Studio Capture is a dedicated view for tethered shooting sessions. Instead of switching back to Lighttable every time a new photo lands on disk, this view watches a folder, imports new captures automatically, optionally applies a set of styles to them, and always shows you the latest shot full-size — with the filmstrip below to review the rest of the session.

{{ warning }} Studio Capture doesn’t support yet control and loading images directly from a camera. You need to use a third party program such as Digikam or Entangle to take and download images in a local folder. {{ /warning }}

It sits alongside Lighttable, Darkroom, Map and Print in the global menu “Ateliers”.

Quick start

1. Open Studio Capture in the global menu “Ateliers”.
2. In Auto import, choose the folder your camera or tethering software writes images into.

{{ warning }} Do not choose the on-camera folder as you either will not be able to take pictures or Ansel will not be able to refresh the folder correctly. {{ /warning }}

3. Optionally, build a list of styles in Auto style to auto-apply to every incoming shot (e.g. a base look, a black & white conversion…).
4. Press Start the session.
5. Shoot. Each new image appears automatically in the center, with any configured styles already applied, and gets added to the filmstrip.

You can leave Studio Capture and come back — monitoring keeps running in the background as long as Ansel is open, and Ansel offers to resume it if it was still running when you last closed the application.

Auto import

This panel controls what folder is being watched and what happens to each image that shows up in it.

Session controls

At the top of the panel:

• Project date — free-text date used by the $(YEAR), $(MONTH), $(DAY) naming variables (see below). Must be typed as YYYY-MM-DD, optionally followed by HH:MM:SS.mmm — you can type just the leading part you care about (e.g. 2026 or 2026-07) and the rest is filled in for you (2026 becomes January 1st, 2026 at midnight). Leave empty to use the current date at scan time.
• Jobcode — a free-text label available as the $(JOBCODE) naming variable, handy for tagging a session by client or shoot name.
• Scan frequency — how often (in seconds) the folder is checked for new images. Changes apply the next time you start a session, not to one already running.
• Status line — shows whether a session is running, whether it’s ready to start, or (in orange) what’s missing before it can start.

Source tab

• Folder to survey — the folder that receives your camera’s images.
• Delete original file — only relevant when copying to another location (see Destination below): removes the source file once the copy has been verified byte-for-byte.

{{ warning }} Do not choose the on-camera folder as you either will not be able to take pictures or Ansel will not be able to refresh the folder correctly. {{ /warning }}

Destination tab

• File handling — Add to library imports images where they already are; Copy to disk additionally copies each file to an organized location before importing it. Choosing Copy to disk reveals the rest of this tab:
  • On conflict — what to do if the computed destination file already exists:
    • Skip: keep the existing destination file and import that instead of copying over it.
    • Overwrite: replace it with the incoming source.
    • Create unique filename (default): copy the source under a numbered suffix instead of colliding. This is the safest default for tethering, since naming patterns often don’t vary from shot to shot.
  • Base directory, Project directory pattern, File naming pattern — where copies land and how they’re named. Both patterns accept $(...) variables — start typing $( in either field to see the list via auto-completion (things like $(YEAR), $(JOBCODE), $(FILE_NAME)…).
  • A live preview below shows the destination path your current settings would produce, so you can check it before starting.

Starting and stopping

Press Start the session once your configuration is valid — the button stays greyed out otherwise, with the status line explaining what’s missing (an unreadable source folder, an invalid project date, a base directory that doesn’t exist or sits inside the surveyed folder, an empty naming pattern…).

Every time you press Start, Ansel checks whether the surveyed folder already holds images — a folder never surveyed before, new files that appeared while Ansel was closed, or files added since the last time you stopped this session — and if so asks whether to import them right away instead of silently absorbing them into the baseline. Declining just records them as already-known, so a later scan won’t pick them up either.

A new file is only imported once its size and modification time stop changing for one full scan interval — this avoids importing a file while your camera or tethering software is still writing it.

Auto style

This panel manages an ordered list of styles (“the pool”) that gets applied, in order, to every image Studio Capture imports.

Pool and Styles

• Pool — the styles that are actually applied on import, in the order they’re applied. Each row has:
  • ↑ / ↓ to move it earlier/later in the order.
  • - to remove it from the pool.
• Styles — every style available in your library. Click the + icon next to a style to add it to the pool. A style already in the pool is greyed out here so you can see at a glance what’s already queued.

Styles in the pool all apply in append pasting mode on top of each other, in list order, the same way applying several styles manually would. Reorder or remove entries at any time — it takes effect on the next imported image; already-imported photos are not retroactively changed and you would have to apply them manually by clicking the button.

Applying styles manually

The Apply to the displayed image button re-applies the whole pool, in order, to whichever capture is currently shown in the center, on top of its current history (with the append pasting mode) — useful if you change your style pool mid-session and want to bring an earlier shot in line with the rest, without leaving Studio Capture.

Viewing captures

The center always shows one capture, full-size, with any styles already baked in. Use the filmstrip at the bottom to look back through the session.

• Zoom: double-click, middle-click, or scroll the image to toggle between fit-to-window and 100%.
• Pan at 100%: drag, or use the arrow keys.
• Filmstrip: double-click a thumbnail to preview that capture in the center.
• Open in Darkroom: press Return at any time to open the currently displayed capture for full editing.

Color picker

The Scopes module’s color picker (point or box sample) works directly on the image shown here, the same way it does in Darkroom.

Display toolbox

The bottom-left toolbox buttons — shared with Darkroom — affect how the image is displayed:

• Raw overexposed / Overexposed (clipping) — highlight clipped highlights, with the same options (threshold, mode, colors) as in Darkroom.
• Soft proof / Gamut check — preview how the image will look under a target output profile, or flag out-of-gamut colors.
• ISO 12646 — frame the image on a neutral grey background with a white margin, for more accurate visual judgment of exposure/color.
• Picture display — background brightness and picture margins for the center view.
• Guides — overlay a grid (rule of thirds, etc.) on top of the displayed image; right-click the button for guide options.

Session resume

If Ansel is closed while a session is still monitoring, it offers to resume that session the next time it starts — accepting switches straight to Studio Capture and restarts monitoring on the same folder. Declining stops asking for that session. Stopping a session manually also clears the prompt.

Tips

• Keep the scan frequency low (a few seconds) for a responsive tethering workflow; there’s little cost to scanning often.
• The base directory for copies can never be inside the folder being surveyed, to avoid the copies themselves being picked up as new input.
• The picker position is remembered between images, so it makes easier to check the value of a particular area.