The grid and the filters

Forty-three filters, ten chips on the bar at a time, and the Saved Filter Sets that turn a combination of them into one click.

Updated Aug 14, 20264 min readApplies to 1.1.5

The Archive is every frame you've ever cataloged, in one browsable grid. You'll spend most of your time here.

The Archive3:38

Scrolling, filtering, and saving a combination you will want again.

The grid

Open The Archive from the sidebar. Scroll with your trackpad. Ten thousand images still scroll smoothly.

+ and − zoom the thumbnails, with or without Cmd held. The Display button, top right, opens a popover with three controls: LAYOUT, either Square or Masonry; SIZE, a slider from 80 to 600 pixels; and PADDING, 0 to 16 pixels. The bottom of that popover repeats the three keys worth remembering: +/- zoom · 1-5 rate · 0 clear.

Masonry keeps each frame's real aspect ratio and packs the columns. Square crops everything to a grid. Neither changes anything about the images themselves.

Clicking, and selecting

These are two different gestures and it's worth getting them straight.

Gesture	What happens
Click a thumbnail	Opens the detail panel on that frame. Nothing is selected.
Cmd click	Enters select mode and ticks that frame. The bottom toolbar appears.
Shift click, in select mode	Takes everything between the last frame and this one.
Escape	Closes the detail panel. Press it again to leave select mode.

Filters

The filter bar runs across the top, not down the side. It holds your chips, then an On the record toggle, then More Filters, Saved, and a gear.

Forty-three filters in total. More Filters opens the full set, grouped as Content, Aesthetics, Technical and Workflow. The gear opens Customize Top Bar, which is where you choose the ten that live on the bar.

The ones that get used most, roughly in order:

Wedding · Event Phase · Assigned Phase · Time of Day · Subject · Color Palette · Film / Digital · Flash · Star Rating · Favorite

Then everything else: Content Theme, Hashtag, Fashion, Flowers, Cultural Tradition, Religious Tradition, Weather, Detail Type, Season / Vibe, Edit Style, Light Source, Background, Orientation, Composition, Wedding Scale, Floral Color, Camera Format, Lens / Focal Length, Venue, Venue Type, Location, Colors, Style, Formality, Candid / Posed, Hero Frame, Emotion, Group Size, Arrangement, Space Type, Architecture, Heritage and Relationship.

Event Phase and Assigned Phase aren't the same filter. Assigned Phase is the value that came from your folder names. Event Phase is the effective value, which is what the AI worked out or what you've since changed it to.

Note

Couple Type is gone. It was deprecated in August, the AI no longer emits it, and the old guesses were cleared out. Heritage and Relationship replaced it. Those two are set by hand on the job, in the couple's own words, and covered under Creating a job.

Note Film / Digital is worth one caveat. Cataloging works it out by looking at the frame, so it misses on hybrid work where the scans and the digital were edited to match. Film or digital covers the fix, which is a bulk edit rather than a setting.

Detail Type is the one people find late and then use constantly. Its real values are Flat Lay, Invitation Suite, Jewelry, Rings, Shoes, Dress on Hanger, Bouquet, Boutonniere, Cake, Centerpiece, Tablescape, Signage, Menu, Favors, Veil, Accessories, Perfume, Cufflinks and Vow Books. Florals and Stationery aren't on that list. They're Subject values, and Dress only appears as Dress on Hanger. If a search comes back empty, check which of the two fields you're actually filtering.

Customizing the top bar

The gear opens Customize Top Bar. Your current chips sit at the top with an × on each. Click one to remove it. Below, the rest are grouped by category with a + on each. Click one to add it.

Nothing drags in this panel. The order on the bar is the order you added them. The counter in the header reads 7 of 10, and adding stops at ten.

Saved filter sets

Turn on whatever combination you want, then open Saved and name it. Hamptons fall florals. Editorial cover contenders. Bowery Hotel, all years. It lands in the list for one-click recall.

Saved Filter Sets live on the Mac, not in the workspace. Every workspace you open on that machine sees the same list, and it doesn't travel to a second Mac. Build them again there, or keep the ones that matter simple enough to rebuild in ten seconds.

Most people build five to ten in their first month and use them for the rest of the year. That is the right number. If you have forty you won't remember any of them.

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