Ristretto - Getting Started

Viewing an image
Zooming
Rotating
Slideshow
Set as Wallpaper
Clear private data

The main window

When Ristretto is first started, it shows an empty window with two toolbars.
Images can be opened by pressing the Open button on the toolbar or from the File menu.

Ristretto Getting Started Window

Viewing an image

Viewing an Image

Zooming

Showing an image like this is nice, but sometimes you want to zoom in on a detail, get a closer look. To do this Ristretto provides the ability to zoom in on a section of the image. There are several ways to do zoom in on an image,

The first way to zoom is via the zoom buttons on the side toolbar. It is possible to zoom in, out, to 100% or to make the image fit the screen. These buttons can also be reached via Menu → View → Zoom.
A second way is using the scroll-wheel on the mouse. Moving the mouse-wheel forward while pressing Control zooms in on the image. Similarly moving the mouse-wheel backward and holding Control will zoom out.

The zoom-direction of the mouse-wheel can be adjusted, see Preferences for more details.

The third, and last way to zoom on an image is using so-called BOX-ZOOM, or selection-zoom. Press Control+Click, and drag the mouse-cursor. This way a box appears, when the mouse-button is released, Ristretto will zoom in on the selected portion of the image.

Rotating

Sometimes, it is necessary to rotate an image because it is not positioned in the right orientation. To solve this, you can use the Rotate buttons available via Menu → View → Rotation.

Some digital cameras store the image-orientation inside the EXIF data. If this information is present, Ristretto reads this information and automatically rotates the image.

Ristretto does not provide a way to save the altered orientation back into the file. If you want to modify the image-data, this needs to be done with an image-editor, like The GIMP.

Switching between images

When an image is opened in Ristretto, it shows a list of images in the Thumbnailbar, these are the other images located inside the same folder as the currently opened image. The arrow-buttons on the navigation toolbar allow for easy switching between different images.

Also, using the scroll-wheel on the opened image, or on the Thumbnailbar will switch to the next or previous image. Allowing for fast and easy navigation between images.

Slideshow

To run a slideshow of all the opened images, all you need to do is press the Play button. This can be found on the Toolbar and the View menu.

The duration of the timeout before the next image is shown can be configured inside the Preferences dialog, by default it is set to 5 seconds.

Set as Wallpaper

It is easy to set the wallpaper on the Xfce desktop directly from the ristretto menu, using Menu → View → Set as Wallpaper

Set Wallpaper

Clear private data

To clear the history of images viewed with ristretto, this can be done using Menu → View → Clear private data

Clear Private Data

Return to Ristretto 4.18 Main Documentation Page