SilverNode-documentatie

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§1 󱓞 Quick start

SilverNode edits RAW photos straight from your folders. This page is the shortest way from a folder of photos to an edited one: five steps. The rest of the documentation tells the whole story of each.

§1.1 󰝰 1. Open a folder

SilverNode works on folders of RAW photos (󰄀 Camera support). When you start it, the folders of your computer are in the file browser at the left of the 󰕰 Grid. There is nothing to import: see 󰋹 Your photos stay in their folders.

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1. 1 The file browser: your folders. Open the one with your photos.

Point at a folder, and the Open button shows on its row: click it.

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1. 1 The folder the pointer is on.
2. 2 The Open button of that folder. Click it, and the photos of the folder fill the 󰕰 Grid.

§1.1.1 Or drag photos in

You can also drag photos from your computer’s file manager (Explorer, Finder, Files, File Pilot, …) onto the window of SilverNode:

• Several photos: SilverNode opens their folder in the 󰕰 Grid, with the photos you dragged selected. Drag photos of one folder at a time: only those in the folder of the first are selected.
• One photo: SilverNode opens its folder and that photo, straight in 󱬠 Develop.
• A folder: SilverNode opens it, as with Open.

§1.2 󰕰 2. Pick a photo in the Grid

The 󰕰 Grid shows the photos of the folder as tiles.

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1. 1 Your folders. Open another one here at any time.
2. 2 The photos of the open folder. Click one to select it, Shift+click to select a range. Double-click a photo to open it for editing, or select it and press Enter / Tab.
3. 3 󰕰 Grid is where you are, 󱬠 Develop is where you edit one photo, 󰒓 Settings is for the settings.
4. 4 󰌵 Tips: short tips about what you are doing. They show up here when there is one: see 󰌵 Tips.

Rate the selected photos with 1 to 5, and mark a bad one as rejected with Afgekeurd omschakelen X: see 󰓎 Rating and rejecting. More about the Grid: 󰕰 Grid at a glance.

§1.3 󱬠 3. Edit it in Develop

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1. 1 The photo, with your edit. Hold Esc to see it as it was before (󰇉 Seeing the photo before), hold Z to look at it at full size (󰍉 Zooming in).
2. 2 The adjustments: the sliders that change the photo. Scroll down for more, and see 󰘮 The adjustments for what each one does. A double-click on a slider puts it back.
3. 3 The key of a slider. Press it, move the mouse, and click: the fastest way to adjust. See 󰂫 Aanpassen met het toetsenbord en de muis.
4. 4 The histogram and the vectorscope: how the light and the colors of the photo are spread.
5. 5 󰕰 Grid takes you back to the photos, and so does Tab.

If you don’t know where to start: let SilverNode set the exposure and white balance with AutoEdit Alt⌥+E (󰁨 AutoEdit), then refine from there with Exposure and Temperature. Ongedaan maken Ctrl⌘+Z takes back whatever you did (󰕌 Undo and Redo). Next photo: → / Space. More about Develop: 󱬠 Develop at a glance.

§1.4 4. Edit more than one photo

Edits are saved next to each photo, as you make them. Photos from one session look alike: copy the edit of one with Kopiëren... Ctrl⌘+C and put it on others with Plakken Ctrl⌘+V, make a preset of it, or select a number of photos in the 󰕰 Grid and use the adjustment keys on all of them at once (󰂫 Adjusting with the keys).

§1.5 5. Export

When a photo is done, select the photos in the 󰕰 Grid and use Geselecteerde foto's exporteren als album... Ctrl⌘+E: they are written as JPEG files, to share or to print (󰈇 Exporting). Your RAW files are never changed.

§1.6 And then

󰔎 The interface is about the language and the colors of SilverNode, 󰍉 Het opdrachtenpalet finds every command by name, and the 󰌵 Tips system shows you faster ways to work, as you work.

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§2 󰋹 Your photos stay in their folders

SilverNode has no catalogue. There is nothing to import, and no database of all your photos somewhere on your computer that has to stay in step with them. You open a folder, and everything SilverNode knows about its photos is in that folder, next to them.

So a folder is complete on its own: copy it to a backup disk, move it to an archive, put it on another computer, rename it. Open it there in SilverNode and every edit, rating and rejection is still there. Nothing is lost when a folder moves, and nothing outside it has to come along.

§2.1 What is in a folder

A folder of photos after working in it with SilverNode:

Holiday 2024/
├── IMG_0412.CR2
├── IMG_0412.sna            your edit of IMG_0412.CR2
├── IMG_0413.CR2
├── IMG_0413.sna
├── ...
└── silvernode.thumb_db     thumbnails, to open the folder quickly

§2.1.1 Your RAW files are never changed

SilverNode only reads your RAW files. Everything you do to a photo is written next to it, in its sidecar file: the original stays exactly as the camera made it, and you can always go back to it.

§2.1.2 The sidecar files

Every photo you change gets a sidecar: a small file with the photo’s name and the extension .sna, in the same folder. It holds:

• your edit: every adjustment of 󱬠 Develop, the crop, the gradients;
• the rating and whether the photo is rejected;
• a rotation you gave it, and the lens correction you chose;
• what SilverNode learnt from looking at the photo, for AutoEdit: so it doesn’t have to look again.

A sidecar is plain text (JSON), readable in any text editor. SilverNode writes it as soon as something about the photo changes. Without its sidecar, a photo opens as it came from the camera.

A preset you apply is copied into each photo’s sidecar: the photos keep their look, also in a folder you archive, and on a computer that doesn’t have that preset.

§2.1.3 󰆼 The thumbnail database

silvernode.thumb_db keeps a small version of every photo of the folder, so that the 󰕰 Grid fills in an instant the next time you open it, instead of decoding every RAW file again. It holds the photos as they come from the camera; your edits are applied to them when they are shown.

It is only a cache: everything in it can be made again from the RAW files. You can delete it at any time, or leave it out of a backup to save space; SilverNode makes a new one the next time the folder is opened. The setting Use a thumbnail database turns it off altogether. When the disk of the folder is nearly full, SilverNode keeps it in your computer’s temporary folder instead.

§2.2 󰝰 Folders SilverNode makes

Only when you ask for it:

• rejected/: Afgekeurde foto's naar de afkeurmap verplaatsen moves the rejected photos there, each with its sidecar: out of the way, but not deleted.
• export_album/: where Export… (Exporting to files) puts the exported photos, unless you choose another folder.
• export/: where automatic export puts the photos.

§2.3 󰒓 What is not in the folder

What belongs to you rather than to a photo is kept in SilverNode’s own settings folder: the settings, your presets, your keyboard shortcuts, the folders the file browser had open, the license, and the log. None of it is needed to open a folder with its edits.

The undo history is not saved at all: it lasts while the folder is open.

Dit deel is nog niet vertaald: het staat er in het Engels.

§3 󰄀 Camera support

SilverNode doesn’t have a list of cameras of its own: it reads RAW files with the decoders of two other projects, and works with the cameras they know. That is most of them, but not all, and a camera in their lists can still be one SilverNode can’t use. This page says how a file is read, what SilverNode needs of a camera, and what to do if yours doesn’t load.

§3.1 How a file is read

When SilverNode opens a RAW file, it asks two decoders, one after the other:

1. RawSpeed, the decoder that darktable uses as well.
2. LibRaw, when RawSpeed doesn’t know the file.

Two kinds of files go to LibRaw straight away: Canon’s CR3 and Sony’s SRF. The first that succeeds is the one used: you don’t choose.

So the lists of those projects tell you most of what you want to know: LibRaw’s supported cameras, and, as darktable uses the same decoders, darktable’s camera support list is a good first indication.

§3.2 What SilverNode needs of a camera

A camera that the decoders read can still fall outside what SilverNode does. It needs:

• square pixels, and
• three color channels, with the RGB color model.

SilverNode develops the RAW data itself, and knows the usual layouts of the color filters on a sensor: the Bayer pattern most cameras have, and the X-Trans pattern of Fujifilm.

None of this can be settled from a list for every camera. To be fully sure, try SilverNode with photos of your camera before you buy it: the beta is there for that.

§3.3 When a photo doesn’t load

A file that SilverNode can’t read shows in the 󰕰 Grid as a tile with a crossed-out picture, and the reason in red:

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1. 1 The crossed-out picture: no photo could be made of this file.
2. 2 Why: the message of the decoder that gave up. Here, the file is no RAW file at all: Cannot determine file type.

The other photos of the folder are not affected. Usually a file that SilverNode can’t read is one of these:

• a camera the decoders don’t know yet: look for it in the lists above;
• a file that is damaged, or was cut short when it was copied: copy it from the card again;
• a file of a camera that does not fit what SilverNode needs (What SilverNode needs of a camera).

If your camera should work and doesn’t, send an email to support@silvernode.io, with the camera and the message from the tile; a sample file helps most. If you would like to try to add the camera yourself: Adding a camera yourself.

§3.4 Adding a camera yourself

RawSpeed and LibRaw are not built into SilverNode: both are linked dynamically, as libraries that come with it. That means you can build your own version of either, and use it in place of the one that comes with SilverNode, to experiment with support for a camera that isn’t known yet.

SilverNode’s builds are made from forks that expose the symbols it needs. The addresses are in SilverNode’s acknowledgements:

• RawSpeed, the fork: github.com/mcourteaux/rawspeed, from darktable-org/rawspeed.
• LibRaw: github.com/LibRaw/LibRaw, as listed there.

Both libraries are written in C++, so the library you build has to match the one SilverNode is built with: they have to agree on the C++ ABI. SilverNode is built with the Zig toolchain, which means Zig’s libc++ as the C++ standard library, and C++20 (-std=c++20). Build with Zig, or with clang against libc++, in C++20. A library built against another standard library, such as libstdc++, or with another C++ standard, can look as if it loads and still fail or crash.

Build the library from there, and put it where the one of SilverNode is. Keep a copy of the original, so that you can go back. SilverNode then reads the camera, as far as your change makes a decoder read the file: How a file is read says which decoder tries first, and which comes next. If it works, contribute your work to the project: that is the way to get your camera supported for everybody, in SilverNode and in the other programs that use that decoder.

§3.5 Your camera and your lens

The camera that took a photo is read from the file and shown with the photo’s details (󱬠 Develop at a glance). It also decides which lenses are candidates for lens correction: a camera the lens database doesn’t know is shown in red there (Letting SilverNode pick the lens).

Dit deel is nog niet vertaald: het staat er in het Engels.

§4 󰕰 Grid

The 󰕰 Grid shows every photo of the open folder as a tile: its file name, the photo with your edit, and its star rating. The 󰕰 Grid button at the top, or Naar raster Tab, comes back here from 󱬠 Develop. Double-click a tile to open the photo in 󱬠 Develop.

§4.1 󰕰 Grid at a glance

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1. 1 The menu bar: everything SilverNode can do, with its keys.
2. 2 󰕰 Grid, 󱬠 Develop and 󰒓 Settings: switch between them.
3. 3 󰌵 Tips: short tips about what you are doing. The light bulb lights up when there is a new one: see 󰌵 Tips.
4. 4 Your folders: point at one and click Open to see its photos here. See 󰝰 1. Open a folder.
5. 5 The toolbar: filters, tile size, reload and grouping. See 󰕰 Grid toolbar.
6. 6 The photos of the open folder. See 󰄭 Selecting photos, and 󰂫 Adjusting with the keys for adjusting them with the keys.
7. 7 Your presets, each shown on the photo you clicked last. Double-click one to put it on all selected photos; right-click it to rename or delete it.
8. 8 Click the narrow strip at the edge of the window to tuck the panel on that side away: it slides out again when the pointer reaches the edge. Click the strip once more to keep the panel open.

§4.2 󰄭 Selecting photos

A click selects one photo. Shift+click selects every photo from the selected one up to the one you click; Ctrl+click (⌘+click on a Mac) adds a photo to the selection, or takes it out. Most of what you do in the 󰕰 Grid works on all selected photos at once: rating, rotating, AutoEdit, pasting adjustments, adjusting with the keys.

With the keyboard:

• The arrow keys move from photo to photo, Page Down and Page Up a screen at a time, Home and End to the first and last.
• With Shift, the arrow keys grow the selection: Selectie naar rechts uitbreiden Shift⇧+→.
• Alles (de)selecteren A / Ctrl⌘+A: selects every photo, or none when all are selected already. Selectie wissen Esc.

§4.3 󰈈 Quick preview

Space shows the selected photo large, on top of the 󰕰 Grid. The arrow keys go to the next and previous photo while it is open, so you can look through a folder quickly; Space again closes it.

§4.4 󰓎 Rating and rejecting

Give the selected photos one to five stars with the number keys 1 to 5; 0 / ` takes the rating away again. Afgekeurd omschakelen X marks them as rejected, or not rejected anymore: a rejected photo stays in the 󰕰 Grid, dimmed, until you filter it out. These are in the Photo menu too. The stars also show at the bottom of each tile:

Keys drawn with a dashed border, like the number keys here, go by their place on the keyboard, not by what they type: on a keyboard where the key in the place of 1 types something else, press that key.

The rating and rejection are saved in the photo’s sidecar file, next to the RAW file, together with its edit.

§4.5 󰕰 Grid toolbar

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1. 1 The filter: which photos the 󰕰 Grid shows. It has three parts, the next three items: see 󰈲 Filtering.
2. 2 󰈈 󰩹 A toggle button: show the rejected photos.
3. 3 󰈈 󰗠 A toggle button: show the photos that are not rejected.
4. 4 Show only photos with at least this many stars.
5. 5 󰛬 󰛭 Smaller or larger tiles.
6. 6 󰑐 Reload: read the folder again, for photos added since it was opened.
7. 7 Group the photos: see 󱡠 Grouping.
8. 8 󰶼 󰶹 Jump to the previous or next group.

§4.6 󰈲 Filtering

The filter hides photos from the 󰕰 Grid; it doesn’t change or remove anything. It has three parts, in the toolbar (1), which work together: a photo is shown when the eye button for it is down, the first for a rejected photo and the second for the others, and when it has enough stars.

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1. 1 󰈈 󰩹 A toggle button, the first eye: it shows the rejected photos. A button that is down shows its photos; both start down. Switch it off to put the rejected photos out of sight.
2. 2 󰈈 󰗠 A toggle button, the second eye: it shows the photos that are not rejected. Switch it off to look at only the rejected ones. With both buttons off, no photo is shown.
3. 3 The stars: click a star to show only the photos with at least that many stars. Clicking the same star again shows all photos again. The stars hold for the rejected photos you show, too.

With the filter as in the figure, only the photos with four or five stars are left:

The View menu has the stars of the filter with keys: Alt⌥+3 shows the photos with at least three stars, and so on for the other numbers. Filters wissen Alt⌥+Backspace puts the whole filter back, all three parts: both eye buttons down and no minimum of stars, so all photos show again.

When the filter hides every photo, the 󰕰 Grid says so, with the number of photos in the folder. A photo you rate while a filter is on normally drops out of view at once; with the setting Re-apply filters immediately off, the filter is only applied again when you switch between the 󰕰 Grid and 󱬠 Develop.

§4.7 󱡠 Grouping

The grouping list in the toolbar (7) splits the 󰕰 Grid into groups with a title:

• By Date and By Month: when the photos were taken.
• By Camera and By Lens: what they were taken with.
• By Rating: one group per number of stars, and No stars.
• No Grouping: all photos together again.

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1. 1 The group’s title: here, the camera.
2. 2 Click the arrow before the title (󰅀) to fold the group away, and again (󰅂) to unfold it.
3. 3 The number of photos in the group, as the 󰕰 Grid shows them: with a filter on, the ones it lets through.

The jump buttons in the toolbar (8) scroll to the previous or next group: quicker than scrolling through a long folder.

§4.8 󰟄 The right-click menu

Right-click a photo for a round menu of what you can do with the selected photos: move towards an item and click.

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1. 1 󰑥 Rotate Left: a quarter turn, counterclockwise.
2. 2 󰑧 Rotate Right: a quarter turn, clockwise.
3. 3 󰁨 AutoEdit: SilverNode sets the exposure, white level and white balance of each selected photo, in one step that Ctrl⌘+Z takes back: see Applying AutoEdit.
4. 4 󰧑 Learn AutoEdit: teaches AutoEdit from how you edited the selected photos: see 󰧑 Teaching AutoEdit.
5. 5 󰁪 Reset All: takes every adjustment of the photos back to its start.
6. 6 󰈇 Export…: export the selected photos to files: see Exporting to files.
7. 7 󰆏 Export to clipboard: the same, to the clipboard: see 󰆏 Exporting to the clipboard.
8. 8 󰏌 Reveal…: show the RAW file in your file manager.

§4.9 󰁨 AutoEdit

AutoEdit looks at a photo and sets its exposure, white level and white balance for you, as a start to edit from. It works on the selected photos in the 󰕰 Grid, and on the open photo in 󱬠 Develop.

§4.9.1 Applying AutoEdit

Choose AutoEdit in the right-click menu or the Photo menu, or press Alt⌥+E. SilverNode looks at each photo and sets the three adjustments, in the background: for a whole selection it is one step that Ctrl⌘+Z takes back. Afterwards the sliders show what it chose, to refine from there, and in 󱬠 Develop the Edit Quality dial (1) says how sure AutoEdit is of its edit.

§4.9.2 󰧑 Teaching AutoEdit

AutoEdit sets those adjustments from values that come with SilverNode. Learn AutoEdit (AutoEdit: Leren Shift⇧+Alt⌥+E, in the Photo menu, and in 󱬠 Develop too) replaces them with your own taste: edit some photos by hand until you like them, select them in the 󰕰 Grid and choose Learn AutoEdit. From then on, AutoEdit edits other photos the way you edited those.

Each time, it starts over: what AutoEdit knew before is replaced by what it learns from the photos you have selected now, so select all the photos you want it to learn from together. What it learnt is kept while SilverNode is open, and is forgotten when you close it.

§4.10 󰂫 Adjusting with the keys

The keys that adjust a photo in 󱬠 Develop work here too, on the selected photos: 󰂫 Aanpassen met het toetsenbord en de muis describes them, from the keys to the cancelling. Select the photos you want to change, one or a whole group of them (a range with Shift+click, or Alles (de)selecteren A / Ctrl⌘+A), press the key, move the mouse, and click.

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1. 1 The selected photos: all of them change, by the same amount from where each of them is: one photo may be brighter than another to start with, and still is after it.
2. 2 What the keys are driving, next to the pointer. With a value in 󱬠 Develop; here without, as every photo has its own. See Tijdens het slepen.

The whole drag is one step to undo for all the photos, and a cancel puts every one of them back.

Dit deel is nog niet vertaald: het staat er in het Engels.

§5 󱬠 Develop

󱬠 Develop is where you edit one photo. The adjustments are in the panel on the right. Volgende foto → / Space and Vorige foto ← / Shift⇧+Space go through the photos of the folder; Naar raster Tab goes back to the 󰕰 Grid.

§5.1 󱬠 Develop at a glance

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1. 1 Image Quality and Edit Quality: how good SilverNode thinks the photo is, and how sure it is of the edit AutoEdit made for it, out of 20. They show a dash until AutoEdit has looked at the photo.
2. 2 The photo: its exposure settings, when it was taken, the camera, the lens, the author, the file and its size in pixels. When the camera doesn’t say exactly which lens it was, the lenses it could have been are listed: see 󰄄 Lens correction.
3. 3 Create preset: save the adjustments of this photo as a preset.
4. 4 Your presets, each shown on this photo. Double-click one to put it on this photo, and on the other photos selected in the 󰕰 Grid; right-click it to rename or delete it.
5. 5 The photo, with your edit. Hold Z to look at it at full size: see 󰍉 Zooming in.
6. 6 Its star rating: set it with the number keys, see 󰓎 Rating and rejecting.
7. 7 The histogram and the vectorscope: how the light and the colors of the edited photo are spread.
8. 8 The exposure settings of the photo, once more, below the scopes.
9. 9 The adjustments, from top to bottom: scroll down for more. See 󰘮 The adjustments.

The narrow strips at the left and right edge fold the side panels away, as in the 󰕰 Grid (8); Alle panelen omschakelen Shift⇧+N / Shift⇧+Tab folds both away at once, for a large photo, and brings them back.

§5.2 󰟄 The right-click menu

Right-click the photo for a round menu: move towards an item and click, or press the key in its corner while the menu is open. In gradient mode, the right-click opens the gradients’ menus instead.

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1. 1 󰑥 Rotate Left, Shift⇧+R: a quarter turn, counterclockwise.
2. 2 󰑧 Rotate Right, R: a quarter turn, clockwise.
3. 3 󰁪 Reset All, Backspace: takes every adjustment back to its start.
4. 4 󰁨 AutoEdit, A: SilverNode sets the exposure, white level and white balance, as AutoEdit in the 󰕰 Grid does; 󰧑 Teaching AutoEdit teaches it your taste.

These keys only pick an item of the open menu; Naar links draaien Ctrl⌘+R, Naar rechts draaien Ctrl⌘+Shift⇧+R and AutoEdit Alt⌥+E work without it.

§5.3 󰍉 Zooming in

The photo is fitted to the window. To judge detail, such as sharpness or noise, look at it at full size. It only changes how you look: the photo and your edit stay as they are. The histogram and vectorscope reflect the portion of the photo that is currently on-screen.

Hold Z with the pointer over the photo: the view glides to full size on the part under the pointer. Move the pointer to look around: the part of the fitted photo it is over is the part you see. Let go of Z and the photo is fitted again.

§5.3.1 Keeping the zoom

To keep looking at one place while you work, for instance to watch the detail change as you move a slider, lock the zoom:

• Press the left Shift while you hold Z, and let go of Z: the view stays, and the pointer is free again.
• Or press Shift⇧+Z, also in the View menu as Toggle zoom: it zooms in at the pointer and keeps the view there.

Press Z once, or Shift⇧+Z again, to fit the photo again.

§5.4 󰇉 Seeing the photo before

To judge what your edit does, look at the photo without it. Hold Esc over the photo: it shows the photo as it was, before any of your adjustments; let go, and your edit is back. It fades between the two; the setting Fade between before and after in 󰒓 Settings turns that off, and Before/after fade duration sets how long it takes.

EditedEsc held

In the 󰕰 Grid, Esc does the same for every photo at once.

§5.4.1 One adjustment at a time

Hold Esc with the pointer over a control of the adjustments panel, or over the heading of its section, and only what that control or section does switches off. The rest of your edit stays, so you can see what one adjustment contributes.

EditedEsc held over Saturation

Anywhere else, over the photo or the rest of the panel, Esc shows the whole before.

Dit deel is nog niet vertaald: het staat er in het Engels.

§5.6 󰘮 The adjustments

The adjustments are the panel at the right of 󱬠 Develop. From top to bottom: Quality & Detail, Crop & Straighten, Color Correction, Style and Lens Correction. Scroll down for the rest. Each control is a slider or a picture to drag in; a slider shows the key that adjusts it on its left, which you use as 󰂫 Aanpassen met het toetsenbord en de muis describes, and a double-click puts it back to its default. Everything is saved with the photo in its sidecar (The sidecar files), and a preset can hold any of it.

Hold Esc over a control or a section heading to see the photo without it (One adjustment at a time).

§5.6.1 󰂵 Quality & Detail

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1. 1 Denoise: how strongly sensor noise is smoothed away, from the RAW data itself. Zero leaves it as the sensor recorded it.
2. 2 Sharpening Strength: how strongly to sharpen.
3. 3 Sharpening Radius: how wide the sharpening reaches around an edge. Wide for coarse detail, narrow for fine.
4. 4 Color Denoise Strength: how strongly color speckle is smoothed away.
5. 5 Color Denoise Radius: how wide that color smoothing reaches.

Sharpening starts at a low strength, and color denoising at 80 %, because most photos need a little of both.

§5.6.2 󰚖 Crop & Straighten

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1. 1 Move: shifts the frame sideways and up or down over the photo.
2. 2 Rotation: turns the photo by a small angle, to level a horizon.
3. 3 Perspective: corrects converging lines, as in a photo of a building taken from below; one slider for each direction.
4. 4 Aspect Ratio: the shape of the frame: Original, the shape the camera made, or 1:1 Square, 3:2, 4:3, 5:4, 16:9, 21:9 and 45:35 (ID-card).
5. 5 The flip button: turns the shape on its side, from landscape to portrait. See below.
6. 6 Crop-In: how far the frame is pulled in from the edges, from 1, the whole photo, up to 4.

You never fit the frame by hand: whatever you rotate, correct or move, it is the largest frame of the chosen shape that fits inside the photo, so no empty corner shows. 󰚖 Uitsnijden met de toetsen describes cropping with the keys.

§5.6.2.1 The aspect ratio flip button

The shape you choose has a long side and a short side, and the frame is landscape by default. The flip button next to Aspect Ratio turns it on its side: a 3:2 frame becomes 2:3, 16:9 becomes 9:16. It is a switch: it stays down while the frame is flipped, and pressing it again flips it back. It works with every shape, including Original, which becomes the camera’s shape turned on its side. The choice is saved with the crop.

3:2Flipped: 2:3

§5.6.3 󰖨 Color Correction

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1. 1 Advanced: shows the controls that are rarely needed: The advanced white balance.
2. 2 Temperature: the color of the light the photo was taken in, in Kelvin.
3. 3 Tint: from green to magenta, for light that is not on the daylight-to-tungsten scale of the temperature.
4. 4 White Level: from 0 to 2: where the photo reaches white. Lowering it brightens the photo, raising it darkens it.
5. 5 Exposure, in EV: one EV doubles the light.

§5.6.3.1 󱧡 Highlight reconstruction

Where the sensor was blown out, a channel clipped to white and the color is gone with it. SilverNode rebuilds a color for those places instead of leaving them white or tinted.

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1. 1 The color wheel: the color the highlights are rebuilt towards.
2. 2 threshold, from 0.9 to 1.1: the level at which a channel counts as clipped. Lower catches more of the bright parts. Some cameras incorrectly advertise their maximum sensor value; this slider lets you correct that.
3. 3 smooth: how softly the repair blends in: higher starts blending well below the threshold.
4. 4 segment: where the color comes from. At 0, from the color wheel everywhere. At 1, estimated from the photo’s own colors around each spot; in between, a mix.

§5.6.3.2 The advanced white balance

Tick Advanced for a closer look at how the white balance works:

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1. 1 Eye Domain: the color space the white balance is calculated in. CIECAM02 is the choice to start with; XYZ, VonKries and Bradford are the classic alternatives, and look a little different.
2. 2 Source Illuminant: the light the photo was taken under, on a chromaticity diagram. Pick a point, and Temperature and Tint follow.
3. 3 Destination Illuminant: the light the photo should look as if it was taken under, from 5000 to 7000 K. 6500 K is the standard daylight of a screen.

§5.6.4 󰏘 Style

§5.6.4.1 Color balance

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1. 1 Shadows, Midtones and Highlights: a wheel for the tint of each part of the tonal range. Drag the point away from the middle toward a color: the further, the stronger. Only the color changes, the brightness stays.

§5.6.4.2 Detail and tone

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1. 1 Homomorphic Filtering: evens out large brightness differences across the photo. Shape it with the curve: drag its points. The straight line in the middle leaves the photo as it is.
2. 2 Texture Boost: brings out fine surface detail. Below zero it does the opposite.
3. 3 Quick Denoise: a cheap, fast noise reduction.
4. 4 Histogram Equalization: spreads the tones out to use the full range.

§5.6.4.3 Contrast

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1. 1 Contrast: the difference between light and dark.
2. 2 Contrast Locality: whether contrast is applied over the whole photo or within small areas of it.
3. 3 Contrast Turning Point: the brightness contrast pivots around. With more contrast, what is brighter than it gets brighter, and what is darker gets darker.
4. 4 The tone curve: input brightness along the bottom, output up the side. The diagonal leaves the photo alone. Its background shows what Contrast does at the moment.

In a curve, click the line to add a point and drag a point to move it. Double-click a point to delete it, and double-click anywhere else in the curve to put the curve back to its default.

§5.6.4.4 Primary calibration and saturation

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1. 1 Primary Calibration: the hue and the saturation of the red, green and blue, one pair for each: it matches the camera’s own color response.
2. 2 Saturation: how intense all colors are. Minus all the way is black and white.

§5.6.4.5 Hue, saturation and luminance

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1. 1 The top curve changes a color’s hue.
2. 2 The middle curve changes its saturation.
3. 3 The bottom curve changes its luminance, the brightness.

Each curve works on one color at a time: across the curve, from left to right, are the colors of the rainbow, and the height is what to do to a color: the flat line in the middle leaves all colors as they are; pull a point up or down to shift, strengthen or darken that color only. It wraps around: the end at the right meets the start at the left, so that red can be reached from both sides. The curves are edited like the tone curve.

§5.6.5 󰄄 Lens correction

Every lens draws straight lines a little bent, darkens the corners, and puts colored fringes along edges, wide-angle and zoom lenses most. SilverNode knows how many lenses do this, from the Lensfun lens database, and can undo it once it knows which lens took the photo: the Lens Correction section of the adjustments finds the lens, and you choose what to correct.

Corrections offCorrections on

§5.6.5.1 Why the lens has to be chosen

Every lens bends, darkens and fringes in its own way, so the correction has to be the one measured for your lens, at the focal length and aperture of the photo. SilverNode must know which lens it was, and the photo often doesn’t say:

• Many lenses don’t tell the camera anything. Older lenses without electronics, and lenses on an adapter, leave no information about themselves in the photo.
• Most lenses that do talk to the camera don’t give an identity either. They report their properties: the range of focal lengths and the widest apertures. The Nikon D-series cameras are typical for this. A property such as a 24 to 70 mm zoom with f/2.8 describes more than one lens: several makers sell one, and each has its own distortion.

So SilverNode looks for the lenses in the database that fit what the photo says, and shows them with a ring for how well each fits. When the photo says enough, one stands out and is picked for you. When it doesn’t, the lens you know you used is one of the candidates, and for a lens that said nothing, you choose from all of them (Choosing from all the lenses).

§5.6.5.2 Letting SilverNode pick the lens

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1. 1 The camera (󰄀), as the database knows it, with its crop factor when it isn’t 1. In red when the database doesn’t know the camera: then choose the lens yourself (Choosing from all the lenses).
2. 2 Show all lenses: see Choosing from all the lenses.
3. 3 The lens SilverNode picked, described by three symbols: its mount, its maker and its model (see below). It is the one that fits best what the camera wrote into the photo: the lens’s name, its focal lengths and its aperture. Click it for the other candidates (How well a lens matches).
4. 4 The ring: how well the lens matches. Full and green is a close match.
5. 5 What to correct: Distortion straightens lines the lens bent, Vignetting lightens the corners it darkened, and TCA (transverse chromatic aberration) removes the colored fringes it put along edges. All three start off. One that is dimmed has no data for this lens in the database.

Three symbols stand before what describes a lens, here and wherever lenses are listed:

• 󰌷 the mount: the type of lens mount, which says which cameras the lens fits on, such as Canon EF or Sony E. A lens can come with several (One lens, several mounts);
• 󰈏 the maker: the company that made the lens;
• 󰄄 the model: the lens itself, by its name. The aperture iris of the symbol is the diaphragm inside a lens.

A mount that doesn’t fit the camera is shown in red, with a warning sign (󰀨): see How well a lens matches and One lens, several mounts.

SilverNode picks the lens when you open the photo, and keeps your choice with the photo (The sidecar files). When the camera doesn’t say exactly which lens it was, the photo’s details at the left (󱬠 Develop at a glance) list the lenses it could have been.

§5.6.5.3 How well a lens matches

Click the lens to see the candidates, the best match first. The ring before each one rates it, from full and green for a close match, through yellow, to nearly empty and red for a poor one.

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1. 1 The best match, with a full green ring.
2. 2 A weaker match: the ring is emptier and has turned towards yellow.
3. 3 A lens for another mount than the camera’s. Its mount and a warning sign are in red, and its ring is almost empty: the entry doesn’t list this camera’s mount, so it is most likely a lens for another camera system (One lens, several mounts).

If the first one isn’t your lens, pick yours from the list.

§5.6.5.3.1 One lens, several mounts

A lens maker often sells the same lens with different mounts: Sigma makes some of its lenses with a Nikon F mount, and with a Canon EF mount, for instance. The optics are the same, and so is the correction, so the lens database lists such a lens once, with all its mounts, and not once for each. SilverNode treats it like that:

• A lens that has your camera’s mount among its mounts shows that mount, in the normal color, whichever mount is first in the entry. On a Nikon and on a Canon the same Sigma entry is a good match, and shows a different mount.
• A lens that doesn’t list your camera’s mount shows the first mount it does list, in red with the warning sign, and comes out lower in the list. That is usually a lens for another camera system. But if your mount is missing from the entry for your lens, or you use an adapter, it can be exactly the right one: choose it, the correction belongs to the lens.
• With Choosing from all the lenses, such a lens is in the list of each of its mounts: pick Canon EF, or pick Nikon F, and find the same Sigma lens.

§5.6.5.4 Choosing from all the lenses

Show all lenses replaces the list of candidates with every lens in the database, to narrow down yourself. SilverNode switches it on by itself when the lens you chose earlier isn’t among the automatic candidates. It is also the way to a lens the camera doesn’t report correctly, such as an adapted lens.

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1. 1 Tick it again to go back to the candidates.
2. 2 󰌷 Mount: the lens mount. It starts at the one that fits the camera; All mounts shows every one. A mount narrows the makers and the models to what fits it.
3. 3 󰈏 Maker: the company that made the lens, narrowing the models too. [All Lens Makers] doesn’t narrow them.
4. 4 󰄄 Model: the lens, from those that fit the mount and the maker above, listed by name. It is the one SilverNode corrects for.

§5.6.5.5 If your lens is not in the list

First look under Show all lenses: the lens may be listed under another maker, another name, or another mount than you expect (One lens, several mounts). If it really is not there, SilverNode doesn’t know your lens yet, and there is nothing to correct with until it does. The lens data is the database of the Lensfun project, which is made by photographers who measure their lenses, and which SilverNode takes as it is. There are two ways to a lens SilverNode knows:

• Add it to Lensfun, and let me know. Lensfun explains how to calibrate a lens and add it to its database. Once your lens is in the Lensfun database on GitHub, send an email to support@silvernode.io, and the lens database of SilverNode is updated, for you and for everyone else who has that lens.
• Add it yourself, now. The lens database is a set of XML files in the res/silvernode/lensfun folder of SilverNode. It comes with the SilverNode package, next to the silvernode program. SilverNode reads every .xml file in it when it starts: add your lens as a <lens> entry to the file of its maker or camera system, or to a file of your own, and start SilverNode again. The files are named after the kind of camera first: mil- is for mirrorless cameras and slr- for single-lens reflex cameras (mil-sigma.xml, slr-canon.xml), and compact- for compact cameras.

An entry is Lensfun’s own format; the quickest start is to copy the entry of a similar lens from the files, or from Lensfun, and change it. The shape of it:

<lensdatabase version="2">
    <lens>
        <maker>Sigma</maker>
        <model>Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM</model>
        <mount>Nikon F AF</mount>
        <mount>Canon EF</mount>
        <focal min="10" max="20"/>
        <aperture min="4" max="32"/>
        <cropfactor>1.620</cropfactor>
        <calibration>
            <!-- the measured distortion, vignetting and tca -->
        </calibration>
    </lens>
</lensdatabase>

The <model> should be the name of the lens as it comes out of a photo: what the program exiv2 prints as the lens for a RAW file taken with that lens. SilverNode doesn’t use exiv2: it reads the metadata with neonEXIF, a free and open-source library of its own, which tries to give names that SilverNode can match to the entries of the database, also when they differ a little. The Lensfun database has its own rules about names and entries, which are not SilverNode’s to decide: follow Lensfun’s.

The <mount> is a name already in the files: the ones in the Mount list (Choosing from all the lenses); a lens that comes with several mounts lists them all, as in One lens, several mounts. The numbers in <calibration> come from measuring the lens, as Lensfun’s page describes; a lens with no calibration is found, but has nothing to correct with. A mistake in the XML stops SilverNode from loading the lens database, so keep a copy of the original file.

If you calibrate a lens yourself, I highly recommend that you contribute your work to the Lensfun database. Anyone with that lens, in SilverNode and in the other programs that use Lensfun, can then correct it too, and you don’t need to keep your own copy of the XML up to date.

Dit deel is nog niet vertaald: het staat er in het Engels.

§7 󰈇 Exporting

Exporting writes your edited photos out as JPEG files, to share or to print: to a folder, or to the clipboard. Your RAW files and sidecars are not touched (Your RAW files are never changed). Both ways are in the Export menu. Files are exported from the 󰕰 Grid, the selected photos; the clipboard also from 󱬠 Develop, the photo you are editing. With nothing selected, SilverNode says so.

§7.1 Exporting to files

Geselecteerde foto's exporteren als album... Ctrl⌘+E, in the 󰕰 Grid, or Export… in its right-click menu, opens the export panel for the selected photos. Esc closes it without exporting.

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1. 1 Path: the folder the files go to. It starts as the export_album folder inside the folder you opened (󰝰 Folders SilverNode makes); a folder that doesn’t exist yet is made when you export. If SilverNode can’t use the path, it marks the field and tells you.
2. 2 What the files are called. With Use original name each file is named like its RAW file, IMG_0412.jpg, and the rest isn’t used. Without, the name is the Prefix, then the Counter, then the Suffix: the counter counts up over the photos in the order they are in the grid, as many Digits as you give it (4 makes 0007), from Start, going up by Step for each photo. Here that is Holiday-0000.jpg, Holiday-0001.jpg, and so on.
3. 3 Format: JPEG, the format SilverNode writes. Quality, from 1 to 100: how much the file is compressed. Higher is closer to what you see, and a larger file. It starts at the setting JPEG quality in 󰒓 Settings.
4. 4 Bit depth: how many bits each color channel is stored in. 8 bit, the recommended one, is what nearly every photo needs.
5. 5 Resize: Full Resolution keeps the photo’s own size. Percentage scales it (5 to 100 %). Fit Longest Edge, Fit Shortest Edge, Fit Width and Fit Height set that side in pixels and let the other follow, so a photo is never stretched. Each shows the field for its number: here, the longer side of every photo becomes 2500 pixels.
6. 6 Save EXIF metadata: the shooting information the camera recorded, copied into each file. On to start with.
7. 7 Preview destination paths: the first three files these settings make, with their full paths. Look here before you export.
8. 8 󰈇 The button starts the export. It says how many photos it is for. The photos are exported one by one in the background, and the panel closes. If one fails, SilverNode tells you.

The photos are rendered at full resolution with your edit, then resized.

§7.2 󰆏 Exporting to the clipboard

To paste photos straight into a chat, a mail or a document, without a file in between: Geselecteerde foto's exporteren naar klembord... Ctrl⌘+Shift⇧+E, or Export to clipboard in the right-click menu of the 󰕰 Grid.

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1. 1 The same image settings as above: format, quality, bit depth, resize and EXIF. There is no destination, and no names: nothing is written to a folder.
2. 2 󰈇 Export to Clipboard puts the result on the clipboard, and closes the panel.

What you paste depends on how many photos you exported. One photo goes on the clipboard as a picture: paste it into an image editor, a chat, a document. Several go as files, as if you had copied them in a file manager: paste them into a folder or a mail. They are JPEG files in a temporary folder, named 0000_ and so on, then the RAW file’s name.

§7.3 󰁩 Exporting automatically

Export automatically when leaving a photo, in the Export menu and as the setting Export automatically, exports with no panel. When you move on from a photo in 󱬠 Develop, to another photo or back to the 󰕰 Grid, SilverNode writes it as a JPEG, named like the RAW file, in the export folder next to it, at full size and the JPEG quality setting.

Dit deel is nog niet vertaald: het staat er in het Engels.

§8 󰕌 Undo and Redo

Whatever you do to your photos, you can take it back. Ongedaan maken Ctrl⌘+Z undoes the last step, and Opnieuw Ctrl⌘+Shift⇧+Z / Ctrl⌘+Y puts back a step you undid. Both are in the Photo menu, in the part called History, and the menu says which step they act on:

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1. 1 Undo, with the name of the step: here Exposure.
2. 2 Redo, with the name of the step you undid. It is dimmed while there is nothing to redo.

§8.1 What is a step

A step is one thing you did, however many photos or sliders it touched:

• Dragging a slider is one step, from when you press until you let go, and so is an adjustment with the keys (󰂫 Aanpassen met het toetsenbord en de muis), from the key to the click that keeps it. A drag you cancel isn’t a step at all.
• A command over a selection is one step for all the selected photos: rotating thirty photos, AutoEdit, applying a preset, or Reset All. One Undo takes it back for all of them.
• Setting or taking away a rating, or marking a photo as rejected (󰓎 Rating and rejecting), is a step too.

Steps are named after what changed: Exposure, Temperature & Tint, Crop, Gradients, Rating, Apply Preset, and so on; when one step changed several adjustments, Several Adjustments. A change that ends up the same as it was leaves no step.

Only changes to the photos are steps: their adjustments, their rating and whether they are rejected. Changing what you see (the selection, the filter, the zoom, the workspace) isn’t, and neither are exporting, settings or making a preset.

§8.2 Where Undo takes you

Undo and Redo go back to where the change was made, so that you see it happen: in 󱬠 Develop they open the photo it was about, and in the 󰕰 Grid they select the same photos again and scroll to them, from anywhere in the folder. The workspace switches too, if you have gone to the other one since.

Undo works through the steps in the opposite order you made them, as far back as the history goes, and Redo goes forward again. As soon as you make a new change, what you could redo is gone.

§8.3 How far back

The history holds the last 100 steps; when it is full, the oldest goes. The setting Undo history length in 󰒓 Settings changes the number, from 1 to 1000. Changing it starts an empty history.

The history lives in memory only. It is emptied when you open a different folder, and gone when you close SilverNode: the edits themselves are saved as usual (The sidecar files), but not the steps to take them back. A step for a photo that is no longer in the folder is skipped.

Dit deel is nog niet vertaald: het staat er in het Engels.

§11 󰔎 The interface

How SilverNode looks, and the language it speaks, are in the Interface part of 󰒓 Settings. SilverNode remembers what you choose. The look changes at once, while you watch.

§11.1 󰖟 Language

SilverNode speaks 19 languages: English, Spanish (Español), French (Français), German (Deutsch), Italian (Italiano), Portuguese (Português), Russian (Русский), Turkish (Türkçe), Serbian (Српски), Croatian (Hrvatski), Macedonian (Македонски), Hungarian (Magyar), Chinese, simplified (简体中文), Dutch (Nederlands), Finnish (Suomi), Swedish (Svenska), Norwegian (Norsk bokmål), Danish (Dansk) and Polish (Polski).

It starts in English. Choose another in the View menu, under 󰖟 Language: each language is listed by its own name and its English name, so you can find yours whichever language is showing.

The setting Language in 󰒓 Settings is the same choice. Menus, the command palette and dialogs change over right away; the panels that were built when SilverNode started follow the next time it starts. SilverNode remembers the language you chose.

The keys of a command stay the same in every language, and so do your photos’ sidecars: a folder edited in one language opens the same in all others.

§11.2 󰔎 Color scheme

SilverNode comes in a dark and a light color scheme. Choose in the View menu, where Colors: Dark, Colors: Light and Colors: Follow the system are a choice of one, or with the setting Color scheme in the Interface settings.

• Dark: light text on a dark background.
• Light: dark text on a light background.
• Auto in the settings, Follow the system in the menu: whichever the operating system is set to.

DarkLight

§11.3 󰏘 Accent color

The accent is the color of what you can use and what is on: the buttons, the ticks, the filled part of a slider. The setting Accent hue picks it: a slider from 0 to 1, with the hues it can be as its background, and a value between them is a hue between those. Move it, and the interface follows.

Accent hue 0.05Accent hue 0.6

§11.4 󰘇 Corner roundness

Corner roundness is how round the corners of the buttons, fields and panels are, from 0 px, square, to 10 px, as round as it goes. It starts at 3 px.

Roundness 0 pxRoundness 10 px

Two more settings next to it adjust the same: Border thickness, how thick the borders of the buttons and fields are (0 to 2 px), and Interface contrast, how far apart the light and dark tones of the interface sit. They are a matter of taste. Every setting has a button next to it that puts it back to how it came.