Develop View Overview
After Macro Studio finishes a stack (or when you press E to edit a single frame), the window switches to Develop view. This is where you refine the result: masks, adjustments, crop, retouch, compare, and finally save.
Press D from anywhere to jump to Develop view; press L to go back to Library.
The layout
Section titled “The layout”Develop view has four regions:
- Header toolbar at the top — Compare, Crop, Retouch, Save.
- Center canvas — your image, with zoom/pan.
- Right sidebar — Masks, Adjustments, Species Identification.
- History strip at the bottom — every stack and edit you’ve produced this session.
The mode hint in the top mode bar reads Adjust + mask + save to confirm you’re in Develop.
The header toolbar
Section titled “The header toolbar”Four buttons live at the top of the Develop view:
| Button | Shortcut | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Compare | C | A/B-compare two history entries side by side. See Compare and history. |
| Crop | — | Open the crop + straighten editor. See Crop. |
| Retouch | — | Open the spot-removal brush. See Retouch. |
| Save… | ⌘S / Ctrl+S | Open the Save dialog. See Saving. |
Compare, Crop, and Retouch are disabled until a result loads (i.e. immediately after a stack starts, they’re greyed out; they enable when the stack completes).
To the left of these buttons, a small green status label appears during certain operations (Building mask… with an animated …) and disappears when ready. If something goes wrong, the same label position shows the error in red.
The center canvas
Section titled “The center canvas”The center area shows your active result — the one currently selected in the history strip. You can:
- Scroll to zoom in/out (centered on the cursor).
- Click-drag to pan when zoomed in.
- Double-click to reset zoom to fit.
- Pinch (trackpad) to zoom.
When you enter a sub-mode like Crop, Brush, or Retouch, the center canvas swaps to that editor and the rest of the Develop view dims slightly to keep your attention focused.
The right sidebar
Section titled “The right sidebar”The right sidebar holds three sections, top to bottom:
Four mask buttons — Global, Subject, Background, Brush — choose which pixels your adjustments affect. The eyeball icon to the right of the buttons toggles a visualization overlay so you can see exactly what’s masked.
For a Subject or Background mask, a Refine Mask button appears below — opens the brush editor in additive mode so you can clean up the auto-detected mask. For a Brush mask, the same button is labeled Open Brush — opens the brush editor for the standalone Brush mask.
See Masks for the full guide.
ADJUSTMENTS
Section titled “ADJUSTMENTS”Twelve sliders for exposure, color, tone, and sharpness. They apply to whichever mask is currently selected. The eyeball icon at the top of the panel toggles the entire adjustment effect on and off — useful for a quick before/after.
Double-click any slider to reset it to default. The Reset All button at the bottom resets every slider in one shot.
See Adjustments for what each slider does.
SPECIES IDENTIFICATION
Section titled “SPECIES IDENTIFICATION”Identify your subject and generate a draft caption for social posts. The panel shows EXIF metadata, lets you pick a kingdom (Plant / Insect / Mushroom), runs an AI species-ID lookup, and offers a Draft Social Post button that builds a caption with the species name and your custom tags.
See Species ID and social posts for details.
The history strip
Section titled “The history strip”The bottom of the Develop view is the history strip — every result you’ve produced in this session.
Each thumbnail shows the settings used (pyramid d15 s1 da for a Pyramid stack at detail 15, sharpen 1, depth auto, align on) so you can tell variants apart at a glance. Click any thumbnail to make it active.
In-progress jobs show a green progress bar overlay; right-click them for Cancel Stack and View Source Images.
See Compare and history for the full picture.
A typical edit flow
Section titled “A typical edit flow”- Stack completes; you land in Develop view with the result loaded.
- Crop if needed — straighten and remove the edges chewed up by alignment.
- Adjust — exposure, contrast, color. Start with everything on the Global mask, then refine with Subject/Background masks if needed.
- Retouch any blemishes or dust spots.
- Save — pick formats, optionally a watermark, hit Save.
Most edits don’t need all five steps. A clean stack with good exposure often just needs Crop + Save.