Click on the "Tools" menu and select "Proofs..." to display the Proofs dialog. This is a flexible tool for producing high quality proofs of your images ready for printing. Source images can be JPEGs, JEPG 2000 images, Canon, Nikon, Minolta, Olympus or Fuji raw images, Photoshop images, PNG images or TIFFs. In the main view "Proofs" will generate proofs for all the images in the current directory. In the thumbnail view "Proofs" will only generate proofs for the currently selected images.
Click on the "Resize image" checkbox to resize the image and enter the new dimensions. The image can be enlarged or reduced as required. BreezeBrowser uses high quality interpolation to preserve as much image information as possible when resizing. The size of the image can be defined in pixels, inches or cm. When using inches or cm the image size in pixels is calculated using the specified output DPI.
Use the "Image Rotation" dropdown list to rotate all images to landscape or portrait rotation. This is useful if several images are to be printed in a batch.
Select "Crop Image" if you want to crop the image so that it matches the aspect ratio of your prints. e.g. D30 raw images are 2160x1440 pixels and have an aspect ratio of 1.5:1. This means that they can be printed full frame on 6"x4" paper without cropping. However to print on 10"x8" paper some of the picture needs to be cropped from the left and the right. "Crop Image" will crop the minimum amount necessary to match the selected aspect ratio by taking an equal amount from the left and right (or top and bottom).
A border may be added to the image by selecting the "Border" checkbox. The border color is user-definable and can be changed by clicking on the "..." button. Use the dropdown list to select a full border all around the image or a border placed at the top or bottom of the image (this is useful if you want to add a caption but don't want it placed over the image).
Click on Smart Noise Reduction Filter and select the filter strength to apply smart noise filtering to the image. Smart noise reduction uses sophisticated image processing techniques to remove noise from digital images with virtually no loss of detail. It is particularly effective at removing noise from shadow detail and in high ISO images. Please see the Smart Noise Reduction page for more information on this filter.
The saturation of the image can be increased or reduced by changing the value in the Saturation edit box. A value of 100 represents no change in saturation. A value less than 100 reduces the saturation and a value of 0 gives a black and white image. A value greater than 100 increases the saturation. When proofing raw files using linear conversion use a value of about 180. This is because linear files are converted with the minimum of adjustment and appear desaturated.
Use the gamma setting to change the gamma of the output image. This is useful if printed images are lighter or darker than they appear on the screen. e.g. if printed images look a bit dark try increasing the gamma to 1.1 or 1.2. A gamma setting of 1 leaves the image unchanged. When proofing raw files using linear conversion use a gamma value of about 2.2 (this is because linear files are converted with a gamma of 1.0 and appear very dark on a PC display which has a gamma of 2.2).
Select "Auto level" to automatically adjust the black and white points of the image. This is a contrast enhancement technique which stretches the image's histogram so that it contains the full range of tones from black through to white. The white and black points are expressed as a percentage. This percentage represents the amount of the picture data that is at or below the threshold. e.g. a black point value of 0% means that the darkest pixel in the image is set to black. Higher values result in a higher contrast image but may cause some of the highlight and shadow detail to be lost e.g. a white point value of 5% would set the brightest 5% of pixels in the image to white and would lose much of the highlight detail. A good starting point is to set the black point to 0.2% and the white point to 0.1%.
Select sharpen image to sharpen and then select the sharpening
method from the drop down list. Unsharp mask sharpening is
similar to the sharpening method found in most image editors. The
sharpening amount is expressed as a percentage in some editors (e.g.
0.7 would be expressed as 70%). The amount of sharpening required
depends on the image but a good starting point is radius=0.5,
amount =0.7 and threshold=0. Generally speaking images need more
sharpening when printed than they do for displaying on a computer
screen. Sharpening is usually applied as the last step when
editing images and so if you intend to edit the image after raw
conversion it is probably best to turn sharpening off and apply
it after the image has been edited.
HQ style sharpening uses the same sharpening method as
BreezeBrowser's HQ display mode. The amount of sharpening applied
is expressed as a percentage and a value between 75% and 90% will
produce similar results to the HQ display mode.
Click on "Raw conversion settings..." to specify the parameters used for converting raw images. These settings are identical to those in the batch conversion dialog. It is probably a good idea to set the sharpness setting to low if you are resizing images or sharpening them. This is because sharpening is normally applied to images after resizing etc. otherwise any artifacts introduced by the sharpening are likely to get magnified.
Up to two watermarks or captions can be added to images. This is useful for adding a caption to images for easy identification or for adding a watermarked copyright message to prevent unauthorised copying of images. The watermark can take the form of one or more lines of text or an image. The two watermark settings are completely independent and possible uses include using one to place the word "Proof" in the center of the image and using the other to caption the image for easy identification or to display the copyright information.
Select the "Watermark 1" or "Watermark 2" checkboxes and click on the "Settings" button to display the "Watermark Settings" dialog:
First select the watermark type as text or an image.
The watermark/caption text can contain any of the HTML tokens
(see HTML page generation) to
include EXIF or IPTC data from the image e.g. use @year@ for the
year in which the image was taken. The text can be broken down
into separate lines by inserting \n for the line breaks. Use the
"Alignment" drop down list to select the text alignment
for multi-line watermarks.
Click on the "..." button to the right of the font
display to select the font type, size and appearance. The
watermark text will be anti-aliased (a technique to smooth jagged
edges) if a TrueType font is used e.g. Arial.
NOTE: To include the copyright symbol, ©,
hold the ALT key down and enter 0169 on the numeric keypad.
The image can be a JPEG, GIF or PNG. GIF and 8-bit PNG images
can contain single level transparency (i.e. pixels are either
fully opaque or fully transparent). 24-bit PNG images support
multi-level transparency making it possible to blend the edges of
a logo with the underlying image and avoid the sharp edges you
get with single level transparency.
For obvious reasons it isn't possible to use an animated GIF
image.
Click on the "..." buttons after the foreground and background color displays to change the colors (this is disabled for image watermarks). The transparency dropdown lists define how the watermark is combined with the image. The transparency can be set from opaque through to 100% transparent in 25% steps.
Use the "Watermark placement" dropdown list to specify where the watermark should appear. The horizontal and vertical offsets can be used to adjust the position of the watermark. e.g. a vertical offset of 5 pixels with top, centered placement would position the top of the watermark 5 pixels from the top of the image. With bottom centered placement the bottom of the watermark would be 5 pixels from the bottom of the image.
Here are some examples to show some of the different settings:
 Black 75% transparent foreground White 75% transparent background Repeating strips at 1/5 & 4/5 height |
 Green, opaque foreground 100% transparent background Bottom, center placement |
 Black, opaque foreground White 50% transaprent background Top, center placement |
 Transparent GIF image Bottom, center placement with 4 pixel vertical offset |
Click on the "Raw Settings" button to specify the raw conversion settings to be used when proofing Canon raw files. These settings are identical to the raw conversion settings in the batch conversion dialog (see Raw conversion). Note this includes 16-bit linear conversion which can produce good results when the gamma is set to 2.2 and the saturation to around 180.
Use the "Format:" drop down list to select the output format as JPEG, JPEG 2000, JPEG 2000 16-bit, 8-bit PNG, 16-bit PNG, 8-bit TIFF, 16-bit TIFF or JPEG (no EXIF). The JPEG quality can be set between 0 (very poor quality, high compression) to 100 (high quality, large file size). JPEG 2000 files use lossless compression if the quality is set at 100, and lossy compression for other values. Use the "JPEG (no EXIF)" option to output the image as a JPEG without EXIF shooting data or an embedded thumbnail image to reduce the file size.
Images are only saved as 16-bit TIFF, PNG or JPEG 2000 files if the source image contains 16-bit data (e.g. a 16-bit TIFF or a raw file from a Canon D30, D60, S30, S40, G2 or G3). If the source data is 8-bit the final images will be saved as 8-bit files even if a 16-bit format has been selected.
For maximum quality all processing is carried out in 16-bit mode if the source image contains 16-bit data. The image is only converted back to 8-bits as the final operation when the output format is 8-bit.
Enter the output directory in the edit box provided or click on the "..." button to display the directory browser to select a directory. The output directory defaults to "proofs".
By default the proofs function copies the embedded color profile of the source image to the output image without modifying the colorspace. Select the "Colorspace conversion" checkbox and then click on the "Settings..." button to convert between colorspaces. The dialog below will be displayed:
Press on the "..." button to browse for the color profile you wish to convert to. Select the rendering intent to use from the drop down list (the rendering intent controls how "out of gamut" colors are handled and is usually set to "perceptual" for photographs). It is only possible to convert the color space of images that contain an embedded profile describing their color space.
Color management and the use of color profiles is a complex subject and a detailed description of how to use them is beyond the scope of this manual.
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