Framing Images

To start PhotoFramer you can either double click on the PhotoFramer icon that was placed on your desktop, or you can click the Start button, choose Programs, choose Pixlabs and then click on PhotoFramer.  To view an image, select Open from the File menu, or drag and drop your image file into the PhotoFramer Work Area.

Figure8 - Main Window

As you can see, your picture is placed into a frame as soon as you load it.  Congratulations!  You have already framed your first image.  Let’s take a look at the PhotoFramer application to understand how it works.

Terminology

Figure 9 - Main Window Components

There are four main components to this window as shown in Figure 9.  They are the Title Bar, the Menu Bar, the Work Area and the Status Bar. 

Figure10 - Components of a Framed Image

There are five main components to a framed image.

Coloring Frame Components

Perhaps the most important feature of a frame is the choice of mat colors.  PhotoFramer provides several options to help you find exactly the right color scheme for your frame.  Each of the components in the frame can be colored individually to best accent your picture.  The most direct method is to select a color from within the image. 

Figure11 - Eyedropper

As you move the mouse cursor over your image, you will see that it becomes the shape of an eyedropper.  By placing the end of the eyedropper over a color in your image and clicking, you will pick up that color.  The color that you pick up is displayed in the Status Bar as the Current Color .

Figure 12 - Paint Bucket

When you move the mouse cursor over any of the other Frame Components, it becomes a Paint Bucket.  If you click while the mouse cursor has the Paint Bucket shape, PhotoFramer will re-render the frame and the component you click on will take on the Current Color.

As you experiment, you will see that you can select the Current Colorfrom anywhere in your image and use it to paint the Inner Mat, Outer Mat, Frame or Wall.

Figure13 - Colors Menu

Under the Colors menu you will find 16 suggested colors.  PhotoFramer employs a proprietary algorithm to analyze your image to create a palette of colors specifically designed to look good with the currently loaded image.  Selecting any of these menu items will set the Current Colorto the Suggested Colorthat you selected.  You may then use the paint bucket to color a frame component with that color.  If you can’t find the color that you like in the palette, you can ask PhotoFramer to generate a new list of colors by selecting the Suggest Different Colors menu item or by holding down the Ctrl, Shift and S keys at the same time.

Figure14 - Custom Color Picker

In addition, you may choose Custom Color (or hold down the Ctrl, Shift and C keys at the same time) to create your own color.  PhotoFramer will display the Custom Color Picker.   When the window first appears, the settings display the Current Color.  You may modify or create your own color by any of the following methods:

Once you have chosen a color, you may click OK to set the Current Color to your custom color.

If you would prefer, PhotoFramer can select mat colors for you.  By choosing the Suggest Mat Color menu item (or holding down Ctrl, Shift and M at the same time) PhotoFramer use a proprietary algorithm to suggest color combinations for the palette of suggested colors.  Each time you choose this item it will suggest a new color combination. 

If at any time you would like to revert back to the default colors, you may choose the Revert to Default Colors from Style menu item (or hold down the Ctrl, Shift and D keys at the same time).   This will reset all the mat colors to their default values. 

If you would like to revert to the default color for a single frame component, but keep your other color selections, you may choose the Style Color menu item.  This will set the Current Color to a special value which, when poured onto a frame component using the paint bucket, will set the color for that particular component to its default color while leaving the other components unchanged.

Using Styles

Although colors are important, there are certainly many other parameters that are important to creating a beautiful frame.  Within PhotoFramer, we refer to all these parameters collectively as a Style.

Figure 15 - Choosing a Style for your Frame

PhotoFramer includes a Manage Styles menu item (see page 27 for more information) and a variety of predefined styles for you to choose from.  By simply clicking on any of these entries in the Style menu, PhotoFramer will re-render your image with the newly selected style of frame.

Any colors that you have set will remain constant as you switch from style to style, so if you want to explore the styles, we recommend that you first select the Revert to Default Colors from Style menu item from the Color menu (or hold down the Ctrl, Shift and D keys at the same time), to be certain that you are seeing the frames as they were intended.

The Status Bar

As you work with colors and styles, you may notice that the Status Bar along the bottom of the PhotoFramer window updates to show you information about the current settings.

Figure16 - Status Bar

On the left side the Status Barshows the current frame style and the zoom level.  This value changes as you zoom in and out or change styles.

Next is the Current Color.  As you use the eyedropper, or choose a color from the Color menu, this swatch will change color.  When the style default color is chosen, this will display “N/A” because the style default color is not a single color.  It may be different for different components of the frame.

The Status Baralso displays the Red, Green and Blue (RGB) values for the Current Color.  As with the color swatch, these turn to “N/A” when the style default color is selected.

Further to the right we find the currently selected colors for the Inner Mat, Outer Mat, Frame and Wall.  These also display “N/A” when the corresponding Frame Component is set to the style default color.