Quality
Low, Medium, High or Max in Hub → Saving Photos. A video, GIF or Live Photo can pick its own quality and shows the file size first.
Technology · 05
What you review is what you save.
A common frustration with photo editors is that the saved file does not look like the preview: the crop shifts, text moves, quality drops. Export here is not a screenshot of the editor, it is the same composition replayed at delivery quality.
The photo you save is the one you saw
One picture, drawn twice
Not a screenshot. The same picture, at full size.
What you see while editing and the file you save are drawn from the same instructions: the same crop, the same frame, the same layers in the same order. Only the size changes, so nothing shifts, moves or goes soft on the way out.
Six ways out
Save as PhotoA still, JPEG or PNG
Save as Live PhotoFor a Live Photo
Save as Video (3D)A short 3D moving shot
Save as GIFA looping animation
Share PhotoStraight to another app
PrintTo your printer
All six are under Export in the editor.
Your choices, before you save
Print size
Pick a paper such as 4x6 or 8x10 and the photo saves at 300 dots per inch for it. An 8x10 is 2,400 x 3,000 pixels.
Transparent
Choose Transparent as the Background Fill in Frame → Print & Shape, and the photo saves as a PNG you can place on anything.
What stays private
The app draws a new picture, so the camera settings, lens and GPS location of your original never travel inside the saved file. The original date and place are kept beside it in Photos only if you turn on Keep Original Photo Details, which is off unless you choose it.
The requirements behind it
How saving is specified and checked: the four steps it runs, the rules for each format, and the acceptance criteria the tests hold it to.
Show the four steps of a save
Validate and snapshot
Confirm a usable document, then capture synchronized document, profile and canvas state.
Resolve source
Open the best available full-quality source for this scoped render operation.
Render and compose
Rebuild required AI and decor assets, apply shared geometry and assemble final pixels.
Deliver safely
Choose format, apply the chosen quality or print size and the metadata privacy rules, then save or share the result.
Show the format rules and user controls
Pixels determine the container
- PNG protects required transparency. Choose Transparent as the Background Fill (Frame → Print & Shape) and the photo saves as a PNG with real transparency.
- Opaque stills can use JPEG.
- GIF and video receive a solid matte where equivalent alpha is unavailable.
Delivery stays under user control
- Final review precedes delivery.
- For a GIF, video or Live Photo, Final Review has a Quality choice for that one export and shows the file size before you save.
- Long-running work reports progress and can be cancelled.
- The original date and location are kept beside the saved photo only when Keep Original Photo Details is on.
Show the four acceptance criteria
The promise, as the specification states it:
- No mid-export state drift
- No resolution-dependent crop movement
- No UI-only ownership of reusable AI assets
- Given a synchronized document, when preview and export render at different resolutions, then normalized photo and caption positions retain the same visual placement.
- Given 3D Pop, parallax or a frame shadow, when preview and export calculate clearance, then both use the shared frame-padding decision.
- Given reusable AI subject assets, when export runs, then it resolves document-owned artifacts or rebuilds them at export quality rather than depending on a transient UI cache.
- Given privacy controls that remove metadata, when the result is delivered, then restricted creation, location or camera data does not travel in the exported file.
Common questions
Why do exported photos sometimes look different from the preview in other apps?
Usually because the preview and the export are drawn by different code paths at different resolutions. Max Photo Frames renders both from one shared geometry contract, so positions, crop and layer order stay identical.
Does exporting share my location or camera data?
Camera settings, lens and GPS location never travel inside the saved file: the app draws a new image, so the original photo’s details are not carried over. The original date and location are stored beside the saved photo in your Photos library only if you turn on Hub → Saving Photos → Keep Original Photo Details, which is off by default. A saved video or GIF keeps the photo’s capture date in Photos either way, and Save with Current Date uses today’s date instead. Camera numbers appear on the picture itself only if you placed a camera settings caption there.
What resolution do I get?
You choose one of four levels in Hub → Saving Photos → Quality: Low (1080 px), Medium (2048 px), High (4096 px, the everyday default) or Max (as much of the photo’s own detail as the device can keep). A framed or captioned design is saved at the design’s size, so the frame, words and logo stay sharp; a plain photo is never enlarged beyond its own size. With a print size chosen, the photo saves for that paper at 300 dots per inch, so an 8x10 is 2,400 x 3,000 pixels, and Frame → Print & Shape tells you what your photo will give on that paper. When AI subject effects are active the output has a practical ceiling, and the quality picker states this rather than quietly downscaling.