Saving

When you’re ready to commit a result to disk, click Save… in the top-right corner of the Editor (or press ⌘S / Ctrl+S). The Save Stacked Result dialog opens.

What the Save dialog does

One dialog, one pass, one or more formats. Pick which formats to write, optionally add a watermark, hit Save. Macro Studio writes all selected formats from the same edit state — TIFF + JPEG + DNG in one click, no need to save three times.

Destination and naming

At the top of the dialog:

Folder — where to write the files. The Browse… button opens a standard folder picker.
Base name — the filename stem. Each format adds its own extension (mystack.tif, mystack.jpg, mystack.dng).
Prepend date — checkbox to automatically prepend a date to the base name. Two date sources:
- Date of photo — the capture date from EXIF (e.g. 2026-05-14_mystack.tif).
- Today’s date — when you’re saving.

The “date of photo” option is disabled if your source images have no EXIF capture date (rare but possible for some RAW workflows or processed inputs).

The preview labels next to each format show what the final filename will look like as you type:

TIFF 16-bit   →   2026-05-14_mystack.tif
JPEG          →   2026-05-14_mystack.jpg
DNG           →   2026-05-14_mystack.dng

Format choices

Check one or more formats. The Save button is disabled until at least one is checked.

TIFF 16-bit

Best for: Archival masters. Maximum tonal range, opens in anything (Photoshop, Affinity, GIMP, Capture One).

16-bit per channel, uncompressed by default.
All adjustments baked into pixels.
Watermark optional.
Use this for your “keeper” copy that you’ll go back to later for prints or re-edits in other tools.

JPEG

Best for: Web, social media, quick sharing.

8-bit per channel.
Quality is high (no harsh compression) but it’s still a lossy format — keep a TIFF or DNG alongside for archival.
Watermark optional.
Smaller file size — typically 1-3 MB for a macro shot vs. 50-100 MB for a TIFF.

DNG

Best for: Lightroom users whose catalog standardizes on DNG, or anyone who wants a slightly smaller alternative to TIFF.

16-bit, lossless.
All adjustments, masks, crop, and spot correct are baked into pixels — same as TIFF/JPEG.
Generally smaller on disk than the equivalent TIFF.
Watermark output is not supported on DNG — the Apply-to row in the Save dialog disables the DNG checkbox.

DNG and TIFF carry the same image quality; pick whichever your downstream tools prefer.

Watermarks

Check Add watermark to bake a watermark into your TIFF and/or JPEG output. The watermark UI expands with:

Configure… — open the watermark editor, where you create and edit watermark presets. A preset’s Type can be plain text, an image overlay (such as a logo), or an Info card that auto-fills camera, exposure, stack, and species details from each image’s metadata — see Info card watermarks below.
Watermark dropdown — pick which preset to apply.
Apply to: — per-format checkboxes (TIFF, JPEG, DNG). DNG is always disabled — Macro Studio doesn’t write watermarks into DNG output.
Size — per-save override of the preset’s default size. Useful when the same watermark needs to be slightly larger on a print-bound TIFF than on a social-bound JPEG without saving two presets.
H Offset / V Offset sliders — absolute horizontal and vertical position of the watermark on the image, each as a percentage from 0 to 100 (H = 50, V = 50 puts the watermark dead-centre; H = 95, V = 95 is bottom-right corner; H = 5, V = 5 is top-left).

All three overrides (Size, H Offset, V Offset) apply only to this particular save and leave the preset’s stored defaults alone — so a preset’s defaults remain a useful starting point for the next save.

The Save dialog includes a PREVIEW pane at the bottom that shows the watermarked image at the current settings — you can zoom (scroll), pan (drag), and reset (double-click) to inspect placement before committing.

Building watermark presets

Click Configure… to open the watermark editor, where you build the presets the Save dialog’s dropdown picks from: text content, font, color, image overlay, opacity, default position, default size. Set those up once and reuse the preset across many saves.

In the Save dialog itself, the per-save Size / H Offset / V Offset overrides let you tweak placement and size for a single save without going back into the preset editor. Good for one-offs (e.g. a single hero image that needs the watermark a touch bigger and lower than your default).

Info card watermarks

An Info card is a watermark type that builds itself from each image’s metadata instead of carrying a fixed line of text. In the watermark editor (Configure…), set a preset’s Type to Info card and it renders a small panel — camera, lens, exposure, frame count, species — that auto-fills from the photo you’re saving. Use the same preset across a whole shoot and every card shows that image’s own details.

Template and fields. The card is driven by a template: type any text you like and drop in live fields wherever you want the metadata to appear. Click Insert field to pick from a grouped menu — each row shows the field (e.g. {camera}) next to its live value for the current image, so you never have to memorise names:

Camera — {camera}, {make}, {model}, {lens}
Exposure — {aperture}, {shutter}, {iso}, {focal}, and {exposure} (the whole f / shutter / ISO triangle on one line)
Stack — {frames} (“24 frames”), {frame_count} (“24”), {stack_line} (“24 images stacked and edited”)
Subject — {species}, {species_common}, {species_latin}, {species_emoji} — populated once you’ve run Species ID
Other — {date}, {copyright}, {camera_line} (the full camera summary on one line), {app}, {url}
Logo — {logo} (see below); plus optional decorative Emoji icons

A field with no value for the current image simply renders as nothing — no blank line, no placeholder — so one template copes with shots that have a species ID and shots that don’t, RAW frames with full EXIF and processed inputs without. The starting template is {logo} / {camera} / {lens} / {exposure} / {frames}, which on a typical macro shot renders your logo above:

Olympus OM-1
M.Zuiko 60mm F2.8 Macro
f/8 | 1/200 | ISO 200
24 frames

Per-line formatting. Each line can carry its own size, bold, italic, alignment, and colour — click into a line and use the formatting bar (it applies to the line your cursor is in), or use Apply this style to all lines to make them uniform. Handy for a bold title line over smaller detail lines.

Logo. Pick a logo image with the Logo control, then place it by typing {logo} on its own line wherever you want it in the stack (top, middle, or bottom). The logo follows that line’s alignment.

Panel. By default the text sits on a rounded background panel so it stays legible over busy backgrounds. Turn Show background panel off for text-only, or tune its colour, opacity, corner radius, and padding.

Everything else behaves like any other watermark: the card has a default position and size, and the Save dialog’s per-save Size / H/V Offset still apply. The whole card — panel, logo, and text — fades together as one unit with the opacity setting.

What gets saved

The saved file reflects the current state of the active result in the Editor:

The stacked result (or the single image you opened).
All adjustments on all masks.
Any crop applied.
Any spot correct strokes applied.
The watermark, if you enabled it for the format.

What does not get saved:

The history strip — that’s per-session, in-memory.
Other unsaved results in history — each one needs its own Save click.
Source images — they remain untouched on disk. Saving never modifies your originals.

Recommended save patterns

”I want a master plus a shareable”

Check TIFF + JPEG. Add watermark, apply to JPEG only. One click produces:

Archival TIFF (no watermark, 16-bit, lossless).
Shareable JPEG (watermarked, 8-bit).

This is the safest pattern for someone with mixed downstream uses.

”I only need the file for Instagram”

Check JPEG only. Add watermark. Save. Done.

”I’m a Lightroom shooter who prefers DNG”

Check DNG. Add to your Lightroom catalog as a fully-baked image.

”I’m sending to a print lab”

Check TIFF only. No watermark. Save. Lab gets a maximum-quality, no-overlay file.

Tips

Confirm output dimensions. If you cropped to a small region, your saved file is at the cropped resolution, not the original. Check the preview to make sure.
JPEG quality is fixed — there’s no “quality 80 vs quality 95” slider. Macro Studio writes high-quality JPEG; if you need finer control, save TIFF and re-encode in another tool.
Watermark presets are reusable. Build a few in Configure (a subtle signature for archival prints, a bold watermark for social) and swap between them in the dropdown.
The Save dialog remembers your last folder and recent format choices, so the second save in a session is one click + Save.