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JOS Compositor: tools you won't find elsewhere
This is the master list of what JOS Compositor does that other node-based compositors don't. Each entry links to its page.
Node graph
| Tool | In one line | Manual |
|---|---|---|
| Settings inside the node | Double-click a node and its full settings open inside it, so the Properties panel is optional. | node-graph |
| A socket per channel | Expand a node to get sockets for R, G, B and A, and one more to pick any channel or layer, then wire one pass where it's needed with no Shuffle. | node-graph |
| Cryptomatte as one socket | All of a Cryptomatte's ranks travel through one socket, with its manifest. | node-graph |
| Combine | Builds an image from channels, layers and fills; it replaces Shuffle. Click an empty R/G/B/A socket to fill it with white or black. | node-graph |
| Wire first, pick the node after | Drop a wire on empty space and the node picker opens; the new node arrives connected. | node-graph |
| Click to connect | Click an output, then an input, to connect nodes far apart: no long drag, and you can pan and zoom in between. | node-graph |
| Move or swap an input by dragging | Drag a connection from one input of a node to another input of the same node. | node-graph |
| Vertical or horizontal flow | Build the tree top to bottom or left to right. | node-graph |
| Snap on sockets | Snapping lines up sockets rather than node corners, open nodes included. | node-graph |
| Sliders inside number fields | Drag a field to change it; Shift makes the change 10× finer; click to type. | node-graph |
Roto, paint and vector graphics
| Tool | In one line | Manual |
|---|---|---|
| Remove brush | Paints out an object by filling the stroke with texture from around it, with matched grain. No clone source to set. | roto-paint |
| Healing | The remove brush keeps the grain it copies but takes the colour of what surrounds the stroke on every side, so unevenly lit surfaces stay seamless. | roto-paint |
| Roto points animate on their own | Moving an animated point keys only that point, not the whole shape. | roto-paint |
| The Bezier tool | Alignment guides, typed X/Y offsets, 5° steps, holes and three ways to close a shape. | roto-paint |
| Dodge and burn by range | Limit dodge or burn to shadows, midtones or highlights, in stops. | roto-paint |
| Black and white swatches | Permanent swatches; Shift+X swaps them, as in a paint program. | roto-paint |
| SVG import | Brings in Illustrator and Affinity SVG files as editable shapes, keeping the document's layer order, groups, gradients, text and filters. | vector-graphics |
| Vector Graphics node | Bezier shapes and open lines with fills, outlines, dashes, gradients and mattes. | vector-graphics |
| Master offset | Moves every stroke and shape of a paint node at once, keyed or linked to a tracker, with Keep Transform and a tweak on top. | roto-paint |
Tracking and cameras
| Tool | In one line | Manual |
|---|---|---|
| Trackers that move the picture themselves | Tracker (only tracks, its points linkable), Stabilize and Match Move: no Export, no second node to connect. Each starts with a track. | tracking |
| Camera tracker guides | Lines drawn along a set's axes (as in fSpy) stay in the camera solve: they hold the lens, the scene comes out in their axes; sets for things at an angle to each other; lines snap to the plate's edges. Set axis and Create cube. | tracking |
| Fill gaps | Keys the frames a track lost along a curve fitted to the keys on either side. | tracking |
| Hidden corner | Works out a rectangle's hidden or never-seen corner from the other three. | tracking |
| FocalFinder | Draw vanishing lines on a still frame and get a matching camera. | 3d/focalfinder |
3D on USD
| Tool | In one line | Manual |
|---|---|---|
| Blender live link | Edit a scene in Blender and see it in JOS at once, and the other way round, with shared undo and animation. | live-link-blender |
Nodes
| Tool | In one line | Manual |
|---|---|---|
| Kuwahara | Painterly smoothing that keeps edges (classic or anisotropic). | nodes |
| Pixelate | A mosaic of block averages. | nodes |
| Despeckle | Replaces isolated odd pixels with their neighbours. | nodes |
| MaskToSDF | Signed distance from a mask's edge. | nodes |
| DoubleEdgeMask | A gradient from an inner mask out to an outer one. | nodes |
| Voronoi, Wave, Brick | Procedural textures. | nodes |
| ChromaKeyer and Despill | Our own keyer and spill suppressor, included free. | nodes |
| Text in every script | The Text node shapes Arabic, Hebrew, Devanagari, Tamil, Thai and other scripts correctly. | nodes |
Working with the app
| Tool | In one line | Manual |
|---|---|---|
| An AI that shares your undo | The built-in MCP server lets Claude or any MCP client edit the open comp. Its edits are on your undo stack. | ai-assistants |
| Names in any language | Node names and notes in any script, with spaces and punctuation. | everyday |
| Hardware test | Measures the CPU, memory, GPU and disk, then fills in the cache, GPU and tile settings. | everyday |
| Shortcut on any menu item | Right-click a menu item to give it a shortcut. | everyday |
| Loop, bounce and noise on curves | Curve ends and a noise modifier, with no expressions. | everyday |
| Extrapolate and exponential curve ends | A curve carries on past its keys as it was going (speed and acceleration, or an exponential with a strength), for a tracker that leaves the frame. | everyday |
| Fill gap on any curve | Pick an in and an out key on one curve or several: the frames between are keyed from the curve around them. | everyday |
| Curve editor pivot and Blender-style keys | A pivot mode for scaling keys about any frame; W / R (G / S with Blender keys) move and scale with the mouse, X / Y constraints and typed amounts; a toolbar with snapping and Delete flat animation. | everyday |
| Timeline markers | M marks a frame with a coloured, annotated flag. | everyday |
| Sound-only scrub | Ctrl+drag the playhead to hear the sound without rendering pictures. | everyday |
| File browser thumbnails | Picture thumbnails, and sequences shown as one entry with their missing frames. | everyday |
| Path Manager | Lists every file path, finds missing files and repaths by prefix. | everyday |
| Read-only without a licence | With no licence your comps still open, in read-only mode. | everyday |