Groups, backdrops, and pop-out view

Groups make a graph region reusable; backdrops organize without changing processing; pop-out view gives the graph its own window.

Groups

Select two or more nodes and choose Save selection as group…. The name starts as the selected nodes' names, left to right (such as "Blur + Levels"); type over it, and add a description if you like. The group becomes one card with internal image and mask connections preserved.

Double-click a group to open it. Its internal nodes and wires replace the outer graph until you click the leave-group control. Published parameters remain available from the outer Inspector, while the full controls remain inside.

To keep a group for other graphs, right-click it and choose Save as Recipe…; it then lists in the node palette with the built-in recipes (see Node recipes).

The Finish layer stack is itself a group. Opening it reveals the compositing nodes created by layers, masks, clipping, and effects: each layer's content, its effects and its blend, and each layer's mask wired to its blend's mask port with a dashed mask wire. Everything Finish makes lives in this group. The photograph the masks read (after the lens correction, the crop and the warps) comes in on the group card's second input, and a Depth mask's depth map on its depth input; inside, each mask takes them from there. To shape a layer's mask in the graph, drag a Morphology or a Guided Filter (Mask) onto the mask's wire inside the group: it renders at Fit, 1:1 and in the export, and the layer's mask buttons, brush and eye keep working on the mask behind it. Remove layer mask leaves such a node in the group but unwires it from the layer.

Press Cmd+G (Ctrl+G on Windows) to open the same dialog for the current selection.

To take a group apart, right-click it and choose Ungroup, or press Cmd+Shift+G (Ctrl+Shift+G on Windows). Its nodes come back into the graph where the group card stands, wired as they were inside, and stay selected; a bypassed group's nodes come back bypassed. Ungroup is one undo step. A layer tool's group (Sharpening, Skin Softening) and the Finish stack's groups do not come apart this way: the tool's section and the Finish layers keep them.

For reusable groups with published controls, see Node recipes.

Backdrops

Choose Add backdrop to place a labeled colored rectangle around selected nodes or at the pointer. Drag or resize it to organize a branch. Cycle its color or delete it with the controls on the backdrop. A backdrop does not connect nodes or change rendering.

Use backdrops for stages, alternatives, notes, or ownership. Use groups when the structure should collapse, move as a reusable operation, or expose published controls.

Auto-arrange

Auto-arrange lays nodes from left to right so wires do not double back. It changes graph positions, not the image result or connections. It is useful after inserting recipes or opening an older graph with crowded nodes.

Pop out and return

Click the pop-out icon at the bottom of the graph's left toolbar. The node canvas opens in a separate window and the main window gives the released space to the image viewport. Every popped-out window, the graph, the spectrums, Color Bend and the tool windows, carries the same dock icon, an arrow coming home into a window; click it to put the contents back in the main window.

The Inspector can live in either window. Its narrow rail marks the window that does not currently own it. Returning the graph or Inspector preserves graph selection, open group, positions, and viewport state.

The Window menu can bring the graph and other windows back into the main window.