FinishBox User Guide

Welcome

FinishBox is a photo editor built for photographers who deliver hundreds or thousands of photos from an event. It is made for speed in bulk: open a folder, let Auto do the routine work, fix the photos that need a hand, and export everything in one pass.

A few things to know up front:

• Your originals are safe. Editing never changes your photo files. Your edits are saved automatically, in a small hidden file inside the photo folder, and your photos only change on disk if you export with Save back over the originals (which keeps a backup unless you turn that off).
• JPEG and RAW. FinishBox edits JPEG files (.jpg / .jpeg) and camera RAW files from nearly every camera (see RAW photos).
• AI that stays on your computer. Subject, Sky and Background masks, Light the Face and AI Denoise all run on your own computer, on its graphics card when it has one. No photo is ever uploaded.
• Cull first. FinishBox has no star ratings or flags. Pick your keepers in your culling program, then open what's left here.
• Your metadata comes along. Exported photos keep the camera's EXIF information and any IPTC/XMP captions, keywords and bib numbers already in them.

Installing and updating

FinishBox runs on 64-bit Windows 10 and Windows 11. It doesn't need anything else installed.

With the installer

1. Double-click FinishBox-Setup-1.46.4.exe. The publisher is shown as Steve Barker (the developer behind Boxridge Software). If Windows shows Windows protected your PC, click More info, check the publisher, then Run anyway.
2. Accept the default choices. FinishBox installs for your Windows account only, so it doesn't ask for an administrator password.
3. Leave Add "Open in FinishBox" to folders' right-click menu ticked if you'd like to open a folder straight from File Explorer. On Windows 11 this is under Show more options on the right-click menu.
4. Click Finish. FinishBox is now in the Start menu, and on the desktop if you chose that.

Updating: run the newer installer. It replaces the program and keeps your settings and every edit you've made.

Knowing when there's a new version: about once a day FinishBox asks boxridgesoftware.com whether a newer version is out. When there is one, Update available appears at the bottom right of the window; click it to see what's new and open the download page. Skip This Version hides the notice until the next one. Help › Check for Updates… checks right away, and Settings › Check for Updates Automatically turns the daily check off. Nothing about your computer or your photos is sent, and nothing is downloaded or installed without you.

Uninstalling: Windows Settings › Apps › Installed apps › FinishBox › Uninstall. Your photos and the edits saved beside them are not touched.

Portable version (no install)

Unzip FinishBox-1.46.4-Portable.zip anywhere (a USB drive works) and run FinishBox.exe. The portable copy keeps its settings in FinishBox.ini in its own folder, so you can carry it from computer to computer. The first time it runs on a computer that also has FinishBox installed, it starts from that installation's settings.

Free trial and license key

FinishBox comes with a 14-day free trial with every feature switched on. The days left are shown at the bottom right of the window; click there (or Help › License…) to see your trial or license.

After the trial you can still open folders, browse, and edit photos, and every edit is kept. Writing finished photos needs a license: Export (and Auto + Export), Photo Merge, AI Enlarge and Open in Another Editor (edited copy).

Entering your license key

1. Buy FinishBox on boxridgesoftware.com. Your key is in the order email and under My software in your account, as text and as a .key file.
2. In FinishBox, open Help › License…. Paste the whole key, from -----BEGIN FINISHBOX LICENSE----- to -----END FINISHBOX LICENSE-----, or click Open .key File….
3. Click Activate. The key is activated online once on this PC; after that FinishBox works offline. It checks in about once a day when it can, and keeps working for up to 30 days without the internet.

One license covers 3 PCs. To move FinishBox to another computer, open Help › License… on the old one and click Remove License; that frees the PC. You can also remove a PC under My software on the website.

No internet right now? A key entered offline is accepted for 7 days. Connect once within that time, or click Activate Now in the License window.

Quick start: a whole event

This is the everyday routine for a folder of culled photos.

1. Open the folder. Click Open Folder… on the toolbar and choose the folder. Thumbnails appear in the filmstrip on the left.
2. Get each photo close in camera, then let Auto tune it. Click Auto All in Folder. Auto is a light tune-up of exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, whites and blacks. It doesn't touch white balance, sharpening or noise reduction.
3. Fix the few that need it. Use ← → to step through. Adjust any photo with the sliders on the right. Fix one frame of a burst and press Shift+G to give the whole stack the same look.
4. Export. Press Ctrl+E, tick the outputs you want (for example, full size for the website and 2048 px for social), and click Export.

If you do steps 2 and 4 on every folder, Auto + Export… runs Auto All in Folder and opens Export the moment it's done.

Cards coming in all day? Leave the folder open and copy each card into it: the photos appear at the end of the filmstrip on their own. See Card dumps: the watched folder.

FinishBox at a glance

Here is the whole FinishBox window, with a number on each part. Below the picture, each number has a close-up of that part, what every button in it does, and what you'd use it for. Click any picture to see it full size; click again to close it.

1. 

   The toolbar

   • Open Folder… opens a folder of photos.
   • Auto All in Folder runs Auto on every photo in the folder: exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, whites and blacks. It never touches white balance, sharpening or noise reduction.
   • Auto + Export… runs Auto All in Folder, then opens Export as soon as it's done.
   • Reset All in Folder puts every photo in the folder back to as shot.
   • Reapply Presets in Folder sets Sharpen, Clarity, Contrast and Saturation on every photo to your current defaults again, without touching anything else.
   • Sync One Setting… copies just one setting, such as Exposure, to the whole folder or the selected photos.

   Use it for: the start of every event. Open the folder, click Auto All in Folder, then fix the few photos that need a hand.

2. 

   Settings, Stacks, Photo Merge and Help

   • Settings: Auto Tone Strength (how hard Auto pushes), Presence Defaults (where Texture, Clarity, Dehaze, Vibrance and Saturation start), Logo Settings, Camera/Lens Presets, RAW Look, Previews, and two switches: Watch Folder for New Photos and Check for Updates Automatically.
   • Stacks: bursts are grouped into stacks by capture time. Select a stack, give the whole stack this photo's settings, collapse or expand stacks, make your own stacks, and choose how stacks are formed (Auto-Stack By, New Stack After a Pause Of). The top lines say how many stacks the folder has.
   • Photo Merge: HDR… and Panorama… merge the selected photos into one, and Enlarge 2× with AI… makes a photo twice as big with AI detail.
   • Help: this User Guide (F1), Keyboard Shortcuts, Open Problem Log Folder, the website, License…, Check for Updates… and About FinishBox.

   Use it for: setting FinishBox up once (Settings), working through bursts (Stacks), and the odd special photo (Photo Merge). See Stacks and Photo Merge.

3. 

   The filmstrip

   • The folder's name and how many photos it has, at the top.
   • JPEG / RAW / Both choose which files show.
   • Click a photo to open it. Ctrl+click and Shift+click select several. A * before the name means the photo has edits.
   • A stack (a burst) has an orange line down its side and a tab with its size (3 photos) on its first photo. Click the tab, or press S, to fold the stack up or open it.
   • Right-click a photo to open it in another editor (with or without your edits), make a virtual copy, enlarge it with AI, or delete it (it goes to the _deleted folder). For a photo in a stack, the stack commands are there too.

   Use it for: moving through the event. ← and → step from photo to photo. Drag the filmstrip's edge to make it wider.

4. 

   Zoom and Before | After

   • Zoom goes from 100% (the whole photo fits the window) up to 500%, at full resolution. Zoomed in, click the photo to move to a different spot.
   • Fit goes back to the whole photo.
   • Before | After (Y) shows the photo before your edits next to how it is now. Zoomed in, both show the same spot.

   Use it for: checking focus on a face or a number, and checking you haven't overdone an edit.

5. 

   The photo

   The open photo, with every edit showing as you make it. Here it's in Before | After, with the original on top.

   • Hold \ to see the photo before your edits for a moment.
   • Press J to show clipping: red where highlights are blown, blue where shadows are pure black.
   • The tools that work on the photo itself are used here: crop, the brush and gradients, the white balance dropper, Drag on photo, and the Touch Up tools. Esc puts the current tool away.

   Use it for: judging the photo. Everything else in the window is there to change what you see here.

6. 

   Quick buttons and the histogram

   • Auto (No WB) (A) runs Auto on this photo, or on every selected photo. Like Auto All in Folder, it leaves white balance alone.
   • Reset (R) puts the photo back to as shot.
   • Copy (Ctrl+C) and Paste (Ctrl+V) copy this photo's settings and paste them onto the open photo or every selected photo. Sync Selected gives every selected photo this photo's settings in one click.
   • The histogram shows the photo as it is now. The triangles in its top corners light up when shadows or highlights are clipped; click one to see where (like J). Drag left or right on the histogram to move the matching slider (Blacks, Shadows, Exposure, Highlights or Whites); double-click to reset it.

   Use it for: fix one photo, then Copy and Paste (or Sync Selected) to give the rest of that set the same look.

7. 

   Color Balance

   Red, Green and Blue each raise or lower one color across the whole photo. They all start at 0.

   Use it for: a color cast that Temp and Tint don't fix, like green light bouncing off turf or a strongly colored stadium light.

8. 

   Looks

   • B&W makes the photo black and white; Muted softens the colors. Remove Look takes them, and any filter, off again.
   • Below is your own list of looks, in groups. Search looks… finds one; click a look to put it on the photo, or on every selected photo.
   • Save Look… saves this photo's settings as a look. Import… brings in presets (.xmp, .lrtemplate, .dng), .cube filters or a whole .zip pack. Manage… renames, regroups and deletes looks.

   Use it for: your house style. Save it once, then it's one click on every event. See Looks: presets and filters.

9. 

   Basic

   • WB (white balance): the dropper (click it, then click something in the photo that should be white or gray), Auto, Reset (back to as shot) and, for RAW photos, Light… (Daylight, Cloudy, Shade and so on). Temp goes cooler or warmer, Tint greener or more magenta.
   • Tone: Exposure, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, Whites, Blacks.
   • Presence: Texture (fine detail), Clarity (midtone punch), Dehaze (cuts fog and haze, or adds it), Vibrance (lifts dull colors more than strong ones), Saturation and Vignette (darker or lighter corners).

   Drag a slider, or type a number in its box. Click a slider's name to put it back to its starting value.

   Use it for: most of your editing. Auto sets the Tone sliders; nudge them from there.

10. 

    Tone Curve

    • RGB works on the whole photo; R, G and B on one color channel. A dot on a button means that channel's curve has been changed.
    • Click the curve to add a point and drag it: up brightens that part of the tones, down darkens it. Double-click or right-click a point to remove it.
    • Preset… starts from Medium Contrast or Strong Contrast. Reset Curve straightens the channel shown.

    Use it for: a gentle S curve for extra contrast, or a faded film look by lifting the bottom-left point.

11. 

    Color Mixer

    • Three tabs: Hue (shift a color toward its neighbor), Saturation and Luminance (darker or lighter), each with eight colors from Red to Magenta.
    • Drag on photo: click a color in the photo and drag up or down; the right sliders move for you.
    • Reset Tab puts every slider on the tab you're on back to 0.

    Use it for: one color that's off: a team jersey that's too loud, grass that's too yellow, or a blue sky you want deeper.

12. 

    Color Grading

    • A color for Shadows, Midtones and Highlights, plus Global for the whole photo. Pick the color with Hue, then raise Saturation; Luminance brightens or darkens that range.
    • Blending sets how much the ranges overlap; Balance moves the split between shadows and highlights.

    Use it for: a mood, like cool shadows and warm highlights for a sunset finish line. Save it as a look to reuse it.

13. 

    Brush & Gradients (and AI masks)

    • Brush (B) paints a change onto part of the photo. Linear (M) fades a change across the photo; Radial (Shift+M) puts it in an oval.
    • Select: Subject, Sky and Background find that part of the photo with AI and make it a mask. Light the Face brightens the subject's face just as much as it needs.
    • The list shows the brushes, gradients and masks on this photo; New starts another, Delete removes the selected one. With a gradient or mask selected, Combine shapes it with an AI mask (for example, take the rider out of the sky).
    • Paint / Erase Paint, Size, Feather and Flow set up the brush. Auto Mask keeps the paint inside edges; Show Mask (O) shows what's covered, in red.
    • Effect: the sliders for the selected brush, gradient or mask, from Temp to Sharpness.

    Use it for: making the athlete stand out: Subject with a little Exposure and Clarity, or Light the Face on a helmet-shaded face. See Brush, gradients and AI masks.

14. 

    Detail (and AI Denoise)

    • Sharpen starts at 10; the +10 button puts it back there.
    • Noise Reduction: Luminance (grain) and Color (color speckles). Its Auto estimates both for this photo. Auto here is separate from the main Auto, so it never changes what you've set.
    • AI Denoise removes noise with AI and keeps the detail. Around 50 suits most photos at any ISO. It takes a moment the first time on each photo.
    • Grain adds film grain: Amount, Size, Roughness.

    Use it for: night games and dark gyms. Set AI Denoise on one high-ISO photo, then Sync Selected to the rest.

15. 

    Lens Corrections

    • Use profile corrections takes out the lens's bent lines, color fringes and dark corners. The line under it names the lens profile FinishBox found in the photo.
    • Distortion and Vignetting set how much of each correction to use (100 is the full profile).
    • Choose Lens… picks the lens by hand, for a lens the photo doesn't name.

    Use it for: RAW photos, and wide-angle JPEGs with curved horizons or dark corners. Many cameras already correct their own JPEGs.

16. 

    Geometry

    • ⟲ Rotate and Rotate ⟳ turn the photo a quarter turn.
    • Straighten levels it by hand; Auto Straighten levels it from the horizon and upright lines. Crop off the edges trims the corners that straightening brings in.
    • Upright: Auto, Level, Vertical, Full and Off square up leaning buildings and goal posts. Vertical, Horizontal, Aspect and Scale do the same by hand.
    • Crop (C): drag a rectangle on the photo, then Apply. Clear removes the crop.

    Use it for: a tilted horizon on a trail shot, or a tighter crop on the athlete.

17. 

    Touch Up (AI Remove)

    • AI Remove: paint over something to make it disappear, from a bottle to a person. AI fills the area with what would be behind it.
    • Spot Removal: click a dust spot or blemish to blend it away.
    • Clone Stamp: click a clean area, then click where it should be copied to.
    • Size sets the size for all three. Clear All removes every touch-up on this photo. Right-click one on the photo to undo just that one.

    Use it for: a stray cone, a sign or a spectator in the background. See Touch Up.

18. 

    History & Snapshots

    • History lists every change made to this photo since FinishBox opened, newest on top. Click a step to go back to it.
    • Snapshots are saved versions that stay with the folder. Take Snapshot saves one under a name; Use This Snapshot (or a double-click) brings it back; Delete removes it.

    Use it for: trying a bold edit safely. Take a snapshot first, and go back to it if you don't like the result.

19. 

    Export

    Export… (Ctrl+E), at the bottom of the panel, opens this window.

    • Which photos: all photos in the folder, or the selected ones only.
    • Outputs: tick every version you want; each photo is processed once for all of them. New Output, Duplicate, Rename… and Delete manage the list.
    • Output (the one selected in the list): a folder to export to, or Save back over the originals (with Keep a backup of the original in _originals/); the filename pattern; JPEG quality; resizing; color space; sharpening for a screen or for matte or glossy paper; a line of text; and whether the logo goes on.
    • Logo Settings ▸ opens the logo options: the image, its size, opacity and distance from the edge.

    Use it for: delivery. One pass can write full size for the gallery and 2048 px for social. See Exporting.

20. 

    The bottom bar

    • Reminders of the keys you'll use most.
    • While something runs in the background (Auto All in Folder, Export and so on), a progress row for it, with Cancel.
    • New appears when new photos have come into the folder; click it to select the newest card's photos or all the new ones.
    • The version number, Update available when there's a newer FinishBox, and your trial days or license. Click the trial or license to open the License window.

    Use it for: keeping an eye on a long export, and telling which version you're running.

The FinishBox window

• Toolbar (top): opening folders, folder-wide actions (Auto All in Folder, Reset All in Folder and so on), then the Settings, Stacks, Photo Merge and Help menus. Settings holds Auto Tone Strength, Presence Defaults, Logo Settings, Camera/Lens Presets and Previews.
• Filmstrip (left): every photo in the folder. Click to open a photo; Ctrl+click and Shift+click select several. A star marks photos you've edited. Drag its edge to make it wider or narrower.
• Photo (middle): the open photo with your edits, with the Zoom slider and the Before | After button above it.
• Develop panel (right): the histogram, Auto (No WB), Reset, Copy, Paste, Sync Selected, then every adjustment, with Export… at the bottom. Click a section's title to open or close it.
• Bottom bar: the most-used keys, a progress row for anything running in the background (with Cancel), New when new photos have come into the folder, Update available when there's a newer FinishBox, and the version number.

Panel widths and the last folder you had open are remembered for next time.

Opening photos

• Open Folder… opens a folder of photos. FinishBox reopens the last folder automatically when it starts, at the photo you were last working on.
• JPEG / RAW / Both, above the filmstrip, chooses which files it shows. With Both, a photo shot as RAW + JPEG shows twice, once for each file. Your choice is remembered.
• From File Explorer, right-click a folder and choose Open in FinishBox (Windows 11: Show more options first).
• Previews: after a folder opens, FinishBox quietly builds a small preview of each photo so browsing, editing and Auto stay fast on big folders. They're kept in a hidden folder beside your photos. To free that disk space later, use Settings › Previews › Discard Previews for This Folder…. You can turn background building off in the same menu.

Card dumps: the watched folder

FinishBox keeps an eye on the folder it has open. Copy photos into it (a card from another shooter, your own second card, photos sent over Wi-Fi) and they appear in the filmstrip by themselves once each one has finished copying. There's nothing to reopen or import.

• New photos go at the end, in the order they arrive, so whatever you're working on never moves. That order is kept when you open the folder again.
• Each card gets one NEW stamp on its first photo, with the time it came in and how many photos it brought (for example NEW · 2:41 PM · 37). A pause of a minute or more between copies starts the next card.
• New: 37 at the bottom right counts the new photos. Click it to select the newest card's photos, then press A for Auto and Ctrl+E to export just those. Its arrow has Select All New Photos and Clear NEW Marks. The stamps stay, even if you close FinishBox, until you clear them.
• Photos still being copied are counted as "still copying" in the status bar and added the moment they're complete, never half-written.
• To stop it, untick Settings › Watch Folder for New Photos.

RAW photos

Click RAW or Both above the filmstrip to work on RAW files. FinishBox reads the RAW files of nearly every camera: .arw, .nef, .cr2, .cr3, .raf, .dng, .orf, .rw2, .pef, .srw and many more. Everything in FinishBox works on a RAW the same as on a JPEG: Auto, every slider, looks, brushes, AI masks, stacks and export.

How a RAW looks when it opens

By default a RAW opens looking like the JPEG your camera would have made, so it needs only the same small tweaks a JPEG would. FinishBox matches it to the camera's own preview that's stored in every RAW file. The difference is what's underneath: highlights that the camera's JPEG would have blown out can still be brought back with Highlights and Whites, and shadows lift more cleanly.

To start from a flatter rendering instead, choose Settings › RAW Look › Neutral. Match the Camera's JPEG switches back.

Good to know

• Speed: filmstrip thumbnails come from the preview inside each RAW, so a big folder of RAWs browses as fast as JPEGs. The first time a RAW is opened for editing takes about a second; after that it's as quick as a JPEG.
• Exporting: a RAW is always exported as a new JPEG, to a folder. Save back over the originals is never used on a RAW; your RAW files are never changed.
• RAW + JPEG pairs are separate photos in FinishBox, each with its own edits.

Auto

Auto is designed as a light tune-up. On a photo that's already close, it only nudges small things; it never makes drastic changes.

Making Auto fit your shooting

These are in the Settings menu.

• Auto Tone Strength… sets how hard Auto pushes, a limit for each slider, and an offset for each slider. For example, an offset of +5 on Contrast adds 5 to whatever Auto chooses. Turn strength down if Auto brightens bright scenes too much.
• Presence Defaults… sets where Texture, Clarity, Dehaze, Vibrance and Saturation start on a photo you haven't edited yet.
• Camera/Lens Presets… saves a correction for one camera and lens combination (read from each photo's EXIF), for gear that's always a touch warm or always needs a little more shadow. Open a photo from that gear, adjust it, and save it as that combination's preset. You choose whether it's applied automatically to new photos from the same gear.

The Develop panel

Drag a slider to adjust it; click a slider's name to put it back to its starting value. The histogram at the top shows the photo as currently adjusted, and the two triangles on it warn when shadows or highlights are clipped (detail truly lost). Click a triangle, or press J, to show exactly where on the photo: red where highlights are blown, blue where shadows are pure black. You can also drag left or right across the histogram to adjust Blacks, Shadows, Exposure, Highlights or Whites directly; double-click a zone to reset that slider.

Looks

B&W turns the photo black and white, and Muted softens the colors; Remove Look takes them (and any filter) off again. Below them is your own list of looks: ones you've saved, and presets and filters you've imported. Click one to put it on the photo. See Looks: presets and filters.

Basic

• WB (white balance): Temp (cooler/warmer) and Tint (green/magenta). Click the dropper, then click something in the photo that should be neutral white or gray. Auto estimates it; Reset returns to as shot. On a RAW photo, Light… sets it for the light you shot in: Daylight, Cloudy, Shade, Tungsten, Fluorescent or Flash, worked out from the white balance the camera used. (A JPEG doesn't record the camera's setting, so for a JPEG use Auto or the dropper.)
• Tone: Exposure, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, Whites, Blacks.
• Presence: Texture (fine detail), Clarity (midtone punch), Dehaze, Vibrance (boosts dull colors more than strong ones), Saturation, Vignette.

Tone Curve

Click the curve to add a point, and drag it up to brighten or down to darken that part of the tonal range. Double-click or right-click a point to remove it. An S shape adds contrast. Choose RGB for the whole photo or Red, Green, Blue for one channel. Preset… starts from Medium or Strong Contrast; Reset Curve straightens the channel shown.

Color Mixer

Adjust eight color ranges (red, orange, yellow, green, aqua, blue, purple, magenta) on three tabs: Hue (shift the color), Saturation and Luminance (darker/lighter). With Drag on photo on, click a color in the photo and drag up or down; the right sliders move for you. Reset Tab zeroes the tab you're on.

Color Grading

A color for the Shadows, Midtones and Highlights, plus one for the whole photo (Global). It's also known as Split Toning: teal shadows and warm highlights, for example. For each, choose the color with Hue, then raise Saturation; Luminance brightens or darkens that range. Blending sets how much the three ranges overlap, and Balance moves the split between shadows and highlights.

Detail

• Sharpen (starts at +10).
• Noise Reduction: Luminance (grain) and Color (color speckles). Click its Auto for an estimate.
• AI Denoise removes noise with an AI model, far more cleanly than Luminance and Color, and keeps detail. It measures the noise in each photo, so the same Amount suits every ISO; around 50 is typical, and you can paste or sync it to a whole high-ISO set. It takes a moment the first time on each photo (a note under the slider says it's working) and makes exports slower: a second or two per photo with a graphics card, much longer without one. Use it on the photos that need it.
• Grain adds film grain: Amount, Size and Roughness. It's sized to the finished photo, so the export looks like the preview, and it's the same grain every time.

Lens Corrections

Tick Use profile corrections to take out the lens's barrel or pincushion distortion, its colour fringes and its dark corners, from a profile of that lens. FinishBox reads the lens from the photo and shows which profile it found; if it can't tell, Choose Lens… lets you pick it from the list for your camera's mount. Distortion and Vignetting set how much of each correction is used (100 is the profile's own amount).

Many cameras already correct their own JPEGs, so this is off unless you turn it on. It's most useful on RAW photos, and on JPEGs that still show bent lines or dark corners. Your setting can be pasted and synced like any other.

Color Balance

Red, Green and Blue sliders for an overall color cast.

Geometry

• ⟲ Rotate / Rotate ⟳ turn the photo a quarter turn.
• Straighten levels the photo by up to 45° either way.
• Auto Straighten levels the photo by its horizon and upright lines (road edges, fences, poles, trees), and leaves it alone when there's nothing straight enough to go by. With several photos selected, it straightens each one. Leave Crop off the edges ticked to trim the corners straightening brings in; a crop you made yourself is kept.
• Crop or C: drag a rectangle on the photo, then Apply. Clear removes the crop.
• Upright squares up buildings, goal posts and fences that lean because the camera was tilted. It works from the photo's own straight lines: Auto (gentle), Level (only levels it), Vertical (upright lines made vertical, and level), Full (upright lines vertical and level lines level) and Off. When a photo has nothing straight enough to go by, it's left as it was. With several photos selected, each is done from its own lines.
• Vertical, Horizontal, Aspect and Scale do the same by hand: Vertical tilts the photo forward or back (+ widens the top), Horizontal turns it left or right, Aspect makes it taller or wider, and Scale zooms in or out. The result always fills the frame; Scale below 100% shows all of it.

Looks: presets and filters

A look is a set of settings you can put on any photo in one click, or on every selected photo at once. It only changes the settings it contains, and never a crop, rotation, straightening, touch-up, brush or gradient. Ctrl+Z takes it off again.

Saving your own

Get one photo the way you like it, then click Save Look…. Give it a name and a group, and tick the kinds of settings it should keep. White balance, exposure and detail start unticked, because they're usually right for one photo rather than a whole look.

Importing presets and filters

Presets and filters you buy or download go straight in; there's no folder to find and nothing to copy by hand. Either click Import… and choose one or more files, or drag them from File Explorer onto the Looks section. A whole pack can go in just as it was downloaded, as a .zip; there's no need to unzip it.

• Presets: .xmp (the usual format today) and .lrtemplate (an older one). Everything FinishBox has comes across: tone, presence, white balance shifts, tone curves, color mixer, color grading, grain, vignette and detail.
• Presets sold as .dng files, the way most presets for phones come: each is a small photo with the settings stored inside it. FinishBox reads the settings and names the look after the file.
• .cube filters (3D LUTs), the format most color-grading filters are sold in. A filter is applied exactly as it was made. While a photo has one, Strength under the list fades it from 0 to 100%, and Remove takes it off.

A pack's folders become groups in your list. When the import finishes, FinishBox lists anything a preset uses that it doesn't have: camera profiles, calibration, lens corrections, masks and so on. Everything else in that preset still comes across. Every editor's sliders do slightly different math, so an imported preset looks close to the original rather than identical.

Finding and managing looks

Type in Search looks… to find one by name or group. Hover over a look to see what it contains. Manage… renames looks, moves them to another group, deletes them, or opens the Looks folder. Deleting a look doesn't change photos it was already used on, and a photo that uses a filter keeps a copy of it in its folder, so it looks the same on another computer.

Brush, gradients and AI masks

These change just part of a photo: brighten a face, add clarity to a jersey, darken a bright sky. Each brush or gradient has its own Effect sliders (Temp, Tint, Exposure, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, Whites, Blacks, Texture, Clarity, Dehaze, Saturation, Sharpness). A photo can have as many as you like; pick one from the list, or click its pin on the photo, to change it.

Brush B

1. Press B (or click Brush (B)). The first stroke starts a new brush.
2. Drag over the area to change. Set Size, Feather (soft edge) and Flow first; [ and ] change the size as you go.
3. Move the Effect sliders. You can keep painting and adjusting in any order.

• Erase Paint, or holding Alt while you paint, takes paint away from the selected brush. It doesn't remove anything from the photo itself; for that, see Touch Up.
• Auto Mask keeps the paint to areas the same color as where the brush's center passes, so it stops at edges. Good for faces and jerseys.
• Show Mask or O shows what the selected brush covers, in red.
• New starts another brush; Delete removes the selected one. Esc puts the brush away.

Linear gradient M

Drag across the photo: full effect where you start, fading to none where you let go. Drag down from the top to darken a bright sky. Drag the middle dot to move it, an end dot to turn or widen it. Edge sets how hard or soft the fade is.

Radial gradient Shift+M

Drag out from the center of what you want to change (hold Shift for a circle), for example to light a rider. Drag inside it to move it, and the side dots to resize or turn it. Invert puts the effect outside the oval instead.

With a gradient selected, the brush adds to its area, and Erase Paint takes away from it.

AI masks: Subject, Sky, Background

Under Select: in the Brush section, click Subject, Sky or Background. FinishBox finds it in the photo and adds it to the list as a mask with its own Effect sliders, like a gradient. For example: Subject with a little Exposure and Clarity to make a rider stand out; Background with negative Exposure and Saturation to quiet a busy crowd; Sky with negative Exposure and Highlights to bring back clouds.

• Refine it with the brush: paint to add to it, hold Alt to take away. Show Mask (O) shows exactly what it covers.
• With several photos selected, the button gives each photo its own mask, found in that photo.
• Paste and Sync carry AI masks, unlike drawn brushes and gradients, because each photo finds its own subject or sky. Any brush refinements stay on the photo they were made on.
• Finding the subject or the sky takes a moment the first time on each photo (well under a second with a graphics card, a second or two without); after that it's instant.
• Sky uses its own AI model, trained on skies, so it tells an overcast sky from a pale building, a white wall or a grey roof, and finds the sky between tree branches. It takes the sky that comes down from the top of the picture, not a reflection in water. If it ever takes a little too much or too little, refine it with the brush: Alt-paint with Auto Mask on stops at the edge.

Combining masks

With a gradient or an AI mask selected, Combine shapes it with the AI masks: Subtract Subject takes the person out of a Sky mask or a gradient (so darkening the sky doesn't darken the rider's helmet), Only on the Subject keeps a radial's effect on the person alone, and Add joins one on. The steps are listed beside the button; Clear goes back to the mask's own shape. Like AI masks themselves, each photo finds its own subject and sky.

Light the Face

Light the Face lights the subject's face, by as much as it needs: a face in the shade of a helmet gets more (up to Exposure +0.60), one that's already well lit only a touch, and its highlights are held back so skin doesn't clip. Faces in the background (spectators, people behind the subject) are left alone: a face counts as the subject's when it's a good size next to the biggest face and, when the Subject model is installed, on the subject.

Each face lit becomes Face 1, Face 2… in the mask list, with the same number beside its pin on the photo (hover over the photo to see the pins). It's an ordinary radial gradient: move it, resize it, change its sliders, or select it and click Delete. With several photos selected, every photo is done in one go.

Touch Up: AI Remove, spots and clones

These remove things from the photo. They're in the Touch Up section.

• AI Remove is for anything from a stray bottle to a person: turn it on and paint over what should go, all of it and its shadow, in one stroke (set Size first). FinishBox fills the area with what would plausibly be behind it, worked out by an AI from the rest of the picture. The stroke shows in red while it works (a moment the first time) and the window stays usable. Hold Shift as you start a stroke to add it to the last removal instead of starting a new one. Every slider still works on the cleaned-up photo, and moving one never redoes the removal.
• Spot Removal is for small things: dust, a blemish, a speck. Turn it on, set Size to just cover the spot, and click it. FinishBox fills it from the surrounding area.
• Clone Stamp is for bigger things: a cone, a sign, a spectator. Turn it on, click a clean area to copy from, then click where it should go. The copy is blended to match the color and light where it lands. Esc cancels after the first click.

Right-click a removal, spot or clone on the photo to undo just that one; Clear All removes every touch-up on the photo.

Editing many photos at once

A batch change can be undone in one step with Ctrl+Z.

Virtual copies

A virtual copy is a second version of a photo with its own settings, without a second file: a colour version and a black-and-white one, say, or a tight crop beside the full frame. Press Ctrl+' (or right-click › Make Virtual Copy). The copy starts with the photo's current settings and appears right after it as DSC_0001.jpg (Copy 2).

• Edit, Auto, paste and sync it like any photo. It's exported as DSC_0001-2.jpg, so the two versions never collide.
• Copies are kept with the folder and come back when you open it again.
• Removing a copy (Delete, or right-click › Remove Virtual Copy) never touches the photo. Deleting the photo takes its copies with it, and Undelete brings them all back.
• A copy can't be saved back over the original file; export copies to a folder.

Stacks (bursts)

FinishBox groups bursts into stacks automatically, using each photo's capture time and camera. A colored bar in the filmstrip marks each stack, with a badge showing how many photos it holds.

How photos are stacked

Choose in Stacks › Auto-Stack By:

• Capture time: a pause longer than the gap you set (New Stack After a Pause Of, 2 seconds unless you change it) starts a new stack.
• Every N photos: for a camera that shoots fixed bursts, say 5 frames, choose Every 5 Photos. The count also starts over after a pause, so deleting a frame only shortens its own stack.

Photos from different cameras go in separate stacks, even two bodies of the same model when the camera records its serial number.

Working with stacks

Right-click a photo in the filmstrip for the same actions, plus Remove from Stack. The Stacks menu also has Collapse All Stacks, Expand All Stacks, Reset Stacks to Automatic (undoes your hand-made changes), and Show Stack Marks in the Filmstrip.

Auto Sync: turn on Stacks › Auto Sync and every change you make to a photo goes to the rest of its stack as you make it. The toolbar shows Stacks • Auto Sync while it's on.

Photo Merge, panoramas and AI Enlarge

Select the photos (or open a photo in a stack), then choose Photo Merge › HDR… (Ctrl+H) or Panorama… (Ctrl+M) on the toolbar. The same commands are on the filmstrip's right-click menu and in the Stacks menu.

A preview shows what you'll get, and it updates as you change the options. Click Merge to make the full-size photo. It's saved as a new JPEG beside the originals, named after the first photo (for example DSC_0101-HDR.jpg or DSC_0101-Pano.jpg), with the originals' metadata. It then appears in the filmstrip, ready to edit and export like any other photo. The merge is made from the originals as shot; their edits in FinishBox aren't part of it.

HDR

For a bracket: the same scene at 2 to 9 different exposures. FinishBox blends them so each part of the picture comes from the exposure where it looks best, from the deep shadows to a bright sky.

• Line up the photos corrects small shifts between hand-held frames. Leave it on unless the camera was on a tripod.
• Deghost: when something moved between frames (a rider, branches, a flag), one exposure is used for that area so it isn't doubled. Low suits most scenes; High catches smaller movement.

Panorama

For 2 to 60 photos overlapping by about a third, shot from one spot while turning the camera. They can be selected in any order.

• Projection: Spherical for wide views; Flat for a flat subject photographed in parts, such as a building front or a team line-up.
• Auto crop trims the uneven edges to the largest rectangle that is all picture.

Apply Auto to the result runs Auto on the merged photo, the same as pressing A on it. The full-size merge runs in the background, with a progress row and Cancel at the bottom of the window.

AI Enlarge

For a heavy crop that has to print, or a small photo that has to fill a screen: Photo Merge › Enlarge 2× with AI… (or right-click › Enlarge 2× with AI…) makes a new photo twice the width and height, with fine detail drawn in by an AI instead of just smoothed. It's saved beside the original as DSC_0101-enlarged.jpg, with the original's metadata and settings (crop, brushes and all line up), and appears in the filmstrip. It takes a minute or so per photo on most laptops, less with a graphics card, and runs in the background.

Checking your work

• Before and after: hold \ to see the photo as shot; let go to see your edits.
• Side by side: press Y (or Before | After above the photo) to see the photo before your edits beside it as it is now, framed the same way. Zoom in and both show the same spot. Picking a tool puts the side-by-side view away.
• Clipping: press J (or click a triangle on the histogram) to see blown highlights in red and pure-black shadows in blue, right on the photo.
• Zoom: drag the Zoom slider above the photo to check focus at full resolution, and click the photo to move to another spot. Fit goes back to the whole photo.
• Histogram: hover over it to see how much is clipped.

Exporting

Press Ctrl+E or click Export…. Choose All photos in this folder or Selected only.

Outputs

An output is one saved set of export choices with a name, like "Website full size" or "Social 2048 + logo". Tick every output you want. Each photo is processed once and written to all of them, so two outputs take barely longer than one. New Output, Duplicate, Rename… and Delete manage the list; your outputs and ticks are remembered.

For each output:

• Export to a folder: a plain name such as export or export\social means a folder inside the photo folder; a full path such as D:\Uploads is used as it is.
• Filename pattern: {name} is the original filename, {index} the photo's number, {folder} the folder's name. For example {folder}_{index}.
• Save back over the originals replaces your original files with the edited versions. Leave Keep a backup of the original in _originals/ ticked unless you're sure. Only one output can do this.
• JPEG quality (92 is a good default) and Resize longest edge to for smaller files.
• Color space: sRGB is right for the web, phones and most labs. opRGB (a wide-gamut space) and P3 are for a lab or printer that asks for them. Every exported photo carries its colour profile inside it.
• Sharpen for: a final sharpening made for where the photo is going, after it's been sized: Screen, Matte paper or Glossy paper, at Low, Standard or High.
• Text: words put on the photo, filled in from each one. {caption}, {title} and {keywords} come from the photo's own information (where a race-number tool writes the bib number, for example), {date}, {time} and {year} are when it was taken, and {filename}, {folder}, {creator} and {copyright} do what they say. For example © Your Name {year} or {caption} · {date}. Choose where it goes, its size and how see-through it is.
• Put the logo on this output, when the logo is turned on.

Logo

Open Logo Settings ▸ in Export, or Settings › Logo Settings… to set it up without exporting. Choose an image (a PNG with transparency works best), its size, opacity and distance from the edge. It goes in the bottom-right corner, and the photo area shows it live.

Other programs, deleting, undo and history

Opening in another editor

Right-click a photo in the filmstrip: Open Edited Copy in External Editor writes a copy with your FinishBox edits to an _edited_copies folder and opens it there; Open Original in External Editor opens the untouched file. Pick the program once with Choose External Editor….

Deleting

Delete (or right-click › Delete Photo) moves the photo into a _deleted folder inside the photo folder; nothing is erased. Right-click › Undelete brings it back.

Undo

Ctrl+Z undoes, Ctrl+Y or Ctrl+Shift+Z redoes. Each photo keeps its last 30 steps while the folder is open.

History and snapshots

The History & Snapshots section lists the open photo's steps this session, newest on top, each named by what changed ("Exposure +0.40", "Crop", "Brush"). Click a step to go back to it; that's a step too, so Ctrl+Z still brings you back.

Take Snapshot keeps the photo's settings as they are now under a name ("Black and white", "Before the client's changes") with the folder, for good. Double-click a snapshot, or select it and click Use This Snapshot, to go back to it any day.

Where FinishBox keeps things

Keyboard shortcuts

Also in FinishBox under Help › Keyboard Shortcuts.

Troubleshooting and help

Auto makes photos too bright or too contrasty

Lower the strength in Settings › Auto Tone Strength…, or set a limit on the slider that goes too far. Auto All in Folder can then be run again.

Erase doesn't remove something from the photo

Erase Paint only takes away brush paint. Use Spot Removal or Clone Stamp in Touch Up.

A big folder feels slow at first

FinishBox builds previews in the background right after a folder opens (see the progress row at the bottom). Browsing and Auto speed up as they finish, and stay fast every time you reopen that folder.

"Open in FinishBox" isn't on the right-click menu

On Windows 11, choose Show more options first. If it's still missing, run the installer again and leave that option ticked.

An AI button says a model isn't installed

The AI models are in the models folder beside FinishBox.exe. If that folder was removed or a file in it is damaged, reinstall FinishBox (your edits and settings are kept).

AI Remove fills something oddly

Paint over the whole object, and its shadow, in one stroke, with a little to spare: a part left showing tells the AI to draw more of it. Right-click the removal to undo it and try again, or hold Shift to add a stroke to it.

AI Denoise or Subject is slow

They run on the graphics card when Windows offers one to them (through DirectML), and on the processor otherwise, which is several times slower. To see which was used, open the problem log (Help › Open Problem Log Folder) and look for the line starting AI MODEL LOADED. Updating the graphics driver usually helps. AI Denoise on a whole folder is a job to start before a break, not while you wait.

Something went wrong

Use Help › Open Problem Log Folder and send crash_log.txt along with a short note of what you were doing. It contains no photos, only what FinishBox was doing and when.

Contact

Boxridge Software · boxridgesoftware.com