Grain Studio

Support

Write to ryuxik@gmail.com. Include the device and its OS version, the file type you were processing, and the log: on the Mac, Log → Show log file; on iPhone and iPad, Settings (the gear) → Log → the share button.

Requirements

iOS 18 or later on an iPhone or iPad with an A-series or M-series chip; macOS 15 or later on Apple silicon. Inputs: HDR or SDR photos in AVIF, HEIC, JPEG XL, HDR PNG, TIFF (8/16/32-bit), JPEG and PNG, and camera RAW through Apple's RAW pipeline. On the phone, pick from your library or from Files; on the Mac, open, drop or pick from Photos.

Trial and unlock

The download is free. Start the 7-day trial from the licence card (the first screen on the phone; the top of the window on the Mac); everything is on at full quality. After 7 days developing pauses until you unlock — a one-time purchase, no subscription. One purchase for iPhone, iPad and Mac, on the same Apple Account. If you unlocked before and it does not show, use Restore Purchases: on the card, under Settings → Licence on the phone, or in the Grain Studio menu on the Mac.

First photo is slow

The first photo of a new size builds the grain plates once and caches them in the app's container. On the Mac that takes about a minute on an M-series chip; later photos take 15–30 seconds. On the phone a 12 MP photo takes about 45 seconds the first time and about 5 seconds afterwards; a 50 MP file takes about 80 seconds. Keep the app in front while it develops.

Where the files go

On iPhone and iPad, finished photos go into a “Grain Studio” album in Photos, HDR intact, and to Files → On My iPhone → Grain Studio → Grain; Share offers the full-size file and the Instagram and RedNote versions. Adding to Photos can be turned off in Settings. On the Mac, files go to Pictures / Grain by default, or to any folder you choose with Change…, and can also be added to the same “Grain Studio” album in Photos. Files are never overwritten: outputs get “-grain”, “-instagram” and “-rednote” names, and a re-run adds “-2”. On the phone nothing in your library is changed or deleted. On the Mac an original AVIF goes to the Trash when you asked for it, and after the full-resolution master was written.

HDR looks flat in another app

Apple Photos reads the gain map and shows the HDR rendition, and so does Instagram when the file is posted as a feed photo. RedNote gets its own version (1242 px, 3:4). Apps that are not colour-managed show the SDR base, which is encoded in Display P3 like an iPhone photo. If an app shows the image washed out, it is ignoring the colour profile — ask its maker, or export a plain SDR copy from that app. On an iPhone, Low Power Mode and very bright sunlight limit the screen's HDR headroom, so the SDR rendition shows until they pass.