Image viewport

The image viewport is the central canvas for viewing, comparing, cropping, selecting, and painting on the active photograph.

Zoom, pan, and rotate the view

• Click Fit (or press F in Develop; Cmd (Ctrl on Windows)+0 anywhere) to fit the photograph inside the available space. In Graph and Canvas, F frames the nodes instead, so F always fits the view to what matters.
• Click 100% (or press Cmd+1, Ctrl+1 on Windows) for one image pixel per display pixel: a pixel of the screen itself. On a display scaled to 125 or 150 percent, or a Retina Mac, the photograph at 100% is smaller than its size in points, and every one of its pixels reaches the screen without being resampled. Scrolling toward 100% from Fit lands on it exactly, and the view is kept on whole screen pixels however you pan or zoom there, so no pixel is blended with its neighbor on the way to the screen.
• Scroll or pinch to zoom around the pointer.
• Hold Shift or Cmd (Ctrl on Windows) while scrolling to pan. On a touchpad the two-finger scroll pans both axes at once; a mouse wheel pans sideways with Shift and vertically with Cmd (Ctrl on Windows).
• Hold Option (Alt on Windows) while scrolling for finer zoom.
• Middle-drag to pan, or hold Space and drag: the same pan for a touchpad, where there is no middle button.
• A drag that starts on the photograph carries on when the pointer leaves it, until you let go: a marquee or lasso, a crop handle, a gradient's handle, the straighten line, a layer's Transform or Warp handle or a brush stroke. Drag past the edge to be sure a selection or a crop reaches it. A rectangle, ellipse, freehand or magnetic selection can also begin on the gray around the photograph, which shows the selection cursor while one of them is armed, and its outline is drawn where the pointer is, out in the gray too; when you let go, the selection is the part of the shape inside the picture, so an ellipse past the edge is cut there rather than shrunk; a crop, gradient or straighten handle stops at the picture's edge, and a brush paints only what it covers inside.
• Hold Shift+Option (Shift+Alt on Windows) or Cmd+Option (Ctrl+Alt on Windows) while scrolling to rotate the view, one way or the other. Shift+Option (Shift+Alt on Windows) with a middle-click puts the rotation back.

View rotation is temporary navigation, not an edit. Straighten and crop are edit operations and are recorded in History.

Navigator and Loupe

Two viewing aids help you find your way around a photograph zoomed in close. Both stay as you left them from one launch to the next.

Navigator (View > Navigator) puts a thumbnail of the whole photograph in a corner of the canvas, with a rectangle for the part the canvas shows. It appears only while the photograph is zoomed past the canvas, so that some of it is out of view, and goes away at Fit. Drag the rectangle to move the view; click anywhere else on the thumbnail to center the view there, and keep dragging from it. Under view rotation the rectangle turns with the view. View > Navigator Position chooses the corner: Top Left, Top Right, Bottom Left or Bottom Right (Bottom Right to start). Right-clicking the Navigator opens the same four choices at the pointer. Preferences > Interface > Navigator size sets how large it draws, as a percent of the canvas (20 percent to start, 10 to 40).

Loupe (the magnifying glass button after Split on the viewer's toolbar, lit while it is on, or press L) is a round glass that follows the pointer over the canvas and shows what is under it magnified. Its magnification is printed just below it, with what that comes to in the photograph's own pixels once Heeler knows its full size (4× · 250%). While it is up:

• Scroll, pinch or press Cmd+= and Cmd+- (Ctrl+= and Ctrl+- on Windows) to change the Loupe's magnification, from 1.5 to 16 times what the canvas shows, instead of the canvas's zoom. Option (Alt on Windows) while scrolling changes it more finely.
• Hold Cmd (Ctrl on Windows) while scrolling, or press Cmd+Shift+= and Cmd+Shift+- (Ctrl+Shift+= and Ctrl+Shift+- on Windows), to make the glass bigger or smaller.
• Shift+scroll, middle-drag and Space-drag still pan the canvas, and the rotation combinations still turn it.
• Esc puts the Loupe down. An armed picker goes first, and a tool under the Loupe waits for the next Esc.

The Loupe shows the photograph's full-resolution pixels, drawn as squares past one photograph pixel per screen pixel. Where the canvas shows a reduced preview (at Fit, say), the glass shows that at once, and when the pointer pauses it asks for a full-resolution render of the area around it and sharpens when that arrives. The area is about twice the glass's width each way, so small moves stay sharp; moving further, or changing an edit, asks again. The first sharp view of a RAW photograph waits for its full-resolution develop, as the first zoom to 100% does. At 1:1 the canvas's own sharp pixels serve it with no render of its own. Clicks, drags and every tool work through it exactly as they do without it; it steps aside over the toolbar, the floating bars and the Navigator. The magnification and size are kept from one launch to the next.

Before/after and split view

The toolbar's buttons are icons: a gamut triangle for the warning, crop corners, a horizon being leveled for Straighten, two frames for Before/After and a divided frame for Split. While the Finish layers are up, Flip Horizontal and Flip Vertical follow Straighten and mirror the selected layer (see Flipping a layer). Each names itself in the status bar when the pointer rests on it.

Before/After toggles between the developed result and the untouched source. Split overlays the result on one side and the source on the other; drag the divider to inspect transitions. In Graph, A/B comparison can show the outputs of two selected nodes using the same draggable divider.

Arming Crop or Split raises a floating bar over the top of the canvas with that tool's settings; it disappears when the tool is put away, and the photograph never moves for it. Before/After always compares the untouched original against the current take. In Split, once a photograph has more than one take, the bar's selector chooses what "before" means: the original, or another take's rendered result, with the labels following the matchup (for example TAKE 2 against CURRENT).

While Split is on, its modes (Line, Grid, Radial) appear beside the button, followed by three controls every mode shares: Reset puts the current mode back to fresh (the centered bar, the 3x3 grid, or the centered slice at its starting angles), Reverse flips which pixels show the original, and Bar shows or hides the divider lines without touching the split, drawn in whatever color the swatch beside them holds. Every number field in the seat can be typed into or scrubbed by clicking and dragging sideways.

• Line is the classic divider, now rotatable: drag the round handle to turn the bar (hold Shift for 10 degree steps), drag anywhere else to move it, and double-click the handle to reset. The degrees field edits and scrubs; hold Shift while scrubbing for 5 degree steps.
• A/B shows the same part of the photograph twice, before beside after, split evenly down the middle; its toggle stacks the panes instead. Zoom to 1:1 on a detail and both halves frame it, and panning reframes them together.
• Grid divides the view into a checkerboard where alternate cells show the original. Set the counts with the X and Y fields, or drag a grid line: left and right on a vertical line changes the column count, up and down on a horizontal one changes the rows.
• Radial cuts a slice around a point. The point moves only by dragging its handle (its exact position is in the X and Y fields); drag either edge line to turn or resize the slice, holding Shift for 5 degree steps.

Gamut and highlight warning

The warning display marks colors outside the display gamut in red and clipped highlights in white. Its badge can identify the operation responsible. When offered, Fix inserts a Gamut Map node immediately after the responsible node; one Undo removes it.

Crop and straighten

Choose Photo > Crop / Straighten > Straighten, then drag along a line that should be level. Choose Crop and drag the frame handles; drag along the dashed ring in the crop, or outside the crop, to rotate the picture (see Geometry). Select Free, a common aspect ratio, a film crop (1.85, 2.00, 2.35, 2.39, 2.40, 2.50 or 2.76; the swap button beside the menu turns any ratio on its side), or enter a ratio of your own as width and height in the two fields beside the menu; Enter or clicking away applies it. Cropping is nondestructive: pixels outside the crop remain in the source and can be restored. A photograph carries no Crop & Rotate node until the first drag or the Geometry section builds one; Esc after a first drag takes it out again. Moving to another photograph puts the tool down, keeping what you dragged, and the next photograph starts back at Free.

The calculator button at the right end of the crop bar opens the aspect ratio calculator. Enter a resolution in pixels, width then height (or click Photo for the photograph's own size), and it shows the ratio in lowest terms with its decimal: 1920 by 1080 is 16:9, 1.778:1. The fields take numbers only, and a ratio more extreme than 1000:1 either way is not offered. Apply to crop holds the crop to it. Save keeps it under the name you type, or, if you leave the name empty, under the ratio itself (683:384), or under its size (1920×1080) when the ratio is one the menu already offers. Free, Original and the common ratios' names are the menu's own and cannot be used. Saving a name you already used replaces that ratio. Saved ratios are listed in the calculator, where a click applies one and × deletes it, and they also appear after the common ratios in the crop bar's menu and in Photo > Crop / Straighten > Crop to Aspect Ratio. They belong to you rather than to a photograph, so they are there for every photograph. Esc closes the calculator and leaves the crop tool up.

The crop's lines (the box, its thirds, the handles, the rotation ring, and the line the Straighten tool draws) take the line color every overlay shares, as Grid Warp's grid does: white unless you choose another (Preferences > Interface > Line color sets the color they start in). The color swatch at the crop bar's end shows the color in use. Click it for the Lines popover: a color picker, with Thickness under it; a color or thickness set here is the one Grid Warp, Shape Warp and the mask gizmos draw with, and the other way around. The thickness sets how wide the box, its thirds and the ring draw, and the reset button beside it hands it back to the Preferences setting. Esc or a click elsewhere closes the picker and leaves the crop tool up. The shade outside the crop stays as it is.

Picks and on-image controls

Some adjustments arm an on-image picker, such as white balance, Curves, Tone Equalizer, Color Tune, Recolor, and Color Sets. The active picker is shown in the viewport. Click or drag as instructed by the section; leave the picker to return to ordinary navigation.

While the Color Sets picker is armed, hovering the photograph draws a faint marker on the set's color bar at the hue under the cursor, so you can see where a click would land; a gray keeps the marker where it was. The picker changes the selection only while the left button is held: click to center the band on the sampled color, or press and drag to sweep across a subject and gather it in one stroke. Turn on the set's mask eye first to watch the selection follow the drag. The status line shows which set you are picking for and what the modifiers do; press Esc (or the set's picker button) to turn the picker off.

Inspect a pixel

The Inspect button in the viewer's toolbar (a crosshair) shows why a point of the photograph looks the way it does. Click it, then click the photograph: a pin marks the point and the Inspect panel lists every node on the picture's path, from the photograph to the finished frame. Inspect a Pixel in Keyboard Shortcuts can be given a key.

Inspect opens in a column of its own beside the photograph, in Develop and in Graph: left of the Adjustments panel (or Graph's Inspector) by default. The side button in its header moves it to the other side of the photograph, right of the thumbnail strip, and Heeler remembers the side for next time. Drag the line between it and the photograph to make it wider or narrower. While it is open the Library and the thumbnail strip fold away to give it room, and closing Inspect puts them back as they were. In Finish, or with the Library expanded over the whole window, the panel floats over the top right of the viewer instead.

The header's buttons are pictures, named when you point at them: the crosshair picks another point, the side button moves the panel, and × closes it. The Heatmap chooser's three pictures are Brightness (a sun), Color (three overlapping discs) and Both.

Each row is a node, in columns under a header so they line up: a swatch split in two, the color the node receives on the left and the color it hands on on the right; VALUE, its output's brightness from 0 to 100; CHANGE, how far it moved it; and, when a layer on the path has a mask, MASK, how much of that layer its mask lets through at that point, so 0% explains a layer that does nothing there. A node that changes nothing there is dimmed, and a long name ends in an ellipsis: point at it for the whole name. A crop or warp says moves pixels: before it, the panel reads the place of the photograph that ends up at your point. The Final row is the finished color with its channels.

The changes do not add up to the final value, and the panel does not pretend they do: each node works on what the one before it made, and curves, masks and blends are not sums.

Point at a row and the status line spells it out: the node's name and kind, its colors in and out at that point as the screen shows them (red, green and blue from 0 to 255), how far it moved the brightness, how much its mask lets through, and where a click goes. Click a node's name to select it. In Develop the click also takes you to it: the panel opens the node's section, unfolding it if it was folded, scrolls it to the middle and outlines it in gold for a moment, the outline the keyboard navigator and the Assistant use. A node that belongs to an adjustment layer selects that layer first, since a section edits the selected layer, and a layer's mask selects its layer. At the end of each row, Map (a picture with a hot spot) shows where that node changes the whole picture: the photograph dimmed to gray, painted warm where the node brightens it, cool where it darkens it, and magenta where it moves color. The Heatmap chooser at the top of the panel picks Brightness, Color or Both. Isolate (a half-filled circle) shows only what the node adds, as its output minus its input around a middle gray, at its own place in the graph rather than with every other node switched off. Click either again to return to the photograph. The crosshair chooses another point, and × closes the panel.

The panel follows your edits: move a slider and the trace reads again. Inspecting never changes the edit, its history, a take or an export. In Graph, a node's right-click menu offers the same two views, Show influence and Isolate contribution.

Selections

The Select tool supports rectangle, ellipse, pen, freehand, magnetic, color brush, color pick, region, and smart methods where available. Hold Shift to add, Option (Alt on Windows) to subtract, both to intersect, and Cmd (Ctrl on Windows) to draw rectangles or ellipses from the center. The cursor badge shows the active combination mode.

A selection belongs to the photograph. It can restrict painting, become a layer mask, isolate pixels to a layer, be filled, or drive object removal. Selection edges remain visible when tools change. If Auto Clear on Click is enabled, a plain click outside clears the selection.

Takes

Takes are alternate edits of one photograph. Open the Takes control, create a take, and switch among versions without duplicating the source file. Shift-click New Take to name it immediately. The active take is reported in Metadata.

The dropdown is the quick switcher. Each row shows the take's name, an ACTIVE label on the one in force, a Compare button, a rename glyph, and a delete mark. It shows no notes.

The Takes window (the pop-out button beside the dropdown) is for reviewing takes properly. It opens at the Preferences dialog's size and lists every take with its name, a five-star rating on the same scale as thumbnails, a Compare button, a Switch to button, Delete, and a notes field with room to read and write. Notes are written when you leave the field or press Cmd (Ctrl on Windows)+Enter. Ratings and notes are saved with the photograph's edits and travel with its takes. Drag the window to a second display for a side-by-side review with the viewer's compare grid.

Tools in Finish

When Finish is active, a toolbar appears along the bottom of the viewport. Its tools paint or manipulate the active Finish layer. See Finish toolbar.

Rendering feedback

The status bar reports zoom, output resolution, processing status, and control hints. During navigation Heeler may show an available preview immediately and refine the visible region after movement stops. A probe badge appears when Graph is showing an intermediate node output; click its close control to return to the finished image.

A pending picker answer belongs to the photograph, take, and tool you clicked, so a late answer never lands on the wrong photograph. Changing photographs, takes, or presets, deleting the target, closing the picker, or adjusting the section it writes to cancels that answer, and a newer click replaces an older pending one. Adjustments elsewhere do not cancel a pick. Every armed picker, including Set focus and the light rig, closes when you change photographs, folders, takes, or presets.

For Color Sets, hold Shift while sweeping to add sampled colors. Overlapping reads are combined in sweep order, including reads that finish after release. The whole sweep is one Undo step. Starting a new gesture cancels any unfinished answers from the previous sweep.