View modes.
Cull is the work surface, and it has five view modes. Four are reachable from the mode picker (Loupe, Grid, Compare, Play); the fifth, Keeper Mode, is launched contextually from Grid. This page covers the first four.
On this page
Switching modes
The mode picker (a segmented control top-right of the Cull screen) lets you click between modes. Or use the keyboard:
| L | Loupe |
|---|---|
| G | Grid |
| C | Compare 4-up — or Keeper Mode if 2+ are selected in Grid |
| Esc | Back to Loupe (from any mode except Keeper) |
Play Mode is reached only via the mode picker — pressing a letter shortcut to enter Play would be too easy to do by accident.
Loupe
The default mode. One image, big as the window allows, fit-to-window. Loupe is the natural home for working passes — you’re looking at one image and deciding fast.
HUD
By default the top HUD shows the filename and the rating; the bottom HUD shows
position / total. The HUD level can be set to Full, Minimal, or Hidden in
Settings → HUD, and individual fields (filename / folder / capture time)
can be toggled when level is Full.
Zoom and pan
- Pinch on a trackpad to zoom from 1× to 8×. The Loupe picks up the Native-resolution preview when zoom passes 1.5× and the Native tier is enabled, otherwise it stays on the Screen tier and softens slightly.
- Drag to pan when zoomed in
- Double-click to toggle between 1× and 2× zoom
- A
nnn%badge appears in the top-right while zoomed
Rating shortcuts (Loupe)
| 1 – 5 | Set star rating |
|---|---|
| 0 | Clear rating |
| P | Pick flag |
| X | Reject flag |
| U | Clear flag |
| → / ← | Next / previous image |
| ↑ / ↓ | Jump 5 images backward / forward |
| F | Toggle Focus Monitor |
| ⇧F | Cycle Focus Monitor PiP corner |
| I | Toggle image info overlay |
Auto-advance — by default, rating or flagging an image jumps to the next one. Toggle the Auto-advance switch in the top bar if you’d rather stay put.
Grid
Thumbnails in an adaptive grid. Use Grid for browsing, multi-selecting before Keeper Mode, or just getting a sense of the shoot at a glance.
Layout
- Tiles auto-fit the window using the Compare-tier preview (1 920 px)
- Thumbnail size slider top-right ranges 120 – 360 px
- Each tile shows: thumbnail · pick / reject badge · filename · star count. The focused tile (last clicked) gets a thinner accent border; selected tiles get a thicker accent border plus a checkmark.
Selection
| Click | Select one (anchor for shift-click) — preserves an existing multi-selection if the clicked tile is already in it |
|---|---|
| ⌘-click | Toggle individual tile in / out of the multi-selection |
| Shift-click | Range select from anchor to clicked tile, in current sort order |
| Double-click | Open in Loupe |
| Right-click | Context menu: Open in Loupe · Open in Keeper Mode (with N selected) |
| L / Enter | Open the focused tile in Loupe |
| C | Open Keeper Mode (when 2+ selected) |
Sticky selection. Plain-clicking a tile already in your multi-selection doesn’t wipe the selection — it just moves the focus and anchor. Building a 12-image selection takes deliberate clicks, so SpeedCull doesn’t throw it away on a stray click. To collapse to one tile, click any tile not currently in the selection.
Toolbar
The Grid toolbar shows a hint when nothing is selected (click semantics), the count and a Clear button when something is selected, and a Keeper Mode button when 2+ are selected. The thumbnail-size slider sits on the right.
Compare 4-up
Four tiles in a 2×2 grid, drawn from the current filtered list starting at the current index. The active tile is outlined in the accent colour — rating and flag shortcuts apply to that tile.
Navigation
| Tab / ⇧Tab | Cycle the active tile forward / backward (auto-advances the group of 4 when wrapping) |
|---|---|
| Enter / ↓ | Advance to the next group of 4 |
| ↑ | Rewind to the previous group of 4 |
| → / ← | Cycle within the current group |
| Click a tile | Make it the active tile |
Rating and flag shortcuts are the same as Loupe — they apply to the active tile. With auto-advance on, rating cycles to the next tile rather than the next group.
Focus crops in Compare
Toggle Focus Monitor (F) and each Compare tile gets a small picture-in-picture AF crop in the bottom-right corner — provided the focus crop has already been generated. Crops are generated on-demand in Loupe, so the first time you view an image in Loupe with Focus Monitor on, the crop is rendered and cached. Subsequent Compare and Keeper Mode views pick up the cache for free.
Play Mode
Auto-advance through the current filtered list at a configurable cadence — Photo Mechanic-style. Use it for a fast first pass on a fresh card to flag the obvious misses without thinking too hard.
Speeds
The speed picker offers presets from 0.25 sec / image (very fast — best for binary keep / kill) to 3.0 sec / image (slower — better for harder choices). Defaults to 1.0 sec.
Space: tap vs. hold
- Tap Space — toggle play / pause
- Hold Space — pause while held; resumes when released. Threshold is 0.2 s, so a quick tap toggles, a deliberate hold scrubs.
Other Play Mode shortcuts
| → | Manually advance one image (without unpausing) |
|---|---|
| ← | Rewind one image and pause |
| R | Replay the last 10 images and start playing |
| 1 – 5 / P / X / U | Rate / flag the current image — but does NOT auto-advance (Play Mode disables auto-advance internally so the timer drives motion, not your rating) |
| I | Toggle image info overlay |
| Esc | Stop Play Mode and return to Loupe |
End-of-batch summary
When Play Mode reaches the last image in the filtered list, it stops automatically and shows a session summary: images reviewed, time taken, ratings applied, keep rate, and average seconds per image. From there you can Restart from the top or Exit back to Loupe.
Image info overlay (I)
Press I in Loupe or Play Mode and a floating panel opens on the left edge with everything we know about the current image. State persists between sessions — once it’s on, it stays on until you toggle it off.
What it shows
- EXIF — aperture (
f/2.8), shutter (1/500s), ISO, focal length with full-frame equivalent (85mm (127mm eq.)), exposure bias, exposure program, metering mode, white balance, flash, lens model - TIFF — camera make / model, copyright, artist
- IPTC — title (ObjectName), caption (CaptionAbstract), photographer (Byline), keywords. XMP
dc:title/dc:descriptionare picked up via ImageIO’s IPTC translation when present - SpeedCull state — current rating, flag, sync status, preview status
Offline source
If the source RAW is on a disconnected drive, the overlay shows — for
read-from-disk fields and falls back to whatever is persisted in the database
(camera, lens, capture time). A "source missing" badge appears in the header.