Annotating images
CaptureDent’s™ annotation facility lets you place markers of several shapes on your image, with or without text captions. You can also place text without any marker shape. Unlike the marks made in painting, these annotations are independent of the image and can be moved, deleted, or edited without destroying the photograph underneath.
Placing annotations
To place one or more annotations on your image, first select that image on the “Review” page, then enter the “Process” page.
Annotations are accessed using the toolbar button with a pale blue arrow icon. When you click it, the annotation toolbox will flip out, showing all the available annotation styles.
Pick the marker style you want to place — the toolbox will flip back out of the way. Now click the point in the photo where you want to put the marker’s “hot spot” (for rings this is the center; for arrows, the tip). The marker will appear, and unless the automatic action has been disabled, a dialog box will pop up to let you edit the annotation.
At the top of this dialog is a box that lets you type in any caption, or choose one from a drop-down pick list. You may leave the caption blank to make a bare annotation marker with no text.
Below are two color grids. The one on the left lets you choose a color for the marker shape; the one on the right controls the color in which the caption text will be drawn. If it’s hard to read the text or see the marker shape, changing one or both colors can help.
Editing annotations
Once you’ve placed an annotation, you can change its colors or caption text. You can also move it to a new position.
Changing colors or caption
Click an annotation’s marker or caption with your pointing device’s right (or secondary) button. The same dialog box will pop up as when you place a new annotation, but the existing caption (if any) and colors will be selected in the dialog. You can change the caption by typing a new one or picking from the list and select new marker andor caption colors. When you click the dialog’s “OK” button, your changes will be applied to the annotation.
Moving an annotation
Click the annotation’s marker or caption with your pointing device’s left (or primary) button and drag. When you release the button, the marker will stay put in that position.
Alternatively, click the marker or caption once. The marker’s color will begin to pulsate, showing that the annotation is active. Now use your computer keyboard’s “arrow” keys to move the annotation up, down, left, or right.
Tip: Each single keypress will move the annotation one pixel in the arrow’s direction. If you hold down an arrow key, the annotation will move once, pause, then move in a continued motion until you release the key.
Interactions with other operations
Changing the orientation of an image by flipping or rotating it will carry any annotations along; the place you clicked to place the annoation marker will remain where it was.
Tip: When changing orientation, arrows will be rotated or flipped along with the image, retaining their original relationship to underlying details. Rings, being symmetrical, are unchanged by orientation changes.
Depending upon the position of the annotation and how the image was reoriented, rotating or flipping an image may cause part or all of the caption to lie outside the image boundary.
If this happens, you might have to move or otherwise change the annotation in order to make it entirely readable again.
Thumbnail view
Annotations are not displayed in thumbnail view. At the small size used for thumbnails, annotations are impossible to read and clutter the view.
