# 5. Image Viewing

Basic image viewing and manipulation can be achieved without having all of the toolbars on display. You toggle a toolbar on or off using the View menu, which allows you to make the interface much less cluttered when you don't need these extra features. Here is a screenshot of what mtPaint looks like with just the main toolbar switched on:

All basic image manupulation can be done with a few clicks of the mouse or a few keystrokes: Zooming, panning, cropping, scaling and adjusting the colours. If you take the time to learn these keyboard and mouse shortcuts, they can really increase your work satisfaction and productivity.

## 5.1 Zooming and Panning

At any time you can zoom in or out using the + or - keys. You can also zoom to a preset value by pressing the number keys 1-9. It is sometimes useful to navigate around the image by pressing the End key to bring up the pan window. This window displays a thumbnail of the current image which you can use to position the current view with. To do this you either press the arrow keys to move or click on the thumbnail using the mouse. The size of the thumbnail is set using the Preferences window.

### 5.1.1 Zooming to a Particular Area

If you wish to zoom into a particular area of the image you can do this by positioning the mouse pointer over the area you want as the centre and then pressing the middle mouse button. If you then zoom in, this point on the canvas will be the new centre of the current view.

## 5.2 Full View Mode

At any time you can hide all of the menus, toolbars, palette and status bar in order to view as much of the image as possible. To do this simply press the Home key. Pressing the Home key again will return the controls.

## 5.3 The Command Line Window

If you started mtPaint by passing more than one filename at the command line such as 'mtpaint *.jpg', these filenames will be put into a list in a window. Then whenever you click on the filename, this image will be loaded into mtPaint. This can be useful for editing animation frames, or working with several digital photos. In the Windows version of mtPaint this feature can be used by selecting the image files in Explorer, right clicking and using the 'Send To' option to send them to mtPaint.

Here is an example of what you can do using the command line window, a pan window and the main window toggled to full view:

## 5.4 The View Window

When you are editing an image at a high zoom, it is sometimes useful to have a second image at 100% to see what it looks like, but without having to zoom in and out. This is what the View Window allows you to do. The view window can be toggled on or off by pressing the 'V' key or by using the View menu. The zoom setting for the view window is set by using the second combo box on the main toolbar. By default when you move a scrollbar on the main edit window this will also move the image focus in the view window. To turn this feature off, you must toggle the option on the View menu.

Here is an example of what the view window can be used for: