HP CN088A - Serif PosterDesigner Pro Operation instructions

Poster Designer Pro 1
In this tutorial, we’ll work with pictures and show you how to:
·Add and replace pictures.
·Use the Media Bar.
·Pan, zoom, and crop pictures.
·Apply image adjustments.
Working With Pictures

Working With Pictures
Poster Designer Pro
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Working With Pictures
Poster Designer Pro offers a variety of tools and techniques for working
with the images on your poster. In this tutorial, we’ll start with a themed
layout, then we’ll show you how to add your own pictures, crop them, and
apply some basic image adjustments.
We’ll be using the sample images installed with Poster Designer Pro. In a
standard installation, you’ll find this folder in the following location:
C:\Program Files\Serif\Poster Designer Pro\1.0\Images
You can use your own images if you prefer.
To open a themed layout :
1On the File menu, click New from Startup Wizard.
2Click the Use Themed Layout option.
3In the Create New Poster From Themed Layout dialog, scroll
the left Themed Layouts pane and select the Theme 04 thumbnail.
4In the right
Layouts pane,
select the third
layout variation.
5Click OK.
The layout opens in
the workspace.

Working With Pictures
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Adding pictures
The themed layout provide four placeholder picture frames for you to add
your own photos.
You can add pictures individually, by clicking directly on a placeholder, or
you can add multiple pictures to the Media Bar and then drag them onto
the frames as you need them. We’ll demonstrate both methods.
To add a single picture to a frame:
1Click once inside the upper-left picture frame (or select the frame and
then click the Replace Picture icon that displays in the lower-
right corner).
2In the Import Picture dialog, browse to your C:\Program
Files\Serif\Poster Designer Pro\1.0\Images folder.
3Select the 4568665.jpg
file and click Open.
The picture is added to
the frame and scaled to fit.
When the picture is selected,
note that the Picture Frame
toolbar displays in the lower-
right corner. You can use
these tools to adjust your
picture inside the frame.
To adjust a picture inside a frame:
·To reposition the picture inside the frame, click Pan, and then click
and drag on the picture with the Pan cursor.
·To rotate the picture counter-clockwise, in 90° increments, click
Rotate.

Working With Pictures
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·To zoom in or out of the picture, click Zoom In or Zoom
Out, and then click on the picture.
·To replace the picture, click Replace Picture, browse to and
select a new picture and click Open.
Using the Media Bar
If you’re working with lots of pictures, or are not
sure which of your pictures would work best on
your poster, you might prefer to add them to the
Media Bar before adding them to the layout.
To add images to the Media Bar:
1On the Media Bar, in the rightmost drop-down
list, select Temporary Album.
2Click in the blank area of the tab.
- or -
Click Add Image.
In the Import Picture dialog, navigate to your C:\Program
Files\Serif\Poster Designer Pro\1.0\Images folder.
3Press and hold down the Ctrl key and select the following files:
·3176257.jpg
·4568665.jpg
·5261963.jpg
·6295505.jpg
4Click Open.
The photos are displayed
as thumbnails on the
Media Bar.
Using the Media Bar
By default, pictures are added to a temporary
album, but you can also create more permanent
albums from which you can retieve stored
images at any time.
For details, see the How To tab or the Poster
Designer Pro online Help.
Viewing the
Media Bar
If you can’t see the
Media Bar, click
the
handle at the
bottom of the
workspace.

Working With Pictures
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5Drag the photo of the
couple (3176257.jpg) onto
the upper-right picture
frame.
6Drag the photo of the ski
lift (5261963.jpg) from the
Media Bar onto the
lower-left frame.
7Drag the snowy scene (6295505.jpg)
from the Media Bar onto the lower-
right frame.
Once you’ve added pictures to frames,
it’s easy to replace them.
Let’s switch the bottom two photos...
To replace a picture:
1Drag the photo of the ski lift
(5261963.jpg) from the Media Bar
onto the lower-right
frame.
2Drag the snowy scene
(6295505.jpg) from the
Media Bar onto the
lower-left frame.
Free-floating pictures
You can also add unframed ‘free-
floating’ pictures to your poster.
To do so, simply drag a
thumbnail directly onto the page,
rather than onto a picture frame.

Working With Pictures
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Cropping pictures
At the left of the workspace, on the Attributes
toolbar, the Crop flyout provides tools for
cropping framed and unframed pictures on the page.
To crop a picture:
1Select the photo of the ski lift, then
on the Crop flyout, click the
Square Crop Tool.
2Click and drag the left edge handle
inwards, as illustrated.
3Click on the upper-left picture and
drag the right edge handle inwards
slightly, so
that the sun
displays in the
center of the
frame.
4(Optional) To reposition a cropped
image inside its frame, click and drag
on the image (the cursor temporarily
changes to Pan).
5On the Tools toolbar, click the
Pointer Tool and then drag the
cropped pictures to realign them.
You can also use the Align tab if you
prefer (see online Help for details).

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Applying image adjustments
When you select a picture, the Picture context toolbar displays at the top
of the workspace, automatically.
This toolbar provides quick and easy access to key picture-related
controls—replace, resize, recolor, and so on—and also lets you apply
useful image adjustments, such as red eye removal and brightness and
contrast adjustments, with a single click.
To apply an image adjustment:
1Select the photo of the couple in the
upper-right frame.
We can improve this photo by applying
brightness and contrast adjustments.
2On the Picture context toolbar, click
Decrease Brightness.
Click again until you achieve the
desired brightness level (two or three
times should be sufficient).
3Click Increase Contrast.
Repeat as required.
4(Optional) Experiment with the other
adjustments provided on the Picture
context toolbar to see how they
effect the photos
on your poster.
Advanced images adjustments
Poster Designer Pro includes a powerful mix of advanced
image correction and adjustment tools— including levels,
color balance, channel mixer, HSL, and Unsharp Mask—and a
selection of creative effects such as Diffuse Glow and
Gaussian Blur. All of these are applied from the Image
Adjustments dialog, which you can open by clicking
on the Picture context toolbar.
For more information, see online Help.

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We’ve reached the end of this tutorial on pictures. We hope that you have
enjoyed working through these simple exercises. You should now be
feeling familiar with the basic tools and techniques we’ve shown you, and
ready to start using them on your own poster layouts.
For more information on the topics we’ve covered here, and on more
advanced techniques, see online Help.
We may have finished
adjusting our pictures, but
there’s still lots you can do
with your poster.
In the illustration on the right,
we edited and formatted the
text objects (see the Working
With Text tutorial), and added
drop shadows from the
Styles tab to the picture
frames (see the How To tab
or online Help).