OpenCull v0.7.0

• Auto-label (Advanced AI). One click colours a whole folder from the
  AI's judgement: red for clear rejects, yellow for repeats, green for the
  best frame of a burst, blue for good frames that aren't the pick, and
  purple for a best frame that still has a flaw. Undo takes back a whole run,
  and Clear removes Auto-label's colours again. Colours you set yourself are
  never changed without asking.
• Shoot types. Tell OpenCull whether a folder is an event, portraits &
  family, or sports & dance, and it changes which faults count and how the
  best frame of a burst is chosen.
• Show why. Turn it on to see, for each photo, why it was picked or
  passed over: for example "ahead mostly on expressions", or "underexposed,
  1.5 stops darker than the shots around it".
• Better best-frame picks (Advanced AI). A new face reading compares the
  faces across a burst, so the frame with the best expressions is put first
  more often.
• Visual grouping up to 20× faster (Advanced AI). With "Group visually
  similar photos" on, OpenCull's own small scene network now settles the
  easy cases itself and asks MobileCLIP only about the photos it is unsure
  of. The groups come out the same.
• Faster scans. Portrait photos are stood upright twice as fast, so a
  face scan finishes about 7% sooner, with exactly the same results.
• A tidier toolbar. An AI button (with Advanced AI on) opens a bar with
  the shoot type, Show why, Auto-label and Clear. Speed Cull is a lightning
  bolt you can click to turn off, and the "Ready" sign is gone.
• Worth knowing: folders already scanned with Advanced AI are scanned
  once more the first time you open them, for the new face reading. Basic AI
  is unchanged.

See the README for what works, what does not yet, and how to open the app the first time.

OpenCull v0.6.1

• Portrait photos analysed faster. Photos taken with the camera turned
  on its side are stood upright about three times faster before their faces
  are read, so a face scan of a shoot with many portrait frames finishes
  sooner, and a portrait photo's first preview appears sooner. The results
  are exactly the same as before.
• Full-size previews from newer Panasonic cameras. Newer Lumix RAW files
  (the S5 II, for one) hold a full-size preview beside the small one; OpenCull
  now finds it, so zooming in and the face analysis see the whole picture
  instead of a 1920-pixel copy.

See the README for what works, what does not yet, and how to open the app the first time.

OpenCull v0.6.0

• Faces found whichever way up they stand. With Advanced AI on, a
  new face finder spots faces turned sideways or upside down (a child held
  upside down, someone lying on the grass, a photo taken from below) and reads
  their eyes the right way up, so an upside-down face is no longer marked
  down for shut eyes. Upright faces are found a little more often than before,
  and fewer things that are not faces are taken for the people in the photo.
  Basic AI is unchanged.
• Faster face analysis on a Mac. The face finder runs on the Mac's
  graphics chip when that is quicker, and switches back by itself when
  another program is busy on it. Windows and Linux are unchanged.
• A finished card review clears itself. Once its photos are copied and
  opened, the review is no longer offered to resume.

See the README for what works, what does not yet, and how to open the app the first time.

OpenCull v0.5.0

What's new in 0.5.0

• Review a card before copying it. Pick Cull first when you copy from a
  card: look through the photos where they are, choose the ones you want, and
  copy only those. Finish review at the top does the copying, then opens
  the copies so you can ship them. Prefer to copy everything first? Choose
  Copy first.
• Shoots from several cards. Select photos in a folder and press Add to
  shoot; do the same on the next card and review them together. Nothing is
  selected for you.
• Pick up where you left off. Quit mid-review and OpenCull offers to resume
  the session next time.
• Group by what the picture looks like. An optional setting compares whole
  frames, so photos without faces can be grouped too. Off until you download
  its model.
• Your workspace, your way. Choose which panels show, where they sit and
  how photos are scaled, and try the new Wisp look in Settings.
• Videos. Clips from your camera play in the app, including 10-bit log
  footage that the system player handles, and show a first-frame picture in
  the grid, filmstrip and home page. Space plays and pauses. Importing from a
  card brings in the clips themselves, not the camera's proxy copies.
• Crop from anywhere on the edge. Drag any part of the crop frame's edge,
  not only the small tab.
• Easier on small screens and in light mode. The interface scale never
  goes larger than the window can hold, the toolbar wraps cleanly, and light
  mode has readable tabs and darker text.
• Better with long folder paths, and the buttons line up properly.

See the README for what works, what does not yet, and how to open the app the first time.

OpenCull 0.4.1

What's new

Everything new in this release is in Advanced AI (Settings, under AI). With it off, OpenCull judges your photos exactly as before.

• Open eyes let the sharper frame win. When the eyes are open, a frame no longer loses out just because they measure a touch narrower than in another frame. Between two frames with everyone's eyes open, the sharper one now comes first far more often. A blink still costs a photo as much as it did.
• Stricter about looking away. Someone looking down or turned away from the camera now counts as not looking at it, and eyes just off the camera are caught a little more often.
• "Possibly Looking Away". In a group where everyone else is looking at the camera, the face panel points out someone whose eyes may be just off it. It is only a pointer to check: it does not mark the photo down.
• With Advanced AI on, each folder is analysed again once the first time you open it.

Worth knowing:

• Advanced AI is still being worked on. If it gets a photo wrong, please tell us what it said and what you saw. Turning the switch off puts everything back as it was.
• If you are on 0.4.0, OpenCull should offer you this version itself the next time it opens.

Download

System	File
macOS, Apple silicon (M1 and later)	OpenCull_0.4.1_aarch64.dmg
Windows 10 and 11	OpenCull_0.4.1_x64-setup.exe (or the .msi)
Linux (Ubuntu 24.04, Fedora 40, Debian 13 or newer)	.AppImage, .deb or .rpm

The other files on this page (latest.json, and those ending in .sig or .app.tar.gz) are what the app uses to update itself. You do not need them.

The installers are not signed with a paid developer certificate, so each system asks before running them the first time:

• macOS — open the .dmg and drag OpenCull to Applications. The first time you open it macOS will refuse. Go to System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down, and choose Open Anyway.
• Windows — SmartScreen shows "Windows protected your PC". Choose More info, then Run anyway.
• Linux — for the AppImage, make it executable (chmod +x) and run it.

Please know

This is an early release. It is used daily on a Mac, and has been tested and confirmed working on Windows and Linux. If something goes wrong on your system, please open an issue and say what happened.

Not here yet: an Intel Mac build, HEIC files, and RAW rendering for cameras that embed only a small preview.

OpenCull 0.4.0

What's new

• Advanced AI, for anyone who wants to try it. A new switch in Settings, under AI, turns on a newer way of judging faces. It is still being worked on, so it is off until you turn it on, and with it off OpenCull judges your photos exactly as 0.3.0 did. With it on:
  • Every face is given a state. The face panel says what each face is doing in a photographer's words: Eyes Fully Open, Smiling, Laughing, Looking Down, Facing Away, Eyes Closed, Mid-Blink and more, coloured by how much there is to worry about.
  • A blink is told apart from eyes that are meant to be that way. Someone looking down, laughing with their eyes narrowed, or closing their eyes in a hug no longer marks a photo down the way a blink does. A blink at the camera still does, and is what turns a thumbnail's strip red.
  • Looking away counts only where it matters. Where nobody in the photo is looking at the camera, such as a couple looking at each other, it costs the photo nothing. Where everyone else is looking, it costs a little.
  • Looking away is judged from the eyes. OpenCull now takes a closer look at the eyes themselves rather than going mostly by the turn of the head, so it catches more people who are looking away and wrongly flags fewer who are looking at you.
  • People in the background are picked out better, by weighing each face against the rest of the photo rather than by size alone.
  • Switching analyses the open folder again. Each way remembers its own results, so switching back is instant.
• Copy and paste a crop. ⌘C and ⌘V (Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V), or the right-click menu, copy one photo's crop onto the photos you have selected. It lands on the same part of each photo, tilt included, and one undo takes it back.
• Safer copying from a memory card. Cameras reuse file names. Skip Existing and Overwrite now go by the photo itself and not by its name, so a different photo that happens to share a name is copied alongside rather than skipped or written over.
• A rating that could not be saved now says so, and a sidecar file that cannot be read is left alone rather than replaced.
• Colour labels stay in sight on a selected photo.

Worth knowing:

• Advanced AI is unfinished. If it gets a photo wrong, please tell us what it said and what you saw. Turning the switch off puts everything back as it was.
• With Advanced AI on, a blink on a face turned away from the camera can be let off lightly. There it cannot yet tell a blink from eyes closed on purpose, so it treats both as worth a look rather than a fault.
• If you are on 0.3.0, OpenCull should offer you this version itself the next time it opens.

Download

System	File
macOS, Apple silicon (M1 and later)	OpenCull_0.4.0_aarch64.dmg
Windows 10 and 11	OpenCull_0.4.0_x64-setup.exe (or the .msi)
Linux (Ubuntu 24.04, Fedora 40, Debian 13 or newer)	.AppImage, .deb or .rpm

The other files on this page (latest.json, and those ending in .sig or .app.tar.gz) are what the app uses to update itself. You do not need them.

The installers are not signed with a paid developer certificate, so each system asks before running them the first time:

• macOS — open the .dmg and drag OpenCull to Applications. The first time you open it macOS will refuse. Go to System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down, and choose Open Anyway.
• Windows — SmartScreen shows "Windows protected your PC". Choose More info, then Run anyway.
• Linux — for the AppImage, make it executable (chmod +x) and run it.

Please know

This is an early release. It is used daily on a Mac, and has been tested and confirmed working on Windows and Linux. If something goes wrong on your system, please open an issue and say what happened.

Not here yet: an Intel Mac build, HEIC files, and RAW rendering for cameras that embed only a small preview.

OpenCull 0.3.0

What's new

• Crop and straighten. Press R, or use the new toolbar button, to crop a photo. Drag a handle to resize, drag inside to slide the photo, drag outside to turn it. Hold the crop to a shape (Original, 1×1, 4×5, 5×7, 2×3, 4×3, 16×9 or your own), straighten with the slider or by drawing a line along something that should be level, and step through composition guides with O. Enter keeps the crop, Esc leaves the photo as it was, and the arrow keys keep it and carry on at the next photo.
• Rotate and flip. ⌘[ and ⌘] (Ctrl+[ and Ctrl+]) turn a photo a quarter turn, and the right-click menu has Flip Horizontal and Flip Vertical. They work on a selection too.
• Saved for your editor, never into the photo. A crop is saved beside the photo the same way Lightroom and Camera Raw save theirs, so they open it already cropped and you can still change it there. Your originals are not touched.
• Photos you cropped in Lightroom show cropped here. Crops, straightening and rotation made in Lightroom or Camera Raw are now shown in the big view, the filmstrip, the grid and the face panel, with a small mark on cropped thumbnails.
• Undo works at both levels. Inside crop mode, undo and redo step through what you have done to the crop. Outside it, one undo takes the whole crop back.
• Skip This Version. The window that offers an update now lets you pass over a version; you will be offered the next one.

Worth knowing:

• If you are on 0.2.5, OpenCull should offer you this version itself the next time it opens. This is the first release to arrive that way. If it does not, or the install fails, please download it below and tell us.
• Cropping is new. If a crop looks different in Lightroom from how it looked here, please open an issue with what you saw.
• Colour and exposure edits from an editing program are not shown; OpenCull shows the picture as the camera made it, with the crop applied.
• Some photos cannot be cropped here and say so: ones shot with the camera set to a different shape from its sensor (16:9 or square with a RAW beside it), and ones whose sidecar file cannot be read with certainty. They are left exactly as they are.
• Lightroom only reads a JPEG's crop from inside the JPEG. To have it see crops on JPEG-only photos, turn on Write ratings and crops into JPEGs in Settings. A rotation or flip on a JPEG stays in OpenCull either way.
• A crop on a DNG shows in OpenCull but not in Lightroom, which keeps a DNG's settings inside the file.

Download

System	File
macOS, Apple silicon (M1 and later)	OpenCull_0.3.0_aarch64.dmg
Windows 10 and 11	OpenCull_0.3.0_x64-setup.exe (or the .msi)
Linux (Ubuntu 24.04, Fedora 40, Debian 13 or newer)	.AppImage, .deb or .rpm

The other files on this page (latest.json, and those ending in .sig or .app.tar.gz) are what the app uses to update itself. You do not need them.

The installers are not signed with a paid developer certificate, so each system asks before running them the first time:

• macOS — open the .dmg and drag OpenCull to Applications. The first time you open it macOS will refuse. Go to System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down, and choose Open Anyway.
• Windows — SmartScreen shows "Windows protected your PC". Choose More info, then Run anyway.
• Linux — for the AppImage, make it executable (chmod +x) and run it.

Please know

This is an early release. It is used daily on a Mac, and has been tested and confirmed working on Windows and Linux. If something goes wrong on your system, please open an issue and say what happened.

Not here yet: an Intel Mac build, HEIC files, and RAW rendering for cameras that embed only a small preview.

OpenCull 0.2.5

What's new

• OpenCull can now update itself. From this version on, when a newer one is out OpenCull tells you as it opens and offers to install it. It downloads the new version, puts it in place and reopens, keeping your settings and ratings. The offer only ever appears on the home screen, never while you are culling.
• You can turn off the question before the Trash. A new switch in Settings, Ask before moving to the Trash, lets the Trash key act at once. Turning it off asks you once to confirm.

Worth knowing:

• This is the last version you need to download by hand. Updating itself starts with the version after this one, since this is the first that knows how.
• Checking for updates is the only thing OpenCull uses the internet for. It asks GitHub what the latest version is and sends nothing about you or your photos. It can be turned off in Settings, where there is also a Check Now button.
• Self-updating has been tried on a Mac. On Windows and Linux it is new and has not been tried yet. If an update will not install, OpenCull says so and takes you to the download page; please open an issue if that happens.
• On Linux, the AppImage is the surest to update itself. With a .deb or .rpm you may be asked for your password, or need to install the new one by hand.

Download

System	File
macOS, Apple silicon (M1 and later)	OpenCull_0.2.5_aarch64.dmg
Windows 10 and 11	OpenCull_0.2.5_x64-setup.exe (or the .msi)
Linux (Ubuntu 24.04, Fedora 40, Debian 13 or newer)	.AppImage, .deb or .rpm

The other files on this page (latest.json, and those ending in .sig or .app.tar.gz) are what the app uses to update itself. You do not need them.

The installers are not signed with a paid developer certificate, so each system asks before running them the first time:

• macOS — open the .dmg and drag OpenCull to Applications. The first time you open it macOS will refuse. Go to System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down, and choose Open Anyway.
• Windows — SmartScreen shows "Windows protected your PC". Choose More info, then Run anyway.
• Linux — for the AppImage, make it executable (chmod +x) and run it.

Please know

This is an early release. It is used daily on a Mac, and has been tested and confirmed working on Windows and Linux. If something goes wrong on your system, please open an issue and say what happened.

Not here yet: an Intel Mac build, HEIC files, and RAW rendering for cameras that embed only a small preview.

OpenCull 0.2.4

What's new

• Ship takes the JPEG too. If you shoot RAW and JPEG together, Ship used to copy or move only the RAW and leave its JPEG behind. Now the pair travels together and keeps one name, the same as Move and Copy from the right-click menu. If either name is already taken where they are going, the photo is treated as a duplicate, so a RAW never lands beside a different photo's JPEG.
• Your JPEG files are left alone unless you say otherwise. Writing stars and colour labels into the JPEG file itself is now off by default. Ratings are still saved beside every photo as before.
• The Keyboard Shortcuts window opens with nothing highlighted. The first shortcut in the list used to look selected for no reason.

Worth knowing:

• If you want your JPEG ratings to show up in Lightroom, Bridge and similar programs, turn on Write ratings into JPEGs in Settings. If you had already changed that setting, it stays as you left it; if you never touched it, it is now off.

Download

System	File
macOS, Apple silicon (M1 and later)	OpenCull_0.2.4_aarch64.dmg
Windows 10 and 11	OpenCull_0.2.4_x64-setup.exe (or the .msi)
Linux (Ubuntu 24.04, Fedora 40, Debian 13 or newer)	.AppImage, .deb or .rpm

The installers are not signed with a paid developer certificate, so each system asks before running them the first time:

• macOS — open the .dmg and drag OpenCull to Applications. The first time you open it macOS will refuse. Go to System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down, and choose Open Anyway.
• Windows — SmartScreen shows "Windows protected your PC". Choose More info, then Run anyway.
• Linux — for the AppImage, make it executable (chmod +x) and run it.

Please know

This is an early release. It is used daily on a Mac, and has been tested and confirmed working on Windows and Linux. If something goes wrong on your system, please open an issue and say what happened.

Not here yet: an Intel Mac build, HEIC files, and RAW rendering for cameras that embed only a small preview.

OpenCull 0.2.3

What's new

• Better at spotting people looking away. The app now catches more of the faces that are not looking at the camera. In our testing it found about six in ten, up from about half, including many it used to be sure were looking. It will occasionally flag someone who was looking; that is still rare.
• Fewer things mistaken for faces. When neither of the app's two checks was confident that something was a face, it is no longer shown as one. A balloon was getting through this way.
• Resizable side panels. Drag the edge of the info panel or the face panel to make it wider or narrower. The sizes are remembered, and the panels always leave room for the photo however small the window gets. Thanks to @Flohhhhh for this one, the project's first outside contribution.
• Matching resize handles. The edges of both side panels and the top of the filmstrip now light up the same way when you point at them.

Worth knowing:

• The first time you open a folder in this version, its faces are analysed again. This happens once.
• Eyes-shut detection and the choice of who counts as a background person are unchanged in this release.

Download

System	File
macOS, Apple silicon (M1 and later)	OpenCull_0.2.3_aarch64.dmg
Windows 10 and 11	OpenCull_0.2.3_x64-setup.exe (or the .msi)
Linux (Ubuntu 24.04, Fedora 40, Debian 13 or newer)	.AppImage, .deb or .rpm

The installers are not signed with a paid developer certificate, so each system asks before running them the first time:

• macOS — open the .dmg and drag OpenCull to Applications. The first time you open it macOS will refuse. Go to System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down, and choose Open Anyway.
• Windows — SmartScreen shows "Windows protected your PC". Choose More info, then Run anyway.
• Linux — for the AppImage, make it executable (chmod +x) and run it.

Please know

This is an early release. It is used daily on a Mac, and has been tested and confirmed working on Windows and Linux. If something goes wrong on your system, please open an issue and say what happened.

Not here yet: an Intel Mac build, HEIC files, and RAW rendering for cameras that embed only a small preview.