Image Plane User Help
Tools
The toolbar in the "Tools" tab gives you access to all image editing tools as does the "Tools" pull down menu.
Image Plane includes several tools to make image cropping and editing quick and easy. These tools
may be accessed from the Tools tab. The tools tab may not always be displayed by default, you may
have to click the "Tools" tab title to display it. Alternatlively, you may access any tool from the "Tools"
drop down menu at the top of the interface. It is important to note that when you activate a tool it may not
cause any immediate change in the image. The move, rotate and scale tools are all used by clicking and
dragging on an image to manipulate its appearance.
Move
The move tool will translate the image giving you a specefic portion of the image to display in the crop.
Using the move tool allows you to translate the image up and down, or left and right. When
the move tool is active and your mouse cursor is over the image you will see a special move
cursor.
This cursor shows 4 arrows each pointing in a cardinal direction indicating that the move
action is available. When you see this cursor you may click and drag the image to reposition it.
Remember that only the area inside the crop box will be saved in the final version of the image;
position the image accordingly.
Rotate
The rotate tool allows you to rotate the image around its center by any arbitrary angle.
The rotate tool, like the move tool, when active will display a special rotate cursor that looks like a circle
with an arrow. This cursor will apear when you mouse over the image, indicating that the rotate action
is availalble. When you see this cursor you may click and drag on the image to rotate it clockwise
or counter-clockwise. Image Plane will perform the rotation around the geometric center of the image.
The tool you will notice works by keeping the image aligned with your cursor relative to where you
first click.
A 90° rotation is most easily achieved by using the rotate 90 tool.
In addition to the manual rotate you can also use the rotate 90° tools to rotate the image exactly
90 degrees from its current position. There are two rotate 90° tools, one for rotating clockwise
and a second for rotating counter-clockwise. If you ever cause a rotation that you did not intend you
may undo actions by going to the "File" pull down menu and selecting Undo. You may repeat the undo
action as many times as you like. To undo all action select "File" then "Revert"
Scale
The scale tool lets you manually resize an image to change what proprotion of the original image is inside the crop box.
The scale tool is useful for getting a specefic proportion of you current image into the image crop area.
To access the scale tool click the scale button on the toolbar or go to the "Tools" pull down menu
and select "Scale". The scale tool, when active will display a special scale cursor that looks like a square
inside of a larger square. This cursor will apear only when you mouse over the image, indicating that the
scale action is availalble. When you see this cursor you may click and drag on the image to scale it. If you
drag up or to the right you will increase the scale of the image effectively decreasing the portion of your image
in the crop box. If drag down or to the left you decrease the scale of the image effectively increasing the portion
of your image in the crop box.
The scale to fit tool will automatically scale your image to fit completely inside the current crop box.
In addition to the manual scale tool you may use the Scale to Fit tool to automatically match the size
of the image to the current crop box size. This will cause the entire area of the original image
to be visible in the final output image. You can find the scale to fit tool by opening
the "Tools" pull down menu or going to the toolbar available on the "Tools" tab.
Flip
The flip tool allows you to mirror the image across a vertical or horizontal axis.
The Flip tool allows you to flip (or mirror) the image either horizontally or vertically. This is sometimes useful
to improve images compositionally or fix images that are oriented incorrectly by default. There are
two types of flip tools. The first is called "Flip Horizontally", which flips the image in a left to right direction.
The second is "Flip Vertically", which flips the image in a top to bottom direction. Both of these tools
are available in either the toolbar window or the "Tools" pull down menu.
Center
The "Center Image" tool will autmatically position your image to be geometrically centered in the frame of the current crop box. After you use the "Center Image" tool you may adjust the position of your image again by using the "Move" tool.