Library

Wähle die Bilder in der Ansicht Leuchttisch und im Filmstreifen aus, mit Verwenden von Bilder-Merkmalen. So ausgewählte Bilder werden als eine Sammlung bezeichnet.

Importing images into Ansel stores information about them (filename, path, Exif data, data from XMP sidecar files etc.) in Ansel’s library database. A collection is defined by applying filtering rules to these attributes, thus creating a subset of images to display in the lighttable view and the filmstrip module.

Die Standardsammlung ist immer das Filmrolle-Merkmal. Es werden alle Bilder des letzten Importes oder einer angewählten Filmrolle angezeigt.

The three tabs

The Library module is organised in three tabs, each tuned to a different way of building a collection. The tabs share a single value list (the box at the bottom that shows the available values for the active attribute, along with the image count for each value).

Folders

Browse and manage the folders and film rolls known to Ansel. The View selector at the top of this tab switches between a flat List of film rolls and a hierarchical Tree of folders. This is the tab where you relocate or remove film rolls (one at a time or in batches). It corresponds to a single film roll or folder rule.

Collections

Browse and manage your tags, shown as a hierarchical tree. Besides selecting images by tag, this is where you rename or delete tags (in batches). It corresponds to a single tag rule.

Queries

Build an arbitrary collection from one or more rules, combining any of the image attributes with logical operators. This tab also exposes a raw SQL escape hatch for power users.

Switching tabs only reconfigures the controls and refreshes the value list; it does not re-run the collection query. The collection is only rebuilt when you actually click a value or edit a rule.

Filtering attributes

The images in a collection can be filtered using the following image attributes. All of them are available in the Queries tab; the Folders and Collections tabs are pre-set to the folder/film-roll and tag attributes respectively.

Files

film roll

The name of the film roll to which the image belongs (which is the same as the name of the folder in which the image resides). In the Folders tab, choose List in the View selector to browse film rolls. Right-click a film roll to remove its contents from the Ansel library, or to tell Ansel that its location has changed in the file system (see updating the folder path of moved images).

folder

The folder (file path) where the image file is located. In the Folders tab, choose Tree in the View selector to browse the folder hierarchy. Click a folder to select its images; enable the include sub-folders checkbox to also include every image located in its sub-folders. Right-click a folder to remove its contents from the Ansel library or to relocate it.

Dateiname

Der Dateiname des Bildes.

Metadata

tag

Any tag that is attached to the image. Untagged images are grouped under the “not tagged” entry. Tags are displayed as a hierarchical list.

Titel

Der Titel des Bildes gemäß dem Metadaten-Eintrag im Feld Titel.

Beschreibung

Die Beschreibung des Bildes gemäß dem Metadaten-Eintrag im Feld Beschreibung.

Urheber

Der Urheber des Bildes gemäß dem Metadaten-Eintrag im Feld Urheber.

Herausgeber

Der Herausgeber des Bildes gemäß dem Metadaten-Eintrag im Feld Herausgeber.

Rechte

Die Rechte am Bild gemäß dem Metadaten-Eintrag im Feld Rechte.

Notizen

Metadaten zum Bild im Feld “notes”.

Versionsname

Metadaten zum Bild im Feld “version name”.

rating

The image’s star rating.

Farbmarkierung

Jede Farbmarkierung, die dem Bild zugewiesen wurde (“rot”, “gelb”, “grün”, “blau”, “violett”).

geotagging

The geo location of the image (see locations).

Times

date taken

The date the photo was taken, in the format YYYY:MM:DD.

date-time taken

The date & time the photo was taken, in the format YYYY:MM:DD hh:mm:ss.

import timestamp

The date/time the file was imported, in the format YYYY:MM:DD hh:mm:ss.

change timestamp

The date/time the file’s history stack was last changed, in the format YYYY:MM:DD hh:mm:ss.

export timestamp

The date/time the file was last exported, in the format YYYY:MM:DD hh:mm:ss.

print timestamp

The date/time the file was last printed, in the format YYYY:MM:DD hh:mm:ss.

Capture details

Kamera

Die Exifdaten für die Kamera Marke und das Modell.

Objektiv

Die Exifdaten für das Objektiv Marke und das Modell.

Blende

Die Blendenöffnung, aus den Exifdaten.

Belichtung

Die Belichtungszeit, aus den Exifdaten.

Brennweite

Die Brennweite aus den Exifdaten.

ISO

Die ISO Einstellung, aus den Exifdaten.

Ansel

Gruppieren

Wähle zwischen “Gruppenführer” und “Gruppenmitglieder”.

local copy

Show files that are, or are not, copied locally.

Verlauf

Wähle Bilder, deren Verlauf der Bearbeitung geändert wurde oder nicht.

Modul

Filter basierend auf Dunkelkammer-Modulen, die auf das Bild angewandt wurden.

Modulreihenfolge

Wähle Bilder mit “v3.0”, “veraltet” oder benutzerdefinierter Modulreihenfolge.

The Folders tab

view selector

The combobox at the top toggles between a flat List of film rolls and a hierarchical Tree of folders.

include sub-folders

When the Tree view is active, this checkbox controls whether clicking a folder also includes the images contained in all of its sub-folders. Internally it appends a * wildcard to the folder path; if you type a path ending in * or % by hand, the checkbox updates itself to stay in sync.

sort by / sort direction

Choose whether film rolls are ordered by name (folder path) or by id (roughly the order in which they were first imported), and toggle ascending/descending order. These controls only affect the flat List view (the Tree is always sorted by path), so they are hidden in the Tree view.

folder levels

The number of folder levels shown in film-roll names, counting from the right. Only meaningful (and only shown) in the List view.

You can drag images from the lighttable/filmstrip and drop them onto a folder or film-roll row to physically move the files into that folder (see drag and drop).

Right-click a folder or film-roll row for management actions: remove from library…, relocate…, or pre-render thumbnails (fills the on-disk thumbnail cache for every image in the selected folders, as a background task).

The Collections tab

This tab lists your tags as a hierarchical tree. Click a tag to filter the collection by it:

• click a tag to include that tag and all of its sub-tags (appends the * suffix);
• shift+click to include only the exact tag, not its sub-tags (no suffix);
• ctrl+click to include only the sub-tags, excluding the tag itself (appends the |% suffix).

You can drag images from the lighttable/filmstrip and drop them onto a tag row to attach that tag to them (see drag and drop).

Right-click a tag to rename it, to delete one or more selected tags (deleting a tag also detaches it from every image), or to pre-render thumbnails of the tagged images.

no ‘uncategorized’ group

When enabled, tags that have no children are not grouped under a synthetic “uncategorized” entry.

The Queries tab

This tab is the general-purpose collection builder.

Defining filter criteria

Each rule is made of an attribute selector, an optional comparison operator, and a search field:

image attribute

The combobox on the left chooses which attribute the rule filters on.

comparison operator

For numeric, date/time and rating attributes, a small operator selector appears between the attribute and the search field, offering =, <, ≤, >, ≥ and ≠. It is hidden for text attributes.

search pattern

In the text field, write a matching pattern. This pattern is compared against all database entries with the selected attribute, matching if the attribute contains the pattern. Use % as a wildcard. Leave the field empty to match all images that have the attribute. Where applicable, a tooltip appears when you hover over the attribute or the search field.

Numeric and date/time attributes can also be combined with the comparison operators above, or with a range expressed as [from;to] (inclusive on both ends).

select by value

Instead of typing, you can pick from the value list below the search field. It shows the values of the selected attribute that are present in the currently-matching images, with the image count for each, and updates continuously as you type. Clicking a value populates the search field automatically. For numeric and date-time attributes you can select a range of values by clicking the first and last entries.

Combining multiple filters

You can combine several rules to build more complex collections. Each rule beyond the first carries a logical operator that defines how it combines with the rules above it.

Click the button at the end of a rule row to open a menu:

clear this rule

Remove the current rule, or reset it if it is the only rule defined.

narrow down search

Add a new rule combined with the previous rule(s) using a logical AND. An image is kept only if it also satisfies the new criteria.

add more images

Add a new rule combined with the previous rule(s) using a logical OR. Images that satisfy the new criteria are added to the collection.

exclude images

Add a new rule combined with the previous rule(s) using a logical AND NOT (except). Images that satisfy the new criteria are removed from the collection.

The button of each non-final rule shows its current operator (AND, OR or AND NOT). Click it to change the operator for that rule.

Raw SQL queries

For advanced needs that the rule builder cannot express, enable edit as raw SQL on the Queries tab. This directly exposes the SQL backend that is actually used underneath the GUI in other modes, where the GUI only builds SQL queries from more user-friendly (and standardized) controls.

The text field then accepts a single SQL WHERE expression that is injected directly into the collection query against your local library database. Press Enter to run it.

This is a power-user escape hatch:

• The expression is not sanitised — it is your responsibility to write valid SQL.
• It is read-only: the expression can only filter rows, it cannot modify the database.
• A malformed expression makes the underlying query fail gracefully and yields an empty collection; it does not crash Ansel.
• Enabling raw SQL replaces all the rules currently defined in the Queries tab. Disabling it returns to a single empty film-roll rule.

Your expression is evaluated against one row per image. The following columns are available directly (they come from the images table); their names, SQL types and meaning are:

Examples:

1iso > 800 AND lens LIKE '%50mm%'

1aperture <= 2.8 AND exposure < 0.004

Because the date/time columns are stored as integer microseconds, filtering on them in raw SQL is awkward — for date ranges, prefer the dedicated date taken, import timestamp, etc. rules of the standard builder, which accept human-readable YYYY:MM:DD text.

The columns above are the ones exposed directly to the expression. Attributes that live in other tables (tags, metadata, color labels, edit history, folder paths) are not columns of this row, but you can still reference them through a sub-query on the image id. The relevant library tables are:

• main.tagged_images(imgid, tagid) joined with data.tags(id, name, synonyms) — tags;
• main.meta_data(id, key, value) — title, description and the other text metadata;
• main.color_labels(imgid, color) — color labels (0=red, 1=yellow, 2=green, 3=blue, 4=purple);
• main.history(imgid, operation, …) — applied modules / edit history;
• main.film_rolls(id, folder) — film-roll folder paths.

For example, to select images tagged under landscape:

1id IN (SELECT imgid FROM main.tagged_images ti
2       JOIN data.tags t ON t.id = ti.tagid
3       WHERE t.name LIKE 'landscape%')

Drag and drop

You can drag images out of the lighttable or the filmstrip and drop them directly onto a row of the Library module. What happens depends on the kind of row you drop them on — a folder/film-roll row, or a tag row:

flowchart TD
    A["Select one or more images
in the lighttable or filmstrip"] --> B["Drag them onto a row
of the Library module"]
    B --> C{"Row under the cursor?"}
    C -->|"folder / film roll
(Folders tab)"| D{"Confirm the move?"}
    C -->|"tag
(Collections tab)"| G["Attach the tag to the images
(no file is moved)"]
    D -->|yes| E["Files are physically moved on disk
into that folder, and the
library database is updated"]
    D -->|no| F["Nothing happens"]
    E --> H["The film-roll/tag tree and the
lighttable refresh automatically"]
    G --> H

The drop always applies to the single row located under the mouse cursor when you release the button, regardless of which rows happen to be selected.

drop on a folder or film roll

The dragged images are physically moved on disk into that folder (a film roll is created for the folder if one does not exist yet), and the library is updated to match. Because this touches the file system, you are asked to confirm first. Any duplicates of the moved images follow along.

drop on a tag

The tag of the row is attached to the dragged images. This only edits metadata — no file is moved on disk — and the change is written to the images’ XMP sidecars.

Updating the folder path of moved images

While it is best not to touch imported files behind Ansel’s back, this module can help you recover when you have moved or renamed image folders after importing them. The process is:

1. Open the Folders tab.
2. A film roll or folder whose location can no longer be found on disk is shown with strikethrough formatting.
3. Right-click the folder or film roll name and select relocate…, then choose the new location of the folder. Selecting several rows first lets you relocate them in one operation by picking their new common parent folder.

This updates Ansel’s library database only; it does not move any files on disk.

Returning to a previous collection

Your recent collections are kept in a history list. You can revert to a previously-defined collection from the collections entry in the top menu bar, which lists the most recent collections you have used. The number of remembered collections is configurable from the preferences of that recent-collections list (number of collections to be stored).

Settings

The Library module no longer hides its settings behind a separate “preferences…” popup: every setting now lives directly in the relevant tab.

do not set the ‘uncategorized’ entry for tags

The no ‘uncategorized’ group checkbox on the Collections tab. When enabled, tags that have no children are not grouped under a synthetic “uncategorized” entry (default off).

number of folder levels to show in lists

The folder levels spinner on the Folders tab (List view). The number of folder levels to show in film-roll names, counting from the right (default 1).

sort film rolls by

The sort by selector on the Folders tab (List view). Sort film rolls by either their name (folder path) or id (roughly equivalent to the date the film rolls were first imported) (default “id”).

sort collection descending

The sort direction toggle on the Folders tab. Sorts “film roll” (when sorted by folder), “folder”, and date/time attributes (e.g. date taken) in descending order (default on).