Documentation

Press Shift+\ or click Save Snapshot in the N-panel. This captures the current state of your scene — lights, camera, world, materials, object transforms, collection visibility, and render settings.

Every save creates a new snapshot. Nothing is ever overwritten. Your full exploration history is always there.

Snapshots are named with relative timestamps — "just now", "5 min ago", "2 hours ago" — so you always know when each one was taken.

A preview thumbnail renders in the background after each save — first a fast draft, then a high-quality pass. You can keep working while it renders.

Click any snapshot card in the N-panel to restore it. Snapshot puts every light, camera setting, material, and object transform back exactly where they were, and switches the viewport to Rendered shading so you immediately see the restored look.

If you've made unsaved changes, you'll be prompted to either Save & Restore (saves your current state as a new snapshot first) or Discard & Restore.

After restoring, you're in a "draft" workspace — any changes you make won't modify the snapshot. Save again to capture your new state.

Press Alt+\ or click the Cycle A/B button in the N-panel to cycle between visible snapshots directly in the viewport. Each press restores the next snapshot so you can compare looks live.

Requires at least two visible snapshots. In the Image Editor, the same shortcut flips between the last two snapshots you viewed — a preview-only comparison that doesn't touch your scene.

Click the Preview Snapshots icon in the N-panel to open the viewer in the Image Editor. Your snapshots appear as a filmstrip of thumbnails along the bottom edge, with the selected snapshot filling the view above. A control bar between them switches the viewer between its two modes.

Detail shows one snapshot at a time with Blender's native zoom and pan. Step through snapshots with the ← → keys, hold \ to peek at the previously viewed snapshot for a quick before/after, and press S to star the one you're looking at. On-image tools flip the image horizontally or vertically to check your composition with fresh eyes, or switch it to B&W for judging values and False Color for reading exposure.

Compare puts two snapshots up as A and B. View them Side by side, as a Wipe with a draggable divider between A and B, or as a Difference view that highlights exactly what changed. A swap button exchanges A and B.

Right-click any thumbnail for a context menu: star it, restore it in the viewport, render it, or delete it. Stars can also be toggled directly on the thumbnails.

Drag the top edge of the filmstrip to resize it. When there are more snapshots than fit on screen, scroll with the mouse wheel, a trackpad swipe, or the scrollbar.

Press Shift+Tab in the Image Editor to toggle between Snapshot Result and Render Result. Any preview can be saved to disk via Image → Save As.

Star your favorite snapshots, then click Narrow Down to advance to the next round. Unstarred snapshots drop away. Repeat until you've narrowed it down to your best option.

You can go back to a previous round at any time — nothing is deleted, just hidden.

When exactly one snapshot is starred, Render Winner appears — it restores that snapshot, finds an empty render slot, and launches the render.

Round navigation also lives in the Snapshot Viewer's control bar, so you can run an entire elimination from the Image Editor.

Snapshot captures the look of your scene, not its geometry. Mesh edits, sculpting, applied transforms (Ctrl+A), and modifier changes are not captured — with one exception: Geometry Nodes inputs and node group assignments are restored.

Objects added after a snapshot was taken are hidden when that snapshot is restored. And if you try to delete an object that existing snapshots reference, Snapshot warns you first so you don't break them by accident.