Loading and Selecting Frames

After you load a folder from the folder browser, the filmstrip at the bottom of the Library view fills with thumbnails of every supported image in that folder. This page covers what you can do with that filmstrip — which frames to pick, how to filter by file type, and a few power-user shortcuts.

Supported formats

Macro Studio reads the following image types straight out of the folder — no pre-conversion needed.

TIFF (8-bit and 16-bit)
PNG
JPEG
RAW — CR2, CR3, NEF, ARW, DNG, ORF, RW2, PEF, SRW, X3F, RAF (decoded via LibRaw)

RAW files are demosaiced in-app. The aligned, stacked result preserves the bit depth of the input where possible (16-bit in, 16-bit out for TIFF).

Frames are sorted alphabetically by filename. Most cameras write sequential filenames out of the box (IMG_0001.tif, IMG_0002.tif, …) so this usually “just works.”

File-type filter

If a folder contains more than one file type — say JPEGs from the camera plus TIFFs from a previous export — a File type filters label appears above the filmstrip with a row of colored toggle pills (one per file type detected). Click a pill to hide all files of that type from the strip; click again to show them.

The filter is per-folder and resets when you load a different folder. Useful for:

Skipping JPEG previews when you only want to stack the RAW originals.
Comparing your previous stacked output (TIFF) against the source frames (RAW) without having them mixed together.

The filter doesn’t change selection — if a filtered-out frame was selected before you filtered, it stays selected but hidden.

Selecting frames

You don’t stack every frame automatically — you pick which frames go into the stack. Four buttons in the source-control bar above the filmstrip help:

Button	Shortcut	What it does
Set First	`F`	Marks the active frame as the start of the selection range.
Set Last	`L`	Marks the active frame as the end of the range and selects everything between First and Last.
Select All	`A`	Selects every visible frame in the strip.
Compare	`C`	Opens A/B compare on two frames side by side.

You can also select with the mouse:

Click a thumbnail to make it the active frame (single selection).
Shift-click to extend the selection.

The most common pattern: click into the folder, hit A to select all, hit S to stack. Done.

Splitting a folder into multiple stacks

Sometimes a single shoot folder holds two or more subjects you want to stack separately — bumping the tripod between subjects, or shooting two flowers in the same garden, or any case where one folder really contains two stacks.

The cleanest way to split: select the frames that belong to the first stack, right-click a thumbnail, and pick “Move N images to folder…” A small dialog appears with the destination pre-filled as:

{parent folder name} stack 1

Press Enter (or click Move) and Macro Studio creates that subfolder inside the parent and moves the selected files into it. Repeat with the remaining frames — the dialog will auto-name the next one stack 2, then stack 3, and so on, finding the smallest unused integer each time.

After moving, the new subfolders appear in the folder browser as siblings to your existing folders, each ready to load as its own stack.

You can also use the Browse… button in the Move dialog to drop the frames into an existing folder anywhere on disk.

The Stack/Edit button

The big green button in the bottom-right of the Library view changes based on selection:

No frames selected — disabled with text Stack selected images [S] →.
One frame selected — Edit selected image [E] →. Pressing E opens that single frame in Develop view (skipping the stack step entirely). Useful for re-editing a previously saved result or applying adjustments to a single image.
Two or more frames selected — Stack selected images [S] →. Pressing S runs the stack.

The footer status line just above this button tells you what’s currently selected (12 frames selected or Frame 3/30 — IMG_0003.cr3).

Editing a single image

Macro Studio is happy to skip the stacking step. Double-click any thumbnail in the filmstrip, or select a single frame and press E, and you’ll jump to Develop view with that one image loaded — same masks, adjustments, crop, retouch, and Save dialog as a stacked result.

This is handy for:

Quick edits on a single-frame macro that doesn’t need stacking.
Re-editing a previously stacked TIFF that you exported and want to revisit.
Trying out a watermark/social caption workflow without running a stack first.

Tips for best results

Shoot with a tripod when possible. Alignment works on handheld shots, but tripod shots produce cleaner edges and no rotation correction.
Use consistent exposure across frames — shoot in manual mode so the auto-exposure system doesn’t shift between frames.
Overlap focus zones — each frame should share some sharp area with the next. Big focus gaps produce visible seams.
More frames = smoother result. 10-30 frames is typical for most macro subjects; 50+ is fine for higher magnifications.