Pixlr Editor/Windows

Image window

Each image is displayed in its own window.

Many different images can be opened at the same time, but only the front most window is active and can be affected by user commands.

A window containing an image has a title bar which indicates the name of the file that provided the image shown in it. If the image as not been saved to file yet, the title bar will display an "Untitled" notice.

Tools

The tools palette is the main place for the user to choose the tool he wishes to use to work on areas of the image. This window is subdivided into 5 subsections, separated by thin shadowed lines. These sections are briefly described in the following paragraphs, starting from the one at the top of the window.

Selection tools

There are five selection tools. With these tools, parts of the image can rendered active.

Drawing tools

In this section are drawing tools, capable of adding lines and basic geometric objects to the image.

Modification tools

These tools enable the modification of pixels already in the image.

Various tools

Various tools.

Color tools

Tool to select colors.

Navigator

This window lets the user move on the image, zoom the image and gives information on the cursor position on the active image and the size of the active selection.

Image thumbnail

The Navigator window displays a thumbnail of the active image. On the thumbnail is a red rectangle representing the window containing the image, of which it takes the shape. The size and position of this red rectangle depends on characteristics of the image, the image window, of the scrollbars position and the chosen zoom level. The red rectangle can be repositioned in the thumbnail is order to display another part of the image in the main image window. Conversely, position changes in the main window by scrollbars or the hand tool, changes in the zooming level alter the size or position of the red rectangle.

Size information

On the right side of the window are two information blocks

• X and Y represent the position of the mouse within the image, in pixels.
• W and H represent the size of the active selection, in pixels.

Zoom modifiers

Two tools are displayed at the bottom of the window, a slider that can be positioned at the chosen zooming percentage. On either side of the slider are buttons to change the zoom level by increments, zooming out on the left side, and zooming in on the right side. At the right of this slider iis a editable text field where the zoom level percentage is displayed. The minimal zoom level is 5% and the maximum zooming level is 800%

Layers

The Layers window is the main tool to work with the layers that constitute the image.

Layer stack

Most of this window area is concerned with showing the ordered stack of layers, where the bottom layer is the at the complete back of the image, and conversely the layer at the top is the one in the front most part of the image.

Layer line

• Layer thumbnail

Each layer is represented by a thumbnail of that layer, which shows only what is painted on it.

• Layer Mask

It is possible to add a mask to a layer to hide certain parts of the layer. The mask appears just to the right of the thumbnail. The brush tool is used to unmask, the eraser tool to mask.

• Layer name

Each layer has a name that can be edited by double-clicking it. By default the first layer is named Background and others will have a numbered name: Layer 1, Layer 2 and so on.

• Layer visibility

At the right is a checkbox to permit showing and hiding of a given layer in the main image window.

Layer button bar

At the bottom of the window is a bar with five buttons. From left to right they are

• Toggle layer settings

Toggle on and off the two available settings The values reflect those of the selected layer.

• • Opacity setting

It shows or hide an opacity slider for the selected layer, with a editable text box to type in specific values between 0 and 100.

• • Mode setting

It sets the layer in a given blend mode through pull-down menu choices.

• Add layer mask

Adds a layer mask to the selected layer.

• Layer styles

  This button pops up a dialog window with five different styles to apply to the selected layer. Each style as its own set of options. Styles can be combined for more complex results.

  • Drop shadow
  • Inner shadow
  • Bevel
  • Outer glow
  • Inner glow
• New Layer

Adds a new empty layer above the selected one and changes the selection to the new layer.

• Delete layer

Deletes the selected layer and selects the layer just below it if there is one, else it selects the one just above it. If there is only one layer remaining, then it does not delete the layer.

Layer contextual menu

A context menu appears when right-clicking a layer line. Most of items available in this contextual menu are also in the Layer menu in the menu bar, refer there for further explanantion. Some items are specific to the contextual menu and are explained here.

• Duplicate layer
• Delete layer
• Merge down
• Merge visible
• Flatten image
• Rasterize layer
• Layer styles
• Copy layer style

Copies the layer style or styles if more than one is applied with all their properties in order to set another layer's style.

• Paste layer style

Sets the layer style to the one previously copied from another layer.

• Clear layer style

Forgets all styling information for the layer.

• Add layer mask
• Delete layer mask
• Apply layer mask

History

This palette shows up to 16 last actions that where taken in the current image window. There is only one History palette but its content change dynamically as you activate different image windows. With the History, it is possible to backtrack to any of the last 16 action previously done. Backtracking to a previous action and making a new action at this point will erase the actions that followed the one we backtracked to.