Color Options Dialog


Use the Color Options dialog to set device independent color options. They describe color changes to the input image.

In many printer setup dialogs and in file format specific dialogs you can select device dependent color options. These apply to the image after the options specified in the present dialog have been applied.

When you print, save, or send an image you can decide if you want these options taken into account or not.

Whenever you open a new image (including screen capture and paste from clipboard) your default color settings apply. This is because color settings you specify for one image in most cases are irrelevant for the next image you open.

If you need to keep specific color settings for a sequence of images you can use the Save button, and when you later want to get rid of these settings you can use the Reset button.

You open the Color Options dialog by selecting Colors in the Options menu or by pressing Colors in one of these dialogs: the Print dialog, the Save As dialog, or the Send Attachment dialog.

Color Output Mode

Color
24 bit RGB color mode. This is the default.
 
B/W
Color and gray scale images are converted to black-and-white (bi-level).
 
Gray
Color images are converted to grayscale.
 
8 Color
The image is reduced to eight "pure" colors. These eight colors are red, green blue, cyan magenta, yellow, black, and white. This option is useful if the image contains many thin lines.

Remove Backgrounds

EasyCopy can detect and remove up to 5 background colors.

Many screen images are best viewed on a dark background, but when the image is printed, it is often better to have no background. You save ink, and image details are often more easily seen (see example).

Reversal Modes

Color Reversal
RGB colors are inverted (100% becomes 0%, and vice versa) so that the image looks like a color negative. This can be a useful alternative to background removal if the image contains may thin lines in light colors.
 
Gray Reversal
Pure gray scale values are inverted (light gray becomes dark and vice versa). Colors apart from gray are not changed. This is sometimes useful together with background removal if lines and annotation is white or light gray (see example).
 
B/W Reversal
Pure white and pure black are inverted.

Color Adjustment

Brightness
Use this slider to increase or decrease the brightness of the image.
 
Contrast
Use this slider to increase or decrease the contrast of the image, see example.
 
Chrominance
Use this slider to increase or decrease the chrominance (color saturation) of the image.

Tint Balance

Use these three sliders to manipulate the color balance of the image.

DecreaseSliderIncrease
More cyanRedMore red
More magentaGreenMore green
More yellowBlueMore blue

The tint balance adjustment can be illustrated as pulling the response curves for R, G, and B. These curves remain fixed at their endpoints, (0,0) and (255,255), respectively, so that pure colors never change.

 
 
No adjustment Changed tint balance

The situation to the right corresponds to these settings:

Saving and Resetting Color Options

Press the Save button to save the current settings of the Color Options dialog as your own defaults.

Color settings are normally something you adjust individually for each image. We recommend, that you use the factory defaults (no color transformations) as your defaults, and only save alternate settings when you occasionally need to keep identical settings for a sequence of related images.

Press the Reset button to reset all color options to factory defaults: output mode=color, no backgrounds removed, no reversal options, reset all 6 sliders to 0.

Note, that the color options only are saved when you press the Save button in this dialog explicitly. This means, that if you want to set your own defaults back to factory defaults, you must first press Reset and then press Save.

Copyright © 2003, AGI (autoGraph international), www.augrin.com.