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Clicking the Preferences… button
will display the Preferences dialog box:
EditLab has many features that may be controlled via its preferences. Some of these can save you a lot of work, so learning about them can be a very worthwhile investment of your time. Below we will go through each of these controls in order, to see how EditLab's behavior is affected.
As mentioned in the Introduction, EditLab's color correction can be directed to any of four purposes, and the first preference control indicates which of these four to use:
The selection made affects the appearance and behavior of the lower right button of EditLab's main window, which in turn, affects how the color correction is used. Each of the four modes is explained in Chapter 9.
The Start With menu establishes how EditLab will determine its starting color control settings:
If you start with SmartColor, then SmartColor Mode will be enabled, which is then used to determine the initial color correction settings according to an analysis of the current image. If you select any of the other three "Start with" options, SmartColor Mode will be disabled. If you start with Previous Settings, then the settings for the color correction tools are recalled from the previous image that was corrected. If you start with Custom Settings, then the custom settings that have been loaded with Load Custom Settings are used. If you start with Reset, all color correction tool controls will be set to values that do not change the image (i.e. "null" values).
If Start all tool tabs the same way is checked, all of the color correction settings will be initialized according to the Start With menu selection.
For more flexibility, you can uncheck that checkbox and use the additional pop-up menus to initialize each tool tab independently:
This can be especially helpful when you are recording actions to automate EditLab. For example, if an action is recorded with the settings shown above, it can be used to convert batches of images to a custom hue correction (such as Sepia tone, or any other correction that has been saved as a custom setting), while also adaptively optimizing the black and white point of each image.
SmartColor can be customized with the SmartColor preferences which are viewed by clicking the SmartColor Prefs… button:
The SmartColor Preferences controls are divided into two main categories. The first set defines how SmartColor works:
Each of these checkboxes determines whether the corresponding edit tool will be affected when SmartColor Mode is enabled or a SmartColor button is clicked. By default, all of the checkboxes are checked, and all of the corresponding tools are set by SmartColor. There may be times that you want to selectively turn off parts of SmartColor. For example, if you know that you never work with Linear images, you can uncheck the Linear SmartColor preference so that SmartColor will never mistakenly identify a dark image as a linear image. Or, if you find that you typically need to adjust the Saturation that SmartColor sets, you may find it easier to simply turn off the Saturation component of SmartColor. However, you can also fine tune SmartColor Saturation without turning it off, as described below.
The Preferred Saturation menu influences the Saturation level that is set by the SmartColor Saturation correction.
The settings range from 0 (None; a black and white image) to 100 (Maximum; a very colorful image), with 80 being the default. SmartColor Saturation will analyze your image and set the Saturation control to a value that will either reduce or increase the saturation of your image to match your preferred saturation level.
Note that the visual effect that this control has on your image is influenced by your choice of working space. If you change EditLab's working space, you may also need to adjust this Preferred Saturation preference also.
The second set of controls in this window defines how Memory Color buttons work.
Each of these checkboxes determines whether the corresponding control in the Hue Selective edit tool panel will be affected when a Memory Color button is clicked. By default, all of the checkboxes are checked, and all of the corresponding tools are set. These preferences allow you to selectively turn off parts of the Memory Color. For example, if you find that you typically need to adjust the Saturation that the Memory Color sets, you may find it easier to simply turn off the Saturation component of the Memory Color button. Note that this does not change the Memory Color definition, but determines which parts of the definition are actually used. The process used to fine tune a Memory Color definition or create a new one is described here.
The Restore Defaults button at the bottom of the window will set all preferences in the window to the factory default values, that is, the values that were present when EditLab was first installed.
The OK button in the SmartColor Preferences window must be clicked in order for these new settings to take effect.
The Load Custom Settings... button is used to load the settings that will be applied when the Start with Custom Settings preference has been selected, and when the Custom buttons in the main EditLab window are clicked.
You will be asked to locate the file that contains the Custom Settings that you want to load.
Custom Settings files are saved using the Save Custom... button in the main EditLab window. Any number of custom settings files can be saved.
Shortcut Tip: In EditLab's main window, you can load custom settings and immediately apply them by holding down the key while clicking the master Custom button. This is equivalent to opening the Preferences window, clicking the Load Custom Settings button, selecting a custom settings file, clicking OK to return to the main EditLab window, and then clicking the master Custom button.
The three Preview checkboxes influence the responsiveness of the controls throughout EditLab. If you find that the controls are too sluggish, you may want to experiment with these settings that trade off feedback for speed. The responsiveness will depend on many factors, such as the speed of your computer, the amount of memory available to EditLab and the size of the EditLab window.
When the Preview Live Sliders checkbox is checked, the preview image is updated with every movement of the mouse as you adjust a slider.
If you have a fast enough computer, this makes it easy to find the optimal slider setting, but on a slower computer, you may find it confusing and frustrating if the updating of the display doesn't keep up with your mouse movements. Updating the preview involves a lot of calculations, especially if the master SmartColor checkbox is checked, since new automatic settings are also recalculated for each change in the slider value. When the Preview Sliders checkbox is unchecked, you can freely move a slider, but the image is not updated until you release the mouse button.
When the Preview Sharpening checkbox is checked, if sharpening is being applied to the image, it is previewed whenever you are zoomed in. When the Preview Noise Removal checkbox is checked, if noise is being removed from the image, it is previewed whenever you are zoomed in. This is described further in the Preview Image section.
When the Show Sampled Region checkbox is checked, a brief visual feedback is given of the actual pixels sampled when you click on the image:
This is discussed in more detail in the section describing the Neutral Color Balance tool. This "flashing" gives you some feedback about what is happening during color correction. If you find this distracting, simply turn the option off by unchecking the checkbox.
When the Show Pixel Values checkbox is checked, EditLab will enable the display of numeric pixel values in its main window, as was described here.
When the Show Brightness/Contrast Curve Control checkbox is checked, EditLab will display a control in the Brightness / Contrast / Saturation tool panel that allows the tone curve to be graphically displayed, as described here.
When the Show Neutrals/Sliders Pop-up Menu checkbox is checked, EditLab will place a pop-up menu in the Neutral Balance tool panel that allows color balance to be achieved using sliders, in addition to clicking on neutral colors in the image, as described here.
The Show Start Up Guide checkbox controls whether or not the Start Up Guide window is displayed when EditLab is launched.
The Start Up Guide is designed to give the first-time user a little extra help getting started. Once you are familiar with EditLab, you will probably want to disable this feature.
The Use Largest Possible Window checkbox indicates how the EditLab window will be sized the next time the plug-in is run.
A bit of explanation is needed here. Unlike a normal stand-alone application, it is not possible for a plug-in to have a window that may be resized while the plug-in is actually running. So in order to provide a different window size, you must indicate how this should be done next time.
Moreover, note that the larger you make EditLab's window, the more memory EditLab needs. And EditLab's zooming feature increases its memory needs still further. So the name of the game is trading window size against available memory and the ability to zoom. Let's see how this is done.
If the Use Largest Possible Window checkbox is unchecked, the EditLab window will be a fixed size that will fit on a display that meets EditLab's minimum system display requirements (800 × 600 pixels). If under this setup, there is not enough memory for EditLab to run, image zooming will be temporarily disabled in an attempt to have enough memory to run at all.
If the Use Largest Possible Window checkbox is checked, the EditLab window will be the largest size that will fit on your display. If under this setup, there is not enough memory for EditLab to run, the window size will be made just enough smaller so that it will run. If the resulting window size found this way is the minimum size, image zooming may be temporarily disabled if needed to have enough to run at all.
Finally, the Restore Defaults button will set all preferences in the window to the factory default values, that is, the values that were present when EditLab was first installed.
The OK button in the Preferences window must be clicked in order for the new settings to take effect.
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