Export

iPhone and iPad. In Browse, select photographs or open one in the loupe, then choose Export… from the view menu. Export to a folder in Files or use the system share sheet. The sheet names the selected photographs and how many originals need downloading. An export stays cancellable while it runs.

On iPhone the export appears at the top of the sheet. Swipe it photograph by photograph, or sheet by sheet for a contact sheet, or step with the arrows beside its count. Under it, a strip of cards holds the presets in three groups: Photos, Framed and Sheets. Each card draws what its preset makes. Tap a card to use it, touch and hold one you saved to rename or delete it, and tap ＋ at the end to save the settings on screen as a new preset of the same kind. Beneath the strip, a sentence says what the export will write, and each row below it opens its own page: Frame for a framed preset; Layout, Captions and Photographs for a contact sheet, with File choosing JPEG or PDF in the row itself; Send to, and for photographs File, Size, Metadata and Mark. The button at the top right names what it writes: Export, Write 3 sheets or Write PDF. An iPad at full width lays the same sheet out in the Mac’s three columns, with the presets as a list on the left, the export in the middle and the settings on the right; in a narrow window it takes the iPhone’s layout.

Named export presets sync when decision sync is on. Each device remembers its own folder for a preset; a folder chosen on the Mac cannot grant access on an iPhone or iPad. A preset with no folder on this device asks you to choose one. Settings the mobile sheet does not edit, such as a fit or percentage size, remain in the preset and are applied unchanged. A preset using an image mark chosen on another device stays visible, but mobile export asks you to remove that mark or export on its source device. It never silently omits the mark.

Mac.

Press E in Browse to export selected photographs, or all photographs in the current view when none are selected.

The Export button shows the target count. Export uses each photograph’s selected version. ORIGINAL and photographs without edits export as a straight conversion.

The resizable export window floats above the main window. You can continue selecting photographs behind it. Keys apply to the active window; rating or rejecting with Export focused does not change photographs behind it.

Contact sheets. With two or more photographs selected, choose Photo › Share as Contact Sheet…, or the same item under a right-click in Browse. Frames lays them out in the order you selected them on proof sheets of up to 36 frames, six across, and opens the share sheet over the files. Each frame carries its number from the grid, its stars, and the chalk box and ▸ of a kept frame or the ✕ of a rejected one; a strip across the top names the album or folder, the dates and the count, and a run of more than 36 makes several sheets, numbered in the strip. Each sheet is a JPEG 3000 pixels wide in sRGB, drawn from the previews already on this Mac with each photograph’s edit, so a contact sheet never downloads an original. A photograph with no preview yet appears as a grey frame holding its number. To keep the sheets in a folder, or to change the grid, the page or the captions, open Export and choose Proof 6 × 6; the sheets go into the folder shown under Where it goes, and a file already there keeps its name. On iPhone and iPad, Share as Contact Sheet under More shares the same standard sheet in one press, and the export sheet’s Sheets cards are where a sheet is set up and saved.

Preview. The first photograph appears with its watermark. For multiple photographs, the preview advances every three seconds. Hover over it or adjust a watermark slider to pause temporarily. Click the photograph, an arrow or pause to stop cycling until resumed. Cycling also stops when another application is active.

Presets. The window has three columns: the presets on the left, the proof in the middle and the settings on the right. The presets fall into three kinds, each under its own heading: Photographs writes one file a photograph, Framed draws a frame around each one, and Contact sheets lays a selection out on pages. Each kind opens on a built-in preset, Full size, Gallery frame and Proof 6 × 6, which is always there and cannot be renamed or deleted. Every row draws what its preset makes: the photograph in the proof through that preset, or a contact sheet’s first page. Click a row to use it. The settings column names the preset in use, and changing a setting displays Custom. The ＋ beside a heading saves the settings on screen as a new preset of that kind; a saved preset’s right-click menu has Rename… and Delete…. Changing a built-in and saving writes a preset of your own. Deleting a preset preserves current settings. A window closed on a contact sheet opens next time on photographs.

Presets of all three kinds sync when decision sync is on; destination folder paths and bookmarks stay on each device. A preset saved without a folder keeps the destination already selected on that device. A preset made by a newer version of Frames, of a kind this version cannot write, stays out of the list and is never run as something else; a note under the presets says how many were set aside, and they appear once Frames is updated.

The frame. A framed preset draws one of four styles around each exported photograph, chosen from drawn tiles at the head of The frame. Gallery strip sets an even mat on three sides and a band beneath, with the camera and lens at the left and labelled readings at the right. Edge print prints the data along the top and bottom of a black film rebate, and Frames mark adds the mark at the right-hand end of the top edge. Museum mat is a wide even mat with a centred caption beneath: the photograph’s caption, its date, then a line of readings. Hairline is a thin border with one line beneath, camera and focal length at the left and the exposure at the right. Canvas sets the file’s shape: as shot, 4:5, 1:1 or 9:16. Mat is white, paper or black; Edge print is always black. Readings chooses any of camera, lens, focal length, aperture, shutter, ISO and date.

The size under Size is the whole file, frame included, and the photograph is fitted inside the mat. A watermark sits on the photograph, inside the frame. Readings come from the catalogue, and the export fills any it lacks from the original it is already reading. A reading neither holds is left out of that photograph’s frame, and the section counts the photographs short of one. An estimated aperture is drawn as ≈ƒ/5.6. The frame never prints a place.

Contact-sheet settings. A contact-sheet preset replaces the photograph sections with its own. Layout picks the grid from drawn tiles, 4 × 3, 5 × 4, 6 × 6 or 10 × 8, which turn with the page; the page is landscape or portrait, on a screen page 3000 pixels across or on A4, Letter or A3 at 300 dpi, on a dark ground or a paper one, with each photograph whole in its cell or cropped to 3:2. Captions chooses what sits under each frame: number, verdict, stars, filename, time and exposure, the last three on a second line. The strip across the top carries the place and dates, a title of your own, or nothing, and Frames mark turns the mark on or off. A title you type redraws the proof once you pause. Which photographs takes all of them, the kept ones only, or all but the rejected, and counts what that makes. The file writes one JPEG a sheet or a single PDF with a page a sheet. The proof draws the real page, and its arrows step through the sheets. A sheet on any page still draws from the previews already on this device and never downloads an original.

A summary above the sections describes format, size, colour space, sharpening, watermark and destination. Each collapsed section also shows its current values. Open sections are remembered.

The file. Choose JPEG or HEIF with adjustable quality, 16-bit TIFF, or PNG at 8 or 16 bits. Colour spaces are sRGB, Display P3 and Adobe RGB. ProPhoto is available only at 16 bits to avoid visible gradient banding.

Size. Resize by long edge or percentage. Frames renders at full resolution before resizing and never enlarges. Output sharpening applies only after resampling.

Metadata. Camera information, capture date, location and copyright have separate switches. Location is off by default. Keywords and captions come from the catalogue; creator and copyright come from Photographer settings. Turning Copyright off withholds creator and copyright while keeping captions and keywords.

The catalogue’s keyword list replaces existing file keywords, including with an empty list. PNG may preserve an existing copyright notice even with Copyright off. See Captions and credit and Words of your own.

The mark. Add a text or image watermark at one of nine positions. Set size and inset as fractions of the exported long edge, plus opacity. Text colour defaults to white. Tokens such as © {date:yyyy} resolve per photograph.

Click the section’s preview grid to position the mark and use the sliders to adjust it. Watermarks are composited after resizing and output sharpening. They do not appear in Photos write-back. The section header shows the mark, position and colour, or none when disabled.

A selected watermark image is remembered through a file-access bookmark. A missing image stops the affected export and identifies the file. The window also counts photographs whose text tokens produce no usable mark.

On iPhone and iPad, Export offers text watermarks with the same tokens, colour, size, inset, opacity and nine positions. A schematic placement grid shows the first photograph’s resolved text; it is not an image or colour proof. The summary counts photographs that will export without a usable mark. An inherited image mark must be removed or exported on the device that chose it.

Where it goes. Under Send to, choose Folder or Share sheet, then set the folder and filename patterns. The tokens are {name}, {date:yyyy-MM-dd}, {time:HHmmss}, {seq:3}, {camera}, {lens}, {iso} and {rating}; the { } button beside each field lists them and appends the chosen one, with its format ready to edit. Tokens are highlighted and the resolved path appears below. Token values are sanitised as filename text: a slash in a lens name does not create a directory. This section opens automatically when no destination has been chosen.

Share exported photographs. Choose Share sheet under Send to, then click Share. Frames exports with your chosen format, size, metadata and watermark settings. The export window closes and progress appears in the activity readout. When the export finishes, the macOS share sheet opens with the files that were successfully written. Choose an available service, such as Mail, Messages or AirDrop. If no files were written, the share sheet does not open; check the activity readout for failures.

Sharing does not require a destination folder. The folder row and Subfolder field are hidden, and only the filename pattern is used. Your folder settings return when you choose Folder again. Frames writes shared files to a temporary folder and removes folders older than 24 hours when the app next launches.

Downloads and space. The summary estimates required original downloads and their size using camera-model averages, and shows destination free space. When originals are available it shows originals on disk. Otherwise, Download now fetches them before the export. Insufficient estimated space is shown in red but does not disable Export.

Existing files. Choose Replace, Skip or Keep both before the first render. Keep both also protects files created while the export is running, including files from another export, by choosing another numbered name. Skip leaves a file that appears before writing untouched. Replace applies only to existing requested filenames; numbered alternatives do not replace other files.

Exports run as one cancellable activity, fetching the next photograph while rendering the current one. Failed photographs are named. A photograph whose required mask detection fails, or needs an unavailable Select model, is not exported. Retry after the detector recovers or the model has downloaded.

All exports are SDR. Original gain maps are omitted because they do not describe the edited pixels.

Command line. rawctl export --out <dir> --rating <n> exports without a window. A rating floor is required.

See Soft proofing, Captions and credit, Words of your own.