Compare & Session History

The history strip along the bottom of the Editor holds every stack and edit from this session, plus any stacks still running. Compare shows two of them side by side.

This isn’t undo. The history strip holds whole results, and it clears when you quit. For undo and the HISTORY panel, see Edit History.

The history strip

Each finished stack adds a thumbnail at the right end. So does each photo you open in the Editor. The strip holds up to 25 results. After that, the oldest one drops off when a new one arrives.

The thumbnail with a blue border is the one on the canvas. Click any thumbnail to switch.

Each thumbnail is labeled with the name it would save as, like bee - 2026-07-30 over 20.27.04 Enh-60. Once you save, it shows the saved name. Hover over a shortened label to see all of it.

A badge in the top-left corner marks a result opened from, or saved as, a DNG. MS DNG means a Macro Studio DNG, and Raw DNG a Raw DNG. A stack made in camera-raw mode this session shows RAW until you save it as a DNG.

Saving under a new name keeps both

If you save a result under a new name, the old file comes back into the strip, just to its left. You keep working on the new file. This works only for a file Macro Studio saved, this session or as a DNG you reopened. It doesn’t work while the strip is full.

Removing results

Hover over a thumbnail and click the ×, or right-click it and choose Delete. This removes it from the strip only, not from your disk. An unsaved result is gone for good.

The right-click menu also has:

Copy file path: copies the path of the saved file, if there is one.
Run StackCheck: checks the stack’s frames again. See StackCheck.
Send this stack to us…: uploads the stack so support can look at a result that came out wrong.

Stacks in progress

When you click Stack, the job appears in the strip right away with a green progress bar. To cancel it, click its ×, or right-click it and choose Cancel Stack.

Compare mode

Compare shows two results side by side. Use it to compare a stack with a source photo, two stacks of different frames, or a before and after.

Click the result you want as A.
Click Compare in the header, or press C. If you haven’t picked a B, Macro Studio asks you to.

Zoom and pan are locked together at first. Click the lock icon to unlink them.
Click Swap ⇄ to switch sides.
Your edits show on the selected side, the one with the blue border.

Click Compare or press C again to leave.

Quick before/after on one result

Press \ (backslash) to see the current result with and without your adjustments and masks. It does the same as the eye in the ADJUSTMENTS header. It doesn’t work in Compare, or while a tool like Crop or Retouch is open.