Every feature in ShotSelect.

01 · Cull

Keyboard-first culling.

The cull pass is what ShotSelect is for. Arrow keys drive everything. Embedded JPEG previews mean each frame renders in 10–20ms. A 3,000-frame folder takes about 35 minutes for a first-pass keep/reject sweep at 1.5 sec per frame.

• ↑ keep · ↓ reject · ← → navigate
• P pick · X reject (Photo Mechanic muscle memory)
• Tab cycle within burst groups
• C compare 2–4 frames split-screen at full pixel
• All 50+ shortcuts remappable via Settings → Keyboard
• Resume mid-cull: sessions auto-save to a per-folder SQLite file

02 · AI search

Natural-language photo search, on-device.

Type "first kiss" and ShotSelect finds the matching frames across a 3,247-photo wedding in 0.8 seconds. The model runs locally — on the free tier, your photos never touch a cloud. Indexes a 3,000-photo shoot in about 4 minutes the first time, then queries are instant.

• On-device CLIP embeddings (Apple Neural Engine accelerated)
• Search by content: "bouquet toss," "ring detail," "candid laughter"
• Combine with star, color label, and tag filters
• 100% offline — no API key, no upload, no telemetry on photo content
• Cross-session search index — index once, search forever

03 · RAW & previews

40+ RAW formats, embedded JPEG speed.

ShotSelect uses the camera-embedded JPEG preview for the cull pass instead of decoding the full RAW. That's the speed unlock — render in 10–20ms instead of 200ms.

• Canon CR3 / CR2 (R-series, 1DX, 5D)
• Sony ARW (A1, A7 series, A9)
• Nikon NEF (Z9, Z8, D850, D6)
• Fuji RAF (X-T, GFX series)
• Panasonic RW2, Olympus ORF, Pentax PEF, Leica DNG, Apple ProRAW
• JPEG, HEIC, RAW + JPEG pairs
• Persistent photo_metadata cache for instant grid views on repeat opens

04 · Tag & rate

Tag-as-you-cull. No second pass.

Stars, color labels, picks, and keyword tags happen during the cull pass — not after.

• 1–5 — star rating 1 to 5 (0 clears)
• 6–9 — color labels (red, yellow, green, blue)
• T — open tag pill, type a keyword, press Enter
• Bulk apply via filter → select-all → tag
• Copy/paste metadata across dozens of frames in one keystroke

05 · XMP & Lightroom

Standard XMP sidecars. Zero lock-in.

ShotSelect writes industry-standard XMP sidecar files next to your RAW files. Star ratings, picks, color labels, and keywords all sync to Lightroom Classic, Capture One, and Adobe Bridge automatically.

• One .xmp file per RAW, written next to the original
• Lightroom Classic auto-detects XMP changes (or right-click → Read Metadata from File)
• Capture One reads the same files with no conversion
• Adobe Bridge previews ratings and picks directly
• Export keepers as a folder of copies, or write XMP in place — your choice

Read the XMP sidecars guide →

06 · Workflow Beta

From cull to client.

The workflow tier is in active beta — features ship as they're ready. All beta features are free during the beta period.

• Client review links — mobile-friendly URL your couple opens on their phone, picks favourites, picks sync back to your gallery
• Multi-device session sync — opt-in, encrypts session metadata only (never photos)
• Advanced face grouping — cluster all frames of one person across the whole shoot

Beta means beta. These features ship behind feature flags. Some are stable, some have rough edges. The cull workflow you start with — keyboard culling, AI search, XMP export — is not in beta and won't get paywalled.

07 · Sessions

Resume any cull, any time.

Every cull session auto-saves to a per-folder SQLite database. Close the laptop. Reopen tomorrow. Pick up at the exact frame, with the same filter state, the same selected frame, the same in-progress tags.

• Last-20 sessions visible from the home screen
• Session lives in the folder, so moving the folder moves the session
• No catalog file. No .lrcat. No 4GB ghost.
• Multi-source ingest: pull from multiple SD cards into one session

08 · Privacy

On the free tier, 100% on-device.

Every feature in the free tier runs on your Mac. The CLIP search model. Sessions. Indexes. Embeddings. Nothing about your photos is sent anywhere.

• No cloud account required (or available on the free tier)
• No telemetry on photo content
• No license server check — works offline indefinitely
• Opt-in crash reporting (off by default; never includes photo data)
• Per-folder session DBs — delete the folder, the data is gone

09 · Platform

Native macOS. Apple Silicon and Intel.