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3. Basics of PhotoLine

## 3.9 The Parts of a Typical Dialog

### 3.9.1 Basics

In PhotoLine all dialogs allowing editing of images have a common structure. They usually look like this:

It contains the following parts:

- the management of the presets (see chapter 3.9.2)
- the settings of the given dialog
- the preview (see chapter 3.9.3)
- (optionally) the button for shrinking the dialog
Modern computers are very fast, so often a small preview in a dialog is often no longer needed, because the full preview in the document window is fast enough. Therefore, the shrink-button allows to hide the dialog preview making the whole dialog smaller.
- (optionally) the split control
Using the split control you can change the width of both the settings and the preview. If the width of the preview becomes too small, it will be hidden.
If you only want to hide the preview, you can simply make the entire dialog smaller, too. To show the preview again, you may have to enlarge the dialog again and then use the split control to make the preview visible again.
- the switch for the full preview
If the switch for the full preview is turned on, the result of the current dialog settings are Āshown in the document window immediately after a setting is modified. The full preview can also be turned on and off using the menu command "Layer > Display > Show Layer". So by assigning a shortcut to this command you can control the full preview with that shortcut.
Sometimes beside the full preview switch there is a button Proof. This button is used with functions, that perform rather long operations which may lead to an unacceptable slow recalculation of the full preview. In this case Proof can be used to manually create a preview after all settings have been made.
- the reset button
Pushing the reset button will replace the current settings with the standard values of the active function. Holding the Shift-key while pushing Reset will enter the values, that were set when calling the function.
- the button "Create Adjustment Layer"
Pushing Create Adjustment Layer doesn't modify the current image directly. Instead an adjustment layer (see chapter 2.9) is created equivalent to the active function. By holding Shift while pressing the button, the new adjustment layer will be grouped with the active image layer.
Not every function can be used as an adjustment layer, too.