The Image Toolbox is a complete palette of professional tools. Click an icon to open the tool dialog, drag the icon to an image or an Active Tools list to apply the tool and open the appropriate dialog.
QuickSteps:
Working with Images
To display this section, press the Active Tools button on the button bar across the top of the Image Toolbox.
It lists the tools that have already been applied against the currently selected image.
The settings are permanent and do not appear in the Active Tools list of the Context Menu. This prevents other images from unintentionally being cropped or realigned when the Active Tools list is copied.
Rotates, mirrors and crops the image. You can also use any line in the image to become the new horizon or the perpendicular.
Move the two handles of the alignment band until it lines up with any object in the image that should be aligned vertically or horizontally. An example would be the wall of a building or the natural horizon.
Click the Flip button to flip the image horizontally, or click one of the rotate buttons to turn the image by 90° or 180°.
Use the cropping blades or the diagonal corner handles to define the new image rectangle. Hold down the Shift key to drag opposite blades simultaneously. Click inside the cutout area and then drag the hand cursor to move the cutout without changing its dimensions. Press the Fix button to maintain the aspect ratio (perpendicular blades will move proportionally). Otherwise, the image would appear stretched in one direction.
Note: This tool will only effect a single picture at a time. Use picture arrow buttons to browse to another image in the selection.
Quickstep
Guide: Editing Images, Copy Settings
The Red-Eye Removal tool corrects discolored eyes resulting from flash photography. In the left view of the currently selected image, click at the approximate position of a discolored eye. The right view will zoom into this area.
In the zoomed (right) view, click exactly on the discolored pupil. Take care not to click into any white glare inside the colored pupil. Both views will show a numbered crosshair marking the selected spot.
The two sliders Color Tolerance and Adjustment Effect allow you to fine-tune the correction. Increasing the color tolerance includes less-discolored pixels in the corrective action. Increasing the adjustment effect darkens the pupil in the result.
Up to 6 pairs of discolored eyes can be corrected in an image. Just click another eye in left view to mark the eye and customize the effect. To review the specific settings of an particular eye, use the input field Eye No.. Any unwanted correction spots can then be deleted by clicking Delete.
Note: This
tool will only affect a single picture at a time. Use picture arrow
buttons to browse to another image in the selection.
Quickstep Guide:
Editing Images, Copy Settings
Color profiles define distinct color spaces for individual devices, such as monitors and printers. This assures printed output will match the appearance on your monitor, assuming both devices support color profiles. When images are loaded, StudioLine will detect and use the available color profiles. Any new color profiles are automatically added to a collection for later reuse.
You can assign color profiles to individual images and use preference settings to associate default color profiles with certain cameras.
Even though it is not recommended as a standard practice, there may be occasions when you wish to permanently reduce the size of your original images. This may be useful if you scanned an original in better resolution than you ever expect to need. Keep in mind that print and Internet technology keeps advancing and disk storage has become increasingly affordable. In a few years you could find yourself scrambling for that original size, which may have seemed excessive today.
Because resizing will cause a loss of resolution, it is critical that you first perform any another pre-processing tasks. From the Image Toolbox, choose "Crop and Rotate" to define the ideal cut-out area for your images. Choose "Red-Eye Removal" to correct any discolored pupils in people or animals. Only after these preliminary steps are complete, choose one or multiple images and click on "Resize Original" in the Image Toolbox.
The original image will be irreversibly resized. StudioLine will prompt you where to keep a backup copy of the previous original. If you are certain that a backup copy is not needed, you can choose "Move to Recycle Bin" and later empty the recycle bin.
These tools are unavailable in Image Archive mode.
Rotates and crops the image so that a chosen line in the image is perfectly horizontal or vertical.
Move the two handles of the alignment band until it lines up with any object in the image that should be aligned vertically or horizontally. An example would be the wall of a building or the natural horizon.
Click the Flip button to flip the image horizontally, or click one of the rotate buttons to turn the image by 90° or 180°.
Use the cropping blades or the diagonal corner handles to define the new image rectangle. Hold down the Shift key to drag opposite blades simultaneously. Click inside the cutout area and then drag the hand cursor to move the cutout without changing its dimensions.
Note: This tool will only affect a single picture at a time. Use picture arrow buttons to browse to another image in the selection.
Rotate image by any angle, or click Rotate with the left or right mouse button to rotate by 45° in the respective direction.
Click the Flip button to flip the image horizontally.
Use the cropping blades or the diagonal corner handles to define the new image rectangle. The Fix button will coordinate the movement of multiple blades to maintain the aspect ratio. Otherwise, the image would appear stretched in one direction.
Hold down the Shift key to drag opposite blades simultaneously.
Click inside the cutout area and then drag the hand cursor to move the cutout without changing its dimensions.
Note: This tool will only affect a single picture at a time. Use picture arrow buttons to browse to another image in the selection.
Fits an image into maximum picture dimensions. The scaling may be controlled numerically, or by dragging the scaling handles of the selector band.
When "Maintain Proportions" is chosen, one of the dimensions may be less than the maximum permitted. Without this option, the image would be distorted.
If the original image is smaller than either of the maximum dimensions, the image will not be enlarged, as this would reduce image quality. To override this default behavior, choose "Allow Enlarge" or hold the Ctrl key while dragging the scaling handles. Although StudioLine employs a bi-cubic algorithm, the loss of quality will eventually be noticeable. Always inspect the enlarged image to determine if the result is acceptable.
Fits an image into maximum picture dimensions, relative to the current size.
When "Maintain Proportions" is chosen, then the same factor is used to scale width and height.
If the original image is smaller than either of the maximum dimensions, the image will not be enlarged, as this would reduce image quality. The Scale Absolute tool offers an option to enlarge the image under these conditions.
Enhances image contrast by optimizing tone levels of the light and dark areas of an image, and by applying gamma correction against the mid tones. This tool is helpful for images that are over or underexposed and for countering the effect of light diffused by a large number of lenses (e.g., in digital cameras).
Use the Highlights and Shadows sliders to manually select a reference value that defines the lightest and darkest areas of the image. The Auto-Contrast button will analyze the image to determine optimum values.
Use the Midtones slider to manually select a reference value that defines the middle tone between the lightest and darkest areas. The Auto-Tone button will analyze the image to determine optimum value.
After using the Auto-Contrast or Auto-Tone buttons, the sliders can be used to further refine the calculated values.
The highly intuitive white-balance tool is ideally suited for removing color hues. It's as quick as it is simple.
Click "White Balance" in the tool bar or the image toolbox. The mouse pointer changes to a pipette.
Click the pipette in an area of the image that you know should be grey. (You can click either inside the thumbnail image or in the image viewer.)
StudioLine automatically corrects the color hue.
If necessary, use the various options in the "White Balance" panel to perfect the results.
With the help of gradation curves, you can precisely control the luminescence of the individual color separations, as well as the entire image. Once you determine the perfect settings, e.g., for a particular camera, you can save those by name.
The three controllers for brightness, contrast and saturation correspond to those of a color TV set. The complete color spectrum is affected.
Note: This tool applies straight linear changes, which can lead to losses in the high or low bands for each property. Consider using the Exposure Correction, tool that has a sophisticated algorithm to avoid those side effects.
The controller for exposure will have the greatest effect on brightness in the medium range. The darkest and lightest colors will be affected the least. This prevents the loss of black or white areas of the image.
The two controllers for contrast allow you to fine-tune the contrast for the light and dark areas of the picture.
The saturation controller has a sophisticated algorithm, producing more balanced results than the straight-line changes applied by the Hue, Saturation, Brightness tool.
The Hue control shifts colors. If applied against a single color, it is possible to recolor areas of that color.
The effect of the color specific Saturation control is identical to Saturation settings in the Color Tuning tool.
The Brightness control keeps the Hue and Saturation constant, resulting in different effects than the Brightness settings elsewhere in the image toolbox.
The option Effect depends on saturation will gradually reduce the effect of the controls on pixels that are less saturated with the selected color. The higher the saturation, the more pronounced are the effects.
Note: A checkmark next to a color will indicate that a particular setting is no longer in the neutral position.
A color equalizer for modifying the saturation of specific colors which already exist in the image.
This tool is helpful in removing color passes that are present in the image due to bad source material or scan errors.
Note: This tool is a subset of the Hue, Saturation, Brightness tool.
Allows you to correct the tone of specific colors in an image.
If choosing All Colors, refine your selection using the
shadows/highlights controller.
If choosing a specific color, you can further narrow your selection
by using the hue controller.
The three controllers for colors and the brightness controller will limit the effect to the selection you made.
Analyzes the different areas of an image and determines its Histogram. Then it will attempt to normalize the brightness values for all areas, trying to equally distribute the occurrence of each brightness.
Colorize or recolor images.
This tool may be used to add color to gray images. Correcting color problems of photographs can be done better with "Color Tuning" or "Hue, Saturation, Brightness."
Eliminates tiny impurities that may have been introduced during the scanning process.
Improves the sharpness of an image.
Blurs the image.
This tool may be used to replace the colors of an image with a new color. The Intensity selector defines the degree to which the new color is applied. If necessary, the contrast is reduced to obtain the selected average color.
Applies one color each to the dark and light areas of an image. This tool is ideally suited to obtain a uniform effect for a series of two-color images.
Removes saturation of all colors while correcting for differences in brightness, e.g., yellow tones will appear brighter than blue tones.
The effect varies from saturation settings elsewhere in the toolbox.
Gives the images an oldfashioned black and white look.
Adds a backdrop color behind an image or text element.
The backdrop can be made larger than the actual image and with round corners. This gives it the appearance of a picture frame.
Softens the outer edge of rectangular images.
Superimposes text and/or descriptor content onto the picture. One classic usage would be a copyright notice. Controls text location, orientation, font, style, shading and shadow color.
The font size is specified in "points", an absolute measure that does not scale with varying image sizes. This makes sure that text is always readable, no matter how small a picture is scaled.
Creates a negative image by replacing colors with their RGB complements and inverting the brightness. The saturation value is not affected.
Note: This function can be used to turn a black and white photo negative into a positive image. However, it cannot be used for color photonegatives since these contain an orange mask.
Modifies the opacity of an image from opaque to fully transparent.
Note: A fully transparent image can be selected by dragging the selection band across the approximate area of the desktop.
Adds a backdrop color behind a transparent image or text element.
Inverts the transparency of an image. Opaque areas become transparent; previously transparent areas are colorized.
This filter allows for many interesting designs and text effects. It is worth experimenting with.
Covers an area of the image with a color taint. Transparency and blurring settings can give it the appearance of smoked glass.
This filter can be helpful where text is superimposed over an image.
Finds edges in the image and emphasizes them.
Adds a relief effect.
Allows sophisticated color corrections, creative color effects, and helps creating high quality black and white images.