Species ID and Social Posts

The SPECIES IDENTIFICATION panel, at the bottom of the Editor sidebar, identifies your subject online and drafts a caption for social posts. It also shows your camera details (EXIF). You don’t need any of it to stack or save.

Identifying a species

Click Identify, then pick Plant, Insect or Mushroom. Picking the right one makes the result faster and more accurate.

Macro Studio sends the stacked image to an online species identification service. In a few seconds you get the common and scientific names, the taxonomy and a confidence score. A Wikipedia link lets you check the result. The common name and the link follow your app language when they can, and are in English otherwise.

The result stays with the image until you quit. If it looks wrong, try again with a different kingdom. To copy it, click Copy in the panel header.

Never use Species ID to decide whether something is safe to eat

Species ID can’t tell you whether a mushroom or plant is safe to eat. Some deadly species look almost the same as edible ones. A death cap can pass for a paddy straw mushroom, and hemlock for wild carrot. A high confidence score doesn’t mean it’s safe, and it can be high and wrong.

Only an expert looking at the real specimen can tell them apart. Use Species ID to label your photos, never to decide what to eat.

How many identifications you get

Each identification costs Macro Studio money, so every license comes with an allowance:

• Full license: 100 identifications included. They don’t renew. To get more, buy a pack.
• Free trial: 10 for the whole trial. When you buy Macro Studio, you start fresh with 100.

The panel shows how many you have left under the Identify button.

An identification counts when the service sends back an answer, even if it found no match. If it fails (for example, you’re offline or the service is down), it isn’t counted.

Buying more

Click Buy more next to the count, or go to macrostudio.pro/species-id-pack. A pack adds 100 identifications for $10. Pack identifications never expire, and are only used once your included 100 run out. If you bought through Buy more, the panel shows the new total when you switch back to Macro Studio. Otherwise, it shows it the next time you start the app.

Packs are for full licenses. If your trial runs out, buy Macro Studio to get 100.

How accurate is it?

It works best on common North American and European species with a distinct look. It’s weaker on look-alike species, partly hidden subjects and rare local species. Always check the Wikipedia page before you caption a photo.

Drafting a social post

Click Draft Social Post, with or without a species. The caption lists the species, the number of frames, and your camera, lens and exposure. Copy it and paste it where you post. Macro Studio only writes the text. It doesn’t post anything.

Your location is never part of the post. There’s no field for GPS coordinates, so even a template you write can’t include them.

Hashtags and the caption wording

Hashtags are off until you tick Add hashtags. To change the tags or the caption wording, go to Preferences → Social Post Tags, or click the gear icon in the draft dialog. You can set tags for each kingdom, and edit the caption template with Insert field.

EXIF metadata panel

Above the species controls, the panel lists your camera, lens, exposure, and capture date and time. It also shows GPS coordinates, if your camera recorded them. To copy it all as text, click Copy in the EXIF METADATA header.

Privacy

When you click Identify, Macro Studio sends its identification service:

• The stacked image.
• The kingdom you picked.
• The GPS coordinates and capture date and time from your EXIF, when your camera recorded them.
• The app’s language code (for example de, or fil for Filipino), so results can come back in your language. Only that short code is sent, never your system locale or any other setting.

Your request goes through Macro Studio’s own server first. With it, Macro Studio sends your license key, a machine identifier and the app version. These are used to count the identification against your allowance. They are not passed on to the identification service. Macro Studio keeps a record of each identification: the license, the machine, whether it was a plant, insect or mushroom, and when. It doesn’t keep your image or the result.

Each time you start Macro Studio, it also asks Macro Studio’s server how many identifications you have left, so the panel can show the number. That sends your license key and nothing else.

The coordinates and date help accuracy. They’re passed on to the classifier that identifies the species, because place and season help tell species apart.

Your other source frames are never sent. The result is kept in memory for this session, and it’s never written back into your project.

It can still end up in a file you save, if you put it there. Your file-naming template and Info card watermarks can use species fields, and an Info card is drawn into the saved image. Neither uses a species field unless you add one.

To avoid sending your location, remove GPS from your files before you identify, or don’t use the panel. The rest of Macro Studio works fully offline. The EXIF metadata panel shows which coordinates your files carry.

See also

• Saving: save the image for sharing.
• Preferences: the Social Post Tags tab.