Canvas Settings and Background Options

Created by Lynne Darroch, Modified on Mon, 13 Oct at 9:02 AM by Lynne Darroch

Canvas views & tools

Grid settingsCanvas Zoom & Pan
Background OptionsAdding color to the canvasAdding an image to the canvas

Zooming & panning the background imageRecoloring/adjusting a background image

Color-washing a background imageFlipping the background image
Resetting the canvas background to white

Removing the canvas image


Used background images



When you first launch a page in the editor, it appears as spread, with a blank white page (highlighted) and an adjacent inactive page. Rulersrun on the top and left side of the spread.


When an object is selected on the canvas (photo, shape, text, or multi-selection of frames), the position of the object is highlighted on the ruler.


Grid settings

If you prefer to work with a grid overlay on your canvas, access the grid tools under the Settings menu. Note that the gridlines are just guides and will not print in your final book.
First, turn the grid on.

Choose to Snap to Grid if you would like image, text and shape frame to magnetically snap to the grid. Leave this feature off if the grid is simply used as a reference.

Choose the grid spacing (in inches).

Change the grid color and opacity, if required, so it stands out against the background color.


Canvas Zoom & Pan

Zooming in on the canvas in the page editor can be very useful for making adjustments to small objects.




Use the zoom slider located at the top of the editor to adjust the page's zoom level.

(To reset the zoom to full-screen, double click on the zoom slider.)
 
Alternatively, hold the Spacebar and use the mouse wheel to zoom in or out.


To pan the canvas so focus is on a particular area. hold the spacebar and click down on the canvas. Drag the canvas over until the desired focus area is visible.

 



Background Options

The canvas is a single locked down image frame. This frame may be set to a color or hold an image.


Adding color to the canvas

Click on the Background tab, then click the color chip.  Select a color, shade and transparency level.


Adding an image to the canvas

Any image may be used as a canvas background. Memento includes collections of images under the Background tab, but any image under the Photos tab may also be used.


To add an image to the background, simply click on the preview image. It will cover the entire page, edge to edge. 

Zooming & panning the background image


Once an image has been added to the canvas background, it may be repositioned or zoomed.

Double-click directly on the canvas background to make the zoom and pan handle appear.

Click down and drag on the pan handle to reposition the background image. Click down and drag on the zoom handle to zoom in/out of the image on the canvas.

Recoloring/adjusting a background image

The background image may be color adjusted using the Image FX options.


Use Hue/Rotate to change the color, and explore other effects to adjust the background image as desired.

Color-washing a background image

Rather than retinting the background image, apply an all-over tint to the canvas.
First, set a background color on the canvas.
Next, add an image to the background.
Last, access the Image FX tab to ajust the image opacity down.

The image will now be washed with the background color.



Flipping the background image

The background image may be flipped on the canvas. Select the background, click on Image FX, then access the Flip horizontally/Flip vertically options.


Use this option to create a butterfly effect with a single background, so both left and right facing pages appear as a unified design.

 




Resetting the canvas background to white


To remove the canvas color, click on the Background tab to access the color chip.

Select the top right corner of the color gradient to select white
or type #FFFFFF in the Hex code.

The canvas will reset to white.

Removing the canvas image


To remove a background image, click the Background tab. then click Remove Background.

The canvas will reset to white.



Used background images

Any image used as a canvas background is copied to the Used Backgrounds album. This provides a convenient area to locate backgrounds used on other pages so they may be quickly reapplied to another page.
Inside this folder, background images are tracked with the number of pages they have been used on. Hover over the used image counter to verify what pages the image has been used on.

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