Let’s take a look at the Perfectly Clear interface to understand its key elements.

001-main-ui

Preview Panel

This is the main section in the application where the image preview is shown. The preview has a few separate modes that are controlled with the 'View Controls' described below.

Zoom and View Controls

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1.Zoom Controls - click the minus or plus to zoom out or in.

2.Double-click on the zoom number (16% in this example) to toggle between 100% and "fit to screen".

3.View Mode buttons – these control the Preview Window in Perfectly Clear. From left to right, the buttons are: Split View, Dual Image View, 50/50 Split.

a.Split View shows a single image with the corrected image on the right, and the original on the left.

b.Dual Image View shows both the original and corrected and images side by side.

d.50/50 Split will switch to Split view and re-centers the before/after slider to the middle of the view.

4.The 'Navigator' shows the full image you are working on, with the area that is in the preview panel outlined in red. Click and drag the red rectangle to pan your image to a different area.

5.Drag the zoom slider to zoom in or out.

Presets Bar

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1.The selection on the left, showing "Perfectly Clear Essentials", allows you to select which Preset Group is visible.

2.To the right are icons for each of the Presets in the selected Group. Click on an icon to select that Preset and apply those settings to the current photo. If there are more Presets than will fit, a left or right arrow will appear to allow you to scroll through the list.

Presets and LOOKs Panels

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These panels shows all Preset Groups and the Presets they contain. These two icons: allow you to switch between a 'visual' view - showing thumbnails of each Preset or LOOK and the standard list view.

Click the Gear icon in the header to see the following menu of items:

•Add or edit a preset: Save the current image settings as a new preset. You can edit an existing preset by just using the same preset name as the preset you'd like to edit.

•Add a group: Create a new, empty preset group so you can organize your custom presets.

•Export presets: Save the currently selected preset or preset group to a ".preset" file. This makes backing up or sharing your custom presets quick and easy.

•Import presets: Import a ".preset" file that you previously exported

•Buy More: Open the Apps Manager to browse through currently available Add-ons for purchase

Status Bar

This status bar allows you to quickly switch between several images that are opened at once (only available in the Lightroom plugin). The dropdown allows you to select from all open images, and the left & right arrow buttons allow you to quickly proceed to the next photo.

The next two buttons will Undo and Redo your recent actions.

Sync ALL will apply the current settings to all open photos.

Sync Forward will apply the current settings to all photos after the current one.

FilmStrip

The filmstrip can pop up or disappear on the bottom of the application window and you can view all the photos from your open order, and click any one of them and the screen will load that photo or 6 photos. Note that photos won’t be saved and closed by doing this. Very useful for navigating through a sets of images.

Tools Panel

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This panel contains all the image correction tools. The settings shown in this panel will be applied to the photo and will be visible in the Preview Panel.

Histogram - The histogram can help you understand how the pixels in your image are distributed according to intensity. Shadow details are shown on the left, midtones in the middle, and highlights on the right. The histogram is a useful way to judge the exposure of your image.

In the upper left and upper right corners you can check the boxes to show clipped pixels. Blue areas show cold pixels that lack detail in the shadows and red areas are hot pixels which lack details in the highlights. You can use the manual sliders for tone or preprocessing to recover details if needed.

Strength - The Strength slider is a useful way to refine your adjustments or presets. This slider can incrementally increase or decrease most of the adjustment sliders with one handle. You can also use the keyboard shortcuts of left and right bracket [ or ] to modify this adjustment from the keyboard. Hold down the Option/Alt key for granular refinement when pressing a bracket key.

Face Selection Tool

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The corrections applied by many of the tools in the Eyes, Face, Skin and Makeup Groups apply their corrections only to faces that have been identified in your photos. This Face Selection Tool allows you to see which faces were automatically identified.

Clicking on one of the faces will zoom the preview image to that face.

See the chapter on the Face Selection Tool for additional detail.