Frequently asked Questions to PhotoLine

1. I am searching for the rectangle lasso or circle lasso,
   but I find only the free lasso.  
PhotoLine offers so many tools, so that they don’t fit in the toolbar at
the same time. Therefore some icons have a small red dot at the right bottom.
These icons are used multiply. By clicking and holding with the left mouse
button a pop-up appears showing a selection of available tools. Now you can
select one of them.
The lasso tools are used this way.

2. The toolbar shows not the normal tools like brush and eraser, what can I do?
PhotoLine only shows that tools, which can be used with the current layer
tool. If a text layer is active, you don’t have access to the drawing tools.
If you can’t find a certain tool and you have ensured that it isn’t a multiple
icon, check, whether you have selected the right layer.

3. Every text field in PhotoLine shows values in pixel. But I want other
   units like inches.
You can change the units of every size field and of the rulers in PhotoLine.
Right-click (on Windows) or Ctrl-click (on Mac OS) on the field and you will
get a popup with the selectable units. You can do this also with the font size,
but here you have to right-click on the arrow beside the value.

4. I want to crop an image, but I don't know how this works.   
First of all you have to create a lasso around the area that you want to crop.
Then you press "Crop" in the Tool Settings or in the context menu. You can
create a "Soft Edge" with the corresponding setting in the Tool Settings.

5. Starting PhotoLine From An USB-Stick
You can start PhotoLine from an USB-stick without any problem. First you
have to copy the installed PhotoLine folder from your harddisk to the
USB-stick. Now you can start PhotoLine from the USB-Stick, but the
settings are still saved to the harddisk. In order to fix this, you have to
create a folder named "UserSettings" in the PhotoLine folder on your
USB-stick. On Windows the "UserSettings"-folder has to be directly in the
application folder, on mac OS it must be in the application package in
"Contents/Resources". If PhotoLine finds "UserSettings" on starting, it
will read and write its settings to it.

6. How can I delete all drawings of an image to get a white sheet?
Choose the eraser tool in the toolbar and click "Work On Whole Picture" in
the Tool Settings. If there is a lasso, select "Edit/Deselect" before.

7. I want, that using the rubber makes the image transparent. How do I do that?
The eraser usually uses the background color. But if an image has an alpha
channel/transparency, using the eraser makes an image transparent. An alpha
channel/transparency is created by the function "Layer Properties". In this
dialog there is a switch named "Use Transparency" which allows to both create
and remove an alpha channel/transparency.

8. How do I draw straight lines?
All drawing tools (painting, eraser, stamp, finger, ...) are able to draw
lines. Simply hold Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac OS) and drag a line.

9. How can I rotate a layer (not background layer) or a lasso?
If you hold Ctrl (on Windows) or Command (Mac OS) before clicking on a layer
or lasso handle, you can rotate the layer or lasso.

10. How can I change the size of an image, so that there is additional space
   aside or below it?
If you want to resize an image layer, you can use the command
"Layer/Change Layer Size".
If you are editing a document and want to resize the document, you can use
"Layer/Change Document Size".

11. My plug-in filters don’t appear!
First check, whether you have set the right directory in
"Options/Extended/Plug-In Filter" and whether the filters are activated.
On Windows many filters need the files PLUGIN.DLL and MSVCRT10.DLL. They
should reside in the Windows system directory.

12. Why is there no screen capture function in PhotoLine?
Windows has a built-in snapshot function.
Press "Print" to copy the whole screen into the clipboard, and "Alt+Print" to
copy the active window. After that you can insert the clipboard content in
PhotoLine.
On the Mac OS "Shift+Command+3" copies the whole screen and "Shift+Command+4"
copies a selection. If you press additionally the Ctrl key, you will get the
image on the clipboard.

13. There is a red frame or red rectangle respectively around my text layer.
    Furthermore every time I hit a key I hear a sound.
If the above is happening, then the text layer is to small for its text.
PhotoLine will show the text nevertheless, but it is marking the layer with
red to signal the error.
To solve the problem simply enlarge the text layer or reduce the text size.

14. PhotoLine has so many function, but I don't understand how to use them.
The first way to get information about a function is to read the description in
the statur bar when the mouse is on the function. If this is not enough, press
the Help key (Windows: F1) and get the online help.
You should try to read the Tutorial of PhotoLine. You can find it at
www.pl32.com
It shows many basic functions of PhotoLine.
