An Introduction to Photo Editing with PhotoLine Welcome to PhotoLine! This tutorial is designed both for people who are coming to PhotoLine from another image editing application, as well as for people who are new to photo editing and for whom PhotoLine is their first application. It is intended to be a “walk-through” of the main tasks associated with photo editing rather than a comprehensive reference. Part of the need for such a tutorial is that little has been written along these lines so far. And much of the information available appears to be oriented toward graphic arts production. Which is fine; but my own interest is photographic image editing. Another motivation is that PhotoLine has developed a reputation for being harder to use than some other applications. This has happened partly because the tools and menus are in fact different in places from other widely-used applications, and people who switch to Photoline may have some initial trouble unlearning their old habits. In this respect, PhotoLine is not more difficult per se, just different. Hence this tutorial, to demystify the major procedures at least. And, the default user interface is not what I would consider the best; but fortunately it is fully customizable, and I have provided an alternate layout which is explained on the next page. An endearing feature used to be occasional German menu items; I believe that they have all been fixed. So why use PhotoLine? Several big reasons: besides having everything one expects from an image editor, such as 16 and 32-bit channels, CMYK and Lab editing, and full color management, it has advanced features like layer-specific image modes (an Lab layer within an RGB image, for example), hue and saturation curves, and adjustment layers for adjustment layers; it works perfectly in Linux using Wine; it runs plugins compatible with similar applications; and last but not least, for 59 Euros it comes with a permanent license; no subscription is necessary. For more information, read about its features and what’s new. This tutorial was originally created with version 20.02 for Windows, 64-bit, and includes updates for version 21.50. (There are minor layout differences between the Windows and Macintosh versions.) You may download this tutorial as a .pdf file, PhotoLineTutorial.pdf (updated 6/11/2019). The links work but not the image rollovers. For the latter, you may save the individual web pages. Site © 2019 by Russell Cottrell; license is personal use, free distribution. PhotoLine is a registered trademark of Computerinsel (“Computer Island”) GmbH, Bad Gögging, Germany. This site is not affiliated with Computerinsel. An Introduction to Photo Editing with PhotoLine home | setup | basic concepts | toolbox | L curves | layer masks | RGB curves | hue/saturation resizing/sharpening | raw conversion | selections | b/w conversion | HDR printing | placeholders | scripting | tips and tricks | bibliography | gallery RC Filters |russellcottrell.com/photo |Beyond the Digital Zone System An Introduction to Photo Editing with PhotoLine: Setup Download and install If you have not already, download PhotoLine from https://www.pl32.com/pages/down.php. It would not hurt to read the manual, which you may download as well. Installation should be straightforward. PhotoLine installs and works perfectly in Linux using Wine; I have not had any problems with recent versions of either. The installation folder in Windows should be something like C:\Program Files\PhotoLine. In Wine it is /home/username/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/PhotoLine. To access the corresponding folder on a Macintosh, right-click PhotoLine.app and select Show Package Contents; the folder is Contents/Resources. If you create a folder called PhotoLineSettings in the installation folder, all of your settings, including layout, user interface options, actions, context menu, and toolbars will be saved to this folder, and can be copied to another installation. It is best to do this immediately after installation; otherwise all the settings will have to be reset from scratch. In Windows, I had to change the security settings for the PhotoLineSettings folder via Properties – Security – Edit – Users, allow Modify and Write. This is the image that will be used in the examples; feel free to download it and follow along. (It also overlies the screenshot below.) Layout PhotoLine’s default layout leaves something to be desired. I recommend a more useful one such as the one I use, myPanelLayout.xml (right-click and download or save the file). Install it by clicking View – Panel Layout – Edit Panel Layouts. Click the file dropdown and choose Merge; this will allow you to import and add layouts such as the one above to an existing list. (Load imports a layout and replaces the existing list; Save Active exports the active layout to a file; and Save exports the whole list to a file.) After importing it, apply the layout via View – Panel Layout – myPanelLayout. If you make changes to a layout, you may save it via View – Panel Layout – Save Panel Layout and it will be added to the list. You may switch back and forth between layouts for different purposes. In the screenshot above, the Painting tool is selected in the toolbox on the left. On the right are panels that both provide information about the image, and allow you to make changes. For example, you can see that the Painting tool’s intensity is 100%, the document’s size is 800px by 599px, and it only has one layer, the background. The panels can be undocked and moved around as needed; reset them by applying your panel layout as above. More panels are available via View – Panels. Set the display colors and other options via Edit – Options – Display – User Interface (on a Macintosh the menu is PhotoLine – Preferences). ICC color profiles Color profiles are an important aspect of photo editing. If you are new to the concept, a detailed discussion is beyond our scope. Much information is available online, starting with Wikipedia. For detailed information, consult a book such as Real World Color Management by Bruce Fraser. A crash course: color profiles are how your computer, your display, someone else’s display, your printer, and any other color-managed device all know how to display the same colors. One of the main differences between color profiles is the gamut, or the range of colors that may be accurately displayed. The gamut depends on the image’s source and destination. Three color profiles that you should be familiar with, in order of increasing gamut size, are sRGB, Adobe RGB, and ProPhoto RGB. A rough guide: • If the image comes from a small, low-end camera, or is intended for the internet, use sRGB (there are a number of versions) or an equivalent (such as c2, Facebook’s simplified version). • If the image is from a better camera and is intended for printing, use Adobe RGB. • If you converted the image from raw, are using 16-bit, and feel comfortable with the entire process, use ProPhoto RGB. Your computer may already have these profiles installed. If not, here is where you may download them: • sRGB2014.icc – The International Color Consortium • AdobeRGB1998.icc – Adobe • ProPhotoRGB.icm – apparently no longer available from its developer, Kodak; you can download it here. Additionally, your display, and printer as the case may be, should have their own color profiles. You can probably download them from the manufacturers if not already installed. Note that printer profiles are specific to the paper, and printer settings such as quality. If you really get into it, you may want to create your own profiles, such as with a device from X-Rite. To install profiles in Windows, right-click the .icc or .icm file (the extension is arbitrary) and choose Install Profile. If you are curious, the folder where profiles are stored is C:\Windows\system32\spool\drivers\color. To install profiles on a Macintosh, copy the files to Users/username/Library/ColorSync/Profiles. In Linux, copy the files to /home/username/.local/share/icc or /home/username/.color/icc depending on your system. PhotoLine has its own folder where profiles that are not installed for some reason may be copied; you will probably not need to use it: PhotoLine/Defaults/ICCProfiles. Color Management Set up color management via Edit – Options – Color Management (on a Macintosh the menu is PhotoLine – Preferences). First select Devices: If you have a display profile installed and applied, setting the screen profile to System should be all you need to do. Set your default printer profile if applicable. Now go to Standard: The default profiles specify how untagged images should be displayed; they do not actually assign a profile to the image. sRGB may be as good a choice as any as it is probably correct for a large number of untagged RGB images. Rendering Intent determines how out-of-gamut colors are handled when assigning or changing color profiles; for importing new images, Perceptual may be the best choice. Relative Colorimetric is the other typical choice, especially if you are printing portraits. If you are using Windows or a Macintosh, your operating system has its own color management system. If you are using Linux, this may not be the case. PhotoLine now incorporates Little CMS, which is selected by default in Linux and takes the place of an operating system CMS. You will also want to select Use Blackpoint Compensation. Plugins PhotoLine is able to use .8bf plugins that are compatible with other major photo editors. If you have plugins already installed for other applications, PhotoLine is able to load them if you specify their location via Edit – Options – Extended – Plug-In Modules. An example would be C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS5 (64 Bit)\Plug-ins.