## Images

Images are the basis of Comic Life - they're always handy in the Library, and can be be manipulated in many ways.

### Finding your images.

In the Photo Library you can choose to browse through your iPhoto collection or through the Finders filing system. Use the bottom slider to control the size of the previews, and the top menu to choose the folder/ import that you want to preview. Comic Life can open most image file formats, and will even render PDFs to use!

### Adding images.

When you find an image you like, you can grab it and drag it into a Panel. You can always just drag it on the page by itself if you want, but a panel will allow you to clip the image so you only see the parts you like.
When placing the image in a panel, you need to move the mouse cursor over the panel itself, so when you release your picture it will be 'put inside' the panel. This is how you can control if a Panel clips the sides of a photo off - if your mouse cursor is inside the panel, then the photo will clip. TIP: If you can't get the right placement/ clipping, then try putting the photo down and picking it up from a different part.
Once your image is placed in a panel, it will expand to make best use of the panel space. Now is the opportunity to make sure your image is placed exactly as you want it.

### Working with multiple images in a panel

Multiple images may be placed into a single panel. Each image may have it's own scaling, style, rotation and placement. You can work with each image by double clicking on a panel. Then, single click to select the image you want to work with.
1. Single click
2. Double click

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### Manipulating images.

An image can:
- Be clipped at the edges of a panel, by making sure the mouse cursor is above the panel when you release your photo
- Be rotated by grapping the purple rotate handle. Holding down shift will lock rotation into 90 degree angles - handy for changing landscape to portrait layout
- Be rescaled on the fly by dragging the green selection circles
- Be flipped on either axis by utilizing the Image Attributes in the Details
- Have it's own independant frame and shadow
TIP: If you have many overlapping windows and it becomes difficult to grab your photo, try to grab it by the semitransparent handle in the middle. This will always allow you to drag.

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### Adjusting the Brightness, Contrast and more.

Often images appear too dark, overexposed or need other tweaking. This is often the case after applying filters. Comic Life offers Brightness, Saturation, Contrast, Exposure and Sharpness controls for each image, as well horizontal and vertical flipping. You can find these by selecting your image (double click if it's in a Panel) and clicking on the Details tab on the right of the Comic Life window. Then adjust each slider until you are happy with the result - don't worry - adjustments do not affect the original image, so you can reset them at any time. Adjusting the sliders can take a second or two to have affect due to the way Comic Life processes images.

### Using screen-resolution images or images from the web

Sometimes you may want to make a comic using images from an email, or from a friend's web site or from screenshots. These images are usually at screen resolution (72 DPI) rather than print resolution - which is fine if your comic will only be viewed on a screen, but will look pixellated if printed. There are two aspects to keep in mind when working with screen-resolution images.

Firstly, when using screen-resolution images, it's best to keep images at their original size, to avoid blurring artifacts caused by resizing such low-resolution images. Comic Life automatically does this for any small image, but for larger images, you can choose to have the image resized to it's original size on the page by selecting the image (double click if the image is in a Panel) and pressing Command+0 (zero).

Secondly, When working on comics containing screen resolution images, it's reccommended that you use the View>Zoom>Actual Size option in the menubar, to avoid blurriness caused by resizing the comic to fit on the screen. Viewing and working on a comic containing screen-resolution images at zoom settings other than Actual Size will make the images look slightly blurry. If you choose to work at other zoom levels, then don't worry - exported screen-resolution comic images will look fine as long as you have resized the images to 100%, as discussed above.

### Help! My images are locked in a panel!

Comic Life 'locks' the image into a panel after you deselect it - this makes it easy for you to move you new panel and image around as a unit. But if you decide you want to edit your image (or delete the image from a panel), just remember to DOUBLE CLICK. This will select the actual image inside a panel, and now you can re-size, rotate etc until you are happy. Then just click in some space to deselect the photo, and it will lock back in.
Showing the differences between a clipped, and unclipped image in a Panel.