General Tab

Layout
RawTherapee lets you use the following modes:
 * Single Editor Tab Mode
 * Single Editor Tab Mode, Vertical Tabs
 * Multiple Editor Tabs Mode
 * Multiple Editor Tabs Mode (if available on second monitor)

Remember that if you use multiple "Editor" tabs, each one takes a substantial amount of RAM. Only use multiple Editor tabs if you have quite a lot of RAM (exactly how much depends on what resolution your images are, which tools you use, how many other programs you run in the background, etc.).

A restart is required for these options to take effect.

Default Language
Select the language for the GUI out of a list of thirty languages. English (US) is the default ('mother') language, translations are based on that one. On Win Vista/7 64bit you can have the language automatically read from the operation system.

Again, a restart is required to change the language of the GUI.

Default Theme
Choose between several themes for the GUI, from light to dark. The effects are visible after a few seconds, so no need to restart here. Checking 'Use System Theme' might change the appearance of RawTherapee, although this depends on the platform and the window manager in use. Just see if it works for you.

"Crop mask color/transparency" is the color of the area outside of a crop. By clicking on the colored button, a new window appears where you can also set transparency. If set to 75, the cropped area is still somewhat visible. Useful to move the crop around and to find the best composition (hold the Shift key and move the crop with the mouse).

Choose the font of your liking here. With smaller fonts more tools can be displayed on the screen. You can also enable "Slim interface" to fit some more tools into your screen space.

Clipping Indication
When checked, the raw photo blinks at underexposed and overexposed areas. The both threshold sliders determine at which values blinking begins (0..255). In RawTherapee 4.0 the clipping indicators are calculated on the final image in the output space selected for the image. The clipping indicator takes the distance to the maximum/minimum and renders these as grayscale values. Mention the clipping is only calculated at the end of the processing chain. However, since RawTherapee 4.0 has a floating point engine, there are fewer positions within the processing chain where clipping can occur at all.

Date Format
Determines the date format of the thumbnails in the file browser window.

Pan Rate Amplification
Imagine a high resolution image is opened, and you are zoomed to 100%. In order to move the image around (it's called "panning") you would have to make multiple mouse movements (or have a very large mouse pad!). RawTherapee saves you from this by using a "pan rate amplification" - when set to 5, RawTherapee multiplies by 5 every pixel you pan by. If in one comfortable mouse movement you'd normally move the cursor 500 pixels, with this option set to 5 you will have panned 2500 pixels.

The effect is most visible when you are zoomed in, and least visible when zoomed out.

External Editor
When you send a raw from within RawTherapee to an external editor for further processing, RawTherapee needs to know which program you want to use. If that's not the Gimp, you can specify the path to your favorite photo editor here.

About
Shows information about the original author of RawTherapee and the current version, details of the build, names of developers and other contributors and the licence under which RawTherapee is published: GPLv3