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The Openlab interface consists of a main menu, a document window and several free-floating palettes. The adjacent image shows the menu and document window. The document window has a bar on the left with tools that you can use to get a live preview (the screen icon), capture images (the camera icon), digitally zoom on images, colourise them, etc. Initially the document window will be empty but the live preview and captured images will appear in here. There should be a few free-floating palettes. The most important ones are the Video Controls and Layers palettes. If they aren't on the screen they might have been closed or minimised to icons at the bottom of the screen. You can open them again by going to Windows in the main menu and selecting Palettes. All the available palettes will appear in a drop-down list but you only need the ones I've mentioned.

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Openlab Document Window

Video Controls and Layers

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Palettes

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The Video Controls palette is where you set camera controls. The exact controls in the palette will depend on the camera but the most important parameters are exposure, binning, gain and auto contrast, although Openlab does not support auto contrast for all cameras. The layers palette is where icons of your images appear as you capture them. When you first launch Openlab there are only two icons in the palette, a blank white Original Image icon representing the empty document window and the Video Preview icon. If you click the Video Preview icon then the document window will display a live image of what the camera sees. Clicking the icon does the same thing as clicking the live preview tool in the document window tool bar. When you click the camera icon in the Document Window tool bar a 'captured layer' will be added to the icon list in the Layers palette.

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Openlab Video Controls and Layers palettes