Skip to content

Getting started

Open a photograph

Choose File → Open… and select your photograph, or press Cmd+O on macOS or Ctrl+O on Windows. You can also drag a supported file onto the canvas, or choose one from File → Open Recent. Opening an image never changes the original file. See Compatibility for the file types.

When no picture is open you see the home screen: an Open image… button, a hint that you can drop a file there, and your last five files under Recent as small cards with a preview, the file name and its folder. Click a card to open it. If the file has been moved, renamed or deleted, or its drive is not connected, a box says so. While a file is missing it is left out of the Recent list and comes back if the file does; the box lets you remove it for good. A file gets its preview the first time you open it, so older entries show a plain box until then. The previews are small pictures kept in the app's settings folder, and the oldest are removed automatically.

  • A grey photograph, such as a scanned negative, opens straight into the editor.
  • A camera RAW file or a colour picture first shows the Develop panel, where you choose how it becomes black and white. See RAW and colour files.
  • A .dbw file is an editable project and opens exactly as you left it.

Large scans open in the background. A first preview appears almost at once and sharpens as the rest of the picture arrives, so you can start looking around straight away.

Move around the image

  • Press 0 to fit the photograph to the window, or 1 to see it at 100% (one image pixel for each screen pixel).
  • Turn the mouse wheel or pinch to zoom about the pointer. If you prefer the wheel to scroll, see Settings.
  • Drag with the Hand tool (H) to pan. (The Move tool, V, moves a layer, not the view.) With any other tool, hold Space and drag; the tool comes back when you let go.
  • The bar at the bottom has a zoom slider, Fit and the current zoom.

The window

The tools are on the left, the picture is in the middle, and the panels are on the right: Histogram, Adjustments, Properties and Layers. The name of the open file is at the top. See Workspace and panels.

Keep your work

Choose File → Save to create an editable .dbw project. Use File → Export when you want a finished image to share or use elsewhere. See Saving and exporting for the difference.

Every edit can be undone with Cmd+Z or Ctrl+Z, and redone with Shift+Cmd+Z or Ctrl+Y.