The Adjust button opens a floating window with a histogram and sliders to adjust a photo's exposure, saturation, tint, temperature, and shadows. The histogram also has sliders to reduce the upper and lower intensity thresholds of the photograph, expanding the contrast of the middle range.
The Enhance button adjusts the histogram and shadows sliders to improve the quality of a photo.
When the photo's colors and contrast are to your liking, press Apply to save the changes. Reset will return the image to its original state. Cancel discards all changes you've made.
What do the color adjustments do?Exposure
Changes the brightness to make it look like the photo was exposed for a longer or shorter time. Use this to correct under- or over-exposed photos.
Saturation
Changes how vivid colors look. If your photo looks gray and washed out, try increasing the saturation. If colors look too bold, try decreasing it.
Tint
This tints the photo with a color. It's useful for correcting photos taken with the wrong white balance setting, which typically have an unnatural color cast. For example, photos taken outdoors with the white balance set to "Tungsten" may have a blue cast.
Temperature
Changes how "warm" or "cool" the picture looks. Use this to make cold, depressing scenes look more lively, for example.
Shadows
This makes shadowy areas appear lighter. Use this to make detail more visible if it's obscured by the darkness of a shadow.
Intensity Threshold (sliders on the histogram)
These sliders change how light the brightest white is and how dark the darkest black is. Use them to change the contrast of the photo. Photos which look washed out should particularly benefit from changing these settings.
shotwell/help/C/edit-crop.page 0000664 0000000 0000000 00000005143 12642307164 0016565 0 ustar 00root root 0000000 0000000 Improve the composition of a photo by cutting out parts of it.Cropping
To reduce the area of a photo and concentrate the viewer's attention on a smaller portion of it, use the Crop tool.
The crop tool is only available in full-window or fullscreen mode.
Double-click on a photo to enter full-window mode, then press the Crop button on the toolbar.
A white box, the crop rectangle, will appear over the photo. The lighter portion of the photo within the crop rectangle represents what the photo will look like when you crop it.
If you place your cursor in the middle of the box, you can move the box around. If you drag the edges of the box, you can adjust its size. As you move and adjust the crop box, you'll see four lines appear inside it, like a tic-tac-toe grid. These are rule of thirds lines.
You can also constrain the crop box to one of many common sizes. Choose a size from the drop-down list that suits your needs. If you press the flip button next to it, the orientation of the constraint will switch (from landscape to portrait).
When you're happy with your crop outline, press the Apply button. Shotwell will display the cropped photo.
If you change your mind, press the Crop button again and fine-tune the crop.
If you press Cancel rather than Apply, Shotwell will return to the photo's previous crop dimensions.
What is the rule of thirds?
The rule of thirds helps you to choose a pleasing composition for a photo.
Imagine that the scene is divided up into a 3x3 grid by two equally-spaced vertical lines and two equally-spaced horizontal lines. According to the rule, you're more likely to get a pleasing composition if you align major features (like the horizon, or a person's body) with one of the lines. Paying attention to the way features flow from one part of the grid to another can also help.
Cropping a photo so that it conforms to the rule of thirds often results in a more visually appealing image.
Cropping a photo, using the "rule of thirds" lines to improve the composition.
shotwell/help/C/edit-enhance.page 0000664 0000000 0000000 00000001337 12642307164 0017224 0 ustar 00root root 0000000 0000000 Let Shotwell improve the brightness and contrast of a photo automatically.Auto-enhance
Clicking on the Enhance button is a quick way to automatically adjust the brightness and contrast of your photo. It will often give you a photo that is correctly exposed. You can also use it as a starting point and then improve the adjustments by clicking on the Adjust button.
shotwell/help/C/edit-external.page 0000664 0000000 0000000 00000004055 12642307164 0017445 0 ustar 00root root 0000000 0000000 Use a different program to edit a photo.
Edit photos with an external program
You might want to use an external editor to do additional work on a photo.
If installed, GIMP and UFRaw are the default external editors for photo and RAW editing,
respectively. If these programs are not installed, you must select your preferred
editors by choosing EditPreferences and selecting
editors from drop-down menus of installed applications.
Once your editors have been set, select a photo and choose PhotosOpen With External Editor to open the photo with the external editor.
Likewise, if the original photo is a RAW file, select PhotosOpen
With RAW Editor to edit the RAW file directly with the set RAW editor.
When you complete your edits and save the file, Shotwell will detect the changes and
update the photo. When external edits have been made, press and hold the
Shift key in full-window view to show the original photo rather than the
externally-edited one.
Reverting to original will erase any external edits.
If you externally edit a RAW photo and save the result to another image, such as a
JPEG or PNG, Shotwell cannot automatically determine that the original RAW and the
new image should be paired.
If you want to work within the resulting image within Shotwell, you'll need to
import it yourself.
shotwell/help/C/edit-nondestructive.page 0000664 0000000 0000000 00000002142 12642307164 0020672 0 ustar 00root root 0000000 0000000 Shotwell is a non-destructive photo editor - it does not modify your original photos.What happens to the original when I edit a photo?
Shotwell is a non-destructive photo editor. It does not modify your original photographs. That is to say, if you crop a photo or adjust its colors, the photo file on disc remains untouched. Shotwell stores your edits in a database and applies them on the fly as necessary. This means you can undo any alterations you make to a photograph.
If you want to see what a photo looked like before your modifications, press the Shift key. The original photo will be displayed as long as you hold the key down.
Note that Shotwell can optionally write metadata (such as tags and titles) to photo files.
For more information, see the section Photo files.
shotwell/help/C/edit-redeye.page 0000664 0000000 0000000 00000001637 12642307164 0017103 0 ustar 00root root 0000000 0000000 Correct photos where people have red eyes because of the camera's flash.Removing red-eye
Red-eye occurs when the camera's flash reflects off the pupil of someone's eye. To eliminate this in a photo, use the Red-eye tool.
Click Red-eye. A circle will appear on the photo.
Drag the circle over the affected pupil, adjust its size with the slider control, and press Apply. The redness will be removed.
Repeat this process for all red pupils in your photo. Press Close when finished.
shotwell/help/C/edit-rotate.page 0000664 0000000 0000000 00000002625 12642307164 0017122 0 ustar 00root root 0000000 0000000 Click the Rotate button, or choose one of the commands in the Photo menu.Rotate or flip a photo
You can rotate your photos left and right (clockwise and counterclockwise) with the Rotate button on the toolbar of most views. You can also make a mirror image of any photo.
To rotate right, click on the Rotate button. To rotate left, press and hold the Ctrl key and then click the button. Both commands are available in the Photos menu too. Alternatively, use the following keyboard shortcuts: