For weekend photographers
RAW shooter. No subscription.
ShotSelect is for the photographer who shoots 500–1,500 RAWs on a weekend trip and just wants to pick the keepers without paying $10/month for Lightroom or fighting Photos.app's lack of RAW culling. Sensible defaults, full keyboard control, free forever.
Download for macOS The fastest way to cull RAW on Mac →
v1.1.0 · 92 MB · Apple Silicon & Intel · macOS 12+
Drag, cull, done
Drop a folder onto the dock icon. ShotSelect reads embedded JPEG previews — your RAWs render in 10–20ms instead of Lightroom's 200ms. ↑ keep, ↓ reject. That's the whole flow.
Search "sunset"
Natural-language AI search. Type "mountain reflection" or "my dog", find the matching frames across 1,500 RAWs in 0.8 seconds. The model runs on your Mac, not someone's GPU.
40+ RAW formats
CR3, ARW, NEF, RAF, RW2, DNG, ProRAW, ORF — every camera you've ever owned. ShotSelect reads them with the same speed because it uses the embedded JPEG, not a custom decoder.
Things you don't have to put up with
Three Lightroom annoyances ShotSelect skips.
"Render Standard Previews" 30-minute waits
ShotSelect doesn't pre-render. It reads the camera-embedded JPEG when you arrow to a frame. Open a 1,500-RAW folder; first frame is on screen in 1.4 seconds.
Catalog files getting corrupted
No catalog. ShotSelect uses a local SQLite session per folder. Move the folder; the session moves with it. Delete the session file; you start fresh — no 4GB .lrcat ghost.
$10/month for software you launch monthly
Photography is a once-a-weekend hobby for many photographers. A subscription that compounds whether you shoot or not is a poor fit. ShotSelect is free and stays free.
Common questions from weekend shooters
Do I need Lightroom too?
Only if you want non-destructive RAW edits (exposure, white balance, lens corrections). ShotSelect culls and tags; Lightroom edits. Many enthusiasts pair ShotSelect (free, fast) with Capture One Express (free for some bodies) or Affinity Photo (one-time purchase). XMP sidecars travel through all of them.
Can I just export the keepers as JPEGs?
Currently ShotSelect writes XMP sidecars and lets you copy/move keepers to a new folder. JPEG export with white-balance baked in is a feature for editors like Lightroom or Capture One — not a culler's job. Many enthusiasts cull in ShotSelect, then JPEG-export from Capture One or Affinity.
Will it import my Photos.app library?
No — ShotSelect works on folders of RAW files, not Photos.app's managed library. If your RAWs are inside Photos.app, you'll need to export them as files first (Photos → File → Export → Export Unmodified Original).
What if I shoot JPEG only?
Works the same. ShotSelect reads JPEG, HEIC, RAW + JPEG pairs, ProRAW. The cull pass is faster on JPEG (no embedded preview decode needed).
Does it run on my older Mac?
Yes — Apple Silicon (M1, M2, M3, M4) and Intel Macs both supported. macOS 12+ required. Performance scales with the SSD speed, not CPU — even older Intel Macs cull a 500-frame folder in seconds.
Try it on this weekend's shoot.
Free. macOS. Works on every camera you own.
Built for your shoot