Launching a comparison
Use the New image comparison button (Ctrl+i)
or use the Document / Comparsion/Merge / New
Comparison... (Ctrl+N) menu item to select the sources
files to use and/or the options to apply to the new document.
The dialog
box allows you to open side-by-side or 3 way comparisons.
You can as well launch any comparison and select Image Document
in the Document Type toolbar combo. Dragging two or three
images will also launch an Image comparison.
Working with comparisons
Ellié Computing Merge is oriented towards both 2 and 3
way differentiation: in 2-way , there is only left/right
differentiation, but in 3-way there 3 differentiations:
left/right, left/ancestor and right/ancestor. For this reason
we chose a solution which allow to easily display all these
differences.
At the top of each source view is a tab selector, letting you
choose between the: Original, Diff with left/right, Diff with
ancestor. By pressing the according tab label, you select the
given differentiation result or the original image.
You can zoom all the images and stretch or align
any image. Alignment can be changed with right click menu
options (Align to Top/Bottom/Middle or Left/Right/Middle). You
can stretch respecting aspect ratio or not with respect to the
biggest or smallest image (pressing stretch buttons).
You can align the images dynamically by activating the
"Change images alignment" button , then drag
one image relatively to the other, selecting the arrow button
aside it will bring the cursor to its normal mode.
Image differentiation has many parameters related to the algorithms used to obtain the actual difference. You can choose between different algorithm, currently: Difference and Blank similar. See Differentiation Styles for more information about this subject. A summary of the differences is presented in the reports, the comparison statistics box and in the status bar (when a difference view is selected). When a pair of images contains no difference, the text "Images are identical" is displayed in the status bar.
Image
Comparisons cannot handle merging, ie it is not possible to mix
images with Ellié Computing Merge in order to save a mixed
result. The Image Comparison view enables you to understand the
differences between 2 or 3 images and view the difference (you
can copy this difference to clipboard). You can nonetheless use
the menu Edit / Copy (or Ctrl/Apple + C) action which copies
current image (difference or original) to the clipboard and let
you handle it with your preferred imaging application.
See also