Scrolling and Zooming

Interacting with the Dynamic Display System.

On the tool panel are several tools for working with the way images are displayed.  You can pan around in a large image to see more of it, or zoom in for finer detail work.

These tools can also be used without having to rely on the buttons on the tool panel.  Holding CTRL+Shift on the keyboard while dragging on the buffer display will let you pan around without switching tools.   Doing the same with the Right Mouse Button will zoom in and out.

You may notice that there are no scroll bars on the buffer.  Working with the CTRL+Shift combination is less clunky and becomes intuitive very quickly.

There are also other keyboard shortcuts for working with the display.

n                          Center the buffer  under the cursor.  Use this to center on your point of interest.
F3                       Zoom to 100%
F4                       Zoom to fit window.  This scales the display to fit into the current window, whatever size it is.
CTRL +             Magnify by 25%
CTRL -              Minify by 25%
  1. The Hand tool lets you drag the buffer around.  It does not force you to switch tools.  Just scrolling around on the icon will scroll the image.
     
  2. The Zoom tool lets you zoom in and out.
     
  3. This icon will pop your image back to 100%.
     
  4. The next icon will scale your image to fit inside your buffers window.
You can scale your buffer's window, so you can work inward from the corners. The current zoom factor is displayed in the title bar of the application.

Display Settings Panel

The Display settings panel can be opened from the Window menu.  With it, you can access a number of tools related to the display of your image. Rulers give you an indication of the size of your final image when printed.  It works with the system's coordinates system, which is generally 90 dots per inch, although it can be altered in the Display settings on the control panel.

Clicking on the rulers will toggle between Inches and Centimeters.
The drawing grid will force your mouse or tablet movements into a grid.  This can be useful for lining up images when copying them with a custom brush, or for drawing mazes and technical drawings. The visible grid option shows you your grid.
The Artist Guides have several uses.  Firstly, they can be used for copying a source image to a destination image.  The source could be a photograph, or picture that exists on paper, or any type of image.

You can make a grid using a ruler and a piece of tracing paper to overlay your picture, then use the Artist Guide on the destination.  Your grids should match up, so you can now use them as a reference from copying one image to the other.  The grid helps in determining where major details (such as someone's eye) should be placed.

 Another use for Artist guides is for a visual reference of composition.  For example, you could compose your image in thirds, using the guides.