Exporting

Opening the Export sheet

• Click Export... at the bottom of the right panel.
• Press Ctrl+Shift+E.
• Right-click a frame and choose Export....

Export is not available while culling. With two or more frames selected, the sheet's title says Export 3 frames, and each frame is written under its own edit.

Export again, with no sheet

Ctrl+E exports the selected frames with the sheet's choices as they stand, into the Folder row's folder (or Subfolder), at once: the sheet does not open. The first time, before any export has gone out from the sheet, Ctrl+E opens the sheet instead, as Ctrl+Shift+E does.

Enter presses Export unless a field or a control has the focus. Esc presses Cancel, or first cancels a preset name or a queue clear in hand.

The sheet, row by row

Metadata

• All: the camera's details (camera, lens, settings, date) and the edit that made the picture.
• No edit: the camera's details, without your edit. Use it for a picture you hand on without your recipe.
• None: nothing but the color profile. The camera, the time and any location are left out.

Watermark

Choose Text to type a line, such as "© Your Name", and pick White or Black. Choose Image and click Choose... to pick a PNG; its transparency is kept.

Click a square in the 3 × 3 grid to place the mark (bottom right by default). Then set:

• Size: the mark's width, 1 to 50 % of the export's long side (15 % by default).
• Margin: the gap from the edge, 0 to 10 % (2 % by default).
• Opacity: 5 to 100 % (60 % by default).

Because size and margin are a share of the long side, the mark looks the same on a 2048 px export as on a full-size one. On a narrow crop it shrinks to stay inside its margins.

The export stops, and says why, rather than write an unmarked file when:

• the text is empty or no PNG is chosen
• a character has no font that can draw it, such as a color emoji

Text is set in the system's sans-serif font.

Border

A border frames the picture in a band of one color, as a mat does a print. Click a swatch to turn it on: White, light grey, dark grey, Black, or Match, which takes the picture's own average color. Off takes it away.

Width is a share of the picture's long side, 0.5 to 25 % (5 % by default), so a preset frames a 2048 px export and a full-size one alike. The border is added outside the picture, never cut into it, so the file is larger than Long edge by the band on each side. The line under the slider gives the file's size: "Added outside the picture; the file is 2252 × 1569."

A watermark goes over the border, and its margin is measured from the file's edge, so a small margin puts it in the band, where a signature on a framed print goes. To keep it on the picture, make the margin wider than the border.

The border is not shown in the viewport. An export preset keeps it.

Export presets

A preset keeps every choice on the sheet under a name, such as "Web 2048" or "Print".

• Save as... at the top of the sheet asks for a name. Press Save. If a preset of that name is there, the button reads Replace.
• Preset picks a saved one. None is no preset.
• Delete removes the preset shown.
• "(edited)" beside the name means the sheet no longer matches the saved preset. Save it again to keep the change.

A preset keeps its Subfolder too, so a Web preset can write into web and a Print one into print. Presets are kept in the settings file.

Where the files go

The Folder row

At the foot of the sheet, above its buttons, Folder names the folder Export will write to, with Choose... beside it. Export writes there at once, with no dialog, for one frame or a set. The folder is the last one you chose, after a restart too, so a day's exports land in one place. Before you have chosen one, it is the frame's own folder.

Choose... opens on the folder shown. If that folder is gone, as on an unplugged drive, it opens on the nearest folder above it that is still there. A folder you choose is shown at once and kept. Choosing one while Subfolder has a name in it empties the field, since the field would otherwise win.

If the folder is missing or can't be written to when you press Export, the status line says so and the chooser opens. Choose another and the export goes there; cancel and nothing is exported.

The file's name

By default each frame is written under its own name with the format's extension: IMG_0001.CR3 becomes IMG_0001.jpg. Name holds a pattern, text with these tokens in it:

So Trip {date} {seq} names a set of twelve Trip 2026-10-31 01.jpg to Trip 2026-10-31 12.jpg. The day is the capture time with any time shift applied. The line under the field shows the first frame's file as the pattern names it. A pattern with an unknown token, an unclosed {, or nothing left in it names each frame as {name} would; the line shows that name in yellow, and the log says why. The pattern is kept in a preset and for Ctrl+E.

Two frames of one name, such as a raw and its camera JPEG, or two the pattern names alike, are told apart with -1 on the second (IMG_0001-1.jpg), -2 on a third.

Written into the frame's own folder, the name is IMG_0001.greycard.jpg, so an export can never be taken for, or written over, the camera's own IMG_0001.JPG.

A file of that name already there follows If it exists (below), for one frame as for a set.

A version of a frame

A version is written with its name after the frame's: the version Warm of IMG_0001.CR3 becomes IMG_0001-Warm.jpg, and IMG_0001-Warm.greycard.jpg in the frame's own folder. Characters a file name can't hold become _. The export is recorded in the version's own history, and the status line and the queue name it "IMG_0001 (Warm)".

Into a subfolder

Type a folder name in Subfolder, such as export or export/web, and each frame goes into that folder inside its own raw's folder, made when needed. Frames from three shoots land in three export folders, one beside each shoot. A name in Subfolder wins over the folder chosen, so a preset with its own subfolder always writes there.

The Folder row says so, such as "edited beside each original", and so does a line under the field: "Saved in edited beside each original." Both show the name as it will be used, so ./export//web/ shows as export/web: spaces around the name, a leading ./ and doubled slashes are cleaned away. A long name is cut at the front in the row to fit it; the line under the field has it whole.

The name must go down from the raw's folder. A full path, or one with .., is refused: the reason shows under the field in yellow, and Export is dimmed until the name is fixed.

When a file is already there

If it exists decides:

• Increment writes beside it as IMG_0001-1.jpg.
• Overwrite replaces it.
• Skip leaves it and writes nothing.

Under Overwrite, greycard first checks for files it would replace. If any are there, a sheet lists every one by its full path and asks:

• Keep both (the default, and what Enter does) writes each new file beside the old one under the next free name.
• Overwrite, in red, replaces them. Only a click reaches it.
• Cancel or Esc exports nothing.

While it runs

The status line shows progress. For several frames, the Export... button becomes Stop export. Click it or press Esc to finish the frame in hand and leave the rest.

If an edit uses something this computer has not got, such as a Subject mask whose model is not downloaded, the file is still written without it, and the status line says so.

The export queue

The queue keeps exports to run later, such as a day's picks to send once you are done editing.

1. Set up the sheet as for an export.
2. Click Add to queue. The set goes to the Folder row's folder, or to Subfolder when it has a name. Nothing is exported yet.
3. Repeat for other frames or other presets.
4. When ready, open the Export sheet and click Export the queue.

What is kept for each set:

• the frames, each under its edit as it was when queued (later changes to a frame are not used)
• the sheet's choices and the preset's name
• the destination

The foot of the sheet lists the sets, one row each with its preset (or format), its frame count, and its folder, above a count such as "2 sets, 3 frames queued". The bin at a row's end removes that set at once, without asking, except the set being exported. The queue survives quitting and restarting, and never runs on its own.

When it runs:

• Sets are sent in the order they were added.
• Stop export or Esc stops after the frame in hand. The rest stay queued.
• A frame whose file is not there, such as on an unplugged drive, stays queued and is named in the status line.
• A destination folder or a watermark PNG that is not there stops the queue, with the reason. Nothing in it is lost.
• A frame that fails leaves the queue. The status line names it.
• It does not ask before replacing files: each set uses the If it exists choice it was queued with.

Clear empties the whole queue after asking.

While the queue runs, the status line counts across the whole run, such as "exporting 3 of 12", and the line at the end counts every frame it sent.

The queue in the grid

Click Export queue under the roots in the grid's left pane to see every queued frame as a tile. The tiles are grouped under a heading for each destination, such as "JPEG quality 92, long edge 2048, sRGB, to edited beside each original", with how many frames go there. Sets whose choices and folder read the same share a heading. A frame queued twice shows twice.

• Delete, or Remove from queue... in the frame menu, takes the chosen frames out of the queue after asking. Their files are not touched. A set left with no frames goes. The frames of the set being exported stay.
• While the queue runs, a frame already written shows the exported mark, and the one being written shows a running bar.
• Double-click a tile, or press E, to open the frame as it will export: under the edit it was queued with, not its edit now. The filmstrip shows the queued frames in the grid's order, without the headings. G goes back to the queue's grid. A line at the top of the right-hand panel says the frame is queued for export.
• The Library and Loupe buttons at the top of the left pane leave the queue's view, back to what you had open before it, on the same frame, with its tools.
• Editing is off in the queue's view, in the grid and the Loupe alike. The develop tabs, the presets, the history, and the snapshots are hidden. Undo, paste, sync, versions, turns, and presets do nothing, and the frame menu dims them. Zoom, Fit, the scopes, soft proof, and the rating, flag, and label keys still work, as does Cull. Export is for the queue's run here: an export of the chosen frames does nothing.

Edit in another app

To finish a frame in another editor, add its app once with Add... under Settings > Editing > Export > Edit in: an application on a Mac, a program on Windows, and a program or its desktop entry (.desktop) on Linux. The frame menu then offers Edit in...; with two or more apps, Edit in opens a submenu of them by name. An app no longer on the disk is left out of the menu but stays on the list until you take it off with ×.

Edit in..., or an app in the submenu, exports the frame right-clicked, with its edit (a version as itself), as a 16-bit TIFF at full size in the color space the Export sheet holds. The file goes beside the raw, named after it with -edit, such as IMG_0001-edit.greycard.tif, or IMG_0001-edit.greycard-1.tif when that is taken. greycard then opens it in the app.

When the app saves the file, greycard indexes it and shows it beside the raw as a frame of its own, in the raw's stack if it has one or in a new stack of the two, opened. Each export adds a line to the frame's HISTORY, as any export does.

The app must save over that same file for the edit to come back and stack. Saving to a file of its own instead, such as Affinity Photo's .afphoto or Evoto's own export, leaves the TIFF as greycard wrote it. In a folder under a watched root, the TIFF is listed as soon as it is written and joins the stack at the app's first save.

An export in History

Each export adds a line to the frame's HISTORY, such as "IMG_0001.jpg · Web" in italics, with the time. It sits on the state the file was made from. Hover over it for the full path; click it to go back to the look you sent out.

The line goes when its state leaves the history (undone and replaced, or pushed past the history's limit). The frame's thumbnail keeps its exported mark either way (see the library). To keep a look for good, add it under SNAPSHOTS.

From the command line

An export can run from a terminal or a script, with no window and no desktop, so it also runs over SSH. Where the machine has a GPU, it develops there as the editor does, and the file is the one the editor would write. Without one it runs on the CPU. Add --cpu to run on the CPU anyway: the file then comes out the same on every machine.

greycard export IMG_0001.CR3 out.jpg --export-preset "Web 2048"
greycard export IMG_0001.CR3 IMG_0002.CR3 out/
greycard export ~/Pictures/shoot out/ --all

The file is written under the frame's saved edit, and the export is added to its history, as in the window. The frames come first, then where they go.

An export preset with a border writes the border; there is no flag of its own for it.

Give a folder, rather than a file, to use --also or --all. The Subfolder field is not used from the command line: the path you give decides.

The last line on the terminal says how it went, and the exit code says the same:

On Windows the program is greycard.exe.

For this release the editor still exports the same way, as greycard-ui FRAME --export OUT with the flags above; that form goes in a later release. With it, a flag that needs a window, such as --snapshot, stops the run with the reason.