Ansel is a non-destructive RAW photo editor. It never modifies your original files: every change is stored as a recipe (an editing history) in a library database, and only written out to a real image file when you export. This means your originals stay safe, edits are reversible forever, and the same recipe can be applied to many images at once.

This section is a quick bootstrap. Each step links to a more detailed page and to the relevant view.

The four-step workflow

flowchart LR
    A[Import] --> B[Cull & organize] --> C[Edit] --> D[Export]

1. Import

Tell Ansel about your images. From the global menu, choose File → Import… (Ctrl+Shift+I). You can either reference images where they already are, or copy them off a memory card into a tidy folder structure as you import.

More details: Import images

2. Cull and organize

Imported images appear as thumbnails in the lighttable. This is where you sort the keepers from the rest: assign star ratings (0–5), reject (R) or color labels (F1–F6), add tags and metadata, and narrow the view down to exactly the images you want with the collection filters and the Library tool.

To act on images — rate them, tag them, copy an edit onto them — you first select them with a click or a keystroke. Selection is deliberate and explicit, so nothing changes by accident.

More details: Library and collections · Image selection

3. Edit

Double-click a thumbnail (or select it and press Enter) to open it in the darkroom. The image-processing modules sit in the right panel, grouped into workflow tabs that follow the pixelpipe. Editing left-to-right across the tabs, and bottom-to-top within them, walks you through a sound order of operations.

There is no save button: every change is recorded automatically into the history. You can step back at any time with Ctrl+Z, or revisit any past state from the history of changes.

More details: Editing images

4. Export

Apply the history to the original to produce a final file. Select the images and choose File → Export… (Ctrl+Shift+E) to render them to JPEG, TIFF and other formats. You can also reuse an edit across a whole shoot by copying its history or saving it as a style.

More details: Export

Finding your way around

A few things worth knowing before you start:

• Views. Ansel is split into views — lighttable for browsing, darkroom for editing, plus optional map, print and slideshow. Switch views from the Ateliers menu; return to the lighttable from anywhere with Escape.
• The menu bar is the backbone. Most application-wide commands live in the global menu at the top of the window. Press Alt to reveal each menu’s keyboard mnemonic.
• Keyboard or mouse, your choice. The whole interface can be driven from either. The global action search (Ctrl+P) finds and triggers any command by name.

More details: Shortcuts and keyboard interaction

Coming from another editor?

If you are migrating from Darktable, the from Darktable page summarizes what changed. The short version: selection is explicit (hovering never changes anything), and the GUI is organized around the menu bar and pipeline-ordered module tabs rather than customizable icon groups.