Working in Develop

Press D to edit a photograph, with adjustments in the sidebar and the current selection in the filmstrip.

On iPad, the Library sits beside a photograph in Loupe, Compare or Develop. Tap the adjustments button in Develop’s top bar to show or hide its controls. On iPhone and iPad, Develop’s … menu holds Help Buttons, which puts a question mark beside each slider and heading, and Develop Field Guide, which opens the index of adjustments and tools. See Learning to develop.

On iPad, Develop’s controls stay inside the workspace beside the photograph. When the window becomes narrow, the panel closes to give the photograph room. Tap the adjustments button to reopen it inline; in very narrow windows or at accessibility text sizes it sits below the photograph. Tap the same adjustments button again to hide the panel. Widening restores the previous wide-panel choice. The current photograph and editing session stay in place.

On iPhone and iPad, Develop provides touch controls around the photograph. Duo puts the photograph above the controls when propped across a table. Apple TV has no Develop mode.

On a phone, the tool sheet opens low, showing the tool tabs and the first row of the current tab’s controls; drag its header up for more, and the photograph fits the remaining space. A new Develop session opens on Crop, and the tool tabs run Looks, Layers, Crop, Repairs and on through the adjustments. The tab row fades at an edge with more tabs past it, and the first time Develop opens, it slides one tab along and back to show that it scrolls. On a closed Duo the tabs stand on the right-hand rail, and the eye, Undo and Redo join the photo tools beneath the photograph. Even expanded, the sheet leaves room to judge the photograph. The Browse and Choose tabs disappear while Develop is open, including the side mode rail on an open Duo. Tap Back in the top bar to return to the mode you came from; on a vertical Duo toolbar, tap the highlighted back chevron. The button briefly brightens as Develop opens. On an iPhone held sideways the tool tabs stand in a column between the photograph and the adjustments, each with its name, and the photo actions sit above the photograph. On iPad and an open Duo, the bar shows the photograph’s name, capture date, stars, pick and capture settings; turn them off with Photo Details in Develop’s … menu. The canvas tools and Develop’s band share the row beneath the photograph, and the filmstrip changes the photograph. The adjustment column follows the Mac’s sidebar: Looks opens as the first group, then the layers, repairs and groups, with the Colour / Monochrome switch ahead of the colour groups and Reset All at the end; every group folds and stays as it was left. The compact curve plot leaves room for its channel and point controls. The editing-scope row appears only when a mask is selected; return to Whole Photograph from its menu to hide it. Choose Colour or Monochrome at the head of the Colour tab on iPhone, and at the same place in the iPad’s column; under Monochrome the Colour tab holds Monochrome and Toning. The slider icon in the sheet header offers a compact Fine adjustment view; tap the header to return to all adjustments. Use the canvas expand button for fullscreen and the same button to restore the controls. The edit stays active.

The canvas histogram floats on the photograph, translucent. Drag it from anywhere to move it, flick it toward an edge to hide it, and use the histogram button to bring it back. Its position follows the available canvas through rotation. The eyedropper menu offers White Balance for RAW photographs and Colour for colour treatments. Touch and drag on the photo to aim with the magnifier; release to sample. The loupe button provides pixel inspection without applying an edit. Close it to resume canvas gestures. The Develop photo has no long-press context menu.

Edits are saved as a recipe in the catalogue. The original file remains unchanged. Use ⌘Z to undo edits.

Start editing. The sidebar groups related controls:

• Crop & straighten (R): frame and level the photograph. Measurements follow the crop.
• White Balance: adjust temperature and tint, or press W and click a neutral area.
• Tone: exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, whites and blacks. The wand sets all six from the cropped photograph as one undoable edit.
• Tone curve: composite and RGB point curves. Press T to adjust a curve from the photograph.
• Colour: vibrance and saturation.
• Colour mixer: hue, saturation and luminance across eight bands. Press H to select a band from the photograph.
• Monochrome: filters, eight conversion bands and toning when the process toggle is enabled.
• Presence: clarity, texture and dehaze, all available on masked layers.
• Effects: crop-relative vignette and grain, also available on masked layers.
• Lens: profile strength, manual distortion and colour-fringe correction, applied before other edits.
• Detail: supported RAW controls for sharpness, detail, noise, moiré, lens correction, highlight recovery, local tone mapping and HDR.

Repairs and masks. Press Q to heal or clone spots and strokes using another area of the same photograph. Select a repair and press ⌫ to remove it. Press ⇧K to highlight possible dust in amber.

Press M for the last mask drawing tool and V to change the mask overlay. A selected layer limits adjustments to its mask.

Looks and versions. Press L to open 32 included looks with adjustable strength. Use the version picker to create versions and switch between them and ORIGINAL. The selected version appears in other views and exports.

Before and after. Hold / to view the photograph as shot with the current crop retained.

Inspect detail. Pinch to zoom and drag to pan. Above fit, the navigator shows the visible region. At fit, press G for the magnifying glass. Canvas tools hide the glass. Crop, mask and targeted curve or mixer tools hold the canvas at fit; Repair allows zooming. Press K for green focus-peaking marks.

Press esc or double-click the background beside the photograph to return to fit, then leave Develop. If a repair or layer is selected, the first action deselects it. With a tool active, that tool handles the click.

Processing. White balance and RAW Detail changes require a new decode. The decoder stays open during a drag. Tone, curves, Colour and the mixer use the cached decode. Detail shows only controls supported by the current file and decoder; RAW 9 files have fewer controls.

Photos publishing. For Photos-backed photographs, leaving an edited photograph can publish a full-resolution rendering to Photos. Revert in Photos removes the published rendering. See An edit reaches Photos.app for behaviour and limitations.

See Monochrome, Lens corrections, Repairing a photograph, What a mask is, Seeing the mask, Working with looks, Composition review, Looking closely, Focus peaking, Repairing a photograph, Entering Develop, The controls, Crop and straighten, White balance, The tone curve, The colour mixer, Versions, Undo, RESET, bypass and copying, An edit reaches Photos.app, How a RAW file becomes a picture.