Non-destructive edits in Zoner Photo Studio work transparently, that is, you see the edited versions of your pictures everywhere in the program. However, in order to use a non-destructively edited picture in other software, it must be exported. To call up the Export window, click the Export button in the right panel; this feature is available both in the Manager and in the Develop module. In Develop, it normally exports a single picture—the one you are currently adjusting. However, if multiple pictures are selected in the Filmstrip, the Export will be applied to all of them at once.
The Export window lets you pick a target folder for the files being exported, as well as their format, quality, and color space, and lets you resize them and choose what metadata will be left out of the exported versions. You can modify these settings as needed, or quickly apply whole sets of them using Presets. To apply a preset right while you’re starting an export, click the small triangle next to the Export button.
Presets
Use these to apply a whole set of export settings at once. Several presets are built into the program. Any saved presets you create are shown here are well. To save presets, click the diskette icon at the top right. To use multiple presets within a single export job, click 
. Checkboxes are then displayed next to all of the presets; use these to define which presets will be included in the export job. To quickly read what a preset actually does, click that preset and then check the headings of the different settings groups.
Location
You can leave exported pictures in the same folder as the original pictures, or choose the export folder manually by clicking 
. This shows the Choose Folder subwindow, where you can choose from among the same folders as are available in the Navigator—Favorites, Catalog, Zoner Photo Cloud, Zonerama, OneDrive, Google Disk, Computer, and Network. Right-click a folder here to show a menu with items for renaming or deleting that folder or adding a new folder. (These will only be shown if they are relevant for the folder clicked.) Pictures can be uploaded directly to the subfolders of Zonerama galleries.
Use Subfolder to set how any export subfolders will be named. Set the name manually, or use the program’s Metadata Tokens feature to set up automatic naming. Clicking the 
icon opens a menu with these options: Edit Metadata Tokens, Date, Rating, Colored Label, Export Preset Name, and Counter.
Rename
Sets if and how the exported versions of the files will be renamed. The header for this group shows the name, or a few sample names, produced by the renaming. Click the small triangle on the right to use one of the renaming presets: Filename, Counter – Filename, or Date – Filename. Use this same menu to set up the Counter or to Edit Metadata Tokens, that is, to set up automatic naming using the Metadata Tokens feature. Use Case to force Lowercase or Uppercase text.
Format
Lets you set advanced technical parameters for a file while exporting it.
ICM Source – The default setting is Full Quality including Develop module adjustments. This gives you an adjusted file in the highest available quality. However, you can also choose other variants as the source instead: Full Quality without Develop module adjustments, Preloaded Fast Preview, JPEG stored inside RAW (embedded), and JPEG associated with RAW.
Format – Use this to set the format of the exported file: Do not change (Copy Source File), JPEG, AVIF, JPEG XL, TIFF, PNG, or HEIF. This window also offers various other options for various formats, as appropriate: Dynamic Range, Compression, Quality, Color Space, HDR Color Space, and Transparency.
- The Dynamic Range option is available for the JPEG, AVIF, and JPEG XL formats. This option sets how HDR data in the original image is treated during export—whether it is converted to Standard Dynamic Range or whether High Dynamic Range is preserved instead. If a picture contains only SDR data, none of the options here will affect the export’s result. If a picture contains HDR data, and yet it will be used for printing, we recommend choosing the Standard Dynamic Range option.
- Compression is available for the AVIF, JPEG XL, TIFF, and PNG formats. The compression methods offered, however, vary among formats depending on what is relevant for the given format.
- Quality is available for JPEG, AVIF, JPEG XL, and HEIF.
- Color Space is available for all formats, and the sRGB space is offered here by default. Outside of exceptional situations, we do not recommend changing this setting; you may otherwise encounter problems with the displaying of colors on the web or on other devices.
- The HDR Color Space setting is available for the AVIF format only. If you are exporting to an AVIF that contains HDR data that you want to retain, the program’s behavior will depend on the information in the HDR Color Space field. If you are exporting an AVIF that contains only SDR data, or if you want to force all data to be converted to SDR, the behavior will be based on your setting in Color Space.
- Transparency is available for all formats. This field is justified in situations where the source for a picture is a file in PNG, TIFF, or SDR AVIF format that contains transparency. During export into another format you then need to set how the transparency will be treated, as most formats do not support transparency. A setting for choosing which color will replace transparency is thus offered here.
Resize
Use these settings to either leave the export at the same size as the original or adjust the Width and height, the Longer side, or the Shorter side. The export’s dimensions can be set in pixels, inches, centimeters, or millimeters. Check the Do not enlarge box to keep pictures from being enlarged, so that they will not lose quality during export.
Sharpen
Use the settings in this group to sharpen pictures during export, in line with how they’ll be used: For screens, For printers, or Do not sharpen. To set the sharpening strength, use the Strength slider.
Video
Use these settings to define how ZPS deals with video files in an export batch. You can have it Skip them or Copy and Rename them.
Metadata
Use All to keep all of the exported files’ metadata—except for any that you exclude using the checkboxes. Use None to keep none of it—except for any that you include using the checkboxes. There are checkboxes here for ratings and colored labels, keywords, name and description, copyright, GPS coordinates, location, exposure data, camera info, and picture-taken time and date). Checking them retains this data; unchecking them removes it.
If your export settings are problem-free and export can begin, the words The export is ready appear above the Export button. If they are not, you’ll find a message here stating which specific export items have bad settings.
The export itself runs in the background while you work. To check the status of a long-running export job, visit Notifications – see the bell icon at the top right of ZPS. Notifications also shows any warning or error messages that may come up.
More Information