Change preferences
Preferences holds the settings that outlast one session. Changes apply as you make them, so there is nothing to confirm.
Open Preferences
Section titled “Open Preferences”Choose File › Preferences… (Ctrl+, by default). The pages are listed at the left: General, Appearance, Library, Import, Edit, RAW & Color, AI Models, Performance, Caches and Shortcuts.
- Hover a setting for a longer explanation, and hover an option to see what it means.
- A setting that differs from its default shows a dot and a revert arrow. The arrow restores the default for that setting.
- Restore this page reverts every setting on the page. The footer counts how many differ from the defaults.
- A setting marked “Restart required to apply” is read when DarkRay starts. After you change it the note turns to “Restart required”.
- Done closes the dialog. Every change was already saved.
This page covers General, Appearance and Performance. For the others, see Library, Import and Edit preferences, RAW and AI model preferences, Caches and Change keyboard shortcuts.
General
Section titled “General”| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Default catalog location | ~/.darkray/catalogs |
Where New Catalog… proposes to write a new catalog. Catalogs that already exist are not moved. |
| Turn MCP on at launch | off | Lets an AI assistant search, curate, edit and export photos in DarkRay. Takes effect at the next launch. |
The MCP card also has Copy Claude Code command and Copy setup for other assistants, which copy the text that connects an assistant to DarkRay. The MCP button in the status bar turns control on or off until DarkRay closes, and shows Ready or In use. The connection stays on your computer. See Scripting & MCP.
Appearance
Section titled “Appearance”| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Theme | Ember | The colors of panels, wells and text. Photos are never affected. Applies at once. |
| UI type scale | 1.14 | Multiplies every text size, from 0.90 to 1.40. Restart required. |
| Edit panel width | 270 px | The narrowest the Edit column can get, 220 to 420 px. You can still drag it wider. |
| Layers pane height | 520 px | The tallest the Layers list grows before it scrolls, 120 to 900 px. Dragging the divider under the list sets the same value. |
| Panel visibility | Session only | Session only starts every launch with all panels shown. Remember restores the panels you last showed and hid. |
| Resource readout | on | Shows CPU, RAM and VRAM use at the right of the status bar. |
The four themes:
| Theme | Look |
|---|---|
| Ember | Warm dark grays and a sepia accent. |
| Night | Cool blue-gray surfaces and a blue accent. |
| Graphite | Dark neutral gray with a neutral accent: no tint near the photo. |
| Lifted | A lighter neutral gray. |
Click a tile to switch; the whole window changes at once.
Performance
Section titled “Performance”| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Log render timings | off | Writes timing lines for each pipeline stage to the log. Restart required. |
| Log level | Info | Debug adds step-by-step lines to the log file and the Console. |
The log file is ~/.darkray/logs/darkray.log; View › Panels › Console shows the same lines.