Preferences

To open the Preferences dialog click the Preferences icon

on the main toolbar or select the File->Preferences item in the main menu or Preferences item in the context menu. You can also use the Ctrl+P shortcut.

View tab

Background Color - Main window background color.

Scale on Open - Specifies at what scale an image is displayed after opening:

Keep Selected Scale - The scale does not change on opening an image.
Scale to Fit - The image is scaled to fit into the window.
Scale to Original Size - The image is displayed at the actual size (100% zoom).

Draw Mode - Sets the image drawing mode. This setting affects the quality at which images are displayed in BetterJPEG when viewed at less than 100% zoom and has no effect on resulting image (file) quality. The difference in drawing speed can be noticeable in such operations as cropping (when dragging the fade area). The possible values are:

ColorOnColor (Speed) - Faster drawing.
HalfTone (Quality) - Better display quality.

Sort Images by - Specifies in which order images are displayed when browsing using Previous and Next commands. The following options are available:

by File Name.
by Modification Time.

Show File Names - Defines whether to display file names under thumbnails in the browser pane.

Spacing - Sets spacing between browser pane thumbnails.

Size - Sets browser pane thumbnails size.

Show Border - If set, a border is drawn around each thumbnail in the browser pane.

Show Drop Shadow - If set, thumbnails in the browser pane cast shadow.

Defaults tab

Here you can see a list of available operations and set default parameters for each of them.

Crop

Preset - Select a crop preset. The crop preset determines size and aspect ratio of the crop area. To edit crop presets click the Edit... button.

Flip Aspect - Set to swap width and height of the current crop.

Auto Flip Aspect According to Image Orientation - When set, the crop aspect will be automatically flipped to match the image orientation (horizontal or vertical).

Align Bottom/Right to MCU Boundary - Align bottom right corner of the crop selection to the nearest MCU boundary.

Position - Determines initial position of the crop area.

Allow 'Outward Crop' - Turning on this option enables crop area selection beyond the image boundaries. As the result of such crop canvas of the resulting image can be enlarged (margins can be added to the image at one or several sides).

Canvas Color - Color of the canvas (margins).

Partial Blocks - Specifies whether partial MCU blocks at the right and bottom sides of the image should be discarded, recompressed, or left intact. The options for this setting are:

Recompress - the margin starts exactly at the original image boundary, if there are partial MCU blocks on right or bottom sides of the image, they will be recompressed.
Round In - the partial blocks at the sides will be discarded and replaced by the canvas color.
Round Up - the partial blocks at the sides will be shown in full. Sometimes this may look as thin artifact strips at right and bottom sides of the original image.

Allow New Selection While Current Exists - When set, you can reselect a crop area without having to explicitly cancel the current selection.

Marquee (Running Ants Around Selection) - When set, the selected area is outlined by marquee.

Fade Area Outside Selection - When set, the image outside the selected area is darkened. Ctrl+Shift+F shortcut can be used to change this setting.

Print Quality Hints - Determines what DPI ranges should be indicated as low, medium, and high print quality.

Save

Compression Mode - Allows switching between lossless/nearly lossless recompression and full recompression modes:

Changes Only / Original Quality - lossless / nearly lossless mode. Only changed blocks will be recompressed, leaving the rest of the image untouched. Select this mode when you need to preserve unedited parts of the original image from recompression degradation.
All / Select Quality - conventional compression mode. Select this mode when you need to change quality of the image (to decrease file size or to reduce quality loss in edited regions). In this case the whole image will be recompressed with new quality settings.

JPEG Quality - Select desired balance between file size and resulting JPEG image quality.

Color Sampling - Select sampling rate for chrominance components:

1 (Favor Quality) - chrominance components are sampled with the highest resolution.
2 (Favor Size) - chrominance components are sampled with 2x2 factor. Usually this option gives the best compromise between file size and quality.

Optimize Huffman Table - Set this option (recommended) for better compression (no additional loss).

Save Comments - Set this option to preserve metadata comment markers, if they are present in the original file, set this option off if you don't want to preserve the metadata comments (smaller file size).

Save EXIF - Set this option to preserve the EXIF data contained in the original file, set this option off if you don't want to preserve the EXIF data (smaller file size).

EXIF Thumbnail - Specifies whether the EXIF thumbnail should be discarded, left intact, or updated. The EXIF thumbnail is a reduced copy of an image contained within the image file and typically used by image viewers to speed up preview of multiple images contained in a folder. Options available:

Discard - remove thumbnail.
Keep Existing - keep the existing thumbnail intact.
Update - regenerate thumbnail to match the image. Thumbnail Size specifies the size of updated thumbnails.

Retain Original File Time - When set, the file creation/modification time does not change on saving.

Auto Save on Image Close/Leave - Automatically save image whenever it is closed.

Confirm Save - Always show the confirmation dialog before saving image.

Open 'Save As' in Original Folder - If set, will always open the 'Save As' dialog in same folder the original image is in.

'Save As' Dialog Auto Suffix - Add the specified suffix to the file name when saving using 'Save As' command.

Better JPEG

Preferences