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Custom Images
Although ImageDirector™ offers excellent options for downloading images within its default format, there are times when you may wish to directly set options such as the filetype, bordering, size constraints, color depth, rotation, and cropping of your images. The Custom Downloader allows you to set all these options and more directly within ImageDirector without affecting you original source files.
Loading the Custom Downloader
The Custom Downloader is accessible under the Download Options menu in both the Asset Browser view and the Image Editor. To load the Custom Downloader click on the Custom option within the Download Options menu. For more information on the Download Options menu please visit the Downloading Files help article.
Once selected two new popup windows will appear on your screen. The Custom Download window on the left is your image editing window where can edit the image you are working on, and set advanced downloading options. The Download Thumbnail window on the right provides four new sample sizes so you may preview your work live.and download them quickly if any of them are appropriate to your needs.
The Custom Download and Download Thumbnail windows.
The Custom Download Window
The Custom Download has two tabs, the Editing Tab and the Advanced Tab. The Editing Tab allows you to completely customize the look of your final image, removing much, if not all of the need for a third party image editor. Through the Editing Tab you may rotate, mirror, crop, add or remove borders styles, colour your border styles, and set the colour. The Advanced Tab offers the ability to completely customize the file saving settings for your download. You may scale the image proportionally to the appropriate dimensions, set the resolution, the file format, the colour format.
There are three things visible in the Editing window at all times. The Working Image, the Image Control Handlers, and the Image Manipulation dialogue box.
The Editing Tab.
The Working Image (in this case the baby image), is the current state image within the Editing Tab. All customization of your images will first be applied to the image here before being propagated elsewhere in the system. The Image Control Handlers (the black empty frame with heavy black corners) allows you to set the crop you wish to apply to an image. The Image Manipulation dialogue box controls all editing functions of your image. Lets look in detail at the options available within the Image Manipulation dialogue box.
All actions within the Editing Tab are applied immediately upon click the Image Manipulation dialogue box. This includes the Crop tool. When applying a crop ensure that the area within the Image Control Handlers is set correctly prior to clicking.
Rotate Counter-Clockwise rotates the working image in a counter-clockwise direction by 90 degree increments.
Rotate Clockwise rotates the working image in a clockwise direction by 90 degree increments.
Mirror Image applies a horizontal mirroring effect (flip horizontal).
Set Colour allows the colour settings to be set to GreyScale or Black / White respectively. To restore setting to full colour simply reselect the GreyScale or Black / White setting that was applied.
Set Border allows you to set both the border style and border colour of your image.
Advanced downloading options are available under the Advanced Tab. You may select both the exact size of the image you wish to download (scaled proportionally), the resolution, the format, and the colour type.
The Advanced Tab.
Lets look in detail at the options available for advanced downloading.
Resize allows you to resize the image according to either the maximum width or height you would like the image to have. The image will then be scale proportionally to that setting.
Resolution permits the setting of the resolution of an image. For resolution you may select from 72dpi (intended for the web as browser do not support more depth), 200 dpi (intended for lower quality print jobs), and 300 dpi (standard print jobs).
Format allows for the setting of the explicit format to JPG/JPEG, BMP, GIF, PNG, and/or TIF. Please note that JPG images are "lossy", meaning repeated saves will degrade the image. If you expect to repeatedly resave the image after it has been placed in our system then you way wish to select a "lossless" image format.
Colours allows for the setting or colour types. You may set your image to CMYK, RGB, or GreyScale. In general set this to CMYK for any images that need to go straight to print, RGB for images that are to be displayed on screen, and GreyScale when you wish to desaturate an image.
The Download Thumbnail Window
The other option for downloading is available through the Download Thumbnail window. The Download Thumbnail window allows you to both preview the thumbnails while working with them, and download the thumbnails if they meet your needs without having to set all the settings in the Advanced Tab of the Custom Download window.
The Download Thumbnail window.
Right clicking on a thumbnail brings up the Copy Image menu. This menu allows you to a version of the current thumbnail directly to your clipboard bypassing the download process entirely. Prepare the image directly in ImageDirector then copy it straight into the document you wish to work with it. Alternatively to archive it simply paste it anywhere on your computer. The menu offers the selected thumbnails dimensions, and ImageDirector's standard dimensions of Slide, Preview, Internet, and Thumbnail for you to select from.
Download Thumbnail dimensions included 57x57, 100x57, 171x75, and 279x194 plus the standard Slide (1024x678), Preview (420x420), Internet (250x250), and Thumbnail (96x120). Note that should the original file size be smaller then the standard ImageDirector sizes, the Download Thumbnail will only offer a thumbnail version of an equal or smaller size. For example if your original image is 250x167, the Slide, Preview, and Internet versions will all be 250x167, the Thumbnail version however will be 96x64 as you would expect.
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