Library

The Library tab shows every imported photo as a timeline, newest first, grouped by the day it was taken. Each day starts with a header showing the date, the places photos were taken that day, and how many photos it has. Photos without a capture date come last, under No date.

The timeline stays fast with tens of thousands of photos: its full height is known from the number of photos per day, only the rows on screen (and a margin around them) are drawn, and photo details are loaded page by page as you scroll. While importing, new photos appear as each one is copied.

Tiles

Each tile shows the whole photo (never cropped), with:

• RAW when the photo has a RAW file (the JPEG of a RAW+JPEG pair is shown),

• a green ✓ for picks and a red ✕ for rejects (rejected photos are dimmed),

• its star rating,

• a green border and ★ on the best photo of a series; the photos of a series are framed together (Series).

Hover a tile for its file name, capture time, camera and place.

Selecting photos

Action	Selection
Click	Only that photo.
Shift+click	Every photo from the last clicked one to this one, across days.
Ctrl+click (⌘+click on macOS)	Adds or removes that photo; Shift+Ctrl/⌘+click adds a range.
The round checkbox on a tile (shown on hover, and on every tile while several are selected)	Adds or removes that photo, without a modifier key.

With two or more photos selected, Compare (or C) shows them side by side (Compare).

The number of selected photos is shown above the timeline.

Loupe

Double-click a photo, or press Enter on the selected one, to view it full screen. The photo is fitted to the window; zoom to 100% to check focus.

Key	Action
← / →	Previous / next photo
Z, or click the photo	Toggle 100% zoom. Clicking zooms in on the spot you clicked; drag to move around, click again to fit.
I	Show or hide the information panel
P, X, U, 0 – 5	Pick, reject, unflag, rate (Culling)
Shift+P, Shift+X, Shift+U	Decide, then show the next photo
Esc	Leave 100% zoom, then close the loupe

The bar at the top of the loupe shows the photo’s decision and does the same with the mouse: Pick, Reject, Unflag and the stars (click the current rating again to clear it). With Auto-advance ticked, every decision (button or key) moves on to the next photo, so you can go through a shoot with P and X alone; the choice is remembered.

The information panel shows when and where the photo was taken (with the UTC offset when known), camera, lens, exposure (aperture, shutter speed, ISO, focal length), size, GPS position and the photo’s files with their sizes. Closing the loupe leaves the last viewed photo selected in the timeline.

The fitted view uses a 2048-pixel preview. 100% zoom uses a full-size image, created the first time you zoom into a photo and then cached (Data Locations).

Culling

Mark photos as picks or rejects and give them star ratings with the keyboard (Keyboard Shortcuts): P, X and U for pick, reject and unflag, 1–5 for stars and 0 to clear. In the timeline the keys apply to every selected photo; in the loupe, to the photo shown. Hold Shift (Shift+P, Shift+X, Shift+U) to move on to the next photo afterwards, in the loupe or with one photo selected in the timeline.

Picks counts only photos you marked. The app’s suggestions are separate: see Auto-pick.

Auto-pick

Once photos are analyzed, the app marks the ones it thinks are keepers as Auto-picked (a green ✓ Auto badge on the tile, Auto-picked in the loupe). A photo is auto-picked when all of these hold:

• it is the best photo of its series (Series), or in no series;

• its combined quality score (Combined score) is at least 50% (auto_pick);

• nobody important has closed eyes (Faces and closed eyes).

A best photo you chose yourself (B) is always auto-picked. When you reject the best photo of a series, the next best one takes its place.

Auto-pick is only a suggestion and never overrides you: picking or rejecting a photo replaces it, and U (unflag) brings it back. It is not written to XMP sidecars and not exported as a pick. To keep the suggestions, click Pick all N auto-picked under Flag in the filters: every auto-picked photo becomes a pick, in one step that Undo reverses. Filter by Auto-picked to go through them first.

Decisions are saved immediately. Undo and Redo (above the timeline, or Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Shift+Z) step back and forward through the last 200 changes; undoing restores each photo’s previous flag and rating, even when a change covered photos that had different ones.

Filters

The search box above the timeline finds photos by describing them (Text search).

The Filters panel beside the timeline (toggle it with the Filters button) narrows the timeline to matching photos:

Filter	Shows
Flag	Picks, auto-picked, unflagged and/or rejects (any of the chosen ones; auto-picked photos are also unflagged). A decision under a Flag or Rating filter updates the view right away, so a photo you reject leaves a Picks view.
Rating	Photos with at least the chosen number of stars
Camera	Photos taken with that camera: one button per camera, with its photo count, the most used first (the six most used, then All N cameras). Click the chosen camera again, or Any, to show every camera. Files that spell one camera differently (Canon / EOS R5 and Canon / Canon EOS R5) are one camera.
Lens	Photos taken with that lens
Date	Photos taken from / until a day (both included)
Place	A country, or one city in it
Quality	Photos whose sharpness, exposure and/or low-noise score is at least 25, 50 or 75% (Quality scores). Photos not analyzed yet are hidden while a quality filter is on.
Aesthetic, Hide closed eyes, People	AI signals, once the models have run (AI in the library)
Best of each series only	Hides photos that are in a series but are not its best photo (Series); photos in no series stay.

Filters combine: Picks with 3★+ in Lisbon shows picked photos of three stars or more taken in Lisbon. Every option shows how many photos in the library have it. Active filters appear as chips above the timeline; remove one with its ✕, or all with Clear all. Filters are kept while the app is open.

The timeline, day headers and counts all reflect the filters. A photo you change while filtering (for example rejecting it while showing only picks) stays in view until the filters change, so it does not jump away mid-cull.

Sorting

The menu above the timeline orders it:

• Newest first (default) and Oldest first group photos by day.

• Recently imported lists the latest imports first.

• Best quality first orders by the combined score (Combined score: technical, aesthetic and faces) and shows each photo’s score on its tile; photos not analyzed yet come last.

The last two show one list without day headers. Sorting works with every filter and with Stack series, and is kept while the app is open.

Background analysis

After an import, Picturesque analyzes every photo in the background to score its sharpness, exposure and noise (Quality scores) and to hash its visual layout for finding similar photos (Visual similarity), which groups photos into series. The loupe shows the scores under Quality. While it works, the toolbar shows Analyzing 120 / 300. Photos on screen are analyzed first, so scrolling to a day gets its results within seconds. Analysis continues where it left off after the app restarts. With the CLIP model downloaded, analysis also computes image embeddings (Image embeddings).

Analyzing photos again

Each photo is analyzed once. To analyze photos again, for example after an analysis failed or after downloading a new model:

• select photos in the timeline and click Re-analyze above it, or

• click Re-analyze all photos in Settings → Analysis (and confirm).

The photos go back into the queue, the selected ones first, and the toolbar shows Analyzing … again. Until a photo’s new results are ready, its earlier ones stay in use, so scores, series, auto-picks and quality filters keep working meanwhile; when the new results are stored, series and auto-picks are updated. Your decisions (picks, rejects, ratings, a best photo you chose) are never changed.

XMP sidecars

Picks, rejects and ratings are written to XMP sidecar files next to each photo in the library, so other photo tools see them (ADR-0009). Photo files themselves are never modified.

Written	Value	Read by
xmp:Rating	Stars 0–5, or −1 for a rejected photo	darktable, Lightroom, Bridge
digiKam:PickLabel	3 for picks, 1 for rejects, 0 otherwise	digiKam
picturesque:Flag, picturesque:Stars	The exact flag and stars (a rejected photo keeps its stars)	Picturesque

• If a photo already has a sidecar (for example from darktable or Lightroom), it is updated in place: only the properties above are changed; everything else other tools stored there is kept.

• Otherwise a new sidecar is created next to the photo’s RAW file (or its only file), named IMG_0042.CR3.xmp by default (darktable, digiKam) or IMG_0042.xmp (Lightroom, Bridge); see sidecar_naming.

• Sidecars are written in the background about a second after you stop changing decisions, so rapid culling writes each file once. Anything not yet written when the app closes is written the next time it starts.

• A sidecar that cannot be read as XMP is left untouched.

On import, decisions found in existing sidecars (ratings, darktable or Lightroom rejects, digiKam pick labels) become the photo’s starting decision.

Checking with other tools

To confirm that another tool picks up decisions:

1. In Picturesque, rate a RAW photo 3 stars and pick another; reject a third.

2. darktable: import the library folder (or re-read sidecars with selected images → metadata → refresh EXIF). The first photo shows three stars and the rejected one shows the reject mark.

3. digiKam: with Settings → Metadata → Sidecars → Read from sidecar files enabled, the picked photo shows the green “Accepted” pick label and the rejected one the red “Rejected” label.

4. Lightroom Classic: set sidecar naming to IMG_0042.xmp, then Metadata → Read Metadata from Files; ratings appear. Lightroom does not read pick/reject flags from XMP.