Star Ratings

Give any photo in the Library a rating from 1 to 5 stars. Ratings stay with the photo after you quit. Lightroom Classic, Adobe Bridge, DxO PureRAW and Photo Mechanic read them too, and Macro Studio reads theirs.

Rating a photo

Pick a photo in the filmstrip, then press 1 to 5 (the same keys as Lightroom), or click the stars under the big preview. Press 0, or click the current rating again, to clear it.

The rating goes on the photo in the big preview, even when several frames are selected. Rated photos show their stars along the bottom of their thumbnail.

Working through a folder

After you rate a photo, Macro Studio moves to the next one, so you can cull with one key per photo. It stops at the last photo. To stay on the same photo, turn off Move to the next photo after rating in Preferences → General.

Filtering by rating

The rating menu is next to the filename filter, above the filmstrip:

• 1+ through 4+ stars: that rating or better.
• Only 1 star through Only 5 stars: that rating exactly.
• Unrated: photos you haven’t rated yet.

The filmstrip is also what gets stacked, so filtering is a quick way to cull:

1. Rate the bad frames 1.
2. Set the rating menu to 2+ stars.
3. Press A to select what’s left, then S to stack it.

You still need to press A. The filter decides which photos you can select, not which are selected.

If you re-rate a photo so it no longer matches, it leaves the strip. Each folder keeps its filter until you quit.

Sorting by rating

Choose Sort → Rating to put your best photos first. Photos with the same rating stay in filename order. The sort only changes what you see: stacking still uses the order you shot the frames in.

Macro Studio has no pick/reject flags. Use ratings instead, such as 5 for keepers and 1 for rejects.

Where the rating is stored

Format	Where the rating goes
RAW (.CR3, .NEF, .ARW, .ORF…)	a companion file next to the photo: IMG_1234.CR3 gets IMG_1234.xmp
JPEG, TIFF, DNG, PNG	inside the photo file itself

Ratings travel with your photos when you copy or sync them. Only the file’s metadata changes. The picture itself is never re-saved.

If you shoot RAW+JPEG, the pair starts out sharing the RAW’s companion file, so rating the RAW shows on the JPEG too. Rate the JPEG itself and it gets its own rating from then on.

If you already use Lightroom

Lightroom must write ratings to the file. By default it keeps them in its catalog only. After rating, press ⌘S / Ctrl+S (Metadata → Save Metadata to File), or turn on Catalog Settings → Metadata → Automatically write changes into XMP once.

Lightroom must also re-read the files. To see a rating you set in Macro Studio, select the folder in Lightroom and choose Library → Synchronize Folder. Or select the photos and choose Metadata → Read Metadata from File.

To see a Lightroom rating while the folder is open in Macro Studio, press Refresh (⌘R / Ctrl+R). When Macro Studio writes a rating, it leaves your Lightroom develop settings alone.

Moving, copying, renaming and deleting

Inside Macro Studio, ratings follow your photos when you move, copy, rename or delete them.

A RAW file you rename or move outside Macro Studio loses its rating (in Finder, File Explorer or a backup tool, say). Its .xmp file isn’t renamed to match, so rename that yourself too. A JPEG, TIFF, DNG or PNG usually keeps its rating, because the rating is inside the file. Two exceptions use a companion file, like a RAW:

• A photo you rated in an earlier version, and haven’t rated again since.
• A file Macro Studio couldn’t write into: locked, read-only, or a stacked image over about 650 megapixels.

See also

• Loading and selecting frames: picking the frames that go into a stack.
• Keyboard shortcuts: the full key list.
• Preferences: the auto-advance setting.