, Photoshop appears to matte the pixel colors with white when accepting the pasted data no matter how the alpha data is supplied (either straight or premultiplied). However, you can work around this issue when you paste a Peeler image by selecting the newly pasted layer in Photoshop's Layers palette and then choosing Layer -> Matting - > Remove White Matte. This will repair the pixel color values and the layer will be identical to the data you generated in Peeler. Alternately, you can just save the Peeler image to a PSD file format and double-click it to open it in Photoshop because Photoshop opens all file formats properly with either straight or premultiplied alpha.


I am trying to identify a method to work around this problem, but be aware that it will exist until further notice.


Support


Please email support@bergdesign.com with any questions or feedback.


Copyrights, Trademarks & License