Image Toolbox

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.

$image\ebd_Ebd284.gif$ QuickSteps: Working with Images

Active Image Tools

To display this section, press the ôActive Toolsö 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.

Preprocessing

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.

$image\ebd_Ebd285.gif$ Crop and Rotate

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, then drag the hand cursor to move the cutout without changing its dimensions. Press the ôFixö 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.
$image\ebd_Ebd286.gif$ User Guide: Image Bulk Processing

$image\ebd_Ebd287.gif$ Red-Eye Correction

The Red Eye Correction image tool removes red eyes in photos taken with a flash.

Click into the left full view of the currently selected image, roughly at the position of a red eye. The right view will zoom into the area selected in the left view. Now click exactly into the red pupil in the right view. Take care not to click into a white glare inside the red pupil. Both views will show a numbered crosshair to mark the selected spot.

The two sliders ôColor Toleranceö and ôAdjustment Effectö allow fine-tuning the correction: increasing color tolerance requires image pixels to be ôless redö to still belong to the corrected area. Increasing the adjustment effect darkens the resulting pupil.

Several red eyes can be corrected in each image. Just click another time into the red view to add another eye. The sliders for the individual eyes can be reached with the entry field ôEye No.ö, any unwanted correction spots can be deleted by clicking on ôDeleteö.

Note: This tool will only effect a single picture at a time. Use picture arrow buttons to browse to another image in the selection.
$image\ebd_Ebd288.gif$ User Guide: Image Bulk Processing

Correction

$image\ebd_Ebd289.gif$ Auto Tone Levels

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, which define 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, which 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.

$image\ebd_Ebd290.gif$ Image Enhancements

The three controllers for brightness, contrast and saturation correspond to those of a color TV set. The complete color spectrum is effected.

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 which has a sophisticated algorithm to avoid those side-effects.

$image\ebd_Ebd291.gif$ Exposure Correction

The controller for exposure will have the greatest effect on brightness in the medium range. The darkest and lightest colors will be effected the least. This prevents the loss of black or white areas of the image.

The two controllers for contrast, allow fine-tuning of 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 ôHue, Saturation, Brightnessö tool.

$image\ebd_Ebd292.gif$ Hue, Saturation, Brightness

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 ôEffect depends on saturationö 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.

$image\ebd_Ebd293.gif$ Color Tuning

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 ôHue, Saturation, Brightnessö tool.

$image\ebd_Ebd294.gif$ Color Balance

Allows to correct the tone of specific colors in an image.

If choosing ôAll Colorsö, 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.

$image\ebd_Ebd295.gif$ Equalize Brightness

Analyzes the different areas of an image and determining its Histogram. Then it will attempt to normalize the brightness values for all areas, trying to equally distribute the occurrence of each brightness.

$image\ebd_Ebd296.gif$ Color

Colorize or recolor images.

This tool may be used to add color to grey images. Correcting color problems of photographs can be done better with "Color Tuning" or "Hue, Saturation, Brightness".

$image\ebd_Ebd297.gif$ Despeckle

Eliminates tiny impurities that may have been introduced during the scanning process.

$image\ebd_Ebd298.gif$ Sharpness

Improves the sharpness of an image.

$image\ebd_Ebd299.gif$ Blur

Blurs the image.

Effects

$image\ebd_Ebd300.gif$ Colorize

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.

$image\ebd_Ebd301.gif$ Bicolor

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.

$image\ebd_Ebd302.gif$ Black & White

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.

$image\ebd_Ebd303.gif$ Scalable Backdrop

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.

$image\ebd_Ebd304.gif$ Soft Edge

Softens the outer edge of rectangular images.

$image\ebd_Ebd305.gif$ Invert Image

Creates a negative image by replacing colors with their RGB complements and inverting the brightness. The saturation value is not effected.

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.

$image\ebd_Ebd306.gif$ Transparency

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.

$image\ebd_Ebd307.gif$ Simple Backdrop

Adds a backdrop color behind a transparent image or text element.

$image\ebd_Ebd308.gif$ Invert Mask

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.

$image\ebd_Ebd309.gif$ Smoked Glass

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.

$image\ebd_Ebd310.gif$ Find Edges

Finds edges in the image and emphasizes them.

$image\ebd_Ebd311.gif$ Emboss

Adds a relief effect.