EmulLab
Manual · 01

Set up and open
your first roll.

Choose where rolls go, then open a folder of scans. Nothing is imported, moved or copied.

Open a roll

  1. The first time EmulLab opens, choose a Photo Library Location (where new rolls are created; it starts as ~/Pictures/EmulLab) and your Primary Workflow, then click Continue.
  2. Choose File › Open Folder of Scans (⌘O), or click Open Folder in the toolbar.
  3. Pick the folder that holds one roll’s scans. It’s added under Film Rolls in the sidebar.
  4. Click Edit at the top to work on one frame. ← and → step through the roll.
  5. Click Library to see the roll as a grid. Double-click a frame to open it in Edit.
The welcome screen, and changing it later
  • Photo Library Location: where New Roll (⌘N) creates roll folders. Folders you open stay where they are.
  • Watched Folder: optional, for a tethering app. See Use a watched folder.
  • Primary Workflow: Camera Scans, Flatbed Scans or Lab Positives. It sets the first screen: Capture for camera scans (only once a camera is connected), Library for the others. After that, EmulLab opens where you left off.
  • Default Color Space: what exports start with. sRGB to start.
  • Use Defaults skips these choices and starts with the standard ones: rolls in Pictures › EmulLab, no watched folder, camera scans and sRGB.
  • Change any of them in Settings (⌘,): General, Capture and Export.
First-time tips

The first time you reach Capture, Conversion, Roll Analysis and the Heal tab, and the first time you open a slide or positive scan, a few short tips point at the controls. Click Next to go on, or Skip to hide them. Each lesson shows once. Help › Replay Training shows them all again; to stop them, turn off Show training in Settings › General.

Browse folders without adding them

The Folders section of the sidebar shows your Pictures folder and any folder or drive you add with its + button. Looking changes nothing. Rating, tagging or editing a frame adds its folder as a roll; so does right-click › Add as Roll. For a folder of roll folders (a year of an archive), right-click › Add All Rolls Inside: it looks up to eight folders down, leaves out Exports folders and system folders, and says so if it stopped before the bottom. Right-click › Remove from Folders takes a place off the list, Pictures too, and it stays off; + adds it back.

Which files open

Camera RAW files (NEF, CR2, CR3, ARW, RAF, ORF, RW2, PEF, DNG and other common ones), plus TIFF, JPEG and PNG. Which cameras are checked: camera compatibility.

What happens to your scans

They stay where they are, as ordinary files. Edits, ratings, tags and notes are kept in EmulLab’s catalog, never in or beside the photos, and the scans are never changed. You can also open a folder by dragging it onto the sidebar or onto EmulLab in the Dock.

Applies to EmulLab 0.9.1 (Public Beta). Updated October 9, 2026.