Getting and Setting Page Properties

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The Page menu's Properties command, shown in Figure 37-6, lets you see and change several properties of the current page. The dialog box has four tabs.

The Color tab lists the six color-depth options available in Imaging, in order of increasing depth. You can use this tab to switch to a lower color depth—for example, to change an image from true color to 256 shades of gray. You might want to reduce the color depth of an image if you plan to fax it or print it on a black-and-white printer.

Figure 37-6. The Page Properties dialog box lets you change the color depth, compression, and other properties of the current page.

Note the following points about color depth:

• You can decrease, but not increase, the color depth of an image. Once you have reduced an image, for example, from True Color to 256 Colors, you can choose True Color but you will still have a maximum of only 256 different colors.
• Black And White means literally that. To get the familiar look of a black-and-white photograph, select 256 Shades Of Gray.
• Certain color depths are not available with certain document types. For example, .tif documents can't be displayed at 16 colors.

The Compression tab lets you change the method that Imaging uses to reduce the amount of data required to store your image. The available options vary with the file type and color depth of your document. No compression is available for .bmp documents.

The Resolution tab provides another way to reduce the disk storage requirements for the current page. Switching to a lower resolution produces a smaller file, at the expense of image quality. You can use the Resolution box to select from the available resolutions, or you can enter values (expressed in dots per inch) directly into the X and Y boxes.

The Size tab lets you change the overall height and width of your page. Reducing the size of your page is the only method of cropping available in Imaging, and it can be used only to crop from the right or lower edge. Increasing the size of your page adds white space to the right of or below the image. If you reduce page size and don't like the result, click Undo immediately, or the change will be irreversible.