Enhancer

Enhancer is a MediaCenter component that primarily allows you to view and print your pictures. If you need to make simple modifications to a picture, Enhancer has tools to let you crop, rotate, flip, resize the picture, or modify its base attributes (color, sharpness and saturation).

You open a picture in Enhancer using any one of the following techniques:

• Double-click on a thumbnail in the Organizer Bar or Organizer Document.

• Drag a thumbnail into an open Enhancer document.

• Drag a thumbnail from the Organizer Bar/Organizer Document directly onto the Enhance icon on the LaunchBar.

• Drag a picture file from Windows Explorer directly onto the Enhancer icon or into an open Enhancer document.

When you open a picture in Enhancer, it is immediately shown as the active Enhancer document in MediaCenter's main viewing area. Although, several Enhancer documents may be open at the same time, only one is active at a time. The active document is also indicated by the state of its associated task bar button. (The task bar button for the active document is "depressed".)

Viewing pictures

Once you open a picture in Enhancer, you can use the View menu commands or the zoom controls on the Enhancer toolbar to zoom in or out of the picture at any setting between 5% and 400% of its original size. Enhancer also provides two standard view settings:

Fit window - In this setting, the view is zoomed-in (made larger) to the point where the top and bottom edges of the picture match the vertical dimensions of the Enhancer document and the entire picture must be viewed without scrolling. Because aspect ratio is maintained, the horizontal access of the picture never exceeds the width of the Enhancer document. This setting is useful if you need to quickly see all of the picture at one time.

Fit width - In this setting, the view is zoomed-in to the point where the left and right edges of the picture match the horizontal dimensions of the Enhancer document. Because aspect ratio is maintained, the vertical dimensions of the picture exceed the height of the Enhancer document. A vertical scrollbar is added to Enhancer that allows you to see the top and bottomost parts of the picture at this setting.

Printing pictures

Enhancer's Page Setup feature allows you to specify how the picture will be printed on a page:

Default setting - The picture will print at 100% of its original size in the upper left corner of the page.

Fit to page - The printed picture will be enlarged to fit within the hortizonal margins of the page. The top of the printed picture will begin at the top margin of the page.

Center on page - The printed picture will be enlarged to fit within the hortizonal margins of the page and centered between the margins of the page.

Add a description - Use this feature to add a caption for the printed picture.

Change margins - Use this feature to change the margins for the printable area of the page.

Basic enhancement options

You can make the the following basic enhancements to any picture inside the Enhancer document:

• Crop - Cut a section of the picture to replace the current picture or be saved as a new picture.

• Rotate - Change the orientation of the picture either left or right.

• Flip - Change the orientation of the picture such that left and right are switched (horizontal flip) or such that up/down are switched (vertical flip).

• Resize - Enlarges or reduces the physical size of the picture.

Advanced enhancement options

Advanced enhancement options allow you to make changes to a picture's attributes. Attributes include:

• Brightness - Make the picture lighter or darker.

• Sharpness - Increase overall sharpness of the picture details.

• Contrast - Increase the difference between light and dark in the picture.

• Saturation - Increase the density of color in the picture.

To modify a picture's attributes, you simply click the Enhance button in the Enhancer toolbar. This action invokes the Enhance dialog, which contains the various attribute enhancement options. To learn more about the features of the Enhancer dialog, please review the Dialogs section in the Appendix chapter of this manual.