The image pane is the region of the main window that displays the selected image. The image pane allows adjustment of display size and orientation; it also provides several methods to manipulate the image with the mouse and keyboard.
The image is drawn to the screen as it is decoded from disk. The image can be panned and zoomed while it is still loading. Image adjustment operations for rotation, mirror, and flip will delay until the image is completed. The adjustment queue will remember one operation and will retain the most recently requested function, which will be performed once the image has finished loading.
The quality of the image, especially when using the zoom feature, is dependent on the settings that are available on the Image tab of the preferences dialog.
To increase the speed of loading the next image when navigating the image list in sequence, enable the Preload next image option.
When the image size is larger than the image pane, the visible region can be changed with the keyboard or mouse. The keyboard can also be used to adjust the orientation of the image.
Use the Arrows to pan the image in the desired direction, to increase the panning speed hold down the Shift + Arrows. Press Ctrl + Arrows to move to the respective edge of the image. The image can only be panned with the keyboard when the image has the focus, indicated by a dotted line surrounding the image pane.
| Shortcut | Context menu name | Description |
| + = | Zoom in | Zoom in. |
| - | Zoom out | Zoom out. |
| X [Keypad]* | Fit image to window | Scale the image to fit the available display area. |
| Z [Keypad]/ | Zoom 1:1 | Reset the zoom to original image size. |
| ] | Rotate clockwise | Rotate the image clockwise 90 degrees. |
| [ | Rotate counterclockwise | Rotate the image counterclockwise 90 degrees. |
| Shift + R | Rotate 180 | Rotate the image 180 degrees. |
| Shift + M | Mirror | Flip the image horizontally. |
| Shift + F | Flip | Flip the image vertically. |
Note: The rotation, mirror, and flip functions will not change the image data directly. Depending on the Metadata Options, they just alter the Orientation property in memory, in private metadata file or in the image. The image can be rotated according to the saved metadata with "Apply the orientation to image content" command.
Press the primary mouse button on the image and hold it, then move the mouse to pan the image in the desired direction. Releasing the mouse button will stop the panning operation. The mouse wheel can also be used to scroll the image when holding down the Shift key [(*)].
To scale the image size hold down the Ctrl key and scroll the mouse wheel up to zoom in, or down to zoom out.
To start the smooth scroll function hold down the Shift key and click the primary mouse button. An icon will appear at the location of the mouse pointer, the mouse can then be positioned to pan the image. The image will pan in the direction of the mouse pointer relative to the icon. The pan speed will increase in proportion to the distance that the pointer is from the center of the icon. To end the smooth scroll function click the primary mouse button within the image pane.
The displayed image can be changed to the next or previous image using the keyboard or mouse.
The PageDown? and PageUp? keys will change the image to the next or previous image, respectively, in the list. The Home and End keys will jump to the first and last image, respectively. When the image has the focus, the SpaceBar? and BackSpace? keys can also be used to change the image.
To change to the next image in the list click the left mouse button, click the middle mouse button to change to the previous image. The mouse wheel can also be used to change the current image [(*)].
Right clicking the mouse or pressing the menu key while the image has the focus will display a menu. The menu functions will perform the same as those that match the window's menu bar, however a few functions are unique to the context menu:
Opens a new window containing a second copy of the current image.
Controls the pause state of an active slide show, the text of the menu will change to reflect the action that will be performed.
Files and folders can be dropped onto the image pane, dropping a file will display the file and dropping a folder will change the main window to display the contents of the folder. When dropping multiple items on the image pane, only the first item in the list will be used, all additional items will be ignored.
A drag and drop operation can be initiated from the image pane with the middle mouse button, the dragged item will contain the file path of the displayed image.
Using View > Split item from the main menu, image pane can be splitted in up to four panes, this allows one to display images side by side. You may use drag'n drop to change images in each pane.
Connected zoom is possible through the View > Connected zoom menu. Zoom is then applied to all displayed images.
Connected scrolling is also possible using Shift and primary mouse button.
As a general rule, hotkeys and mouse without shift affects just one image and with shift all images.
(*) Note: The mouse wheel behavior for scrolling and image step can be swapped with the Mouse wheel scrolls image option located on the Advanced tab? of the preferences dialog.