jAlbum / Edit

The menu options of 'Image tools' and 'Effects', as shown on the right, only appear when in edit mode. They give you direct access to the image tools and effects as detailed below.

This view mode allows you to view and edit RAW and other images, videos and their meta data and web locations. The toolbar at the top offers a set of image editing tools. The panel to the right lets you view and edit various properties or the current image. The field below the image gives you more space to enter a caption. Hint: You can drag the divider to increase space for entering captions. Pressing the space bar in edit mode will switch to Review mode

You can use SHIFT + ENTER to open with the Object in the selected external application.

Navigation

Previous/Explore/Next

These buttons will appear when you hover the mouse over an image/video. They allow you to navigate back and forth between images and to exit back to Explore mode. You can also use the arrow keys or the page up/down keys to navigate through the files in the current folder.

Pan and zoom

This lets you zoom in and pan around the image, it does not affect the image in your album. Shift/Alt/Opt/CMD clicking on the image will zoom in with the cursor over the same relative point, or if already zoomed in it will zoom out.

1. View and edit properties

(right hand side panel)

To open or close the panes click anywhere in the bar - little arrow, title, or even the blank area to the right. They also respond to left- or right-clicks.

Histogram

A graphical representation of the tonal distribution in a digital image that plots the number of pixels for each tonal value. You can view data for luminance, red, green or blue channels, RGB combined or luminance and RGB together. The histogram tool can only be used to check your image. It is best used in conjunction with some of the other editing options, such as when changing brightness, contrast and saturation. As a general guide the histogram should ideally span the full width of the display area. If you see vertical lines within a histogram it may be an indication that an adjustment has been overdone. These lines represent missing shades of colour.

Control, or right clicking, the histogram window opens a menu letting you (un)dock the histogram or open its settings window. Double clicking the histogram window will also open its settings window.

The settings window allows you to choose what data the histogram displays by default, open the histogram in a separate window every time you start jAlbum and remember the windows location. You can also change the visual style to iPhoto (the default is Photoshop) and the foreground color can be changed (black or white).

General

This section provides information on, and allows the editing of, Name, Title, Date, Time, Star Rating and Flag. The name is the actual file name of the item. The title is the text that appears instead of the base file name, if entered, on your album web pages that show a title field. Date is what your operating system reports as when the file was last modified. Rating is a star rating system ranging from zero to five star. Flag is a means of categorizing files and, along with the star rating, can be used to filter files as a means of aiding project review. Flag has colours/values of None, Red/Select, Yellow/Second, Blue/Review and Green/Approved. Note: if write xmp metadata to files has been checked in Preferences?General>Write XMP metadata to files, then the title text is written to your files.

Variables

A variable can be predefined or user created and is added in two parts: the variable name and then its value.

A variable is only saved when you leave the field by clicking in, or tabbing to, an empty field.

Once a variable has been added, an empty row will appear, allowing further variables to be added. As an example of commonly used custom variables, entering ‘maxThumbWidth’ as the variable name and then for its value, say, 100, would set the maximum thumbnail width for this item to 100 pixels, regardless of the setting in Settings/Images/Thumbnails. To create a global custom variable you first have to define it in Settings/Advanced/User Variables. How custom variables work will depend on how well they are supported by a particular skin.

Location

If your jAlbum object is already geo-tagged then the map will display the location it was taken. If not, or you wish to change the displayed GPS location, you can tag the image by either using the search box to look for the location (press 'Enter' to start the search or pick from the list of locations suggested) or enter the coordinate in the format 59.3325800, 18.0649000 (Latitude North, Longitude East for Stockholm, Sweden). Use negative numbers for South and West. For more information on using jAlbum's location pane click here

Camera

Provides non-editable details on camera settings. Hovering over the pane will result in further metadata being shown. For non-image files this will show just the file name.

Description

This section provides, for the currently selected item, information on and allows the editing of XMP metadata for jpeg images: Creator, Keywords, Price, Copyright and Copyright URL. For everything else it is a read only field. Note: if write xmp metadata to files has been checked in Preferences>General>Write xmp metadata to files, then the title text is written to your image files.

360º image

If the currently selected image has an aspect ratio of 2:1 (for images that cover 360 by 180 degrees) it is likely to be a 360º photo sphere image and this panel will appear with the checkbox already selected. Should the image not be a photo sphere uncheck the box. This setting may be used by skins that support photo sphere images, by incorporating a 'viewer' which lets visitors pan around the image. If the image is a photo sphere but is not automatically detected you will need to edit the image and ensure the aspect ratio is exactly 2:1.

The other settings are stored as metadata, under 'xmp.GPano:' and are used by some photo sphere viewers, see individual skin manuals for information on those attributes. As it relies on metadata be sure to enable include photographic metadata in generated pages.

Custom panels

Skins can add their own custom control panels in addition to those described above. In the image above the skin selected is Turtle and it has added two custom panels, Image data and External. For information on custom panels see the help pages or other documentation for the selected skin.

2. Image editing (toolbar)

The image editing tools are non-destructive. For example cropping an image does not remove pixels. It merely masks them so that the crop can be altered or undone.

Each of the image editing tools have their own apply and cancel buttons.

Apply

Having previewed your edits you need to apply them before exiting the tools interface. That includes switching from say, the crop to the adjustment tool.

Cancel

Having previewed the changes you decide not to apply the effect, you can press cancel, which will exit the tool but leave you in edit mode, or you can go directly to another (enabled) tool.

Exit without saving changes.

2.1 Exclude

Exclude or include selected item(s) from the album. Excluding an item keeps it within the project but excludes it from the generated album. This button toggles the state. An excluded item has a red circle with a white bar in it, similar to the exclude icon above.

2.1 Faces

The boxes around faces can be hidden/shown by clicking on the small faces icon in the tool bar. The default is hidden. When turned on a Region panel will appear above the histogram.

This lets you set the type of region to Face, Pet, Focus (area of interest) or Bar code (an actual barcode). Below the dropdown menu is a description field where you can add a description or note to the selected region. Regions can be applied with or without face recognition being turned on under Status bar > Faces. The status bar icon also lets you set face size for detection, accuracy and to delete face recognition data for the current project.

If AI faces is not enabled in Status bar > Faces then you will see a message saying face recognition is off for this project, drag across the image to mark a face or another region. If it is on any faces found will have a box around each one found.

You may see a small overlaid message saying 'Looking for faces...' which will disappear once faces have been found or if none are found an alternative message saying 'No faces found'. You can still drag across the image to mark regions.

If a potential match it will include the name it has matched to, if it is correct click on the small tick to the right of the name. If it is not a correct match you can just type in the correct name or delete the name and leave it blank. Hovering over a face will show:

Known 'Confirmed' (solid lined bounding box) with name (previously identified);

Unconfirmed 'Recognised' (dashed bounding box) with name; (matched but not previously identified);

Unknown (a solid bounding box but no name assigned (new face or not recognised).

if unconfirmed but recognised then it will also show the degree of confidence e.g. 66%

You can name/rename faces simply by clicking on the face and typing in the that box that appears below it. Note, this does not embed tagging metadata e.g.

xmp.mwg-rs:Regions/mwg-rs. 

To do so use the contextual menu in explore mode.

You can right/Cntrl click on a face to open a contextual menu letting you rename all instances of the selected person, delete the tag for the person or open the the persons window to manage the global database of regions

2.2 Audio clip

This lets you play or record an audio file that is, or will be, attached to the object being edited. If an audio file is already attached the 'musical note' icon will be a reddish pink hue, otherwise it will look like the other icons. Clicking on the icon will open a small window with various controls. The '+' button opens a file explorer window allowing you to attach an audio file from your OS file system. The 'trashcan' icon will delete an existing attached audio clip. The record button will start recording from your audio input device, there is a volume level display to show if the sound is too quiet or loud. The play button will let you listen to the attached audio file. If a file is attached the file name is displayed, recordings are named after the object being edited.

2.3 Rotate

Rotates the image 90° to the left or to the right. Rotation occurs as soon as you click on the tool icon. There are no options to adjust.

2.4 Mirror

Sets a metadata flag so that the image appears to have left and right swapped, the result is as though it is being viewed through a mirror.

2.5 Crop

Cut the edges of the image to improve the composition. There are several options within the crop tool which, as for all tool options, can be hidden or revealed by clicking on the small right pointing triangle next to the tools name.

Adjustment points

You can hover over the image and click and drag on any of the white adjustment points. The midpoints adjust just the width or height whilst the corner points adjust both. The cursor changes to indicate the type of movement allowed.

Aspect

You can click on this drop down menu and select from a range of crop ratios, such as 1:1, 4:5. Having used a predefined ratio you can still manually adjust by clicking and dragging the adjustment points at will. Click on the top right icon to reset the image with no crop. If a crop has previously been applied to an image you can apply the same cropping proportions by clicking on the icon to the left of the reset.

Straightens the image, rotating to +/- 45 degree angle. Double click on the wheel to reset to zero.

2.6 Adjust

Instantly improve the look of the image by automatically adjusting the colors, levels and/or contrast of the image. You may want to open the histogram tool at the same time, to see the changes graphically. By selecting Enhance all, jAlbum attempts to correct colours, contrast and brightness, all in one go.

If the keyboard focus is on the image you can use the left/right arrow keys to move to previous/next image whilst keeping the adjust settings open.

Light

Adjust the brightness and contrast of the image to improve the look of an image.

Brightness

Moves the luminance values towards the black (negative values) or white point.

Contrast

Compress (negative values) or expand the luminance values within the image. Increases or decreases the contrast between the luminous and the dark parts of the image.

Highlights

Targets the bright parts of the image

Shadows =

Targets the dark parts of the image

Color

Settings that adjust the colour of the image

Saturation

Defines a range from pure color (+100) to gray (-100). Desaturates (negative values) or saturates the colors, making the image fully desaturated will remove all color information, resulting in a gray scale image. Saturation influences the vividness of the the colors in an image.

Vibrance

Adjusts the intensity of muted colours, making them more vivid without affecting already saturated colours.

Warmth

Warmth (temperature) controls the balance between warm (yellow/orange) and cool (blue/cyan) tones

Tint

Tint fine-tunes the balance between green and magenta, helping to correct any colour casts.

Advanced

Fine tuning the image

Whites

Sets the end points for light tones, increasing the whites will add brightness to the highlights.

Blacks

Sets the end points for dark tones, decreasing the blacks makes shadows darker.

2.7 Effects

The effects below are applied to the displayed image, if you want to apply effects to all images see Album>Settings>Effects

Auto

Enhance all of colours, contrast and levels

Auto color

This tries to balance the colors thereby removing any color cast.

Auto contrast

This ensures that the image uses the maximum range of values for brightness.

Auto levels

This spreads the the range of values for each of the colors, ensuring the widest range possible is used.

Red Eye

Removes the red eye effect often seen when a person is photographed with the camera and flash being too close to the subject. Click on the eyes suffering from red eye and the pupils should turn black. You can increase or decrease the size of the circle covering the eye by dragging it. If the effect is too strong, or too weak, enable the advanced options and change the settings. The strength of the effect is controlled by the sensitivity settings and the range of the effect by the maximum gap between pixels. Use small changes to the default settings to start with. You can remove an adjustment circle, if required, by selecting it and then clicking on the remove button.

Gray Effect

This converts a color image to a gray scale image. There are no settings to adjust.

Sepia Effect

This adds a sepia colored tint to the image. The strength of the tint can be varied from 0 to 100, not applied to full tint.

Sharpen Effect

Applies a preset amount of sharpening to the whole of the image.

Blur Effect

Applies a Gaussian blur to the whole image, with a strength setting of 0 to 100, no blur to completely out of focus.

Invert Effect

Inverts the colors in the image, black becomes white, red becomes cyan. There are no settings to adjust.

Pixelate Effect

Adds an effect to the whole image that is a bit like looking through frosted glass, the size of effect can be adjusted from 1 to 10.

Arty Effect

This gives eight preset artistic effect filters for you to try. A thumbnail of your original is surrounded by the eight options. Hovering over each thumbnail reveals a tooltip that describes the effect. Clicking on a thumbnail will preview it on your image. Only one effect can be applied to an image.

2.8 Pixelate regions

When the mouse button is clicked it will pixelate the area under the cursor, with the button held down move the cursor to 'brush on' the effect. Right or control clicking mouse button restores that area again The pixelation size can be adjusted by dragging the size adjuster. Use to 'Clear' button to remove the effect.

2.9 Text Effect

This allows you to add text boxes to your images. Each text box can have its own font, size, weight, alignment, color, transparency and shadow effect. The 'Set as default' will save the selected options such as font, size, bold etc. as the default settings for this filter. It does not save the entered text as a default.

Alt/Opt-click the 'Set as default' button to reset the settings to the factory defaults.

2.10 Draw

Lets you draw lines, arrows, text bubbles and shapes on the image. You can set a border and a fill colour, adjust the line width and add a shadow. You can also add text as desired.

2.11 Undo/Redo

Undo last applied tool and redo last undone tool. You can undo back to the original state.

If no edit has been done the 'undo' button will be disabled, so you can tell at a glance if an edit has been made or not.

Hovering over the undo/redo buttons will result in a tooltip that shows the action to be affected.

2.12 Cancel

Exit edit mode

3. Video editing

For information on editing videos click on this link

4. RAW editing

For information on editing RAW files click on this link

5. Web locations editing

Web locations lets you link to pages published to the web, so you can link to other albums, YouTube pages or anywhere on the web. You can manually enter relative URLs, drag and drop of relative URLs is not allowed.

In edit mode you can paste an updated path to the page, should it be changed at some point. You can also change the image used to represent the web page being targeted either by pasting the url of an alternative image or, by clicking on the folder icon, using the file browser to pick a local image. You can either paste the path to another image from the web or select a local file using the standard file chooser by clicking on the folder icon. Once the new path has been entered click on 'update' to set it.

If you want to make any edits, such as crop, straighten, flip, auto-fix, brightness, contrast, saturation, gamma or effects to the representing image you will need to use a local copy and add it to the project. Now exclude the local copy and edit it as required.

Supported file types are typical image file formats such as jpeg, png, gif etc. Note however that gif slide images will be the original as gifs are automatically set to ‘use original’.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License