Stars, favourites and colour labels
A decision says whether a frame stays. A mark says something else about it: how good, a favourite, a colour you give it, a word to find it by. Marks are independent of the decision and of each other — changing one never changes another — and you narrow the pass to a mark from the two small menus at the right-hand end of the views line. This page covers both halves: setting a mark, and looking through it.
Rating
The five stars are in the header above the photograph, towards its right-hand end: after the heart, before the camera settings (focal length, aperture, shutter speed and ISO). Click a star to set that rating exactly; click the star already set to clear it back to none. From the keyboard, 1 to 5 set exactly that rating and 0 clears it; pressing the digit a frame already has leaves it as it is. In Frames the keys act on the ringed frame, and the cell's strip under the photograph shows the stars.
Favourite
The heart, in the same header, is a plain on-or-off mark. It draws in red when the frame is a favourite — not in the app's orange, which on this row already means the rating. It is click only; there is no key for it. The ⋯ menu at the end of the views line has the same switch as its Favourite row, ticked when the frame is one.
Colour label
There are five labels and no others: Red, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple. Two doors set one on the frame in front of you:
- The tag under the photograph. In Single, the row under the photograph carries a small tag: after the proposal and the app's note on the frame when either is showing, and first in the row when neither is. It is grey with no label and orange with one. Click it for a menu of the five, the current one ticked, and Clear Label.
- The ⋯ menu. Colour label… in the ⋯ menu at the end of the views line swaps that menu for a menu of the same five labels, each with its swatch, and Clear label.
Choosing the label the frame already has clears it. A label shows as a swatch at the foot of the frame's cell in Frames and on its cell in the strip.
Keywords and a caption
Keyword, in the header above the photograph, opens a small panel headed KEYWORD AND CAPTION. Type a keyword and press ↩ to add it as a chip; a comma-separated line becomes one chip per piece; the × on a chip removes it. Under the keywords is a one-line caption, committed the same way. The panel says where they go: Written to the sidecar on export. Nothing here identifies anyone. Once a frame has keywords, the button prints them. A keyword is searchable — keyword:beach, or the bare word — and neither a keyword nor a caption is undone by ⌘Z: it is something you wrote, not a decision.
Undo
⌘Z takes back the most recent change, and a rating, a favourite or a colour label counts: the same one history as Take, Hold and Reject. ⇧⌘Z puts it back again. A decision raises a message with its own Undo. A mark raises a short message that only says what happened — 4-star rating applied, Added to Favourites, Labelled Blue — with nothing to click, so ⌘Z is the way back.
Narrowing the pass to a mark
At the right-hand end of the views line, just before Edit takes, are two small menus: ★ and ●.
- ★ holds the ratings and the favourites. Its rows draw the stars rather than name them — ★★★★★ down to ★☆☆☆☆, with the empty slots dim — then ♥ Favourites. Each row carries the count it would leave on screen.
- ● holds the five labels as filled swatches in their own colours, each with its count.
A row means exactly that: four stars is the frames rated four, not four and up. One mark at a time — a rating, Favourites, or one label — and choosing another replaces it. The chip the mark leaves on the views line draws the same stars, heart or swatch, and its × puts the mark down. The Organise and filter pane's Rating buttons and Favourites only switch are the same mark, reached from the panel.
A mark composes with everything else on the line: Takes with ★★★★★ is your five-star takes, and a person narrows that further.
A rejected frame is under no mark, however it is rated or labelled — except under Rejects itself, where the two menus narrow the bin. A five-star reject is exactly the one you restore first. Restore it and it is back under its marks everywhere.
When you reopen a library, a rating or Favourites narrowing comes back with the rest of what was on screen. A colour-label chip does not: a library always opens with no label chip, so choose the label again if you want it.
Reopening drops the label chip but can keep the pass the label made, so the library may open with no chip and a pass holding only the frames that wore the label. If the pass line counts fewer frames than you expect, click All on the views line to rebuild it. The pass holds still while you work has the whole of it.