Beyond editing pixels, Ansel keeps track of your images and the work you do on them. This is digital asset management (DAM): organizing, describing, rating, grouping and safeguarding your collection so it stays searchable and recoverable over time.

The pages in this section cover how that information is stored and used:

• Sidecar files — how edits and metadata are saved alongside your originals as XMP files, and importing sidecars from other software.
• Star ratings & color labels — ranking and classifying images for culling.
• Metadata and tagging — descriptive text and keywords.
• Image grouping — stacking related images together.
• Local copies — working off-site and re-synchronizing later.
• Thumbnails — how previews are generated and cached.