Zooming and Looking Around
The live preview in Settings ▸ Displays is a viewfinder. It has the display's shape and shows exactly the part of the camera's picture the wallpaper shows. Zoom in and move around in it, and the wallpaper follows as you do.
At first the picture just covers the display. If its shape differs from the display's - a square 360° picture on a wide display, say - its edges are cut off; drag to bring them into view. You can zoom in up to 8 times.
This zoom is digital: the camera itself and its recordings are not affected. Zooming in enlarges the video's pixels, so choose High quality for the sharpest result. 360° cameras work a little differently, and a PTZ camera can also be moved itself, with Option - see their pages.
With the mouse or trackpad
- Scroll - with the scroll wheel or two fingers: away from you zooms in, toward you zooms out, around the pointer.
- Pinch on a trackpad to zoom.
- Double-click zooms in on that spot; Option-double-click zooms out.
- Double-tap with two fingers (smart zoom) zooms in on that spot, or back out to the whole picture.
- Drag to move around. The pointer turns into a hand whenever there is something to move.
With the pointer over the preview, three buttons appear in it: Zoom Out, Zoom In, and Show the Whole Picture.
With the keyboard
Click the preview first; a focus ring shows around it. Then:
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| ← → ↑ ↓ | Move around |
| + (or =) | Zoom in |
| - | Zoom out |
| 0 | Show the whole picture |
On a clear desktop the same keys steer the wallpaper directly, no Settings needed - see Desktop Keys.
With Reduce Motion
A step - zooming in or out with a key, a button or a double-click, or showing the whole picture - glides to its new view. With Reduce Motion on in System Settings ▸ Accessibility ▸ Motion (▸ Display on macOS 15), the view changes at once instead. Turning a 360° view with a held key, and "Slowly look around", keep moving: you choose them.
Remembered for each camera
PanoPaper keeps the zoom and position for each camera on each display - in the Web Edition, on each Space. Switch to another camera and back, and the picture is framed the way you left it.
