USER GUIDE First English edition for Ulead Photo Explorer version 6.0, May 2000 Copyright © 2000 Ulead Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication maybe reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or storing in a retrieval system, or translated into any language in any form without prior written permission of Ulead Systems, Inc. Software license The software described in this document is furnished under a License Agreement which is included with the product. This Agreement specifies the permitted and prohibited uses of the product. Licenses and trademarks ICI Library © 1991-1992 C-Cube Microsystems. Ulead Systems, Inc. and the Ulead logo are trademarks of Ulead Systems, Inc. All other product names and any registered and unregistered trademarks mentioned in this manual are for identification purposes only and remain the exclusive property of their respective owners. Technical support Registered users are entitled to Ulead technical support. Our Web site has valuable up-to-date information about Photo Explorer, other Ulead products, and free downloads. Visit our Web site at www.ulead.com, or send us e-mail at support@ulead.com.tw . Ulead Systems, Inc. United States Headquarters 970 West 190th Street, Suite 520 Torrance, CA 90502 Tel: (310) 523-9393 Fax: (310) 523-9399 International Headquarters 10F, 45 Tung Hsing Rd. Taipei, Taiwan 110 Tel: [+886] (2) 2764-8599 Fax: [+886] (2) 2764-9599 www.ulead.com What's Inside Welcome to Ulead ® Photo Explorer ______________________ 4 What's new in this version _______________________________ System requirements ___________________________________ Installing and running the program ________________________ Signing up for a free account ____________________________ 4 6 6 6 Photo Explorer at a glance _____________________________ 7 The Browser __________________________________________ 7 The Viewer ___________________________________________ 7 Customizing Photo Explorer ____________________________ 8 Setting up your work environment ________________________ 8 Customizing toolbars ___________________________________ 9 Browsing and managing files ___________________________ 10 Displaying files in thumbnail or list view ___________________ Speeding up thumbnail display ___________________________ Managing multimedia files _______________________________ Previewing files _______________________________________ Creating a list of favorite folders _________________________ Accessing right-click pop-up menus _______________________ 10 10 11 12 13 13 Getting images _______________________________________ 14 Digital Camera Wizard __________________________________ 14 Getting images from a TWAIN device ______________________ 15 Renaming and renumbering files _________________________ 16 Editing and retouching images __________________________ 17 Enhancing images _____________________________________ 17 Adjusting the white background __________________________ 18 Printing images and thumbnails __________________________ 18 Slide show and other cool stuff _________________________ 19 Creating a slide show ___________________________________ Viewing a slide show ___________________________________ Other fun projects you can create ________________________ Plug-in software _______________________________________ Sharing images on the Web ______________________________ Creating thumbnails for the Web _________________________ Creating slide shows for the Web _________________________ Scanning the Web for images ____________________________ 19 20 21 21 22 23 23 24 Working on the Internet ________________________________ 22 Welcome to Ulead® Photo Explorer Photo Explorer makes it fun and easy to view images and manage multimedia files in your computer. Get images from a digital camera, memory card reader or scanner directly in Photo Explorer and transfer them to your computer. Create your own color prints with a color printer, or make fun projects for your Windows desktop like wallpapers and screen savers. Present your images in the form of a slide show, or share them on the Web. What's new in this version Photo Explorer offers many enhanced features for your image acquisition and file management needs. With its new and powerful Internet tools, making simple Web pages, downloading media files, and sharing images on the Web can all be done in few easy steps. #1 Get instant preview of files. Preview Pane -- Get instant preview of a selected image file. Directly play videos, sounds, as well as animated GIFs without having to open another program. #2 Browse for files and folders with ease. Browse Pane -- Images, sounds, videos, and GIF animation files can be displayed either as visual thumbnails or in a detailed list much like Windows Explorer. Address Bar -- Keep track of all the folder names you have entered and quickly return to a previously visited folder. Favorites List -- Create a collection of folders you frequently visit. Get a full-size view of images. 4 User Guide #3 Viewer -- Display selected images in the Viewer window or in full screen. Advance through images manually or show them automatically on-screen. Personalize Photo Explorer. #4 Customizable toolbars -- Add toolbar buttons for quicker access to your most desired imaging, file management and Internet tools. Create slide shows with simple drag-and-drop. #5 Slide Show Storyboard -Bring together images from different folders into a slide show. Easily shuffle their order with drag-and-drop, and even add sounds. Get images in a snap. #6 Digital Camera Wizard -- Use this intuitive tool to transfer images from a digital camera or memory card reader into the PC more easily. Push-model aware function -- Automatically run Photo Explorer and transfer images with the push of a button on your digital camera or scanner. Photo Explorer now offers WDM "push model aware" support. Share images and download files through the Internet. #7 Ulead's new iMira.com Web site allows users all over the world to upload and share images on the Internet. You can also instantly download images, sounds and videos from your favorite Web site. 5 User Guide System requirements Before installing Photo Explorer, make sure your computer meets the following requirements: m Intel® Pentium® processors (or 100% compatible processors) m Microsoft Windows® 95/98, NT 4.0, 2000 or higher m 32 MB RAM (at least) m 12 MB available hard drive space for program files m Windows compatible pointing device m True Color or HiColor display adapter and monitor (recommended) m Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 or higher m Internet connection (recommended) Installing and running the program Installing Photo Explorer is quite easy. Simply follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation. To start the program, click the Photo Explorer icon from the Ulead Photo Explorer program group on the Windows Start menu. Tip You can get further information about Photo Explorer using the online help from the Help menu. Signing up for a free account The first time Photo Explorer starts, the Set-up Internet Connection dialog box opens allowing you to sign up for a free account at iMira.com. iMira.com is Ulead's image sharing Web site where you can upload your favorite images to share with your friends, relatives, and co-workers. Refer to the section, Sharing images on the Web, for more details (see page 22). 6 Photo Explorer at a glance Photo Explorer provides two switchable windows. The Browser lets you jump from one folder to another with ease, move files between folders, and organize files effectively. The Viewer gives you full-size view of images. The Browser The Browser operates much like Windows Explorer. In the Browser window, you will see a Folder Tree at the left hand side and your files at the right. What's special about Photo Explorer is that multimedia files can be shown as visual thumbnails for easier identification. Simply click a desired file to immediately get an idea of the file's contents. You can preview images and actually play sound, video or even GIF animation files without actually opening them. In addition, you can bring together images and sounds to create a slide show. The Viewer The Viewer opens when you double-click an image file or select multiple images and click View: Open Viewer in the Browser. You can use it to: m Get a full-screen view of images. m Enhance and retouch images, and then save the changes. m Manually or automatically advance through images. 7 Customizing Photo Explorer When using any application, it is important for you to set up a work environment that's comfortable and convenient for you. Photo Explorer provides many options that can change the look and feel of what's onscreen to suit your needs. You can also make Photo Explorer as your image viewer and editor. Setting up your work environment File: Preferences The Preferences command in the File menu allows you to define settings specific to Photo Explorer. The Preferences dialog box lists different categories which determine the behavior of Photo Explorer, its overall appearance, and the way thumbnails and images are presented. Click a category to view and change its settings in the Preferences dialog box. Categories in the Preferences dialog box Tip If you usually do only simple edits with your images, Photo Explorer can be an ideal image editor. To make Photo Explorer your default image viewer and editor, select the Associate category in the Preferences dialog box and select the image file formats that you want to automatically open in Photo Explorer. View menu The View menu offers commands that determine the layout of Photo Explorer, as well as thumbnail display settings. Use the available commands to change the way files are displayed and organized so that you can quickly identify your files. Note: See the section "Browsing and managing files" on page 10 for more 8 User Guide Customizing toolbars Photo Explorer's Browser and Viewer toolbars are fully customizable. For quicker access to your most desired Photo Explorer commands and Internet tools, you can add them as buttons on the toolbars and even arrange their order. 1. Click File: Customize Toolbars. 2. In the Select toolbar list, choose a toolbar. 3. In the Current toolbar buttons list, click the button before which the new button will be inserted. 4. In the Available toolbar buttons list, select a new button you want to add. 5. Click Add to include the new button to the selected toolbar. Notes: G To change the order of A To remove a button, select BClick Reset to change the selected toolbar back to its default form. the button in the Current toolbar buttons list and click Remove. toolbar buttons, select a button and drag it up or down in the Current toolbar buttons list. You can also click the Move Up or Move Down button. Customize Toolbars dialog box Tips m Commonly used commands are also easily accessed from right- click pop-up menus. When adding buttons to the toolbar, you can consider adding only those that are not listed in right-click menus. m To display toolbar buttons with clear label descriptions, click View: Toolbars and select the Text label option. 9 Browsing and managing files With the convenience of thumbnails and the familiar Windows Explorer functionality, Photo Explorer makes it simple and easy to work with multimedia files. Displaying files in thumbnail or list view When you select a folder from the Folder Tree, multimedia files are displayed as visual thumbnails in the Browse Pane on the right hand side of Photo Explorer's Browser window. A thumbnail is a small replica of the actual image or an icon representing a sound file. A thumbnail also shows the very first image that appears in a video or GIF animation file. To switch between thumbnail and list viewing modes, click View: Thumbnail/List Mode. e Vid of ile a Im ge file d Au io file Sample thumbnails Speeding up thumbnail display If you have a large number of multimedia files in a folder, it may take Photo Explorer some time to generate thumbnails for the files and display them on-screen. Instead of regenerating thumbnails each time the same folder is accessed, Photo Explorer can store them in a cache folder. The next time you access that folder, Photo Explorer simply loads the thumbnail images from it. The procedure next page shows how you can customize Photo Explorer to create thumbnail files. 10 User Guide To create thumbnail files: 1. Click File: Preferences. 2. Click the Cache category in the Preferences dialog box. 3. Select Save thumbnails in cache folder. 4. In the Cache size entry box, specify the amount of disk space to allot for the cache folder in which thumbnail files will be stored. 5. In the Select cache folder entry box, enter the complete path name of the cache folder. Tips q Click the Clear Cache button in the ...