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4. The Screen Setup of PhotoLine

## 4.11 The Layer Attributes

The Layer Attributes dialog is used to get a quick overview of the settings and attributes of the active layer.

Most properties can be edited by double-clicking or by clicking the Edit-button and can be deleted by clicking the paper basket. But not all are editable or deletable. Some can only be edited and some can only be deleted.

Attributes Common To All Layer Types

- The Layer Position And Size
The position and size can be edited directly.
- The Transformation
The transformation includes scaling, rotation and shearing of the layer. The context menu of rotation and shearing can reset the transformation.
- The Layer Type
By double-clicking Convert Layer Type (see chapter 7.5.2) is called.
- Channels
Channels controls the visibility of the layer’s color channels. For example, it can be specified that the layer only changes the red channel of the document or does not change the transparency of the document.
- ICC Color Profile
If a color profile is assigned to a layer (see chapter 7.6.15), it will be listed. The color profile can be deleted here, too.
- Align Patterns
This switch controls the behavior of pattern - these are pattern colors, gradient colors and texture colors-, if the layer is moved or scaled. Usually patterns are relative to the document, this means moving or scaling a layer doesn‘t affect the position and size of a pattern. If Align Patterns is turned on, the patterns are moved and scaled the same way as the layer. Even rotations and perspective distortions influence the patterns.
- Print
If you turn off this switch, the layer is still displayed onscreen but no longer printed. This option can affect exporting PDF files, too (see chapter 7.10.1.4).
If a layer is made invisible by using the Layer List, the layer won‘t be printed, even if Print is turned on.
- Antialiasing
Antialiasing defines whether layers will be antialiased/smoothed when displayed on-screen, when printed and when saved.
Default means that a layer inherits the antialias setting of its document. If that is also Default, it will only be antialiased, if Antialias (see chapter 7.2.16) is turned on. On-Screen, the layer will only be antialiased, if it isn’t too time-consuming, on printing and saving will always antialias.
Never means that the layer will never be antialiased, even if Antialias is turned on.
When using Always it will always be antialiased, even if Antialias is turned off and even if displaying on-screen is slow.
If the active layer is an image, you can additionally select a preferred interpolation method. The interpolation will only be used, if the scaling of an image is permanently fixed, e.g. by reducing a document to the background.
- Distortions and Layer Styles
Any layer style (see chapter 2.5 and chapter 7.8.40) or layer distortion (see chapter 2.6) assigned to a layer is listed.
- Adjustment Layers
Adjustment layers (see chapter 2.9) show the assigned work. This work can be turned off temporarily in order to edit the accompanying layer.
- Clipping/Masking Properties
With layer masks, clipping layers, adjustment layers and dynamic filters you can blur and invert their area of effect.
The blurring can be turned off temporarily by using a switch.
For vector layers, you can also specify how the clipping is done. With Path the vector path is used for cropping, with Shape the outline of the line style plus the inside of the path if the vector layer is filled. With Brightness, the brightness of the layer is used as the clipping. Partially transparent or dark areas of the layer have less effect than light, opaque ones:
- Label
The label color is used for marking the layer in the Layer List. If the color is completely transparent, the layer won’t be marked.
- Pixel Snapping
This attribute controls whether the layer will be aligned to the pixel grid of the document. Default inherits the behavior from the group or the the document. Aside from that you can permanently turn snapping on or off.
If you want the apply the snapping permanently, you can use the menu command Layout/Alignment/Pixel Alignment (see chapter 7.4.62).
- Guides
If the switch is turned on, the layer is used as an automatic guide. If you have many layers, you may have too many automatic guides, so you might want to turn that option off.
- Rotation Point
Here you can enter the rotation point for the Layer Tool numerically.
- Overprint
Overprinting is a property for printing documents in print shops.
With overprinting a layer replaces only the color channels of the background, which are used by the layer.
Using overprinting you need to consider some rules:
- Overprinting is not allowed with groups, placeholder layers and virtual copies.
- With images overprinting works only for gray images that have an assigned color. This color has to be a spot color or CMYK with a single color channel occupied (see Attributes Of Image Layers).
- Simulating overprint of CMYK colors on-screen only works if the document’s color space is CMYK (see chapter 2.11).
- Simulating overprint of spot colors is only an estimate of the result.
- Overprint should not be used together with transparency, since most print shops don’t allow transparency.
- Not all PDF viewers support overprinting.

Attributes Of Image Layers

- Image layers allow to control the type, the bit depth and whether there is transparency/an alpha channel.
- Appended Picture Data
If a JPEG-file is opened, PhotoLine attaches the original JPEG-data to the newly created layer. If the layer is saved again as JPEG without being modified, the file will contain the original JPEG-data without new compression losses. This is useful, if the metadata of a JPEG-file - like the ICC color profile or metadata - have to be changed.
The additional data will be automatically removed, if the image layer itself is modified.
If an image layer has JPEG-data, these data will be used when saving as PLD-file. Therefore, PLD-files containing JPEG-images will be much smaller than in previous version of PhotoLine (see chapter 5.5 "Working With JPEG-Files" for more information). JPEG-data have an effect on creating PDF- and SVG--files, too.
- Color
If the image is 8 bit gray, you can a assign one or more colors to the image. There are 3 basic modes:
- The assigned color is a gradient: In this case, the gray values of the image are displayed using the corresponding gradient values.
- The assigned color is an arbitrary color: In this case, a curve can be defined in addition to the color. Both together control the appearance of the image.
- The assigned color is a process or spot color (see chapter 2.15): In this case, a curve allows you to control the ink coverage. Furthermore, one or more additional spot or process colors can be assigned via Duplicate Property . Please note, however, that each of these colors may occur only once per image. If you assign a spot color or process color (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) twice, you will hear an error sound and the new color is not applied.
This way you can create duotone images (monotone, duotone, tritone or more).
You can use the context menu of the Color entry to create and apply presets.

Attributes Of Vector Layers

- Fill And Line Styles
The fill and line styles are shown and can be edited.
The Edit-button duplicates the active style. If there is more than one style, the active style can be deleted, too. The order of the styles can be changed by dragging.
- The Vector Attribute
This attributes contains information which kind of geometric figure the vector layer is. The vector attribute can only be deleted.

Attributes Of Text Layers

- shape flow properties
If a text layer flows around or inside another layer (see chapter 6.2.12), the shape layer is shown. Shape flow can be deleted here.

Attributes Of Groups

- Draw Isolated
This entry is only used in combination with groups. If turned off - which is standard behavior - the blend mode of a group is ignored and its intensity is transferred to its children. But this may lead to unexpected results, if a group contains overlapping layers.
An example may make this problem clearer. Let's use a group with two circles. The first image shows this group with 100% opacity, the second one with 50% opacity and the third one with 50% opacity, too, but also with "Draw Isolated" activated:

"Draw Isolated" gives the expected result.
Additionally isolated groups allow the creation of adjustment layers, that affect only the content of their group.
Aside from that advantages there are disadvantages, too. Drawing isolating groups is significantly slower. Furthermore no file format - with the exception of the native PhotoLine-format PLD - can save isolated groups. Therefore, they will be converted to images on export.

Attributes Of Placeholder Layers

- Transparency
If the content of a placeholder doesn’t have transparency, it can be enforced with this switch. Dynamic Filters (chapter 2.10), which are assigned to the placeholder, can thus optionally adjust the transparency.
- File
File is an entry of Placeholder layers (see chapter 2.3.7). It displays the file that is assigned to the placeholder. If the text is gray, the source doesn’t exist. A double-click allows you to use a different file. If the file data is embedded in the document, "embedded" is displayed.
The context menu offers the possibility to convert an embedded placeholder into a file reference and vice versa.
If the placeholder is still empty, File is a switch, and you can use it to specify whether a newly assigned file should be embedded or a reference to the file should be saved.
The trash icon will delete the current data of the placeholder.
If the file has layer compositions (see chapter 4.35), you can use a drop-down list to specify which version of the file to display.
In addition, you can define via a list, how the associated file will be placed in the placeholder.
- inside: The file is completely inside the placeholder.
- outside: The file completely fills the placeholder. Parts of the file may be outside.
- Clipping: The placeholder is grouped with a clipping layer. Thus, the visible part of the file can be changed later using the Layer Tool (see chapter 6.2.1).
- High Preview Quality
Placeholder layers are displayed on the screen using a preview image. The preview quality controls whether the preview image is always created in 8 bit or in bit depth of the original file. This may have an impact on the appearance of adjustment layers.
Keep in mind that this only affects the screen output. All other operations are using the full quality.
- Save Preview
Here you can specify whether the preview of the placeholder is to be saved. This may save time, especially when using complex placeholder layers.
If the high preview quality is turned off, the preview image will be saved lossy with JPEG compression, otherwise it’s lossless.