Preferences

Preferences are used to specify various global settings.

When you close the Preferences dialog box, if you have changed any settings you are asked to confirm whether or not you want to save your changes. To reset the preferences to the last saved values, click the Reset button.

Border Color

This control sets the color of the background of the main image area. You can also set the border color to black, gray or white using the border color tool bar at the top of the main window.

Border Width

This control sets the minimum border size displayed around images in the main image area.

Silent

This setting suppresses audible sounds Picture Window Pro makes in various situations, such as warning of an error or illegal operation.

Text Delay

This setting lets you customize the time delay between when you stop entering text and the dialog box updates. If you are a slow typist, increase the value. If you are impatient, reduce it. The default value is 2 seconds.

Clipped Pixels

These controls determine the way clipped highlights and shadows are displayed. Threshold determines what image level is considered clipped – selecting none disables clipping. Color determines what color to substitute for clipped highlights or shadows. The first color is used when one or two of the RGB channels are clipped. The second color is used when all three channels are clipped. If both colors are set the same, the clipping color is displayed if any of the channels is clipped. Selecting different colors lets you distinguish between some of the channels being clipped and all of the channels being clipped.

In addition to these settings, there are two buttons on the main tool bar that independently enable and disable display of clipped highlight and shadows:

This lets you quickly turn clipped highlight and shadow display on or off without returning to the Preferences dialog box each time. If you change the colors for clipped highlights or shadows, the toolbar buttons change color to match.

Smooth Display

If you enable Smooth Display, images displayed in the main image area, when viewed at zoom factors less than 1:1, are smoothed. For most images, this reduces the sharpness of the images and also introduces a small performance penalty, but for other images, especially results from the Halftone transformation, smoothing reduces otherwise annoying moire patterns.

On Separator Move

This setting controls what happens after you adjust the position of the separator bar between the image browser and the main image area.

Zoom current image to fit -- just the current image is zoomed to fit

Zoom all images to fit -- all images are zoomed to fit. Selecting this option may cause significant delays if you have a lot of images.

Dependency Colors

This setting lets you select the color scheme used to identify upstream and downstream images in the image browser. The default setting is red for upstream and green for downstream. To accommodate colorblind users, an alternate blue/orange scheme is also available. The buttons on the image browser's Select tool bar also change, but not until you shut down and re-open Picture Window.

Units

You can select the default units you want to work in: inches, cm or mm.

Window Caption

The caption above images in the main image area contains the name of the file from which the image was derived. You can select to display just the filename or the full pathname. While the filename is more convenient, it can be ambiguous if you have multiple open files of the same name but from different folders.

On Startup

You have the option of asking to restore a saved workspace when starting up Picture Window. If you enable ask to restore on startup, you will see this dialog box when Picture Window starts up.

Don't load -- continues without loading a workspace script.

Load workspace from last session -- loads the workspace saved at the end of the last session, if any. For reference, the pathname of the workspace script used is displayed below. This option is omitted if there is no previous workspace script to load.

Load last workspace script used -- loads the last workspace script used, if any. For reference, the pathname of the workspace script used is displayed below. This option is omitted if there is no previous workspace script to load.

Ask for workspace to load -- lets you select a workspace script and then loads it.

On Exit

On shutdown, Picture Window always saves the current workspace (unless it is empty) as Previous.workspace, so you can pick up where you left off in the next session. You also have the option of saving an additional copy of the current workspace under another name. If you enable ask to save on exit, you will see this dialog box when Picture Window shuts down.

Don't save -- exits without saving the current workspace. Even if you select Don't save, a copy is always saved as Previous.workspace, unless the workspace is empty.

Save with current workspace name -- saves the current workspace under the name of the last workspace script used. For reference, the pathname of the script is displayed just below the radio button. This option is omitted if there is no current workspace script.

Ask for workspace to save-- lets you select a workspace script name and then saves it before exiting.

On Close All Images

Just before you close all images, either via the File/Close All Images command or when you load a new script or workspace script, Picture Window gives you the option of asking to save the current workspace. If you enable ask to save on close all images, you will see this dialog box when Picture Window when you close all images or load a new script or workspace script, unless the workspace is empty.

Don't save-- continues without saving the current workspace.

Save with current workspace name -- saves the current workspace under the name of the last workspace script used. For reference, the pathname of the script is displayed just below the radio button. This option is omitted if there is no current workspace script.

Ask for workspace to save-- lets you select which workspace script to save and then saves it before clearing the workspace.

Autosave

If Autosave is Yes, every time you click OK (or Apply) in a transformation dialog box or when you close and image or clear the workspace, a script for the current workspace is saved in the Workspace Scripts folder with the name Autosave.workspace. The last four versions of this file are retained with the names Autosave1.workspace ... Autosave4.workspace (from most recent to least recent). This lets you recover up to the last completed transformation in the event you cannot save your work due to a computer crash or software failure or if you accidentally delete some or all of your images. To restore your workspace, just load the autosaved file using the Script/Open Workspace Script command.

On Workspace Script Load

This setting controls whether or not Picture Window asks you if you want to clear the workspace before loading a workspace script;

On Script Load

This setting controls whether or not Picture Window asks you if you want to clear the workspace before loading a script;

Initial Dialog Position

This control determines where tool and transformation dialog boxes initially appear. If your computer has only one monitor, the last four options are interpreted as either Lower Left and Lower Right. If you have more than one monitor, the understanding is that you will use these settings with the main window maximized and with a second monitor mounted either to the left or to the right of the primary monitor. In any case, you can drag the dialog box to a different location after it appears.

If transformation dialogs are displayed at the bottom of the screen, then color picker windows are displayed at the top and vice versa.

Mask dialogs are displayed either above or below the transformation dialog.

Lower Left - in the lower left corner of the main window.

Lower Right - in the lower right corner of the main window.

Bottom Right - 2nd Monitor - lower right corner of 2nd monitor (multiple monitor setup only)

Bottom Left - 2nd Monitor -  lower left corner of 2nd monitor  (multiple monitor setup only)

Top Right - 2nd Monitor - upper right corner of 2nd monitor  (multiple monitor setup only)

Top Left - 2nd Monitor - upper left corner of 2nd monitor  (multiple monitor setup only)

Set Default File Save Options

There are a number of options you can select when saving image files, depending on their file type. You have the choice of selecting a set of option once and having those options applied every time you save a file. Or, Picture Window can ask you what options you want each time you save. The not asking is the most convenient, assuming you use the same options all the time. Asking requires an extra step to save files, but lets you change the options more easily. The Default File Save Options dialog box (see below) has tabs along the bottom to let you specify default options for each file type.

If Ask for options on save is checked, every time you save a file, Picture Window will ask for options so you can change them before saving the file. Otherwise, the file will be saved with the default options.

There are four Metadata options:

All -- all metadata is copied from the image from which the current image was derived, if any. This includes the ICC profile and all EXIF, IPTC, XMP and GPS metadata.

All but GPS -- this copies all the metadata but removes GPS geolocation data in case you don't want anyone to know where the photo was taken.

Profile Only -- this copies only the ICC Profile, although a few scraps of other metadata may still remain.

None -- saves the file with no metadata, giving the smallest possible file size, although a few scraps of metadata may still remain.

Note: If you select the options All or All but GPS, ExifTool is called to transfer the metadata from the original file, if any, to the file you are saving. The first time you save with one to these options, there is a delay while ExifTool is loaded. There is also a performance penalty for these options since the entire saved file has to be written a second time to copy the metadata. If you select Profile Only or None, ExifTool is not called and thus saving the file is somewhat faster.

There are three script options:

Don't Include Script -- just the image file is saved; no script file is saved.

Include Script with Image Names -- a script file is saved in the same folder as the image file and with the same filename, but with the extension .script. This script file can be used to rebuild the file and all the steps that led to its creation, assuming the original files are still available.

Include Script with Image Copies -- a script file is saved in the same folder as the image file and with the same filename, but with the extension .script. This script file can be used to rebuild the file and all the steps that led to its creation, using copies of the original files that are stored in a subfolder.

For more information of saving scripts, see Scripts.

TIFF Compression supports None, LZW or ZIP.

BMP Version -- BMP V5 supports ICC Profiles. BMP V1 does not. V1 is always used if the image you are saving has no profile.

JPEG Quality can be set from 0% (lowest quality, smallest files) to 100% (highest quality, largest files).

Chroma Subsampling lets you reduce file size further by representing color information at a lower resolution than luminance information. The value of 4:2:0 is the default -- 4:4:4 preserves color at full resolution.

If Show summary info after save is checked, Picture Window will display a summary after saving which shows you the actual file size and lets you re-save if you want to change any of the settings.

For those file formats that do not support 16-bit images (JPEG, BMP, GIF), images are silently converted to 8-bit before saving.

Default Curve Options

Setting the default curve options determines the way curve controls are initially displayed across all transformations.

Show -- Starts up displaying Curve or Histograms.

Expand Histograms -- Histograms are initially expanded if you select Yes

Histogram Smoothing -- This sets initial histogram smoothing to None, Medium or Heavy

Grid Divisions -- Selects the initial number of grid divisions (4x4, 8x8 or 10x10).

Probe Size -- Selects the initial probe size (1x1, 3x3, 5x5, 7x7 or 9x9).

Use CUDA

This setting lets you disable the use of CUDA (the high-speed computing capability of certain graphics cards) in case it is causing problems, or you want to see how fast operations are with and without CUDA.

Use Tablet

This setting lets you disable the use of a tablet, even if one is detected.