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Editor View

The editor shows one photo large, with the filmstrip and bottom bar below it. Open a photo by double-clicking it in the library, or select it and press Enter. Press Escape to go back to the library.

RapidRAW editor with a mountain photo on the canvas, Sources on the left, the Adjustments panel on the right and the filmstrip at the bottom
The editor: side panels, the canvas with its toolbar, and the filmstrip and bottom bar.

Layout

Area What it holds
Toolbar (above the image) Back to library, the file name pill, undo and redo, before/after and fullscreen.
Canvas The photo. Zoom, pan and draw masks or crops here.
Filmstrip All photos of the current folder or album.
Bottom bar Ratings, flags, copy and paste of settings, quick filter, zoom, and buttons to show or hide panels.
Side panels The same panels as in the library. See Panels Overview.

The toolbar

Item What it does
← Back to the library (same as Escape).
File name pill Shows the file name and size in pixels. Hover it to see shutter speed, aperture, ISO and focal length. Click the expanded pill to switch to the capture date. Virtual copies show a VC badge. If RAW+JPEG grouping is on, buttons let you switch between the RAW and the JPEG.
Undo / Redo Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y. Right-click either button to see the full history and jump to any earlier step. The history keeps the last 50 changes.
Before / After (eye) Compare with the original. Right-click it to pick a compare mode (see below). Shortcut B.
Fullscreen Shortcut F.

Before / after

Press B or click the eye button to compare your edit with the original. Press it again to go back. Right-click the button to choose how the comparison is shown:

Mode What you see
Full Original (default) The whole image switches to the original.
Split Left / Right Original on the left, edit on the right, with a divider you can drag.
Split Top / Bottom Original on top, edit below, with a divider.
Side by Side Original and edit next to each other. Zooming and panning one moves both.

The mode you pick is remembered and used the next time you press B. In the split modes you can click or drag anywhere along the divider to move it.

The "original" still uses your crop, rotation and lens corrections, so you compare the same framing. Moving a slider while in Full Original turns the comparison off so you see your change. Split and side-by-side are not available while the Crop panel is open.

Split Left / Right compare mode with the original on the left and the edited photo on the right, separated by a vertical divider
Split Left / Right: drag the divider to compare any part of the photo.
Side by Side compare mode with the original on the left and the edited photo on the right
Side by Side: zoom and pan stay in sync.

Zoom and pan

Action How
Zoom with the mouse Scroll the mouse wheel over the image.
Fit / zoom in Click the image. When it fits, a click zooms in at that spot; when zoomed in, a click fits it again.
Cycle Fit → 2x Fit → 100% Space
Fit to window Ctrl+0
100% (one image pixel per screen pixel) Ctrl+1
Zoom in / out Ctrl+= / Ctrl+-
Zoom in / out in small steps ↑ / ↓ (10% steps)
Pan Drag with the left mouse button when zoomed in, or drag with the middle mouse button at any time.
Pan with the wheel Shift+Wheel sideways, Alt+Wheel up and down.
Exact zoom Use the Zoom slider in the bottom bar, or click the percentage and type a value (10 to 200%).

On a touchpad, set Settings → Controls → Input Device Optimization to Touchpad. Then two-finger scrolling pans and pinching zooms. In the same place you can change the zoom speed, or make a click jump straight to 100%.

When you zoom in, RapidRAW renders the visible area at full resolution, so even large RAW files stay smooth.

Filmstrip and bottom bar

  • Click a thumbnail in the filmstrip to open that photo. ← / → go to the previous or next photo.
  • Shift+Click and Ctrl+Click select several photos, for example to paste settings onto them.
  • Drag thumbnails onto a folder or album in the Sources panel to move or add them.
  • Your edits are saved automatically to the photo's .rrdata sidecar.

The bottom bar contains:

Control What it does
Stars Set the rating. Click the current rating again to remove it.
Pick / Reject flags Mark keepers and rejects. See Cull and Rate.
Copy Settings / Paste Settings Copy the edit of this photo and paste it onto others.
Copy & Paste Settings (gear) Choose what gets copied and pasted. See Copy & Paste Settings.
Quick Filter (funnel) Filter the filmstrip by rating, flag or color label. Uses the same filter as the library.
Zoom Zoom slider and percentage. Click "Zoom" to fit.
Panel buttons Show or hide the left panel, filmstrip and right panel.

If you change a rating or flag so the photo no longer matches the active filter, RapidRAW jumps to the next matching photo and shows a small message with an Undo button.

Image analytics

Click Toggle Analytics Display (the chart icon in the Adjustments or Masks panel header) or press A. A graph appears at the top of the panel. Hover it to show the mode buttons:

Button Mode What it shows
L Luma (default) A waveform: the image from left to right, brightness from bottom to top. Great for seeing exactly which part of the frame is too bright or too dark.
RGB RGB Overlay Red, green and blue waveforms on top of each other. A neutral grey area shows all three at the same height.
P Parade Red, green and blue waveforms next to each other.
V Vectorscope Hue as the angle, saturation as the distance from the center. Skin tones of all ethnicities sit on one line toward red-yellow.
H Histogram How many pixels have each brightness.

The same hover bar has Show Clipping Warnings. When on, pure white areas are painted red and pure black areas blue on the image, in any mode. The warnings are never exported. Drag the bottom edge of the graph to make it taller or shorter.

Analytics display above the adjustment sliders showing the RGB parade and the L, RGB, P, V and H mode buttons
The analytics display. Hover it to switch modes or turn on clipping warnings.
Clipping warnings on a coastal photo: the brightest part of the sky painted red and the darkest shadows painted blue
Clipping warnings after pushing the exposure: red where the sky is clipped, blue where shadows are pure black.

Fullscreen

Press F or click the fullscreen button. The side panels, toolbar, filmstrip and title bar are hidden so only the photo remains. All shortcuts keep working. Press F or Escape to leave.

Switching panels

Key Panel
D Adjust
R Crop & Transform
M Masks
K Inpaint
P Presets
I Metadata (Info)
L Sources (folders and albums)
E Export

Right-click menu on the image

Right-click the photo for Undo, Redo and the Productivity tools for this photo: Auto Adjust, Auto Lens Correction, Auto Straighten, Denoise, Convert Negative and Frame Editor. See Productivity Tools.

Opening a photo from another app

RapidRAW can act as an external editor for other software. Started with --edit <file> --output <file>, it opens the photo with a bar at the bottom that says where the result will be saved. Click Done to export and close RapidRAW. See Command Line.

Leaving the editor

Escape steps back one level at a time:

  1. Closes Settings, if open.
  2. Turns off the straighten tool.
  3. Deselects the active mask component, then the mask (also in the Inpaint panel).
  4. Leaves the Crop panel and returns to Adjust.
  5. Leaves fullscreen.
  6. Returns to the library.

See also