Culling and Finding

Use the browser to select, rate, flag, label and tag assets, then sort, filter or search to find them.

Rating, flag, label and tag commands act on every selected asset. Inspector edits apply only to the primary asset (Section 5.2).

5.1 The Grid

The browser shows the selected sidebar row’s assets as a grid of thumbnails, each with its filename underneath. A thumbnail shows the picture with its saved edit, as it currently looks.

Where to find it: View → Thumbnail Size → Small, Medium or Large.

Three cell sizes are offered. The choice is remembered per catalog, as are the sort, the filter and the search scope described later in this chapter.

A cell carries marks that report the asset’s state. The rating and the flag sit in a strip under the image, drawn only when something is in it; a clip always shows the strip because its duration lives there. The label is not in the strip: it tints the rounded tile the image and the strip sit on.

A reject stays in the grid, dimmed, until it is filtered out or deleted. There is no mark for a proxy; the loupe reports when it is working from one (Chapter 7). Sync marks and the days-remaining badge in Recently Deleted belong to Chapters 27 and 6.

5.2 Selecting and Moving Through the Grid

Click a thumbnail to select it. The loupe follows after a short pause, so a drag can begin without the loupe switching to the dragged item. Double-clicking adds nothing: a single click already opens the item in the loupe.

⇧-click extends the selection as a range and ⌘-click toggles one item. The arrow keys step the selection, and ⇧ with an arrow extends it. Edit → Select All (⌘A) and Edit → Deselect All (⇧⌘A) act on the whole grid while it has focus. A click on empty space in the grid leaves the selection as it is; dragging from empty space selects the thumbnails the drag crosses.

Where to find it: Catalogue → Previous (⌥←), Next (⌥→), First (⌥↑), Last (⌥↓).

The primary. When several assets are selected, one is the primary: the loupe shows it and the inspector edits it. It is the item you clicked last, or the item an arrow key stepped to. Inspector edits apply to the primary only; to change many assets at once, use Paste Grade or Apply Preset (Chapter 17), or the culling and tagging commands in this chapter.

Note: With a clip open in the loupe, the bare arrow keys step its frames instead of moving through the grid; ⌥← and ⌥→ still move through the grid. Chapter 9 covers the transport keys.

Dragging a thumbnail out of the window, to the Finder or another app, delivers a copy of the original file, for a still and a clip alike, never the graded render (for that, export: Chapter 25). Dropping files or folders from the Finder onto the grid starts an import into the folder on screen (Chapter 3). Dropping a preset from the resources panel onto a thumbnail applies it to that asset (Chapter 17).

The right-click menu. Right-clicking a thumbnail opens a menu holding the same commands as the Catalogue and Edit menus. When the clicked thumbnail is part of the selection, the menu acts on the whole selection. When it is not, the right-click first selects that thumbnail alone, so the loupe and the inspector move to it and the menu acts on it. The culling items come first: Rating ▸, Flag ▸, Label ▸, Add to Favorites (or Remove from Favorites) and Tag. The folder, location, export, reference, grade and delete commands that follow are explained in their own chapters.

5.3 Ratings, Flags and Labels

Assets can have three independent marks: a star rating, a pick or reject flag, and a color label. Each applies to the whole selection, each can be undone, and each works from the menu bar, the right-click menu or a single key.

Where to find it: Catalogue → Rating ▸, Catalogue → Flag ▸, Catalogue → Label ▸.

The keys are bare, with no modifier. They are printed beside the menu items and work while the grid or loupe has focus. They do not act while you type in a text field.

A label key toggles its color: pressed on a selection that already carries that color, it clears the label. In the Label ▸ menu each color is printed with a dot of that color, and on the grid a label tints the cell’s tile (5.1). The label is a tag in the sidebar’s built-in Label group, so it can be filtered like any other tag (5.5) and leaves the catalog as a keyword on export (Chapter 25).

If a rating, flag or label cannot be written, a toast says so and the previous value is put back.

Advancing as you cull. With Catalogue → Advance After Rating or Flagging ticked, a rating, flag or label key moves the primary to the next asset once it has acted, so a pass through a shoot is one key per picture. It stops at the last asset rather than wrapping. The tag popover’s ⌘Return advances the same way (5.5). The setting is remembered per catalog.

Rejects are removed in one batch with Catalogue → Delete Rejected Photos; Chapter 6 covers it with the rest of deleting.

5.4 Favorites

A favorite is a heart on the thumbnail. Click the heart to toggle it, or use the menu.

Where to find it: Catalogue → Add to Favorites (⌘.).

The item reads Remove from Favorites when the selection is already favorited. The sidebar’s Favorites row collects every favorite (Chapter 4) and Favorites Only narrows the grid to them (5.6). The heart is not drawn on references or in Recently Deleted.

5.5 Tags

A tag is a word attached to an asset. Tags are listed in the sidebar after Recently Deleted, below a divider and with no heading of their own, each with a live count. A tag may sit inside a group, and may be pinned to a key from ⌥1 to ⌥9. The word on screen is Tag; “keyword” appears only on the import sheet (Chapter 3) and on export (Chapter 25).

The tag popover

Where to find it: Catalogue → Tag (⌘K); right-click → Tag; the Info tab’s Add a tag chip.

The Catalogue menu has two items named Tag. The one with ⌘K opens the popover; the one after it, with a submenu arrow, applies pinned tags and is described below.

The popover opens on the selection with its text field focused. Typing filters a list of completions whose last row offers a new tag from what you typed, as New tag "po"; typing Group:word offers it inside that group. ↑ and ↓ move the highlight, Return applies the highlighted row and clears the field, and Return with nothing typed closes the popover. Esc and ⌘K close it.

Tag changes are saved immediately. There is no apply button.

Below the field are the selection’s tags as chips, each with an × that removes it; a Suggested row drawn from the catalog’s own tagging; and a Pinned row of cells, each printing its key. A pinned cell is on when every selected asset carries the tag and mixed when only some do. The foot counts the selection: 1 photo, 3 clips, 12 items.

With Advance After Rating or Flagging on, ⌘Return closes the popover and moves the primary to the next asset.

Catalogue → Tag ▸ lists the pinned tags with their keys, ticked when the whole selection carries them, then Remove All Tags. A pinned label color is printed with its color dot. The ⌥1 to ⌥9 keys apply a pinned tag without opening the popover.

Range tags on clips

A tag on a clip can cover a span of it rather than the whole. With one clip open in the loupe and an in and out point set (Chapter 9), the popover enables a Whole Clip | In to Out switch. With In to Out chosen, every addition made from the field, the completions, Suggested or Pinned becomes a range tag over that span. The switch returns to Whole Clip when the popover closes, and setting the points writes nothing by itself.

A range tag’s chip prints its span after the word, as 00:42–00:48. A whole-clip tag and a range tag of the same word are two chips, and a chip’s × removes only that one.

Where to find it: View → Next Tag Range (⌥→), Previous Tag Range (⌥←).

These step through the ranges on the loupe’s scrubber. When the clip in the loupe has no range tags, the keys keep their Catalogue → Next and Previous meaning.

Managing tags in the sidebar

Where to find it: right-click a tag or a tag group in the sidebar; right-click the empty area below the sidebar’s rows for a new tag or group.

The empty area’s menu offers New Tag and New Group after New Folder.

A tag’s menu offers these commands:

• Rename edits the name.
• Pin assigns the lowest free key; Unpin frees it. Pin is grayed when keys 1 to 9 are taken.
• Move to Group ▸ lists the groups, None and New Group.
• Merge into ▸ lists other tags under their group headings.
• New Tag and New Group create a tag or group.
• Delete Tag removes the tag.

A grouped tag also shows Exported, checked when enabled. A group offers Rename, Exported, New Tag and Delete Group.

Exported decides whether a group’s tags leave the catalog as keywords on export (Chapter 25). The built-in Label group and its four colors cannot be renamed, moved, merged or deleted; they offer only Pin, Unpin and Exported.

Return on a selected tag or group row opens the rename field. Deleting a tag shows a toast naming the tag and the number of assets it was removed from, with Undo (⌘Z). Deleting a group asks Delete the group “<name>”?, notes that its tags become ungrouped, and offers Delete and Cancel. A tag needs a name, a pinned key is 1 to 9, and a tag cannot be merged into itself; each refusal is a short message.

Dragging assets from the grid onto a tag’s row adds the tag without moving anything. Clicking a tag’s row shows that tag’s assets.

Filtering by tag

Where to find it: View → Filter → Tags ▸.

The submenu lists every tag with its count, ungrouped tags first, then each group under a header, Label last, its colors printed with their dots. Ticking tags narrows the grid to assets carrying Any of These or All of These, chosen at the top; Clear Tags lifts the tag part of the filter. The strip under the search field names the tags narrowed to, up to four and then …, with the count: Filtered: Ceremony · Grandma · 31 of 3,018.

In the search field, #word finds a tag of that name in any group, #group:word one group’s tag, and #label:green a label (5.7).

5.6 Sorting, Filtering and Thumbnail Size

Where to find it: View → Sort By ▸, View → Filter ▸ and View → Show Filters (⇧⌘F).

Sort By ▸ offers Capture Date, Import Date, Filename, Rating and Camera, then Ascending and Descending. The default is capture date, ascending, with the import date standing in for files that carry none. Relevance heads the submenu and is offered only while a search is live (5.7).

Filter ▸ narrows the current folder, built-in view or search results. It offers these options:

The same menu pops from the filter icon at the right end of the search field, where it also carries the search scope switch (5.7), and from View → Show Filters. The icon fills in while a filter is active and a strip under the field states the filter and the count, as Filtered: Picks, ★★★ and up · 48 of 612, with Clear. The strip’s parts come in a fixed order: flag, rating, tags, kind, Favorites, presence. When the filter hides everything the grid reads Nothing matches the filter.

A filtered or searched view can be kept as a smart folder (Chapter 4). The filter is not offered in Recently Deleted.

5.7 Searching

Where to find it: the search field above the grid; Edit → Find (⌘F) focuses it.

Searching happens as you type. A strip under the field reports the scope and the count, as Searching in “Wedding” · 12 results (1 result, no results), with Clear. Esc clears the search while the field or the grid has focus. When nothing matches, the grid reads No results for "<query>".

Results arrive in relevance order. Choosing another sort while a search is live reorders them; View → Sort By → Relevance returns to the search’s own order.

Scope. A search covers the selected folder and its subfolders, or the built-in row on screen. Edit → Search Entire Catalogue, ticked by state and also offered as Entire Catalogue in the filter icon’s menu, widens it to the whole catalog; the strip then reads Searching in the entire catalogue · …. A search from References always covers the whole catalog. The scope is remembered per catalog.

What a search matches. The query is matched against the content of the picture, text visible in the picture, words spoken in a clip, text placed with text nodes (Chapter 22), camera metadata, and your own tags, note and caption.

Some terms are read as filters rather than as words:

Whatever remains is matched as ordinary words.

Search preparation. After an import, or when a catalog opens with search preparation unfinished, a strip reads Indexing 48 of 612 for search…. Assets appear in search results as they become ready. Other controls remain available.

Note: If search is unavailable on this Mac, the field is disabled and its placeholder says so. Filtering and sorting are unaffected.

Empty states. A row with nothing in it says so in the grid: No photos or videos yet on the catalog row, with an Import Photos and Videos… button (Chapter 3); No photos in this catalogue and No videos in this catalogue on the two built-in rows; a prompt to click a heart on Favorites; This folder is empty on a folder; and No originals in this location on a store, a tag or a smart folder.

5.8 The Info Tab

Where to find it: the inspector, the Info tab.

The Info tab shows information about the primary asset. The header is editable; the table below contains file details. Sections appear only when information is available, and some rows take a moment to appear. Hover over a shortened label or value to read it in full.

The header. Tags shows the asset’s tags as chips; a chip’s × removes it and the dashed Add a tag chip opens the tag popover (5.5). Note and Caption are free text, written when you leave the field, and both are searchable (5.7). With several assets selected, the header shows their count (12 items) and tags. Tags shared by only some of the selection appear as mixed chips. Clicking a mixed chip opens the popover. The header is hidden for an asset in Recently Deleted.

The File section also carries technical readouts; like the container section, they are reference information and call for no action. Sections reporting where an original is kept, which repository it syncs through and when a deleted asset will be erased belong to Chapters 6 and 27.

Note: For a clip, the Info tab shows no duration, frame rate or audio rows. The duration is on the thumbnail (5.1); the clip’s playback facts are in the loupe (Chapter 9).

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