Export presets, renaming and watermarks
A preset is a delivery recipe saved under a name: format, quality, size, colour space, a rename pattern, a subfolder pattern and a watermark, together. Choose one and the export dialog fills itself in, and the same Web 2048 is there next month for the next shoot.
The three that come with Vixlo
| Preset | Format | Quality | Size | Colour space |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full-size JPEG | JPEG | 92% | Full | sRGB |
| Web 2048 | JPEG | 85% | 2048 on the long edge | sRGB |
| TIFF 16-bit | TIFF | — | Full | sRGB |
None of the three carries a rename pattern, a subfolder or a watermark, and none of them can be deleted. For what the colour space and depth deliver, see What an exported file contains.
Choosing, saving and deleting
- Open Preset at the top of the export dialog and choose one. Every control below takes its values.
- Change any control afterwards, Engine apart, and the name reads Custom. The manifest records Custom rather than a name that no longer fits. If the settings happen to match another preset exactly, its name shows instead.
- To keep what you have set, press Save as preset…, type a name into Name this preset and press Save. Saving under a name you already used replaces that preset. The one refusal is A preset needs a name.
- Delete preset appears beside Save as preset… when the name showing is one of yours. The name is worked out from the settings, so a preset of yours with exactly the values of one of Vixlo's three, or of an earlier one of yours, shows that other name, and the dialog cannot delete it.
The engine is not part of a preset: whether darktable is on this Mac is a fact about the Mac, so choosing a preset never switches it.
Your presets are kept in one file, export-presets.json, in Vixlo's support folder at ~/Library/Application Support/Vixlo7/, not in any library, so every library offers the same list. If that file cannot be read, the dialog says so under the row: Your saved export presets (export-presets.json) could not be read, so only the built-in ones are available this session.
A preset in that file can also hold things the dialog cannot set: a short-edge ceiling (what a print lab usually asks for), a megapixel ceiling or a percent as the size; a long edge other than 4096 and 2048; an image watermark such as a PNG logo; and the size and margin of a text watermark. These need the file edited by hand; Writing a preset by hand and Watermark settings by hand give every key. While such a size is in force, none of the three Size buttons is selected.
Naming files and folders
Rename names each file; the format adds the extension. Subfolder builds folders under the destination, with / between levels, so {date}/{rating} stars nests two deep. Both take the same tokens, listed under the fields:
| Token | Becomes |
|---|---|
{name} | the original's name without its extension: DSCF1234.RAF becomes DSCF1234 |
{seq} | the take's position in this export, from 1; {seq:4} pads it to 0001 |
{date} | the capture date, 2026-09-05; {date:yyyyMMdd} for another form |
{library} | the library's name |
{look} | the take's look, or its film simulation when it wears no named look |
{rating} | the star rating, 0 to 5 |
{date} is the day the photograph was taken, never the day the file was last written. A token Vixlo does not know, such as {lens}, is left in the name as typed, so the mistake is visible. A pattern that comes out empty, {look} on an undeveloped take, falls back to the original's name rather than writing a file with no name.
First file: under the fields shows what the pattern makes of the first take's name, as you type. It does not look in the folder: with a pattern typed, if the folder already holds that name, the first take gets the next free {seq} or (2), as below. With no pattern typed, nothing steps around a file of that name already in the folder: Fast replaces it, and Where files go says what Max quality does. Rename {date}-{seq:3} with Subfolder {rating} stars reads First file: 4 stars/2026-09-05-001.jpg.
Image names never collide
Two takes can expand to one name: frames from two cards that both started at DSCF0001, through {name}, or any frames shot on the same day, through {date}, which on its own is the day and not the time. With a pattern typed, each later one gets a different name instead of writing over an earlier one: the next free {seq} if the pattern has one, otherwise (2), (3) and so on. A pattern of {date} alone therefore names a day's frames 2026-09-05, 2026-09-05 (2), 2026-09-05 (3) and so on. The same holds for an image already in the folder, including somebody else's earlier delivery.
Only images are checked. A take's .xmp is named after its image, so exporting IMG_1.jpg replaces an IMG_1.xmp that sits beside somebody's IMG_1.tif. And every export that runs replaces export-manifest.json, so the folder's record covers the latest run only.
With no pattern typed at all, two takes that would share a name stop the export before anything is written, and the message lists the names.
A text watermark
Type the text into Watermark, and two controls appear under it. The position is a menu of nine: Top left, Top, Top right, Left, Centre, Right, Bottom left, Bottom, Bottom right; it starts at Bottom right. Opacity is a slider from 5% to 100%, starting at 70%.
The text is always white, in the system font, at a font size of 4% of the frame's short edge, and sits 3% of the short edge in from the edge, so it reads the same size on a portrait and a landscape frame from one shoot. Opacity is the only dial for how strongly it shows. The size and margin can only be changed in a preset written by hand, with the keys scalePercent and marginPercent (Watermark settings by hand).
The line under the slider says the one rule: Drawn into the exported file only — never into your originals, a sidecar or a preview. It is not a develop setting. Export the same take with and without, and only the delivered file differs. Clear the field and there is no watermark, unless the preset's watermark is a logo, which the field cannot clear (A logo in the dialog).
A watermark is drawn by the Fast engine only. Max quality delivers the frame without it.