---
title: "The Capture Editor"
description: "The Capture Editor is where you crop, annotate, redact, measure and pick colours from a capture. Saving flattens the edits into the screenshot file."
url: https://www.bigshot.pics/docs/editor
---
# The Capture Editor

The Capture Editor is where you crop, annotate, redact, measure and pick
colours from a capture. Saving flattens the edits into the screenshot file.

## Opening it

Any of these open a capture in the editor:

- Click a thumbnail in Expanded View or Peek View.
- Hover a thumbnail in Expanded View and click the pen, or right-click it and
  choose **Edit…**.
- In the Library, double-click a capture, press Return with one capture
  selected, choose **Open in Editor** from its context menu, or click the pen
  on hover.

There is one editor window, titled **Edit Capture**. Opening a second capture
saves the first and reuses the window. It opens at the size you last left it,
or fitted to the image, just below the island on the screen under the
pointer.

The editor always opens on the **Crop** tool.

## Layout

- **Top left:** the file name and its size in pixels, the Project and tags
  menu (**Move to Project**, **Tags**), and a red trash button.
- **Top right:** Undo, Redo, **Discard every edit**, **Cancel** (only when
  there are unsaved changes), **Export** and **Save**.
- **Bottom:** the tools, from left to right: Shape, Line, weight, Text, Step,
  Redact; seven colour swatches; Crop and **Restore the full frame**; Measure,
  Colour Picker and Select Text.
- **Above the tools:** a card for whatever is in progress (a pending crop, a
  selection, the colour picker), or a one-line hint for the current tool.

The image is fitted to the window, at up to 2×. There is no zoom or pan.

## Keys

The editor is made for quick work: every tool is one bare key away, with
no modifier, and the keys are the ones design tools use where they have
one. Press `R`, drag a rectangle, press `5`, and it is blue. The keys
work whenever you are not typing into a text box or field.

| Key | Tool |
|---|---|
| O | Circle |
| R | Rectangle |
| H | Highlight |
| S | Spotlight |
| A | Arrow |
| L | Line |
| T | Text |
| N | Step |
| B | Redact |
| C | Crop |
| M | Measure a distance |
| ⇧M | Measure a size |
| I | Colour Picker |
| ⇧T | Select Text |

| Key | Colour and weight |
|---|---|
| 1 – 7 | Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, white, black |
| [ / ] | Thinner / thicker |

A shape, line or measure key both picks the tool and sets what it draws,
so there is no menu to open first. A colour or weight key recolours or
reweights the selected annotation too, as clicking the swatch would.

The keys are written where you work: every tool's tooltip ends in its key,
and the Shape, Line and Measure menus show each glyph with its key beside
it. The menus show the shapes themselves, not their names: a circle, not
the word Circle. Hover an item for its name.

The rest of the editor's keys (undo, save, delete, Esc, Return) are listed
under [Shortcuts](https://www.bigshot.pics/docs/shortcuts#capture-editor).

## Tools

### Crop

Drag a box. Adjust it with its corner and edge grips, or drag inside it to
move it. The edges snap to edges found in the image; hold **⌘** to turn
snapping off. The card above the tools shows the size, **Cancel** (Esc) and
**Apply crop** (Return).

A crop can be undone at any time before saving with **Restore the full
frame**. A crop smaller than 8 pixels is refused. There are no aspect-ratio
presets.

### Shape: Circle, Rectangle, Highlight, Spotlight

Press the shape's key (`O`, `R`, `H`, `S`) or pick it from the Shape menu,
then drag. The menu shows the four glyphs with their keys.

- **Circle** and **Rectangle** draw an outline in the current colour and
  weight.
- **Highlight** lays a translucent wash of the current colour over the area.
- **Spotlight** dims everything outside the spotlights. It has no colour or
  weight. Several spotlights all stay bright.

### Line: Arrow, Line

Drag from the tail to the tip. Selected, a line has a grip at each end and a
bend grip in the middle: drag the bend grip to curve it, and drag it back near
the middle to straighten it again.

### Text

Click where the text should go, type, and press Return. Clicking elsewhere or
switching tools also finishes it. The weight control sets the text size. Once
finished, text can be moved, resized, recoloured or deleted, but not retyped;
delete it and add it again to change the words.

### Step

Each click places a numbered disc, one higher than the highest step already
there. Deleting a step does not renumber the rest. Use Steps to number the
order of a flow: click here, then here.

### Redact

Drag over anything that should not be readable. Redactions pixelate by
default; choose blur instead in Settings › General. Live Text cannot read
text under a redaction.

### Measure: Distance, Size

Measurements are in the capture's own pixels, so on a Retina display they are
twice the size in points.

- **Distance** draws a ruler with a label such as `240 px`. Hold **⇧** to keep
  it level or upright.
- **Size** draws a box with a label such as `320 × 180`.

Ends snap to edges and whole pixels; hold **⌘** to measure freely. A finished
measurement is copied to the clipboard as its label reads, with a short
**Copied** notice. Dragging an end or resizing the box measures and copies
again. Measurements stay on the image and are saved into it; delete them
before saving if you only wanted the numbers.

### Colour Picker

Hover to see a loupe of the pixels under the pointer and the value. Click, or
press **⌘C**, to copy it. The format is HEX (`#RRGGBB`) by default; RGB, HSL
and OKLCH are in the picker's card, and the choice is remembered. Colours are
read from the capture, not from annotations drawn on it.

The last six colours you picked stay in the card until Bigshot quits. Click
one to copy it again.

### Select Text

On Macs with Live Text, select text in the image and press **⌘C** or
**Copy**. With nothing selected, Copy takes all the text in the image.

## Colour and weight

Seven colours: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, white, black. Three weights:
Thin, Medium and Thick. The weight sets line width, text size and step size,
scaled to the size of the image. New annotations default to red, Medium.

## Changing what you drew

Everything stays editable until you save. Anything you draw is left selected.
Click a stroke to select it; outlines are hollow, so click the line, not the
inside of a circle. A selection can be:

- moved, by dragging it;
- resized, with its grips;
- recoloured or given a new weight from the toolbar;
- deleted with **⌫** or the trash button in its card.

Esc deselects. Each drag is one undo step.

## Saving and closing

| Action | Key | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Undo / Redo | ⌘Z / ⇧⌘Z | Step through edits. |
| Save | ⌘S | Writes a PNG over the original file and closes the editor. |
| Close the window | The red close button | Saves unsaved edits first. Quitting Bigshot does the same. |
| Cancel | ⌘. | Closes without saving. Shown only when there are unsaved changes. |
| Export | ⇧⌘S | Saves a copy as PNG or JPEG wherever you choose. The original is unchanged. |
| Move to Trash | ⌘⌫ | Moves the screenshot to the Trash and closes the editor. Unsaved edits are lost. |

Saved edits are permanent. Reopening the capture shows the flattened image,
with nothing left to select.

For a Project capture, saving starts a new revision: its OCR text is read
again, it goes back for approval if the Project shares in Review first mode,
and Hooks see the new image. See [Projects](https://www.bigshot.pics/docs/projects).

An automatic cleanup never removes a capture while it is open in the editor.