Export photos

Export renders each photo with all its edits and writes a new file. Your original files are never touched.

Export photos

1. Select the photos in the grid or Survey, or open one in Loupe or Edit.
2. Choose File › Export… (Ctrl+Shift+E by default). With several photos selected, the command reads Export 12 Photos….
3. Set the options below.
4. Click Export. The files are written in the background, and the status bar shows “Exporting 3 of 12…” with a cancel button.

The dialog opens on the settings you used last. A line above the buttons says what will happen, for example “Saves as DSC_1203_export.jpg · 6048 × 4024 · 8-bit”. When something stops the export, the line turns red and Export is off.

Choose the image

Setting	What it does
Format	JPEG, PNG, TIFF or EXR. See Choose a format and encoding.
Quality (JPEG)	1 to 95, starting at 95. Above 95 the file grows with no visible gain. Double-click to reset; click the number to type one.
Bit depth (PNG)	PNG has no options: 8 bits per channel, lossless.
Encoding (TIFF, EXR)	How the pixel values are stored.
Primaries	The color space of a scene-linear file. Other files are always sRGB.
Size	Full size is the photo at its own resolution, after the crop. Long edge scales it so the long edge is that many pixels; type a number from 1 to 65535. A smaller photo is never enlarged.

The rows stay in place when you change the format, so the dialog never rearranges itself.

Include metadata

Include metadata is on by default. It carries the camera, lens, exposure and capture date into the exported file. Include location adds the GPS position and is on by default too; turn it off before sharing a photo you don’t want to place on a map. A TIFF carries the camera and the capture date only, never a position.

Name and place the files

• Folder is where the files go; it must exist. Browse… opens a folder picker. Several photos always go into one folder.

• Name is the file name without its extension; the format adds .jpg, .png, .tif or .exr. It starts as {name}_export. Click a token to insert it:

  Token	Becomes
  {name}	The photo’s file name, without its extension (a virtual copy adds its copy name)
  {n}	The photo’s number in this export: 01, 02, …
  {date}	The capture date, as 2026-09-14, or “undated”

• Overwrite existing files is on by default. A file of the same name is replaced, but safely: the old file stays until the new one is complete. Turn it off and the export takes the next free name instead, such as photo_export-2.jpg.

• Show in File System when done opens the folder with the first file selected.

Export never replaces a source photo or any other photo in your catalog. If the target is one, the line says “That file is a photo in the catalog: choose another name, or turn Overwrite off”.

Several photos need {name} or {n} in the name, or they would share one file. The dialog says so and stops. A name can’t be empty or contain \ / : * ? " < > |.

Export again

File › Export Again (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+E) repeats the last export on the current photos with no dialog. If you haven’t exported yet, or the settings don’t fit, such as a folder that is gone or a name two photos would share, the status bar says why and the dialog opens instead.

Stop an export, or read its report

Click the cancel button in the status bar. DarkRay finishes the photo it is writing and stops; with Overwrite off, the names it had set aside for the rest are removed.

When the export ends, the status bar reads “Exported: DSC_1203_export.jpg”, “Exported 12 photos” or “Exported 11 of 12 photos: 1 failed”. A photo that fails is reported and the others are still written. If any photo failed, or was written differently from how Edit shows it, a dialog lists each one: “The photo wasn’t exported.” or “Exported, but not quite as Edit shows it.” followed by lines such as:

• “its edits were saved by a newer DarkRay: exported as shot”
• “AI mask never computed on Layer 2: exported without it”
• “its look (…) wasn’t found: exported without it”

Note

A RAW whose RAW Process settings call for denoise is prepared first if that hasn’t been done, or is out of date. The status bar reads “Preparing a.NEF (3 of 12)…” and it can take a while. If preparing fails, that photo reports “couldn’t be prepared” and the rest still export.

Technical details: how export renders

Every export goes through the same renderer as Edit, at full resolution, on the GPU, a photo at a time in one background task. Without a CUDA GPU the CPU path runs the same steps. If another AI job holds the GPU, the status bar says “Export: waiting for the GPU (…)”.

A long-edge size is applied in linear light, with area averaging, before the file is encoded. Each file is written atomically and flushed to disk before it takes its name, so a failed export or a power cut leaves an existing file as it was.

Metadata is rebuilt from the catalog’s reading of the photo, not copied byte for byte: JPEG and PNG get a full EXIF block, a TIFF gets the baseline tags, and an EXR gets header attributes.