Author: Gary

The feather tool softens the selection edge (not the image itself). This is useful if you have soft edges to objects because they are out of focus, for instance. If you find you have feathered a selection edge too much, you can unsoften with the unsoften tool. The Radius slider affects how much the selection is softened.
Repeatedly softening an edge can also progressively make a selection edge softer.

Shows a tab for Presets of changes made to the whole picture, and a tab for adjusting sliders to change the whole picture.

Main sliders

The first set of sliders are for quickly tweaking the overall brightness and colors in the image.

Top (Style) Slider – The first slider allows you to apply an overall color, brightness and contrast style to the whole image. The drop down box on the left lets you choose from different color, brightness and contrast styles. For instance, improver will detect what type of landscape you have and intelligently improve it. Other options let you apply the colors and shades of sunset or dusk for instance.

Style Contrast – This slider bellow lets you tweak how much change there is to the brightness and contrast from the style slider without affecting the colors. When it is at 0, only the hue and saturation of the pixels will be changed, when it is at 1 the brightness of the pixels will be changed to the maximum amount specified by the style slider.

Levels

Contrast – Adjusts the amount of difference between the light and dark area in the image.

Hi/Low Key – When set to 1, it will turn the image into a high key image, with generally bright colors and good contrast. When set to -1 it will turn the image into a low key image with generally dark colors and extreme contrast. At 0 it has no effect.

Fill Light – Used to brighten, especially in underexposed areas.

Exposure Recovery – Fixes over exposed areas, if there are any.

Blacks – Darkens the blacks in the area to make the image more punchy.

 

 

 

Color

Vibrance – Increases the intensity of colorful areas while grayer areas are changed less.

Saturation – Increases or decreases the intensity of all the colors in the image.

Colorfulness – Makes an image more colorful by increasing the intensity and range of colors.

Temperature – Sliding to the right warms the image, making it more red, sliding to the left cools the image making it bluer.

Tint – Adjusts the tint of the image. Sliding to the right makes the image greener, to the left, more magenta.

Reset Section and Save Sliders

Clicking the Reset Section will set all the sliders in the section to zero making the section have no effect.

Save Preset opens a box to name a preset. Type a preset name then press OK to save a preset. The preset stores all the slider values and drop down choices.

This will then be available to you now and when you next open the software to use again.

The soften tool softens the selection edge (not the image itself). This is useful if you have soft edges to objects because they are out of focus, for instance. If you find you have softened a selection edge too much, you can unsoften with the unsoften tool. The Radius slider affects how much the selection is softened.
Repeatedly softening an edge can also progressively make a selection edge softer.

The Tree & Sky selection tool is available once you have dragged in both Tree and Sky labels.

The tool is used to automatically find and label areas of the image as either tree or sky. If you drag or “scribble” over a complex area where trees are silhouetted against the sky, the trees will be automatically labeled tree and the sky automatically labeled sky. The area it looks for tree and sky in is determined automatically, but it will tend to search in larger areas if you are scribbling quickly.

It is important to have good sky selections if you are making dramatic changes to the sky.

Tips: If you want to isolate a tree from a different kind of background, try using the Smart Brush. 

The Horizon line tool allows you to quickly separate Sky from Water and Sky Reflections. Once the horizon line is set, no pixel below it will be labeled Sky and no pixels above it will be labeled Water or Sky Reflection.

The horizon line is also used in the lighting calculations, in computing sky reflections, and in the Straightening tool in the Fixes section.

Click and move the mouse up and down to match the Horizon line to the horizon in your image or where the horizon would be if it is hidden.

The Object in Sky tool works similarly to the Tree & Sky tool. Instead of un-mixing Trees from Sky it automatically un-labels objects silhouetted against the sky when you scribble over them. It is important to have good sky selections if you are making dramatic changes to the sky.

The smart brush tool is similar in use to the Pull tool, but is better at fine detail work. You pull from an existing selection into another area to extend it. You can lock selections in exactly the same way as you would with the Pull tool.

There are 3 different modes for the Smart Brush. Use the drop down menu next to “Find” to switch between them.

Solid, Opaque Areas detects larger, hard edged areas, like branches or girders.

Feathered, Translucent Areas detects edges that are not well defined, or objects that are either partially or wholly translucent. Use on grass, and finer edges to trees or plants in the distance.

Everything inside brush stops the brush being ‘smart’ and looking for edges. It will now act like a normal solid brush.

Tips: When the Smart Brush is selected, you can switch between the modes by pressing S, F or V on your keyboard.  

The Expand tool is for removing fringes around the edges of objects when you make dramatic changes. Like the Smart Brush, it will expand which ever area you hover the center of the brush over. However, instead of selecting large areas, it just expands the selection by a single pixel inside the brush. You can use the brush multiple times to continue expanding the area.

Tips: The Expand tool makes very subtle changes. Zoom in and out using your mouse wheel, the + and – keys, or the Zoom slider in the bottom right of the image.

Unlike the rest of the tools, the Reflection Edge tool does not use a brush on the image. Instead, simply use the sliders to refine the edge between Water and Sky Reflection areas. This tool is especially useful when you have a rippled edge between the sky reflections and the rest of the water, as it will soften the edge in a way that respects the existing ripples and produces a natural looking result.

This is the main tool for editing selections. Click on an area that has been correctly selected (such as an area of Sky) and drag to extend the selection from one place to another. The tool will automatically find edges.

The faster you drag, the larger the selected area will be. You can also change how large an area is selected by adjusting the Strength slider.

If you select something by accident, you can undo and try again slower or with a lower strength. Alternatively, you can drag from another area in order to push a selection back if it has gone too far.

Tip: Undo a change made during the selection by pressing Ctrl+Z (Cmd+Z). 

Locking areas

When you drag it selects areas all the way along where you drag. This means you cannot selected disconnected areas simply by dragging.

To apply the same label to areas which are not connected, click on the label Lock it. Now any area you select using the tools will have this label applied. Click on the label again to unlock it.

You can click on labels on the image, or in the side panel. You can also lock labels by holding Shift while clicking anywhere on the image that is marked as that label.