The board
Move around your project, select and tidy shots, and keep the versions you like.
The board is where your whole project lives, and it has no edges. Everything on it is a node. Images, video, audio, text notes and sketches are nodes, and so are placeholders, which are empty shots waiting to run.
Select and pan
One button on the left toolbar switches between select and pan. The arrow means select and the hand means pan. Click the button to swap, or use the keys.
Press V for select. Then you can:
- Click a node to select it.
- Drag on empty space to draw a box around several nodes.
- Drag a selected node to move it.
- Click empty space to clear the selection.
Press H for the hand, then drag to move around the board. Your nodes stay where they are, and so does your selection.
V and H do nothing while you are typing in a field.
What happens when you select depends on what you pick.
- Select a placeholder, which is an empty shot waiting to run, and the chat box at the bottom of the side panel turns into the generate bar. You set up and run the shot there. If the side panel is closed, open it first.
- Select a finished image, video or note, and Light gets it with your next message. You can say "make this one warmer" and Light knows which one you mean. Press the x on its chip in the chat box to leave it out.
- Select two or more nodes, and a bar with Download, Share, Archive, Tidy and more appears above the group. See Several nodes at once.
What a node can be
| Node | How it gets there |
|---|---|
| Image | Upload, paste, generate, or a tool that outputs a still. |
| Video | Upload, paste, or generate. |
| Audio | Upload, or extract audio from a video. |
| Text note | T, or the add menu. Video analysis also writes a note. |
| Sketch | Add menu, or Sketch on image from an image menu. |
| Placeholder | Generate Image, Generate Video, or a tool that needs a model before it runs. |
A placeholder shows what it still needs, like a prompt or an image. To run it, select it and use the run button in the generate bar.
When you make one node from another, a line connects them. Say you shoot a sneaker product shot, remove the background, then upscale it. The lines lead from the final file back to the first shot. Chromatic draws them for you.
Several nodes at once
Select more than one node and a bar of icons appears above the group. Hover an icon to see its name. From the bar you can:
- Download
- Share the selection as a review
- Archive
- Tidy
- Create a section around them
- Clear the selection
Tidy packs the group with even gaps and keeps the top-left corner of the group where it was. Connected nodes stay in a tree, with children to the right of their parent and stacked one above the other. Nodes with no connection pack into rows. Nodes of different sizes do not overlap.
If your team has a custom workflow that works on a group, its button shows up on this bar too.
Archive, favorite, library
Archive hides a node from the working board without deleting it. You can archive from the side menu on a node or from the bar above a group. Restore puts the node back.
Hover an image or a video and click the heart to save it to Favorites. The bookmark on the left toolbar opens your library. It holds your favorites and archived items, including ones from other projects. If the node is on the canvas you have open, Locate jumps to it. If it lives on another canvas, Open project takes you there.
Fullscreen
To see finished media full screen, double-click it or use the fullscreen button on the card. When you close it, you are back with the same selection you had. The multi-select controls hide while the media is open.