3. Basics of PhotoLine / 3.9 The Parts of a Typical Dialog

3.9.3 The Preview

In PhotoLine dialogs often contain an embedded preview showing the result of the current settings. The preview usually look like this:

There are two parts: the preview picture and an icon bar below it.

At the top of the preview picture there is a small triangle which allows to control the so-called curtain preview. To the left of the triangle there is the original picture, to the right the result. The triangle can be dragged freely. If it is at the left edge of the preview picture, only the result will be visible. In this situation a simple click on the preview picture will show the original, in order to allow a better rating of the result.

The icon bar contains - additionally to the standard entries for zooming in and out - two icons for switching fast to a 100% and a full image display. Selecting  will mark extreme colors in the preview picture in order to recognize corrections, that are too strong. This function works the same as View/Mark Extreme Values (see Āchapter 7.3.18). If this function is activated while holding Shift, the dialog preview will show the differences between the edited and the original image. Unmodified parts are shown gray, the modified ones are lighter or darker depending on the modification.

The icon bar may contain - depending on the dialog - an extra icon:

 : This icon is used for reading colors from the preview picture or from the document. If two different colors can be chosen, holding down the Shift-key will switch to the second one. If Ctrl (Windows) or Command (macOS) is pressed, it is possible to read from an area.

 : If the current dialog needs a position, this icon can be used for setting it.

Especially the selection of a color takes place quite often and selecting the corresponding icon my be inconvenient. Therefore, these additional functions can be accessed by holding the Alt-key, too.