i2k Retina has three different preferences for saving its generated images. The first preference, which is the default, is to save each image to the same folder where the original images reside. If the images came from multiple folders, then the chosen folder is the most recent one. In this case, the names of the output images are automatically generated. When the Align tool is used the aligned images are saved into a newly created subfolder.

The second preference is to pre-specify the output folder only, with the actual names of the images generated automatically, just like the first preference. This preference is useful when users want to collect all results in one place. i2k Retina ensures that previous results are not overwritten.

The final preference is for manually specifying the folder and name of the output images. For each set of results generated, the user will be asked to specify these after clicking the Generate Montage button or the Align Images button. For Align, the name specified by the user will only be used to name the folder in which to store the aligned images.

i2k Retina, by default, attempts to match the output image file formats to those of the input images. It provides preferences to override this, forcing the output to be JPEG, PNG or TIFF. When the user chooses to output a Radiance Image under Photographic Montage, only PNG and TIFF are allowed.

JPEG allows a trade-off between the size of the file and the appearance quality of the image when it is reloaded into a viewer. This trade-off may be controlled using the JPEG Quality bar under the Preferences.

• Sliding the bar to the left will result in smaller output files, but eventually the images will start to have a "blocky" appearance.
• Sliding the bar to the right will result in larger files, but higher quality images.

For most applications, the default setting is just fine. The main exception is users who want to examine or print the output at high resolution. In this case, PNG or TIFF output may be better anyway.

Users of the Photographic Montage tool who prefer layout choices different from those made automatically by i2k Retina can bias the Auto layout choice towards Perspective or Cylindrical.

This slider controls the area that must be preserved in order to crop the montage to the chosen largest inscribed rectangle.

• Sliding the bar to the right, toward 100%, tells i2k Retina that a larger percentage of the montage area must be preserved in order for cropping to be applied. Making it 100% is equivalent to the "Don't Crop" option.
• Sliding the bar to the right tells i2k Retina to crop more and more irregularly shaped montages. Setting the bar all the way to the left, to 0, is equivalent to the "Always Crop" option.

Users may choose to not see a preview of the montage or the aligned images by clicking this preference. Results are always saved to an output file, regardless.

Clicking this preferences tells i2k Retina to save the inter-image transformations and feature correspondences used to estimate these transformations. This is useful when the user wants to apply further processing to the results of i2k Retina. The form of the output is explained in xforms-and-matches.