QuarkXPress 8 : Special effects for pictures - Making adjustments, Applying filters

Making adjustments

The 12 commands in the Adjustments menu let you change the appearance of a picture by analyzing and adjusting its pixels. For example, Brightness/Contrast lets you make a picture lighter or darker, while Threshold lets you convert a color image to black-and-white and specify the value threshold that distinguishes black from white. You can apply as many different adjustments—and filters—as you want to a single picture.

To make an adjustment to a selected bitmap picture:

1.	Choose an option from the Adjustments menu.
2.	Use the controls in the dialog box that’s displayed to modify the appearance of the picture. Each option offers a different set of controls. Check the Preview box to display changes as you make them.
3.	When you’re done making changes, click OK. Figure 1 shows a before-and-after example of making an adjustment to a picture. Figure 1. The original, unmodified picture is on the left. Using the Picture Effects palette to adjust the picture’s Brightness/Contrast settings produced the result on the right. The Brightness/Contrast dialog box shows the applied settings.

Applying filters

The 12 commands in the Filters layer let you change the appearance of a picture based on value differences within the picture. For example, the Unsharp Mask filter increases the contrast where relatively light areas meet relatively dark areas.

To apply a filter to a selected bitmap picture:

1.	Choose an option from the Filters menu.
2.	Use the controls in the dialog box that’s displayed to modify the appearance of the picture. Each option offers a different set of controls. Check the Preview box to display changes as you make them.
3.	When you’re done making changes, click OK. Figure 2 shows a before-and-after example of applying a filter to a picture. Figure 2. The original, unmodified picture is on the left. Using the Picture Effects palette to apply the Trace Contour filter produced the result on the right. The Trace Contour dialog box shows the applied settings.

Each time you make an adjustment or apply a filter to a picture, the effect is listed in the Picture Effects palette. Click the check box to the left of an effect in the list to alternately show and hide it. Click the small arrow to the left of the check box to alternately show and hide the settings for the effect. A small icon () is displayed in the upper-right corner of pictures to which you’ve made an adjustment or applied a filter.

To remove an adjustment or filter, select it from the list in the Picture Effects palette, and then click the Delete Effect icon at the top-right of the palette ().