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2. Basics of Image Processing

## 2.11 Document Mode And Picture Mode

PhotoLine has two basic working modes: the document and the picture mode.

Documents are used for creating greeting cards, labels and things like that. Pictures are used for web graphics or if the result will be used in another application.

Nevertheless, documents and pictures are very similar. Both consist of layers, and nearly all functions can be used on both.

The main differences are:

- In picture mode, the first layer is always an image layer. This image layer is called background layer. There is no such layer in document mode.
- The background layer defines the size of the picture. If the background layer gets smaller, the whole picture gets smaller. Documents behave differently. On creation, their size is defined. After that, a document containing a single page is created without any layer.
- In picture mode the background layer defines the color space, in document mode the color space is defined by the ICC color profile of the document (see chapter 4.9 and 7.6.12).
- Documents can contain several pages, pictures can’t.

In this manual, both terms are used synonymously. If documents and pictures behave differently, it is explicitly written.

To change the working mode of an existing document or picture, see chapter 4.9 "The Document Attributes".