PMIO contains its own built-in image viewer which, by default, is used when you double click on a thumbnail. The viewer works on a list of images. When you open a single image from the browser, all the other images in the location (in sorted order) are also made available to the viewer so that you can step through them forwards (Space bar) or backwards (Backspace key).
Zooming
You can zoom in and out by pressing the plus and minus keys on the keypad. The viewer zooms on the position that the mouse pointer is over, if possible. The Zoom 1:1 command in the View menu, allows you to rest the zoom to normal.
Selection
You can click on the image and drag a selection rectangle. You can adjust the rectangle by clicking and dragging its edges or move it by clicking and dragging inside it. You can make it easier to see what you are going to select by switching on the Show Crosshairs option on the View menu.
The selection affects certain commands that operate on the image. Specifically:
- The Copy command becomes Copy Selection.
- The Colour Correction function operates only on the selected area.
- You can crop the image to the selection by choosing Crop To Selection from the Edit menu.
Undo
The Internal Viewer has full undo/redo functionality. This means that all commands that modify the image can be undone and redone by using the Undo or Redo commands on the Edit menu.
Full screen mode
Pressing RETURN puts the viewer into full screen mode which makes it take over the whole screen. Pressing RETURN again reverts to a normal window. For more information, see the General page of settings.
Opening, saving and deleting images
The following commands are all in the File menu.
- The Open command lets you choose a new picture to open in the same window.
- The Reopen command discards any changes and reopens the picture.
- You can also choose a recent file name from the File menu to reopen it.
- The Save command saves the current image. It will overwrite the original file if necessary, and it will ask you to confirm first if that option is enabled in settings.
- The Save As command saves the current image with a new name.
- You can delete the picture file that you are viewing by choosing Delete File from the File menu.
Image adjustment functions
The Adjust menu contains commands for adjusting the picture in various ways.
- Colour Correction displays the Colour Correction palette.
- Brightness + increases the brightness of the picture.
- Brightness - decreases the brightness of the picture.
- Contrast + increases the contrast of the picture.
- Contrast - decreases the contrast of the picture.
- Brightness/Contrast adjusts the brightness and contrast of the picture at the same time.
The brightness and contrast are changed in steps that can be set on the Brightness/Contrast page of settings. You can also get to change this setting and then do the adjustment by pressing Shift/K.
Image processing functions
The Process menu contains commands for processing the picture in various ways.
- Resize allows you to resize the picture by using the options set on the Resize page of settings.
- You can also get to change this setting and then do the resize by pressing Shift/Z.
- Flip Horizontally makes the 'mirror-image' of the picture.
- Flip Vertically flips the picture upside-down.
- Rotate Left rotates the picture 90° anti-clockwise.
- Rotate Right rotates the picture 90° clockwise.
- Blur blurs the picture by the amount specified on the Blur/Sharpen page of settings.
- You can also get to change this setting and then do the blur by pressing Shift/B.
- Sharpen sharpens the picture by the amount specified on the Blur/Sharpen page of settings.
- You can also get to change this setting and then do the sharpen by pressing Shift/S.
- Despeckle applies a despeckle filter to the picture. This allows you to smooth out noise or other inconsistencies in the picture.
- Negative reverses the colours in the picture; this has a photographic negative effect.
- Greyscale converts the picture to black and white.
- RGB-BGR reverses the RGB components of each pixel in the picture. This has an interesting but probably not very useful effect.
Other functions
- You can adjust the various settings of the Internal Viewer by choosing Settings from the View menu, or pressing F10.
- You can enter Full screen mode by choosing Full Screen from the View menu, or pressing RETURN.
- You can toggle the tool bars on and off by pressing F7 and F8.
- You can copy the picture to the Clipboard by choosing the Copy command from the Edit menu.
- You can set the picture as the Windows desktop wallpaper by choosing Set As Wallpaper from the File menu.
- You can close the viewer window by choosing Close from the File menu or pressing ESC.
- You can close PMIO completely by choosing Close All and Exit from the File menu.
- Since the Internal Viewer exists independently of the browser windows, you can close all browsers and leave only viewer windows open. You can get a browser window again by choosing the New Browser command from the File menu. The browser will display thumbnails for the location where the visible image is stored.
Settings
The settings dialog contains settings that control the operation of the Internal Viewer. It can be opened by pressing F10.
General tab
Settings - General tab
- Size window to image makes the viewer resize the window to fit the image when the zoom is changed.
- Start in full-screen mode makes the viewer go into full screen mode automatically.
- Enlarge small images causes small images to be enlarged to fit the screen when entering full screen mode.
- Fit images to screen causes images to be resized to fit the screen when entering full screen mode.
- Add noise lets you specify a small amount of noise to add to the image when it is resized to fit the screen. This has the effect of smoothing out colour artifacts and is especially useful on high colour displays where you sometimes get banding on smooth areas of colour. The usual way of dealing with this problem is by using dithering, but using noise gives a more 'photographic' look.
- Prompt on closing window causes PMIO to prompt you about saving your changes when the window is closed.
- Prompt on opening picture causes PMIO to prompt you about saving your changes when the window is reused to open a new picture.
- Confirm overwrites causes PMIO to prompt you about overwriting an existing file when saving.
Note: Use dithering on 256 colour displays is an old feature for users of 256 Colour Displays.
Blur/Sharpen tab
Settings - Blur/Sharpen tab
Here you can set the blur and sharpen step used by the Blur and Sharpen commands.
Brightness/Contrast tab
Settings - Brightness/Contrast tab
Here you can set the brightness and contrast step used by the Brightness, Contrast and Brightness/Contrast commands.
Resize tab
Settings - Resize tab
Here you can set the values used by the Resize command (Z).
Options
- Manual selects manual operation. Use the manual settings to select a new size.
- Half size uses one-half of the current image size.
- Quarter size uses one-quarter of the current image size.
- Double size uses twice the current image size.
- 320 x 240 uses 320 x 240 for the new size.
- 640 x 480 uses 640 x 480 for the new size.
- 800 x 600 uses 800 x 600 for the new size.
- 1024 x 768 uses 1024 x 768 for the new size.
- The above four options will distort the image if its aspect ratio is not 4:3 (1.3333).
Manual settings
When the options are set to manual, you can set the width and height manually here. If Preserve aspect ratio is checked, then as you set one dimension, the other will be set for you by using the aspect ratio of the image. This allows you to adjust one of the dimensions without worrying about distorting the image.
Quality
Here you can select Low, High or Super High resize quality. Although it is slower, Super High is the recommended setting.
You can check the Auto sharpen option to have PMIO automatically sharpen the image after resizing it (recommended).
Undo tab
Settings - Undo tab
- Enable undo system allows you to enable or disable the undo system. It is not recommended that you disable undo unless you have a severe lack of memory and disk space.
- Undo zoom, selection and scroll position if enabled, the undo system will record and restore those three values along with the picture data.
- Store temporary undo information in this folder lets you choose the folder where PMIO will store the undo information. This defaults to your Windows temporary folder but you can move it if necessary.
Other controls
- OK saves your settings and closes the dialog.
- Cancel discards your settings and closes the dialog.
- JPEG opens the PMIO main preferences dialog on the JPEG page so that you can change the JPEG settings that you want to save images with.
- See also:
- Colour Correction
About Thumbnails
