Resizing and cropping

The Resize filter lets you rotate, crop a part, resize, and change proportions of images. The most common workflow is:

• to rotate if necessary;
• to set proportions (aspect ratio), for example, original or 3:2 or 1:1;
• to draw the selection frame by clicking on the image and dragging the mouse (or by setting the coordinates of the selection);
• to set resizing options, for example, one side should be 600px (the other one calculated according to the proportions), or other example: the image should be downsized to 10% of the original.

Rotation

Angle of rotation slider

If you need to rotate an image just a little bit, use the rotation slider.

Comment: To rotate by 90 or 180 degrees, go to the main menu and select Edit → Rotate image (+90) or (-90) or apply the shortcuts (R, L rotate for the current preview only; CTRL + R, CTRL + L rotate the image and save to disk). This can be done on any tab. You can also right click a thumbnail in the image browser to access the Rotate command.

Original image	Rotation +4,8 applied

Horizon button

It is just another way to rotate images. Click the button and draw a line on the image which is parallel to the horizon as it is on the image. The program will rotate the image so that this line becomes horizontal.

Original image	The horizontal line	Rotation applied

Rotation with the help of the "green circle"

When you see the green crop frame on your image then in the corners of the frame you can notice the green circles . Set the cursor exactly on the circle, click and move the cursor in order to rotate the image.

Setting proportions of selection frame

Aspect Ratio

This feature helps to crop a part of an image with specified aspect ratio (proportions). The green frame is automatically set to the selected proportions. Drag the edges of the frame in order to change the area to be cropped. Set the cursor inside the selected area and wait for a second in order to preview the changes - the rest of the image will be darkened.

Click on the arrow next to the icon and choose one of the predefined aspect ratios:

Free - means that you can change the proportions of the crop frame as you like.

Original - means that the frame will have the original proportions, you can only change size and change orientaion (portrait or landscape), see below.

Web - aspect ratios typical for images on the web. If you need another aspect use the User defined option.

Paper - aspect ratios which correspond most common paper sizes. If you need another aspect use the User defined option.

User defined - if you haven't found the needed aspect ratio among the predefined ones, you can define your own ratio. For example, you need a square image. Then you should set the aspect ratio to 1:1.

Setting coordinates of selection frame

Click on the arrow next to the icon and choose the Change option; the four new controls will appear and you will be able to set the coordianates of the selection. Alternatively you can draw the selection frame with the mouse.

Left size - sets the shift of the crop frame from the left side in pixels.

Top size - sets the shift of the crop frame from the top in pixels.

Width - defines the width of the crop frame in pixels.

Height - defines the height of the cop frame in pixels.

In order to hide the controls, click on the arrow next to the icon once again and choose Display only.

Changing orientation - portrait or landscape?

You can change the orientation of the selection frame, for example change 4:3 to 3:4. For this just click and draw the frame of the needed orientation on the image.

Max area

The Max area button sets the crop frame to the size of the original image. If you changed the crop frame, but then decided not to crop, then press this button to restore the frame to its maximum size.

Save and restore the current position and size of the crop frame

You can save the current crop frame's size and position . Then you can experiment with other sizes and positions, but you can restore the saved one by pressing the restore button .

Resizing

Click on the arrow next to the icon and choose one of the predefined resize options.

Crop only - no resizing will be applied.

Dimensions - use this option if you know exactly one of the dimensions in units: pixels, inches, millimeters or cantimeters. If you set one of the dimensions and press ENTER or TAB, the other dimension will be calculated by the program using the aspect ratio of the current crop frame. If you use inches, millimeters or cantimeters you can also set the DPI of the resulting image.

Percents - allows setting in percents the size of the resulting image. Use this feature to downsize images.

Limit large side - allows setting the size of the bigger dimension in pixels. The other dimension will be calculated according to the current aspect ratio.

Adjusting brightness

The Brightness filter allows correcting brightness, contrast, and removing haze. We recommend to use the automatic brightness correction first, and if not satisfied, try different controls and their combinations. The histogram can help to understand which controls work better for the current image, see Reading the histogram section.

Auto detect brightness

The Auto detect tool adjusts brightness fully automaticaly. The program will analyze your image and set other controls accordingly. You can choose the degree of adjustment: conservative, normal, agressive, or extreme. In most cases the conservative or normal adjustment will work very well. We advice to use this tool first. If you are not satisfied with the automatic brightness correction, you can always do it manually with the help of other tools.

Automatic correction is very useful for batch processing. You can add a folder with images to a queue and apply automatic correction. In most cases the brightness will be optimized automaticaly and you will have to correct only some images manually afterwards. Read more about batch processing here.

Contrast

The Contrast slider works well for very contrast or very monotone images. If you look at the histogram of the original image, you can see "a hill" in the middle because most pixels have average brightness. Increasing the contrast makes the image more diverse and interesting.

Original image	Contrast (+68) applied	Notice how the histogram was stretched towards the edges.

Brightness

The Brightness slider works well if you just need to make an image brighter. Increasing brightness makes dark areas brighter, but at the same time doesn't completely "overlight" the light ones.

On the sample image below the whole room became brighter, but the mountains in the window became almost undistinguishable. You can apply other controls to improve the situation with mountains. For example, try to darken the Highlights. Typically, you use the Brightness slider when you have most areas on your image dark.

Before applying Brightness	After applying Brightness (+83)	On the histogram you can see that the darks were "stretched" and the highlights were "compressed", but not lost

In some cases you can decrease brightness in order to make your image more dramatic. This will work well if you have a lot of light areas which are not overexposed.

Exposure

The Exposure slider makes all pixels brighter or darker by the same degree. The effect is similar to changing the ISO, exposure time or aperture on your camera. When moving the exposure slider please look at the histogram and control that pixels don't "disappear" beyond the limits of the dynamic range which can cause overexposed areas and loss of details.

Original image	The Exposure slider moved +1.3	You can see that the majority of pixels moved right which means they became brighter. The pixels are spread more uniformly over the dynamic range after the transformation.

Local contrast

The Local Contrast decreases contrast between large areas of shadows and highlights, but improves visibility of fine details within those areas.

It can be useful when there are only highlights (i.e. sky), shadows (i.e. trees) and almost no midtones. In this case you can see two big hills on the sides of the histogram. Applying local contrast will compress midtones and pull more details from the shadows and the highlights by stretching them.

Original image	Local contrast slider moved +17	The pixels are spread more uniformly over the dynamic range after the transformation.

Shadows and Highlights

The Shadows and Highlights sliders allow changing brightness selectively for the shadows or for the highlights only, keeping the rest of the image unchanged.

The Shadows and Hightlights sliders are very useful with RAW files. JPEGs can become greyish if you apply strong trasformations, but not the RAW files. This happens because RAW files contain more information about color than JPEGs. So, the tip is to shoot in RAW if the images come out too dark. Compare the results for JPEG and RAW below.

If you apply the Shadows/Highlights try to change the Zone size - this can make the resulting image less greyish.

Original image	Shadows correction (+100) applied to RAW	Shadows correction (+100) applied to JPEG

Zone size

The Zone size slider itself doesn't make any changes to the image, but it affects the work of other controls. It defines whether the transformations are based on the brightness of each individual pixel (zone size 0) or are based on some average brightness of several neighboring pixels. The slider defines the size of the zone to use for such averaging.

If you are not satisfied with the effect of applying other tools, try to change zone size. In order to understand which zone size is better for the a particular image, just change its value until you like the result.

Exposure warnings

Tick the Exposure warnings checkbox to see the overexposed and underexposed areas of the image. These areas will change in the process of transformations, so it is a good idea to control them periodically as you work with an image. The red areas are overexposed, the blue ones are underexposed.

Exposure warnings are off	Exposure warnings are on; red - overexposed; blue - underexposed

Auto contrast

The Auto contrast tool can optimize the contrast automatically. If you see that an image is grayish and dull then it's a good idea to use auto contrast. The program will analyze your image and will apply necessary transformations. You can choose the degree of contrast adjustment: conservative, normal, agressive, or extreme. The Manual option doesn't automate anything, on the contrary, it gives you the fullest control over the brightness adjustment and is explained below. We recomment trying different degrees of Auto contrast before adjusting the contrast manually.

From the histogram point of view it is a good idea to use the Auto contrast tool if you see that margins of the histogram are flat. The Auto contrast tool will "cut" the unused margins and "stretch" the histogram over the whole dynamic range. Red vertical lines on the histogram show the points where it will be cut.

Original image	Auto contrast (75%) applied	The original histogram is cut by the sides and the rest is stretched over the full dynamic range.

Manual contrast adjustment

If you choose the"Manual option in the Auto contrast combo-box the two sliders will appear below: Black point and White point. They allow choosing the points where the histogram will be cut. The Black point slider defines the left limit and the White point slider defines the right limit.

Use the White point slider if you have a lot of unused space in the right part of the histogram. This will make grey toneless areas on your image brighter.

Original image	White point slider moved to -55	The pixels are spread more uniformly over the dynamic range after the transformation.

And use the Black point slider if you have a lot of unused space in the left part of the histogram. In other words, if you would rather have some midtone-pixels black in order to make the image look brighter.

Original image	Black point slider moved to +14	After the transformation some grey pixels became black.

Haze compensation and gradient

For hazy and greyish images use the Haze compensation tool. Haze can be present from the very beginning or can appear after transformations, like increasing brightness of "shadows", for example.

If you want to apply the haze compensation partially, you can do this using the Gradient slider. You may wish this if some part becomes too saturated. If the Gradient value is 0, the compensation is applied to the whole image. If the value is negative (for example, -80) the compensation is applied to the 80% of the image bottom-up. If the value is positive, it is applied top-down.

There will be no visible border between the two parts because the transformation will be applied gradiently. The auxiliary tiny grey line marks the border for your convenience.

Original image	Haze correction +80 Gradient 70% top-down leaves the green in the right bottom corner untouched.	Haze correction +80 Gradient 100% makes the green in the right bottom corner too saturated.

Selection brush and Brightness brush

The selection brush selects some area of an image. After you have some selection you can return to the Brightness filter and apply any transformation either to the selection or to the rest of the image. Learn more about the selection brush and it's parameters here.

The brightness brush allows brightening only parts of an image, for example, a face. Alternatively, you can select the face with the help of the selection brush, return to the Brightness filter and increase Brightness or apply any other transformation. Learn more about brightness brush and it's parameters here.

Applying changes to selection

If your image has a selection made with the selection brush, you will see a new control at the bottom of the panel. Use it to define if you want to apply changes to selected areas, to not selected areas or to the whole image.

Reading the histogram

The histogram can help to understand which controls work better for the current image. When you switch to the Brightness filter, you can see the histogram at the bottom of the right panel in the Levels group.

The horizontal axis presents the range in which the brightness of pixels can vary (from 0 to 255). This is the dynamic range of a digital image. The vertical axis presents the number of pixels with the given brigtness. Dark pixels are on the left side of the histogram and the bright pixels are on the right side.

Dark image - there is a "hill" in the left part and the rest is fairly flat	Bright image - there are "hills" in the right part and the left part is flat	This image is quite balanced because it has pixels belonging to the whole dynamic range

After you apply transformations the histogram changes: it's upper part describes the original image, the lower part describes the result and the green curve with red dots describes the transformation which was applied.

Original image	Auto contrast: Normal (50%), Brightness +16, Shadows +17	Histogram of the original image (above), of the resulting image (below) and the curve which describes the transformations made to the image

Adjusting colors

The Colors filter lets you adjust the white balance, change the overall saturation or the saturation of selected colors, convert image to monochrome (black and white, sepia or else) and change brightness of the selected colors.

White balance

The sign of the wrong white balance is that colors look unnatural - either too cold or too warm.

Too warm colors	Correct white balance	Too cold colors

The Color Temperature slider

The fastest way to correct the color temperature is to use the Color temperature slider. By moving the slider, you compensate the white balance mistake that was made when shooting the image. Move the slider to the right to make the colors look warmer and to the left to make them look colder. The color temperature is measured in Kelvins.

As you move the color temperature slider, you can see that the RGB sliders move simultaneously. This means that changing the color temperature is analogues to changing the intensity of RGB channels.

The drop-down menu can help to set the white balance automatically.

If your image looks yellowish like if it was taken under the tungsten light, select the Tungsten option here and the program will apply the automatic correction.

Typicaly, we get the wrong white balance, if the camera setting is wrong or the lightning conditions are complex. For example, you take a picture in a room with daylight, but the camera's white balance setting is "tungsten". Then the camera tries to compensate the tungsten light and makes the image colors colder than they should be. If the camera's white balance setting is "Auto", it is still possible that the camera makes a mistake which results in unnatural colors. This typically happens under complex lightning conditions, like in a dark room or outdoors at night or when there are several light sources at once.

You can correct the wrong white balance by making the color temperature higher or lower.

Original image - too cold colors	Color temperature: 9700K (6500K - default value )
Original image - too warm colors	Color temperature: 4250K (6500K - default value )

The White Balance button

The White Balance button allows you to "tell" the program which area on the image is in reality white or grey. This enables the program to correct other colors accordingly.

Click on the White Balance button, the cursor turns into the eyedropper, then you click in the area which is white (or grey). The program will make the pointed area white (or grey) and will compensate other colors accordingly. This can help to correct the white balance. It is a very good method if you have a white or a grey object in scene.

Original image with Eyedropper tool	The same image after correction

As you apply the white balance correction with the help of the eyedropper, you can notice that the RGB sliders move. This means that changing the white balance is analogues to changing the intensity of the RGB channels.

Memory Colors

The memory colors tool can be used to correct the white balance. The idea behind memory colors is that you create a collection of colors from objects that appear in a number of images, such as the skin color, for example. You add the correct color to the collection and then use it to adjust the white balance of other images in which everything, including the skin, looks too warm or too cold.

The memory colors workflow is described below.

STEP 1 Remember a color
	1. Choose a photo where you like the skin color. 2. Click the Memory Colors button and point to the skin color you want to remember.	3. When the Memory Colors dialog appears, click the Add this color button, enter the name (for example, "My skin, normal") and save the color.
STEP 2 Use the normal skin color to correct the white balance.
	Here the skin color is more orange than it should be; the other colors are also too warm. 1. Click the Memory Colors button and point to the skin color you would like to correct.	2. When the Memory Colors dialog appears, click at the color that you saved before ("My skin, normal") or click the Select button next to this color. 3. The program will correct the skin color and adjust other colors accordingly.	As a result, the colors are more natural in the whole image.

The memory colors can also be used to convert images to monochrome. When you convert an image, you can choose a single color: black, sepia, or any other color from the memory colors collection.

The Ignore brightness checkbox means that the selected memory color will be applied exactly as it was saved. If the checkbox isn't selected, the selected memory color will be applied after the brightness of the target image is taken into consideration.

The Color Map and RGB (Red Green Blue) sliders

Color Map	RGB sliders

The color map and RGB sliders give the full control over the white balance. Just drag the RGB sliders until the image has the desired hue. Or point the desired hue on the color map.

See also, RGB sliders, Saturation, and Spectral Sensitivity - What Is the Difference?!

Black & White

Tick this checkbox for making your image monochrome. By default the image will become "black & white". But you can choose any color from the collection of Memory Colors.

Click the Memory Colors button and select the color.

Original image	Monochrome B&W image	Monochrome sepia image	Monochrome blue image

Show exposure warnings

Tick this checkbox to see the overexposed and underexposed areas of the image. These areas will change in the process of transformations which you make to the image, so it is a good idea to control them periodically. The red areas are overexposed, the blue ones are underexposed.

Exposure warnings are off	Exposure warnings are on

Saturation

The Saturation equalizer allows controling saturation of different colors individually and the Saturation slider changes the saturation of all colors at once. As you see from the example, the opposite for satuated color is grey.

The white vertical line on the equalizer (as you move the cursor over image) points to the color in the current cursor position. Move the cursor over the image and observer how the "white line" moves. Then click on the color which you would like to saturate and you will see the black vertical line which marks the color of the last click. This instrument helps you to find the exact color which you would like to saturate or desaturate.

Original image
	Saturation increased only for violet	All colors saturated at once	Saturation increased for violet, minimized for other colors; this allows making interesting selective-color-images

Right click the equalizer (or the slider) to reset the changes. See also, RGB sliders, Saturation, and Spectral Sensitivity - What Is the Difference?!

Spectral Sensitivity

Spectral sensitivity allows changing brightness of one selected color. The sliders allow changing only red, green, or blue separately and the hisogram allows selecting more specific hue, fx. orange or violet.

The white vertical line on the equalizer (as you move the cursor over image) shows the color in the current cursor position. Move the cursor over the image and observer how the "white line" moves. Then click on the color for which you would like to change brightness; you will see the black vertical line which marks the color of the last click. This instrument helps you to find the exact color which you would like to make brighter or darker.

Original image		Original image
	Spectral sensitivity (brightness) of blue decreased, of red increased		Spectral sensitivity (brightness) of green increased

Right click the equalizer (or the slider) to reset the changes. See also, RGB sliders, Saturation, and Spectral Sensitivity - What Is the Difference?!

RGB sliders, Saturation, and Spectral Brightness - What Is the Difference?!

In brief, the RGB sliders change the hue, the Saturation changes color intensity, and the Spectral sensitivity changes brightness.

	RGB sliders	Saturation	Spectral sensitivity
Original image	The Red slider was moved to the right Red hue, you can notice that white light between the leaves got the red hue	Saturation for red was increased with the help of the Saturation equalizer	Spectral sensitivity (brightness) of red was increased with the help of the "red slider"

Selection Brush

The Selection brush selects some area of an image. After you have some selection you can return to the Colors filter and apply any transformation either only to the selection or only to the rest of the image. Learn more about selection brush and it's parameters here.

Colors Brush

The Colors brush allows picking a color and painting with this color on the image. This is useful when retouching faces. Read more here.

Saturation Brush

The Saturation brush allows changing saturation of a selected area on the image. This is also mainly used for retouching faces. Read more here.

Red-Eyes Brush

The Red-Eyes brush allows fixing "red-eyes". Read more here.

Removing noise

When you switch to the Noise filter the program automatically detects the level of noise for your image and corrects it. In most cases this will be enough. But sometimes it is necessary to reduce noise more intensively for some parts. The Hightlights and Shadows sliders and the Equalizer allow reducing noise more intensively only for particular areas of the image - for highlights, for shadows, or for specific colors. These tools are described below.

Noisy image	Noise removed

The noise reduction is similar to blurring and it can result in loosing details. So, you need to find the reasonable balance between the details level and the noise level for your particular image.

You can change the parameters of the noise reduction algorithm in order to get better results for your particular image. This makes sense because different images have different noise and detail levels.

Hints and Tips

Noise reduction is an important step in enhancing images. All the other operations like sharpening and color balancing increase noise and make it more noticeable. It is important to clean the noise from the image at the very beginning. Even bright images shot on a sunny day contain a lot of noise so do not skip this step without a good reason.

• Noise looks worse on a monitor screen than it does when printed.
• Noise is noticeable on homogeneous areas (i.e. sky), and is hardly visible on textures (i.e. foliage).
• Images with too much noise reduction look unnatural (plastic).
• Do not spend too much time on a fine tuning - nobody will notice the marginal improvements.

Noise Level

The Noise level slider defines the level of noise reduction for the whole image. The default noise level is detected automatically after you switch to this tab. Noise level is measured in an abstract absolute value from 0 to 200. You can use this value to compare noise levels of different images.

Shadows

The Shadows slider defines the noise reduction level in shadows. If set to 0, it means that the noise reduction level in shadows is the same as in highlights and in midtones. If set to -100%, it means that there is no noise correction in shadows. If set to +100%, it means that the noise reduction level in shadows is twice more intensive (200%) than on the rest of the image.

Highlights

It works the same way as the Shadows slider, but for the highlights.

Noise Reduction Equalizer

The equalizer lets you define the noise reduction level for every hue in your image. Usually higher noise reduction levels are set for skin tones and the sky with lower levels set for green.

Original noisy image	Noise reduced on the whole image	Noise reduced only for blue colors	The Equalizer settings

Use the Noise Map to analyze the changes more precisely.

Algorithm parameters

Radius - higher values result not only in a cleaner image but also in artifacts on edges. Lower values preserve details but also show more noise.

Chroma - defines how much of chromatic noise should be removed. Chromatic noise shows up as points coloured in a complete different way they should be.

Noise reduction - defines how much of the luminance noise should be removed. In many cases an image looks more natural if chroma noise is completely removed, but a part of the luminance noise is left. Completely denoised image may look too "plastic".

Method allows selecting an algorithm which gives the best results on your particular image. For images with low noise, the "standard" method is good enough, for very noisy images try the"aggressive" method. These methods use completely different algorithms.

Noise Map

On the noise map you can see the noise reduction level for different areas of the image. The intensity of the red corresponds to the noise reduction level. You can use this map to check if fine textured areas are not considered to be noisy. It is also a good tool to see the effects of the noise reduction equalizer and the highlights/shadows sliders.

Selection Brush

The selection brush selects some area of an image. After you have some selection you can return to the Noise filter and apply any transformation either only to the selection or only to the rest of the image. Learn more about selection brush and it's parameters here.

Noise Reduction Brush

The noise reduction brush allows reducing noise only for some parts of the image. For example, you can reduce noise only for faces. Learn more here.

Sharpening

The sharpening mechanism finds edges and makes them crisper and more noticeable by making the bright edges brighter (white halo) and the dark edges darker (black halo).

There are two sharpening tools in Helicon Filter: Sharpen fine details and Sharpen edges.

The Sharpen fine details tool makes images look less fuzzy by detecting and amplifying thin lines and fine details.

The Sharpen edges tool emphasizes all the edges by adding halos. If you use Sharpen edges, then the Sharpen fine details effect will be almost unnoticeable.

The Sharpen edges tool has several parameters that change the brightness and width of the halos.

Original	Sharpen fine details	Sharpen edges

Hints and tips

• Do not overdo sharpening, as the image will look too "digital."
• To keep noise from being emphasized, set a higher value for the Threshold.
• Do not set high values for Edge width without a good reason, as it produces too big halos.

Recommended Workflow

• Set zoom to 100% or 50% to view image closer to its real size.
• Play with the Sharpen edges slider to emphasize outlines of the objects.
• If noise is emphasized, increase the value of the Threshold slider while simultaneously watching the Sharpening map.
• Check if selecting the Suppress halos checkbox makes image look better.
• Use Equalizer to adjust sharpening level for specific color ranges (i.e. skin, sky).

Sharpen fine details

The Sharpen fine details tool detects thin lines and fine details and amplifies them. Wide and/ or smooth edges are not affected. Please note that such sharpening will be noticeable only on larger prints. If you plan to print a 5 megapixels image on 10x15cm (4x6") paper or downsize the image to 25%, fine sharpening will not be noticeable.

Sharpen Edges

The Sharpen edges tool adds contrast to the edges. Bigger values correspond to greater contrast.

The Edge width parameter defines the width of halos.

Edge width = 1	Edge width = 10

The Threshold parameter sets the minimal size of objects to be sharpened. If noise in your picture is increased, try setting a higher Threshold value.

The White halo parameter defines the intensity of white edge sharpening as a percentage to black edge sharpening. In most cases, white halos are more noticeable than black ones, which is why the default value is set to 50%.

Sharpening Equalizer

The Equalizer lets you define the sharpening level for every hue in the image. A common task is to keep skin details soft while sharpening the rest of the image.

Note: The Equalizer appears when the value of the Sharpen edges slider is not zero.

Original	Sharpen fine details 100, Sharpen edges 50 Entire image sharpened - notice the dots on the face	Sharpen fine details 100, Sharpen edges 50 Skin color is not sharpened. This is set with the Equalizer

Suppress Halos

The Suppress halos tool sharpens blurry edges without introducing white or black halos. If you already have a sharp image, the effect will be minimal.

Original	Sharpened, Suppress halos is off	Sharpened, Suppress halos is on

Sharpening Map

When you switch the Sharpening map on, you can see (in pink color) what parts are to be sharpened.

Sharpening Brush

The Sharpening brush can either sharpen or blur a part of an image. Read more about the Sharpening brush here.

Selection brush

The Selection brush selects a specific area of an image. After you have made your selection you can return to the Sharpening filter and apply any transformation either to the selection or to the rest of the image. Learn more about the Selection brush and its parameters here.

Distortions

The Dstortions filter lets you correct radial and perspective distortions and vignetting, stretch your image horizontally and vertically, skew, rotate, and bend.

Lens correction

The Barrel/pincusion tool compensates radial (spherical) distortions by stretching the corners. These distortions typically appear on the wide-angle lens and when you take a shot from a short distance.

The Horizontal perspetive tool squeezes left or right side of an image. These distortions appear if you take a shot while being positioned closer to one side of an object.

The Vertical perspective tool squeezes the top or the bottom of the image. These distortions appear if you take a shot while being positioned closer to top or bottom of an object.

Geometry

The Stretch horizontally tool squeezes or stretches an image.

The Stretch vertically tool squeezes or stretches an image.

The Rotate tool can be useful if a shot was taken under wrong angle.

The Skew tool defines the shift of the upper part of an image.

The Bend tool  lets you straighten the horizon by lifting/sinking  image sides relatively to the its center.

Vignetting

Vignetting is an optical problem that results in unnaturally dark corners in the image. Vignetting is a common problem with many lenses and most often apears on wide-angle shots.

The Level parameter definess the intensity of brightening the darkened edges.

The Curve steepess parameter defines how much of the image will be affected with un-vignetting.  High values result in correction only in the corners, low values result in brightening larger area.

Fill margins

Tick this checkbox off to have the margins filled with black color instead of the reflection of image sides. Margins appear after many operations: rotation, squeezing, skewing, etc.

Fill margins off	Fill margins on

Grid

This checkbox switches on the grid. Use the grid to assess the distortions more clearly.

Selection brush

The Selection brush selects some area of an image. After you have some selection you can return to the Distortions filter and apply any transformation either only to the selection or only to the rest of the image. Learn more about selection brush and it's parameters here.

Distortions brush

The distortions brush allows distorting a part of an image, for example, to correct thin lips or a big belly or to corect the curve of nose or chin. Read more here.

Adding text

The Text filter lets you write something on your image, including a date. Several different effects will help you keep the text legible but unobtrusive.

To add more than one type or line of text, apply the current Text filter, and then switch to the Text filter once more to add another filter.

Text

Type any text you want to have on your image into the Text template field. Use the Insert into text list below to add image metadata, such as date and time, file name, aperture, and/or shutter speed, etc., as well as the copyright and mu symbols.

Right-click on the text template field for the list of available actions: undo, cut, copy, paste, delete, select all.

The Clear text button clears all text.

The Date/ time format button shows/hides two combo boxes with the available formats for date and time.

Fonts and effects

Choose a font from the list and set the character set from the drop-down list below.

Use these buttons to change the size of the text or bring the cursor to the border of the text on the image, click, and drag it.

Use the alignment buttons to align the text within the text borders.

The Effects combo box lets you choose one of four text effects:

No effect

Shadowed

Highlighted

Embossed

The color dialogue lets you choose any color for your text.

You can also click on the eyedropper button, pick a color from your image and then click on it to set the text color.

The Transparency slider lets you make text partially transparent.

Text position

You can either position the text with the mouse or you can use the tools on the Position panel.

Use these buttons to position the text on the image. The Margins control lets you indent the text from the image edge.

Use the arrows to move the text. You can do the same using the following shortcuts: SHIFT + CTRL + Left (or Right or Up or Down) Key.

The Angle of rotation slider rotates the text. Or you can also use the mouse: highlight the cursor close to the small circle at one of the corners, then click and drag it.

Retouching

The Retouching filter offers a complete set of brushes for retouching. Their most popular application of them is to remove various facial blemishes, such as pimples, wrinkles, scars, spots, etc. Below are some examples.

Original image	Brushes used: Delete Scratches, Clone, Change Color, Change Brightness, Blur/Sharpen, Distort

Original image	Brushes used: Delete Scratches, Clone, Change Brightness, Blur/Sharpen, Distort

Common Parameters

Some brushes share common parameters.

The Intensity slider defines the strength of the brush effect.

The Brush size slider defines the diameter of the brush in pixels.

The Brush hardness slider defines the blurriness of the brush edge.

The Tolerance slider makes brushes "smart". In Helicon Filter all brushes are round, but with high tolerance you can apply the brush effect to an area that has a complex contour and similar color, like a face. The effect will be applied to the pixels that have more or less a similar color to those ones in the center of the brush circle.

The Smoothing slider defines the degree of automatic smoothing applied to the selection's edges and heterogeneous areas.

Tolerance 70%. Notice, how the brush affects only sky and leaves the trees and the building untouched.

With the Fill contour button, you:

1) outline your chosen contour with a brush,

2) Click on the button

3) Click inside the contour and the brush effect is applied to the outlined area.

This works for all brushes except Delete Scratches and Distort.

Delete Scratches

The Delete scratches brush is optimized to fix small blemishes, such as wrinkles, scratches, pimples, etc.

This smart brush fills the area that it is applied to with the colors of neighboring pixels. The color(s) of the pixels in the area between the dashes and the outside of the brush circle is used to fill the area inside it. 

The brush changes its orientation according to the movement of the mouse, because normally you will move the brush along a scratch. This works fine for areas with homogeneous texture.

If the scratch is near an edge, line or coarse texture, it is better to switch off the Auto orientation checkbox and use manual orientation. Deselect the Auto orientation checkbox and use ALT + Mouse wheel to change the orientation manually.

Original image	The brush is over the brown spot. You can preview the result

Clone

The Clone brush can clone--i.e., copy--parts of an image.

The Intensity slider defines the opacity of the area to copy.

If the Move source area checkbox is unchecked, you select what you want to copy and then click on where you want to copy it, if the checkbox is selected, you do the reverse (first choose where to copy and afterwards choose what to copy). With this checkbox selected, you can copy complex objects piece by piece, as shown in the duck example below.

Move source area: on Texture only: off Intensity: 100 First, click where you would like to place the second duck and then click over the original duck until it is fully copied.	This poor duck was cloned without any genetic engineering!

The Texture only checkbox allows you to copy the texture of the source image and preserve the brightness and the color of the target.

The Clone brush can be very useful for retouching faces. In some cases, it can remove skin blemishes better than the Delete scratches brush, for example, if the blemish is near an edge or on the gradient area.

Original image	Removing pimples Intensity: 100 Texture only: off
Reducing wrinkles Texture only: on Intensity: 90	The wrinkles below the eyes and the pimples were removed

Right-click or use the New area button to set the new source area.

Change Brightness

The Change brightness brush can either brighten or darken parts of an image. If the Intensity slider has a positive value, the brush increases the brightness, if the intensity is negative, the brightness decreases.

If the Remove haze checkbox is selected, this brush adds some saturation and brightens the grays. Please note that you can also apply haze compensation to the whole image on the Brightness filter.

Original image	The foreground was brightened Intensity +70, Tolerance 70%

Original image	The skin was brightened Intensity + 42 Tolerance 70%

Change Color

Use the Change color brush to change the color of parts of an image. For example, you can change the color of a T-shirt or fix the color of a face.

If you want to keep the texture of an area, select the Preserve the brightness checkbox. If it is deselected, the brush will paint over the original image with a solid color. You can also preserve the saturation of the original color by selecting the Preserve saturation checkbox.

You can choose the brush color in three ways:

1. Select the color from the current image by using the Change button.

2. Pick a color from the standard color palette.

3. Select one of the memory colors. You can also add to the memory colors.

The Change color brush can be useful for retouching faces. For example, you can reduce the dark areas below the eyes by picking a brighter color from elsewhere on the face and painting it below the eyes with a low intensity.

Change Saturation

The Change saturation brush increases or decreases the saturation. If the Intensity is positive, the colors become more saturated. To make a selection monochromatic (black and white), set the intensity to -100%.

Original image	The colors of the flower are saturated

Blur/Sharpen

Positive values will sharpen the image and negative ones will blur it.

This brush is typically used to blur the texture of the skin and to sharpen the eyelashes and eyebrows. Use small values to blur the skin (-5, for example) because otherwise the skin will look too plastic.

The Radius slider defines how many neighboring pixels are used for the effect.

Original image	The background was blurred

Original image	The eyelashes, eyebrows, pupil and iris were sharpened

Reduce Noise

The Reduce noise brush uses an aggressive algorithm to reduce noise in the selected areas only. By default, the Intensity slider is set to detect the noise level in the same way that it is done on the Noise filter. Higher values of the Intensity slider mean that more details will be treated as noise and removed.

Fix Red Eyes

This brush increases the saturation in the color of the pupils of the eye, and makes it darker as well. The brush is "smart" and tries to define the edges of the pupil if it is not round.

The Pupil darkening slider defines the brightness of the pupil. A value of 50 means that the brightness will be reduced by 50%.

Original image	Red eyes fixed with just two clicks

Distort

This brush can distort parts of images. You can fix such problems as face expression, thin lips, protruding ears, pot belly, etc.

The Both directions checkbox lets you stretch or squeeze an image area symmetrically in relation to the center of the brush. Use this option to make long objects thicker or thinner, such as lips or legs.

Distortion in one direction	Squeezing in both directions	Stretching in both directions

Use Ctrl+Mouse wheel or Up/Down keys to change the orientation of the brush. Hold down the Ctrl key to set the brush orientation.

Replace sky/background

This brush lets you clone the sky from an external image. The primary goal here is to replace an overexposed sky with a more appropriate one. Please remember that adding a completely different type of sky will make the image look unnatural due to the differences in lighting, direction of shadows, etc.

Please note that the Intensity slider changes the opacity of the entire sky. If you want to make only a part of the sky semi-transparent, you should use the Erase changes brush later on.

TIP: when painting near the horizon, set the Tolerance slider to the minimum value and paint with single clicks.

The Open sky library button opens a folder of pre-existing sky images that come with the program. You can also copy your own images into this folder.

The Open user's sky button opens a previously-used folder and loads the user's image of the sky.

The Horizon level slider lets you squeeze the image of the sky image so that the final image looks more natural.

Erase Changes

The Erase changes brush is designed to erase the effect of the previous brushes selectively.  You can restore pixels to the state they were in before being retouched, or even to their original state.

The Erase up to combo box allows you to erase all changes going back to any previous step (for example, before they were retouched, before the brightness was changed, before conversion to B&W), including returning the image to its original state.

First, the image was converted to B&W (with the Colors filter ) Next the effect was erased for the rose only with the Erase changes brush

Make Selection

You can achieve many effects with this brush. First, select an area, then switch to another filter (such as Brightness, Colors, etc.) and apply any available effect either to the selection or to the rest of the image.

As soon as you have made your selection and switched to a filter (Brightness, Colors, etc.), a combo box will appear at the bottom of the Expert mode panel, which allows you to apply changes either to the selection or to the rest of the image. The default is for changes to be applied to the whole image.

While all the other brushes are specialized and produce the most popular effects, the Make selection brush is universal: it allows you to apply any available effect to a part of an image. For example, the Brightness brush produces an effect analogous to moving the Brightness slider on the Brightness filter. However, there are many other tools for adjusting brightness that you can apply to a selection made with the Make selection brush.

You can apply a number of effects at the same time to either a selection or the rest of an image, as well as different effects to each part of an image.

You can save an image in which you've made a selection so that you can continue retouching it later, in which case you should save the file as a PNG.

Original image	Selection	Brightness increased for the whole image and then again for just the selection, followed by increasing the saturation for only the selection

Adding frames

To make your images look even nicer we offer five types of frames and some effects, let's take a look at them.

Artistic Frames

Those frames are probably most interesting. Helicon Filter is shipped with a few artistic frames, but you can download more free frames from our web site.

The Classic Frames Samples

The Love Frames Samples

The Grange Frames

The Ornamental Frames

The Postcard Frames

The Wooden Frames

Original Image (Stretch) Frames

Original Image (Mirror) Frames

Custom Background Frames

Gradient color frames

Frame type and size

TheFrame type is the most influential parameter, it defines what the frame will be like:

solid color frame
gradient color frame
stretch image frame
mirror image frame
custom background frame
artistic frame

The Frame width determines the width of the frame for all or for each of four sides of the image.

The Aspect control allows you to set the proprotions for the resulting image. For expample, you need the result to have 2:3 aspect ratio, even if the source image is square.

Frame effects

Depending on the frame type, this group of parameters contains controls to set various effects.

The Color controls let you define the colors for the solid color, gradient frames. They also define colors for the artistic frame if it is possible.

The Image control shows background or artistic frame that is used for the frame. The button on the right side of the image allows you to select different images from standard or last used folder.

The Brightness slider changes the brightness of the frame background.

The Additional effect control applies blurring or desaturation to the background image.

Image effects

These controls affect the transition between the image and the background.

The Effect type select allows you to add such effects as shadow, highlight or different types of transition between image and background.

The Effect width defines the size of the effect, i.e. width of shadow or transition area.

The Inner frame control allows you to add rectangle of specified type around the image.

The Rotation slider tilts the image inside of the frame.

Chromatic Aberration (CA)

Chromatic aberration (CA) decreases the sharpness of images and removes color contours, lines, and spots that objects do not actually possess. It is caused by certain optical effects and processes in a camera sensor. Two types of CA occur most often in images taken with digital cameras: 1) purple fringing; 2) lateral CA.

Helicon Filter can help to fix both of these.

1) Purple/blue fringing (blooming):

The diadem has a false purple contour.	The purple contour has been removed.

2) Lateral CA  

Original image Lateral CA usually appears on the sides and in the corners.	The right top corner of the image (see the red rectangle added to the original image, left) has been magnified to show the effect of lateral CA on the white letters	The lateral CA has been removed. The letters have no extra outlining.

Lateral CA is most often visible in contrasting areas on the sides and in the corners of images. It tends to make it look like the red and blue parts of the image have shifted from or to the center of the image.

For more about CA, you can read the following: http://www.dpreview.com/learn/?/key=chromatic+aberration.

Helicon Filter has two mechanisms for fixing CA.

1. To fix purple fringing, the program determines which areas have a brightness level higher than the brightness threshold.  Then it desaturates the pixels of the CA colors that are within a specified radius from the bright areas.

2. To fix lateral CA, the program distorts the red and blue color planes of the image to compensate for the error(s) created by the lens.

Recommended workflow

To fix purple fringing:

• Use the eyedroppers (Current CA color & Other CA color) to mark the colors caused by CA.
• Find the minimum radius that will remove the most obvious CA.
• Starting with a low threshold, find the maximum threshold sufficient to remove all the CA.
• Use the CA map to verify that the other parts of the image have not been affected.

To fix lateral CA:

• Move the Lateral CA slider back and forth until you find the value that compensates for the CA.
• If this doesn't help, then use the same approach as for fixing purple fringing.

Current CA Color & Other CA Color

The eyedroppers let you define two exact colors of CA by clicking on the image with the mouse pointer. Based on the desired Color tolerance level, the program will look for similar colors and desaturate them. Zoom in to pick the exact colors.

CA Parameters

The Radius slider defines the distance from the bright, overexposed areas that will be desaturated. Try to find the minimum radius sufficient to remove all the effects of CA.

The Brightness threshold slider defines the bright areas themselves. The program assumes that areas brighter than the threshold cause the blooming effect. Try to find the highest suitable threshold value to minimize the effects of CA in the other parts of the image.

The Color tolerance slider determines the degree of precision for the color match. A zero level of color tolerance means that only the exact colors defined by the current CA color and other CA color parameter will be removed (desaturated). A very high color tolerance (100) will include all colors in the processing.

CA Map

The CA Map switches the software to a special mode in which the intensity of the blue color corresponds to the degree of desaturation. In this mode you can check to see where your image is affected*.

Lateral CA

The Lateral CA slider changes the intensity of the changes in the blue and red color planes. Move the slider back and forth to find the value that will give the best result. Please note that this tool has no effect in the center of the image because lateral CA is most pronounced in the corners.

Lateral CA compensation should be applied before cropping.

Gradient selection with parameters:

Gradient profile: +50

Processing parameters for the unselected part:

Brightness filter: Brightness: -50
Colors filter: Saturation: -50

GeoTagging

GeoTagging a photo

GeoTagging is the recording of the latitude and longitude of the location where a phototgraph was taken and adding them to image EXIF. Some modern cameras can geotag photos automatically; if so, you can view your images on a map with Helicon Filter. If your camera doesn't have the geotagging skills, you can attach photographs to the map manually with Helicon Filter.

To open/close the map, click the button on the main toolbar.

The Geotagging feature works only while your computer is connected to the Internet.

How to geotag a photo

1. Open the map, for this click the button on the main toolbar.
2. Find the location where the photo was taken, zoom in until you can precisely point to the location.
3. Select the photo and click on the map where you believe the photo was taken.
4. Confirm geotagging.
   

Map options

You can browse map in several modes:

• Map with/without terrain
  
• Satellite with/witout labels
  
• With/without Panoramio photos
  

Stacking

With Helicon Filter you can merge several images into one. Why would you do that? To extend the depth-of-field or to reduce noise or to get an interesting artistic effect.

Extending the depth-of-field

Blending several partially-sharp images into the one fully sharp is called "focus stacking". Focus stacking can give you an amazing depth-of-field which can never be achievied with one shot.

What do you typically do when you need bigger depth-of-field? You use small apertures. But at some point there comes lens difraction and overall loose of sharpness. And all the same, in some cases the small aperture cannot give the needed depth-of-field. You often face it in macro-photography, and always in micro-photography; the bigger magnification you use, the shallower depth-of-field you get. So, what to do? Use focus stacking! Focus stacking is a post-processing technique which completely solves the depth-of-field problem.

Now, how does focus stacking works? You prepare a stack of images, each one focused on different part of the scene. Then you open them in Helicon Filter* and merge the sharp parts into one completely sharp image. On the example below you can see how just two images can give you bigger depth-of-field than ever possible with one shot.

The flowering branches in the front are in focus.	The castle in the background is in focus.	The two original images were merged into the one, both the castle and the branches are sharp here.

*Helicon Filter offers the basic focus stacking, if you want the advanced solution, then download Helicon Focus - a specialized program for focus stacking from Helicon Soft.

How to prepare a stack

Here is how you can shoot a stack manually:

1. Focus on the front of the object and make a shot
2. Rotate the focusing ring to focus a little bit further and make another shot
3. Repeat the second step until the farthest part comes into focus

We recommend to use a tripod to aviod the shifts, though small shifts can be processed by the program. We also recommend setting the aperture to your lens' sweet spot (the lens' sharpest aperture). In most cases, your lens’ sweet spot is two stops above its widest aperture. For example, if your lens' widest aperture is f/2.8, then its sweet spot is f/5.6; if the widest aperture is f/4 then the sweet spot is f/8. You can find more information about lenses' sweet spots on various review sites for lenses, such as www.DPReview.com, or else you can conduct your own tests.

Shooting a stack manually can be a cubersome task. But you can get it automated by using Helicon Remote - a program for tethered shooting. In such a case you connect your camera to a computer with Helicon Remote, set the farthest and the nearest focusing points and the program does the shooting.

How to process the stack

Select the folder with the stack. Mark the checkboxes for the images which you would like to merge. Go to the main menu and choose: Stack → Merge focused areas. That is all! Now you can save the resulting image.

Alternatively, you can mark the files, right-clcik to call the context menu and choose Merge focused areas.

Reducing noise

You can reduce noise by averaging several images of the same scene. Ideally, the camera should not move between shots.

Mark the checkboxes for the images which you would like to merge. Go to the main menu and choose: Stack → Reduce noise by averaging. Now you can save the resulting image.

lternatively, you can mark the files, right-clcik to call the context menu and choose Reduce noise by averaging.

Merging images for artistic purposes

You can achieve different artistic effects by merging and by averaging completely different or partially different images. Note, that the results of applying Merge focused areas and Reduce noise by averaging will differ.

Left mouse button

Determines whether or not small panels pop up below each slider; these panels make it easier to move a precise number of steps forward or backward or to restore the default or previous value of a slider.