AI photo culling software — score, group, cull
Point it at the SD card and walk away. Every frame is scored for focus, exposure, noise and composition, near-identical bursts are grouped, and your picks land in Lightroom or Bridge as stars and colour labels — from Stock Keyworder, the AI keywording tool photographers already run on their shoots.
What the culler does
- Straight from the card — scan a whole SD card or shoot folder, subfolders optional
- Twelve shooting lenses — wedding, event, portrait, sport, wildlife, product and more
- Burst and near-duplicate clusters — keep the best frame, drop the rest in one click
- Focus, noise, exposure and composition scored 0–100 per frame
- Written reasoning on every reject, so you can disagree and override
- Lenient → Ruthless scale, with every individual check switchable
- Stars, colour labels, titles and keywords written to XMP for Lightroom, Bridge and Capture One
- Works on RAW (CR3, NEF, ARW, DNG, RAF, ORF, 3FR) and JPEG/PNG/TIFF
- Originals stay on your device — only a 1280px preview is uploaded
Pick the lens that matches your shoot
The lens decides what counts as a keeper. Change it per batch — the same images graded under a wedding lens and a stock lens give you different picks, on purpose.
- WEDDING
Eyes open, real emotion, decisive moments
- EVENT
Speakers, reactions, coverage variety
- PORTRAIT
Flattering pose and expression, eye sharpness
- SPORT
Peak action, sharp subject, storytelling
- LANDSCAPE
Light, depth, level horizon, no people penalties
- WILDLIFE
Sharp animal eye, behaviour, clean background
- TRAVEL
Sense of place, story frames, mixed subjects
- ARCHITECTURE
Straight verticals, clean lines, window detail
- PRODUCT
Isolation, even light, edge-to-edge sharpness
- STOCK
Agency triage, marketability, saturation checks
- EDITORIAL
Newsworthy, unstaged, context over polish
- GENERAL
Mixed first-pass triage
From the card to your editor, nothing in between
The card goes in, the shoot comes out graded and tagged. Nothing to install, and no separate export step to remember.
- CARD OR FOLDER
Pick it in the browser; the whole scan runs in managed chunks
- RAW + JPG PAIRS
Matched by filename stem so you never grade the same frame twice
- PAUSE AND RESUME
Reconnect a card mid-scan and carry on where you stopped
- XMP SIDECARS
One .xmp per frame with stars, colour label, title, description, keywords
- EMBEDDED FIELDS
JPEG, PNG and TIFF get the metadata written into the file itself
- EXIFTOOL SCRIPT
Shipped in the export zip to push metadata into RAW originals
How to judge a culling tool
Most culling tools score frames. The differences that matter show up on your second shoot, not your first.
- REASONING YOU CAN READ
Every reject explains itself instead of showing a number
- BURSTS, NOT SCENES
Grouping that never merges two different moments
- GENRE-AWARE GRADING
Bokeh in a portrait isn't read as blur
- YOUR RATINGS, YOUR SCALE
You choose the stars and colour for each tier, once
- EDITOR-NATIVE OUTPUT
XMP sidecars Lightroom, Bridge, darktable and digiKam read, plus Capture One with sidecar XMP on
- NO GPU REQUIRED
An old laptop grades a wedding as fast as a workstation
- FILES STAY YOURS
Full-resolution originals and RAW never leave your device
- PAY PER IMAGE
Credits instead of a subscription you keep paying between shoots
Built for the way you shoot
Same engine, different rules per shoot. Start with the page closest to your work.
- WEDDINGS & EVENTS
Blinks, soft frames and near-identical bursts shortlisted
- SPORTS & WILDLIFE
Peak-action keeper surfaced per burst sequence
- REAL ESTATE & PRODUCT
Brackets and repeat setups clustered and scored
- STUDIOS & AGENCIES
One grading standard across every shooter
- METADATA & COMPATIBILITY
Stars and labels into Lightroom, Bridge and Capture One
- STOCK CONTRIBUTORS
Keywording, QC and agency CSV before you submit
Where to start
Cull is the fast first pass over a whole shoot; the Quality Checker is the deeper delivery gate over what survived. Most photographers run them in that order, after keywording.
- AI KEYWORDING
Titles, descriptions and keywords written straight to XMP
- AI PHOTO CULLING
Score, group and cull a full shoot by genre
- AI QUALITY CHECKER
Verdict, critique and integrity checks on your keepers
FAQ
What is AI culling software?
Software that grades every frame of a shoot automatically — sharpness, exposure, noise and composition — then groups near-identical frames so you accept one keeper per burst instead of comparing them by hand. A 5,000-frame shoot becomes your strongest few hundred in minutes.
Can I import straight from an SD card?
Yes. Point the browser at the card or the shoot folder and the whole thing is scanned — subfolder scanning is optional, RAW+JPG pairs are matched by filename stem, and huge cards run in managed chunks you can pause, stop, reconnect and resume. Only a 1280px preview is uploaded; the originals stay on the card.
Is this only for stock photographers?
No. You pick a lens per batch — wedding, event, portrait, sport, landscape, wildlife, travel, architecture, product, stock, editorial or general — and the grading changes with it. A wedding lens cares about open eyes and real expressions; a wildlife lens cares about a sharp animal eye and a clean background. The stock rules only apply when you choose a stock or editorial lens.
Does it group burst sequences?
Yes. Near-identical frames are clustered with a 128-bit perceptual hash plus colour, chroma and edge-orientation maps, and EXIF timestamps pair rapid-fire bursts so two different scenes never end up in one group. Each cluster gets a suggested keeper you can override.
Can it handle a 3,000-frame wedding?
Yes. Folder scans run in managed chunks so a multi-thousand-frame shoot uploads and grades continuously, and you can pause, stop and resume without redoing graded frames.
Do my ratings show up in Lightroom or Bridge?
Yes. Every tier maps to a star rating and a colour label you set once in Settings, written into XMP sidecars — so Lightroom Classic and Bridge read your picks as-is, Capture One does once "Prefer Sidecar XMP" is enabled, and darktable and digiKam get colour labels in their own fields too. JPEG, PNG and TIFF also get the fields embedded directly, and the export zip ships an ExifTool script for burning metadata into RAW originals.
Does AI culling replace the photographer's judgement?
No, and a tool that pretends it does will lose you frames you wanted. Treat it as a first pass that removes the obvious misses and organises the rest. Every pick is overridable and every reject explains itself, so you can disagree in one click.
Browser-based or desktop app?
Desktop apps use your own CPU and GPU and work offline, but need installing, updating and licensing per machine. This runs in the browser on any machine you sit down at, including a borrowed laptop on location — RAW previews are extracted locally, so full-resolution originals never upload.
What should I test before committing to a culler?
Run one real shoot, not a demo set. Check three things: does it group your bursts without mixing different scenes, does it explain its rejects, and can you override a pick and have the change reach your editor. Then check the pricing model — per-image credits suit occasional shoots, subscriptions suit constant volume.
Does genre matter?
Very much. A shallow depth-of-field portrait is a soft-focus reject to a naive sharpness gate, and market-saturation scoring is meaningless on a wedding. The grading lens changes per shoot so the rules match what you shot.
Can I tune how strict the culler is?
Yes. Lenient, Standard, Strict and Ruthless presets cover most workflows, and Custom mode exposes focus tolerance, noise tolerance and how many near-duplicates to keep per cluster. Individual checks — market saturation, composition, anatomy, text, face integrity, megapixels — can each be switched off.
Does it work on RAW files?
Yes — Canon CR2/CR3, Nikon NEF, Sony ARW, Adobe DNG, Fujifilm RAF, Olympus ORF and Hasselblad 3FR. The embedded preview is extracted in your browser; only a 1280px JPEG (~150–300 KB) is uploaded.
Can I cull without keywording?
Yes. Cull-only uploads skip keywording entirely; you can run keywording later on any batch from the Vault if you want it.
How much does it cost?
Culling is 1 credit per image on any plan, with a free monthly allowance. Re-runs cost 1 credit per image; cached passes don't. There is no per-seat desktop licence.