Skip to content

Viewer and Scopes

Goal

Inspect a selected photo at useful zoom levels, navigate large images, and use the available RGB scopes without changing the source.

Last reviewed: 2026-09-01 against the current Studio viewer, shortcut, and scope presenter contracts.

Applies to

  • Ravo Studio with an open library and selected photo.
  • Gallery, Loupe, and the image surface in Edit.

Prerequisites

  • A library is open.
  • A photo is selected and its original is readable for a full preview.

Gallery is the thumbnail grid. Each tile can show:

  • A thumbnail or a Loading, Failed, or Missing state.
  • Its sequence number in the current visible order.
  • The media type and dimensions when available.
  • Rating stars, a color-label dot, a reject flag, and an edited indicator. Rejected photos grey and dim the thumbnail itself.

Use the Size slider in the Gallery review bar to change thumbnail size. The current range is 120–320 for the grid control. Select a tile to make it active; double-click it to open Loupe.

Press I in Gallery, Loupe, or Edit to toggle photo information. Gallery gives every loaded tile a compact filename plus capture-or-format overlay. Loupe and Edit use the same larger panel for the active photo with the complete available camera/capture summary, media type, pixel dimensions, and file size; long lines wrap instead of being omitted. This is window-session display state and does not change the catalog or recipe.

Loupe

Loupe displays the active photo on the center image surface. Use View → Loupe, double-click a thumbnail, press Cmd/Ctrl+2, or press E to enter it. A single selected photo is required.

The left navigator is a fixed-height box that letterboxes the whole preview and the current viewport rectangle. Switching folders does not resize it. At a zoom that is larger than the available surface, drag the image or drag the navigator rectangle to pan.

Hovering the photo (not the surrounding letterbox) shows a magnifying glass. Click the photo to animate to 1:1 with the clicked point kept under the cursor. Click again to animate back to the Fit, 30%, or custom zoom that was current before 1:1. Wheel, Fit, 30%, and the 1:1 control still jump to the requested zoom. Crop mode keeps pointer ownership for crop gestures. Double-clicking the Loupe image returns to Gallery.

The filmstrip accepts both horizontal wheel input and an ordinary vertical mouse wheel, mapping either gesture to bounded horizontal scrolling. Reaching an end never changes the active photo or wraps the strip.

Zoom modes

The left panel provides these modes:

Mode Behavior
Fit Shows the complete preview inside the available surface.
30% Displays the viewport long edge at 30% of the photo long edge, with pan when the image exceeds the viewport. This can exceed native-pixel scale.
1:1 Shows one image pixel at the actual preview scale; panning is expected for large images.

The mouse wheel adjusts a custom zoom around the current view. The command palette and View menu expose the same zoom actions. Zoom changes affect the preview surface, not the original or the stored recipe.

Changing the active photo, browse mode, or zoom mode recenters the viewport. Changing rating, metadata, or another review value on the same active photo keeps the current pan. Every navigator seek and direct drag stops at the image bounds; crop mode temporarily gives drag ownership to the crop overlay.

Preview scopes

For photo scopes, use the current published image. Video playback is described separately below and does not enable photo Develop tools.

The top of the right Inspector contains the scope panel. Histogram is the default. The triangle control at the top-left of the plot opens a menu to switch between:

  • Histogram, with red, green, and blue channel distributions.
  • Waveform, with overlaid RGB intensity across image width.
  • Parade, with separate RGB channel columns across the image width.
  • Vectorscope, with a fixed linear D50 CIE uv chromaticity plot.
  • Split, with Waveform and Vectorscope together.

Scopes are calculated from the current processed preview. In Edit, they update after a committed or interactive Develop change. They are diagnostic displays; Ravo does not treat them as a legacy picker, mask, or automatic exposure decision.

The Vectorscope is diagnostic-only. It does not expose the old AzBz/RYB, logarithmic, harmony, profile-selection, picker, or exposure-drag modes.

Preview loading and missing originals

When a preview is being generated, Studio shows Loading… in the relevant panel and the status bar. A RAW Gallery thumbnail may come from an embedded camera JPEG, while Loupe and Edit use the processed CPU preview path.

If the source path is no longer readable, the thumbnail and image surface show Missing or Original file is missing. The catalog record, rating, tags, and recipe are retained, but a new preview or export cannot be produced until the original is available at its recorded path.

Video playback

Supported videos have a poster thumbnail and duration badge. Select a video and enter Loupe; it opens paused. Use Play/Pause, the seek control, volume and mute to review it. Changing selection or leaving Loupe releases the playback source, and an old frame cannot replace the newly selected item.

Playback uses the same SDR colour presentation as the poster. HLG/PQ source video is mapped to SDR; this is not native HDR output. Warnings can explain an ignored supplemental audio track. If an audio device is unavailable, Studio reports it; explicitly mute to review without sound.

Photo Develop, presets and masks are unavailable for video. Export offers an original copy, preserving the source media and all tracks. See the format matrix for codec/container restrictions.

Result

You can move from a library-wide view to a pixel-level review without changing the source file. Fit/30%/1:1, click-to-1:1, pan, the navigator, and all five scopes operate on the current preview.

Common questions

Does 1:1 keep the whole RAW resident at full resolution?

Pixel inspection requests the current viewport through the preview/ROI path. It does not require the entire RAW image to remain decoded at full resolution. The navigator and scopes describe the published preview; loading and resource limits remain visible rather than promising an unbounded sensor viewer.

Gallery can use a lightweight RAW embedded preview for thumbnails. Loupe and Edit request the processed CPU preview, so the displayed pixels and scopes can change to match the actual Develop path.

Can I zoom while crop mode is active?

Crop mode owns the image surface for frame manipulation. Finish cropping or leave crop mode before using normal panning and zoom interaction.