Editing

Adding a Drop-shadow to a Graphic
You can create a selection by clicking and dragging the mouse, but sometimes you want to be precise. From the Edit Menu, choose, "Create custom selection." In this dialogue box you can set the exact size and position of the selection. If you want the selection to maintain the aspect ratio of the image you can check "actual ratio," or you can select a fixed ratio, then if you enter the width or height, the other dimension will be calculated for you. You can also use one of the preset common display sizes. In this tutorial we will add a drop shadow to the dialogue box on the right, by using the custom selection tool. In the next tutorial, we will learn how to do pixel editing with the selection marquee.
1. Setting the colour and width of the drop-shadow First, copy the above dialogue box to the clipboard, open Irfan View, and paste it in. Ensure that the status line is showing so that you can read the dimensions of the image. From the view menu choose show/hide status bar or press Alter Shift S if it is not already showing. From the Image menu, choose "Canvas Size." For a 10 pixel wide drop shadow, add 10 pixels to the right and bottom of the image. To choose the colour of the shadow, click on border color and choose black or any other suitable colour, then OK to enlarge the image.
2. Creating the drop shadow effect From the edit menu, choose, "Create custom selection." Here, enter an X-offset 10 pixels less than the width of the image — 381 in this case. Set the Y-offset to 0 and the size to 10 x 10 pixels. Select OK to apply the selection. In Properties, Misc3, select a background colour for cut that is different to the shadow and different to any colour in the image. Now press Control X to cut the top right corner of the drop shadow. Repeat the custom selection with an X-offset of 0, and a Y-offset 10 pixels less than the height of the image — 386 pixels in this case, and again use the size of 10 x 10 pixels. Select OK to apply the selection, and press Control X to cut the bottom left corner of the drop shadow. Finally, save the image with transparency as PNG or GIF, selecting the corner cut-out colour as the transparent colour.
The end result should now look something like this. Experiment with creating custom selections and moving them around with the right mouse. Drag any border to resize it. Click inside the selection to zoom in. Press Control H to view the image at 100% again. Note that the position and size of the selection is given in the Window title bar. Note also that the size of the selection changes if you try to move it beyond the borders of the displayed portion of the image. Unlike most other programs, in Irfan View, there is no option to resize the selection in two dimensions by dragging the corner.

Photo Editing Using IrfanPaint Last Updated for Paint.dll Beta 0.4.11.61
Pixel editing using the selection tool is no longer necessary, as the IrfanPaint plugin was released with the latest version 4.10. To run it, press F12, or select Show Paint Dialog from the Edit menu. With the IrfanPaint Plugin installed, you can do many basic photo-editing tasks without opening an external editor. With extended tool tips selected (?), move the mouse pointer over a tool to see tips on its use. The size of text in the tool tips can be changed in Windows, Desktop, Appearance. The Paint Toolbar is magnetic. Drag it to either side of the IrfanView window and it will snap there. Then it will move with the window if you resize it or load a larger image.	Select: Limits tools to work within selection Paintbrush: Left/Right = Fg/Background colour Eraser: Left/Right = Background/Undo paint Clone brush: Copy source to target Colour Replacer: Swap colours Text Tool: Insert formatted text Line: Straight line; Shift/Control to constrain Arrow Arrows; Right click for line endings Ellipse: Shift = Circle; Control = Centre Rectangle: Shift = Square; Control = Centre Fill: Left/right = Foreground/background colour Colour-picker: Foregound/Background colour Rotate: Custom rotate to horizon line Brush Settings: Line styles and hatch fills Tool tips: Brief/Extended tool tips About: Version number, Credits Width: Scroll to adjust the brush size Tolerance: Scroll to adjust tolerance Fill checkbox: For ellipses and rectangles Background colour: Click to change colour Foreground colour: Click to change colour
Selection Tool	This enables you to return focus to the Irfan View window, to make selections, crop, etc. The IrfanPaint tools, such as paintbrush or flood-fill will have no effect outside of the selected area.
Paintbrush	The left mouse button paints with the foreground colour, and the right mouse button paints with the background colour. Hold down the shift key, and scroll with the mouse scroll-wheel to change the brush width or use the width control on the toolbox.
Eraser	Click and drag with the left mouse button to erase any part of the image, leaving the background colour. Click and drag with the right mouse button to undo any previous painting, leaving the original image. Hold down the shift key, and scroll the mouse scroll-wheel to adjust the width of the eraser.
Clone Tool	Hold down the control key and click to define the source; click and drag to define the target and start painting a copy of the source. Hold down the shift key, and scroll with the mouse-wheel to adjust the width of the clone brush.
Colour Replacer	The colour replacer is used to replace a colour with another one. Click and drag with the left button to replace the background colour with the foreground colour. Click and drag with the right button to replace the foreground colour with the background colour. Hold down the shift key, and scroll the mouse scroll-wheel to adjust the width of the colour replacer.
Text Tool	The Text Tool adds formatted text to the image. The text cursor's cross-hair will be the baseline for the inserted text. The text will be left, right, or center aligned on the insertion point.
When you click the text cursor on an image, the Insert Text dialogue opens. Here, you can select text, format individual words or letters with font, size, colour, and text attributes, or align the text left, right, or centre. Unicode text can be pasted from the clipboard, or typed by using a customised Windows keyboard. The text can be drawn as an empty path, a filled path, as text or antialiased text. For path text, the text colour icon changes to the brush settings icon, from which you can set the line and fill attributes of the text. Text in the dialogue can be copied to the clipboard for reuse, and all formatting is preserved.
The Hold to preview button will display the formatted text in the image so that you can check that it is not too big, correctly justified, and has a suitable colour contrast, etc., before clicking on OK to insert the text.
Line Tool	Click and drag with the left mouse button to draw a straight line with the foreground colour. Click the right mouse button while dragging to cancel. Hold down the Shift key to constrain the line to 45º angles. Hold down the Control key to draw a line centred on the start point. Hold down the shift key, and scroll with the mouse-wheel to adjust the width of the line. Use the Brush Settings to change the style of the line, or line endings.
Arrow Tool	The same as the line tool. Right-click the arrow tool to define the start and end arrow styles.
Ellipse/Circle Tool	Click and drag to draw an ellipse. Hold down shift to draw a circle. Hold down control to constrain the centre to the start point. Click the right mouse button to cancel drawing.
Rectangle/Square Tool	Click and drag to draw a rectangle. Hold down shift to draw a square. Hold down control to constrain the centre to the start point. Click the right mouse button to cancel drawing.
Floodfill Tool	Click with the left mouse button to fill an area with the foreground colour. Click with the right mouse button to fill an area with the background colour. Use the selector tool first to limit the flood fill to the enclosed area. Note: JPG images rarely have areas of uniform colour. The floodfill tool currently has zero tolerance for variations in colour.
Colour-Picker Tool	Click with the left mouse button to select the foreground colour. Click with the right mouse button to select the background colour. After using the colour picker tool once, focus will immediately return to the previously selected tool.
Straighten/Rotate Image Tool	Click and drag the tool along a straight line or between two points that you want to be on a horizontal line after rotation. The current background colour will be used to fill the canvas, which is extended to accommodate the rotated image. The background colour used by the custom fine rotation in Irfan View is not affected or used by this tool. It uses the background colour of IrfanPaint.
Brush Settings	Open the brush settings dialogue to set line and fill styles, and line endings. Results will depend on the line width, and will affect the paintbrush, line, arrow, ellipse, and rectangle tools.
Here you can set the line style, pen width, line ending style, line joints (corner) style, line colour, and line hatching style. The background tab allows you to set the colour and hatching style for the fill. The secondary hatching colour can be transparent to get a highlighting effect when painting over text with the background colour (right mouse button with the brush tool). To make it look like there is no pen outline, use the same colour and hatching for the line as you use for the fill. Empty path text and filled path text will also use these brush settings. Unless text is very large you will probably need to use a line width of only 1 or 2 pixels. The preview indicates (roughly) what the result will be. Click the preview to invert the foreground and background styles and colours.
Context Help	Choose between short tool tips and extensive context help for the tool tips shown on mouse over.
About	Version number of the IrfanPaint Plugin, Credits, and a link to the IrfanPaint website, from where you can download the latest plugins.
Line Width	Enter a line width value in pixels, scroll with the buttons, or use the up/down cursor keys to adjust the line width. The line width can also be adjusted by holding shift and scrolling with the mouse wheel, while using the tools.
Tolerance	Higher values Increase the range of colours replaced by the colour replacer and flood fill tools. Reducing it to zero replaces only pixels with the specified colour.
Fill	Use by the ellipse and rectangle tools. Choose from solid (filled) or outline (unfilled) shapes.
Background Colour Foreground Colour	Click to select the background colour Click to select the foreground colour