Page #66 (44. Create a New Image)

45. About Editing Images

Before You Begin

1 About the Organizer

43 About the Editor

See Also

46 Open an Image for Editing

After you create a new image and save it, as explained in 44 Create a New Image, you can open that image later on and make further changes. You can also make changes to images you captured with a digital camera, or printed images you've scanned in. For the most part, images you like, and therefore will want to edit and improve, are probably already in the Organizer catalog. You can attempt to fix the image using the Auto Fix command in the Organizer, but you'll have no control over the result. For more options and therefore more control over the editing process, you'll want to send the cataloged image over to the Editor. This can be done in one of two ways:

• You can send the cataloged image to the Editor's Quick Fix window. Here you can make simple adjustments to an image's contrast, saturation, and sharpness, using slider controls that enable you to manipulate the amount of adjustment that occurs. See 109 Apply a Quick Fix for help.

• For complete control over any adjustments you apply, send the cataloged image to the Editor's Standard Edit window. Here you can use any of the tools in the Toolbox, apply variable image adjustments, add layers, or apply filters and effects to correct or enhance an image. See 46 Open an Image for Editing.

TIP

To automatically fix one or more images in the Organizer catalog, use Auto Fix. In the Organizer, select the images you want to adjust by clicking the first image thumbnail, pressing Ctrl and clicking as many additional thumbnails as you like. Then choose Edit, Auto Fix Selected Photos to automatically adjust the images for color, contrast, and sharpness or choose Edit, Auto Fix Window to automatically apply selected fixes to the chosen image(s).

The Organizer knows when an image is being changed, so in the catalog, it flags the image with a marker that reads, Edit in Progress. The flag prevents you from attempting to share, print, or include the image in a creation while it's still being changed. The flag is automatically removed from the image thumbnail when you're done editing.

NOTES

You can switch back and forth between Quick Fix and Standard Edit modes in the Editor as often as you like. To switch between modes in the Editor, just click the Quick Fix or Standard Edit button located at the right end of the Shortcuts bar.

If you have a more sophisticated graphics editor that you prefer to use (such as Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop CS), you can send a selected image from the catalog directly to that program. First, you may have to tell the Organizer what other graphics editor you want to usesee the note for instructions. When that's done, just select an image in the catalog and choose Edit, Edit with XXX (where XXX is the name of the graphics editor you choose). The image automatically appears in the chosen graphics editor; there you can make your changes and save them. When you return to the Organizer, the Edit in Progress flag should be automatically removed, but if for some reason it's not, click the thumbnail and choose Edit, Finish External Edit to remove the flag.

You can edit an image using either the Editor's Quick Fix or Standard Edit windows.

NOTES

If Photoshop is installed on your system, it is set up automatically during installation to be used as the alternative graphics editor. To set up the Organizer so that you can use a different alternative graphics editor from time to time, choose Edit, Preferences, Editing. The Preferences dialog box appears. Enable the Use a Supplementary Editing Application check box, click Browse, select the graphics editor program file (such as paintshoppro.exe), and click Open. You return to the Preferences dialog box; click OK.

If an image is not in the catalog, you can open it for editing in the Editor by clicking the Open button on the Editor's Shortcuts bar, selecting the file, and clicking Open. When you save your changes, you can add the image to the catalog at the same time. See 47 About Saving Images.

You should keep a few things in mind when you decide to edit an image. First, you will probably not want to make changes to an original file. If you make changes to a copy instead, you can always delete the copy and go back to the original if you feel that your edits took you in the wrong direction. When you edit an image and you save your changes, you can either make a copy file, or make a copy and link the new file with the original, in a version set. The process of opening an image and saving it is discussed in detail in 46 Open an Image for Editing, but what happens basically is this: You send an image from the Organizer to the Editor. You make changes. When you save your changes, a dialog box appears that provides many options. One option creates a copy of the original file by adding copy to the filename. Another option adds _edited-1 to the filename, and creates a version set. If you send an image to an alternative graphics editor such as Photoshop and then save your changes, the version set is created for you automatically, without you doing a thing.

NOTE

Only the topmost thumbnail appears in the catalog for a version set, so it's important to remember that this thumbnail is the only one you can work with when the version set is collapsed. If you add or remove a tag or collection marker for example, the Organizer only removes the marker from the top thumbnail in the set. If you select the thumbnail for a creation or to share using email, only the top image is selected, and not all the ones in the set. But if you want to do something to all the images in a set, you have to expand it first, and then work with the images as individual thumbnails. This caution applies to working with stacks as well.

Keeping your original images safe whenever you make changes is one important aspect of editing; another is managing the additional files you create during the editing process. If you create a copy of an image when saving your changes to it, both the original and the copy will appear as thumbnails in the catalog. This can quickly lead to a fat catalog full of similar images. Luckily, the folks at Adobe have thought about this as well and have provided you with an easy way to keep your originals and your edited copies close at hand, without cluttering the catalog. The process is simple: While saving edits to an image, you indicate that this image is a version of another image. The Organizer will then stack the edited image with the original automatically, leaving a single thumbnail in the catalog to represent the similar versions. The edited image is assigned the same file date as the original image, so the version set thumbnail appears where it belongs, amongst other images taken that same day. You can expand the version set when needed to compare the original with its edited copies. Just select the version set thumbnail and choose Edit, Version Set, Reveal Photos in Version Set. The Organizer displays thumbnails for the images in the set, with the newly edited version appearing first, on the far left. If you've rearranged the thumbnails in the set (as explained in the next paragraph), you can view the date on which a particular image was modified by looking on the History page of the Properties pane. See 53 About Image Information.

KEY TERM

Version set Different edited versions of the same image, displayed as a single thumbnail in the catalog. The version set can be expanded to display the image thumbnails it contains.

You can display the images in a version set.

When the images in a version set are revealed, you can select a different image for use as the set thumbnail by clicking it and choosing Edit, Version Set, Set as Top Photo. The image you select to act as the new version set thumbnail (the top photo) will display first when you expand the stack, rather than the most recently edited version. You can remove all edited versions of an image (from the hard disk and from the catalog) and return to using the original image by selecting the original and choosing Edit, Version Set, Revert to Original. To close the version set and return to the catalog, click the Back to All Photos button on the Find bar. You can then remove the original image from the set (and from the hard disk if you want) by clicking the version set thumbnail choosing Edit, Version Set, Flatten Set.

NOTES

If you expand a version set that contains multiple image edits, select the original thumbnail, and delete it, the remaining images are still kept together. However, the version set is converted to a stack, because the original image is no longer a part of the set.

Notice that when you edit and image and create a version set, the original file date is retained. This enabled the version stack to appear in the catalog where it did before. If you edit an image and make a copy instead of a version set, today's date is assigned to the resulting file.