Questions & answers

An iPhone app for film photographers. You log each frame as you shoot — time, place, lens, exposure — then write that metadata into your developed scans when they come back.

Film has nowhere to store them. A negative records only the image, so the lab's scan files are stamped with the day they were scanned rather than the day you shot, and carry no location at all.

Yes, written in afterwards. A scan is an ordinary image file and can hold date, time, GPS, camera and lens like any digital photo. Nothing can infer them from the picture itself, so they have to come from a record kept while shooting.

Log each frame as you shoot, then write the log into the scans. In MatchGrain a frame is one tap; when the scans come back you point the app at them, check the pairing, and it writes the metadata into every file.

Film photographers who want their scans to behave like the rest of their photo library — searchable by date, place, camera and lens. 35mm or medium format, lab-developed or scanned at home.

A notebook stores what you wrote; MatchGrain uses it. The habit is the same — you still note every frame as you take it — but a notebook leaves you retyping dates and coordinates into every scan by hand. Here nothing is retyped.

No. Develop and scan wherever you already do. MatchGrain picks up afterwards: you point it at the finished scan files and it writes your log into them. It makes no difference who developed the roll.

Tap New Roll and enter the film's manufacturer and model, the ISO you are rating it at, and the frame count — 24, 36 or custom. Your camera and its default lens are already attached, so you can start logging straight away.

One tap captures frame number, date, time, coordinates, time zone, a map snapshot and the default lens. You add aperture, shutter and a note if you want them. ISO belongs to the roll, being a property of the film.

Yes. Set the camera to program or automatic and the exposure dials disappear — a frame is one tap recording time, place, frame number and lens. Aperture and shutter simply are not part of the log.

Whichever ones your camera can tell you. Manual offers aperture and shutter, aperture priority offers aperture, shutter priority offers shutter. Dial values come from the f-stops you set for that lens, and a repeat control reuses the last frame's settings.

Yes, at the moment you log the frame — not before. Tapping New Shot stamps the time, reads your position once and works out the time zone. It is not running in the background: a shot you never added has no record.

Yes. Coordinates come from GPS satellites rather than cell towers, so position is recorded anywhere. The map snapshot and time zone are looked up next time you open the app online; the coordinates behind them were saved as you logged.

Add it as soon as you notice — new frames land at the end, so one cannot be slipped in between 15 and 16 later. If you only spot it when the scans arrive, the pairing screen inserts a gap on the logged side.

Yes. If a 36-exposure roll gives you 37 or 38, keep logging and MatchGrain takes them. The rated count drives the progress bar, not a limit.

Mark it as removed. It stays in your log as a record of what happened but drops out of matching, so it never claims a scan — whether it was a lens cap, a false start or a duplicate entry. Frames are never deleted outright.

Yes, any of it. Tap the pencil and date, time, lens, aperture and shutter become editable, and the map turns draggable so a bad GPS fix can be moved to where you actually stood. Finished rolls stay editable too.

Your camera is created the first time you open the app. After that the camera icon above your roll list opens two tabs — one for the body, one for glass. Adding a lens takes its focal length, maximum aperture and real f-stops. Star one as the default.

Say so when you create the camera and the lens tab becomes a single set of fields instead of a list — manufacturer, focal length, maximum aperture, f-stops. A point-and-shoot is set up once and never asks about glass again.

Yes. Every frame arrives with your starred default, which covers most of a roll. When you swap glass, open the frame and pick another lens — that one gets written into the scan as the lens make and model.

All of them. MatchGrain never asks you to pick a format — a roll is its film, its ISO and how many frames it holds. Nothing depends on negative size, so 35mm, 120 and anything rarer work the same way.

Yes. Enter the count you actually expect using the custom frame count — 72 from a 36-exposure cassette, or whatever your camera manages. Logging and matching then behave exactly as for a full-frame roll.

Yes — manufacturer, model and the ISO you are rating it at, entered when you start the roll. A full stock cupboard, with expiry dates and starting a roll from your shelf, is still in development.

Yes, through the ISO you actually shoot it at. The picker takes any custom value, so a 400 stock rated at 200 is entered as 200. The film's name and the roll's note cover the rest.

On a finished roll, Match Scans asks for the folder your scans are in and pairs them with your log in filename order. You see both columns side by side with a count of how many match, and three controls to fix anything that does not.

You point at them rather than import them. Match Scans opens a folder picker over the files on your device — choose the folder your lab's scans are in and MatchGrain reads them from there.

JPEG, TIFF, PNG and HEIC, which covers what labs return — plus RAW and DNG if you scan your own negatives with a digital camera. Whatever goes in, the finished frames come out as HEIC, JPEG, PNG or TIFF.

Reverse flips the whole scan column in one tap, for labs that scan last frame first. If the order is scrambled some other way, the insert control opens gaps until every scan sits against the right frame.

Offset shifts the whole scan column up or down, absorbing a blank first frame or a false start. Insert adds a gap to one side only — the logged side for a frame you never logged, the scan side for one the lab did not return.

Yes — nothing is written until you tap Merge. Tapping a pair opens the scan full size beside its frame, showing the file's format and resolution against the logged date, time, aperture, shutter and coordinates.

Date and time with the right UTC offset, camera make and model, lens make and model, aperture, shutter speed, and GPS latitude and longitude. Anything you left blank is not written.

No. Your lab's files are read and left alone — merging writes new copies to your photo library or a folder you choose. The originals stay exactly where they were.

Only if you pick a format that re-encodes. Exporting as the original touches nothing but the metadata. HEIC and JPEG re-encode at a quality you set, defaulting to 90%; PNG and TIFF are lossless.

Yes. MatchGrain warns you that re-matching adds a second set of exported images rather than replacing the first, so the copies you already filed stay put. It is also how you re-export at a different format.

Your photo library, a folder on your device, or both — the destinations are not exclusive. Photos asks for library access the first time; Files opens a location picker, so a roll can land beside your lab's originals.

Original, HEIC, JPEG, PNG or TIFF. Each shows an estimated size for the whole roll before you commit, updating live as you move the quality slider.

Yes. Each frame carries the time you pressed the shutter with the right UTC offset, so the roll lands in your timeline on the days you shot it. The coordinates put it on the map. Photos treats it like any phone picture.

Yes, and it is on by default. A lab scan arrives tagged with the scanning machine's camera and exposure; cleaning that out leaves your camera, your lens, your exposure. A second toggle strips artist and copyright fields.

Yes. MatchGrain has no server and no account, so your rolls, coordinates and scans stay on your device and in your own iCloud. See the privacy policy for the detail.

On your iPhone. With iCloud signed in, your cameras, rolls and shots sync through your own private iCloud storage — your Apple account, not ours. Without iCloud the app behaves identically on the one device.

No. There is no MatchGrain server to upload to. Scans are read from your device and written back to it, and the log travels only through your own iCloud account if you have one.

No. Your position is read once, at the instant you log a frame, and never in between. Decline location access altogether and logging carries on — you lose the coordinates, not the app.

No. No sign-up, no email, no password — open the app, set up your camera and start logging. iCloud is optional and affects only whether rolls appear on your other devices.

$2.99, paid once. The app is free to download and free to log with; the purchase unlocks merging for every roll you will ever shoot. No subscription, and Restore Purchase brings it back on a new phone.

Your first roll merges free and stays free. Logging, camera setup, matching and reviewing are unrestricted from the start, so you can take a real roll from loading the film to finished scans before paying anything.

Soon. Version 1.0 is complete and being readied for the App Store rather than still being built. It will be announced here and on the roadmap.

iPhone, running iOS 17 or later. An iPad version is planned — logging belongs on the phone in your pocket, but matching scans suits a bigger screen.

Yes, through iCloud. Cameras, lenses, rolls and shots live in your own private iCloud storage, so a roll logged on your phone is there on the others. Decline iCloud and everything still works on one device.

Contact Support in the app's settings is quickest, since it can tell us which version you are running. You can also write to support@matchgrain.com. Feature requests are as welcome as bug reports.