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Editing photos in Pixieset Photo Editor

Pixieset Photo Editor includes a full editing workspace for refining your photos before you export or publish them. Start with a Pixieset AI Style or create your own from one of your galleries, apply presets to selected photos, make manual adjustments, retouch distractions, and use masks for targeted edits.

Your edits never change your original files, and they stay with the project until you export or publish. If you culled first, the photos you moved into Editing show up here, while the rest remain in the project, ready whenever you return to Culling for more.

On this page:

How to start editing

Photo Editor gives you two main editing tools, which you can use freely depending on the project and how much control you want:

  • AI Styles: Apply a consistent editing style across a project which Photo Editor adapts to each photo's lighting and scene.
  • Manual tools: Build or refine edits yourself with standard editing controls.

You can combine these tools however you like in Photo Editor. Apply an AI Style across an entire project, fine-tune individual photos by hand, or apply a different preset to a smaller group that needs its own look. You can switch your editing approach at any point.

Editing with an AI Style

An AI Style applies your signature look across an entire project, adapting to each photo's lighting, color, and scene. Unlike a standard preset, it adjusts intelligently from image to image. You can choose from Pixieset's built-in AI Styles or create your own from photos you've previously edited.

After applying an AI style, you can still fine-tune any photo by hand. If you want an edit to guide how similar images are treated, mark that photo as a reference photo. The AI Style will use it as guidance when editing similar scenes within the current project. You can also update your AI Style as you work, so future projects start even closer to your preferred look.

Note: Updating an AI Style changes how it behaves in future projects. Be sure to review edits in your current project as needed.

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Fine-tuning photos manually

Use manual tools on their own or after an AI Style or preset. In Photo Editor, these are grouped by area:

  • Basic adjustments: Temperature, exposure, contrast, saturation, and more.
  • Color and tone: Curves, HSL, Point Color, Color Grading, and Calibration.
  • Detail and correction: Sharpening, noise reduction, lens correction, transform, and effects.
  • Crop tools: Crop, straighten, rotate, or flip.
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Applying presets to photos

Use Pixieset's presets or create presets to reuse across projects. They apply only to the photos you select so you can give a group a specific look, like black and white on a few finals, without changing the rest of the gallery.

When you apply a preset, that photo is no longer adjusted by the AI Style automatically. You can still make manual edits after.

Tip: Select your photos before applying a preset. Presets apply to the selected photos, not the whole project.

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Retouching and removing objects

You have three remove tools:

  • AI Erase: Brush over what you want gone, and Photo Editor generates a replacement.
  • AI Generate: Describe what to remove, and Photo Editor generates the result.
  • Heal: Brush over an area to replace it with nearby image detail. Photo Editor can use a healed image as a reference for similar photos.

AI Erase and AI Generate use GenAI credits, while Heal does not. You can use Heal and the standard editing tools as much as you need.

Tip: Generated and healed results may benefit from additional refinement. Take a moment to review retouched areas, especially around detailed backgrounds or edges.

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Using masks for targeted adjustments

You can create two kinds of masks:

  • Automatic masks: Generate masks for areas like the subject, background, or sky.
  • Manual masks: Define the area yourself with a brush, radial gradient, or linear gradient.

Once a mask is in place, Photo Editor shows adjustment controls that affect only the masked area, so you can refine color, light, and detail exactly how you like. To save time, Photo Editor can also use a masked adjustment as a reference for similar photos.

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Exporting or publishing edited photos

When you are done, export final images to your computer or publish them directly to a Pixieset Client Gallery.

Local export supports formats like JPEG, TIFF, and PSD. Exported files are flattened final images, so Photo Editor adjustments are not carried over as editable RAW settings for use in other applications.

Publishing to Client Gallery exports JPEGs and uploads them to the gallery you select. Before publishing, you can review settings like image size and watermark options.

Tip: When exporting locally, pick a destination folder separate from the original project folder. That keeps exported images from being pulled in if you create or reopen a project from that folder later.

Important: The pixieset.catalog folder stores all your Photo Editor edits. To ensure your projects’ edits remain available, keep the folder in place and do not delete it.