Subscription-free Lightroom alternative

Cull & edit photos
10× faster than Lightroom

AI selects your best shots, removes duplicates, and batch-edits thousands of photos without a subscription. No creative cloud, no recurring fees.

$10
one-time, no subscription
10×
Faster culling
11+
RAW formats
Photos free
imagic - Edit Photos
imagic photo editor with color grading, histogram, and adjustment sliders
Your entire workflow, 5 simple steps
From folder to finished exports, imagic handles the heavy lifting at every stage.

Import your photos

Point imagic at any folder. It scans and catalogs every photo, RAW, JPEG, and TIFF included, including subfolders. One click to begin.

1. Import
Import Photos - folder picker with how-it-works guide

Analyse with AI

AI scores every shot on sharpness, exposure, noise, composition, and detail. Duplicates are flagged automatically. Results in seconds, not hours.

2. Analyse
Analyse Photos - zoomable thumbnail grid with quality scores

Review & cull

See per-metric breakdowns at a glance: sharpness, exposure, detail, noise, composition, and face detection. Keep or trash each shot with one click.

3. Review & Cull
Review & Cull - enriched tiles with metric bars and keep/trash buttons

Edit & grade

Full editing suite: histogram, exposure, color grading, sharpening, noise reduction, AI auto-enhance, and 6+ style presets with live previews.

4. Edit
Edit Photos - detail, color grading, effects, and AI tools

Export the keepers

Batch-process all kept photos with your chosen settings. Crash-resilient pipeline auto-resumes interrupted exports. Open the output folder when done.

5. Export
Export - gallery of processed images ready to share
Plus powerful extras
Dedicated tools for duplicates, styles, and detailed culling decisions.
edited by imagic
Why photographers are ditching Lightroom
imagic does what Lightroom does, faster, simpler, and without the $120/year subscription.
Price
Free forever
$9.99/month
AI photo culling
Built-in
Manual only
Duplicate detection
Automatic
Not available
Cull 1,000 photos
~30 seconds
2-3 hours manual
RAW processing
11+ formats
Supported
Batch export
Multi-threaded
Supported
Learning AI
Learns from you
No
Works in browser
Coming 2026
Desktop only
Feedback loop
Direct with dev team
Slower enterprise roadmap
Account required
No
Yes (Adobe ID)

Save $120+/year

No subscription, no hidden costs. The desktop app is completely free with zero limits. Stop paying Adobe for features you don't use.

10× faster culling

AI scores every photo on sharpness, exposure, noise, composition, and detail in seconds. What takes hours in Lightroom happens automatically.

Dead simple workflow

Import → AI Analyse → Review → Edit → Export. Five steps, one flow. No catalogues to manage, no import settings to configure. Point at a folder and go.

AI that learns from you

Every keep/trash decision and edit you make teaches imagic your preferences. Over time, it gets smarter and more aligned with your eye.

edited by imagic
Your personal AI editing assistant
imagic's AI doesn't replace you. It handles the tedious work so you can focus on the creative decisions that matter.
01

Intelligent scoring

Every photo is scored across 5 metrics: sharpness, exposure, noise, composition, and detail. The AI instantly separates keepers from rejects, so you start with the best instead of sifting through thousands.

02

Burst & duplicate detection

Shot 20 frames of the same scene? imagic finds visually identical photos and burst groups, then picks the sharpest automatically. You'll never manually compare near-identical shots again.

03

Smart crop & framing

Detects dead space, subjects, and rule-of-thirds alignment. Suggests optimal crop and framing with a confidence score. Accept the suggestion or ignore it, you're always in control.

04

Scene-aware profiles

Automatically detects whether a shot is a portrait, landscape, low-light scene, or high-contrast environment, and applies the perfect processing profile to match.

05

Feedback learning

This is what makes imagic truly unique: the AI tracks your keep/trash decisions, your edits, and your style preferences. Over time, it learns what you consider a great photo and weights its scoring accordingly. It's like training your own personal assistant.

06

You're always in control

Every AI suggestion can be overridden. Keep a photo the AI rejected. Trash one it liked. Adjust any edit. The AI adapts to your choices, it assists and never dictates.

Think of imagic as your editing intern. It does the grunt work, scoring, sorting, and flagging duplicates, and learns from every correction you make. After a few sessions, it knows your taste better than any preset ever could.
edited by imagic
Everything you need to cull smarter
From AI quality scoring to batch export, imagic automates the boring parts so you can focus on creative editing.

AI Quality Scoring

Scores every photo on sharpness, exposure, noise, composition, and detail, instantly separating keepers from rejects.

Duplicate Detection

Finds visually identical shots and burst duplicates using perceptual hashing, so you keep the sharpest and ditch the rest.

Smart Auto-Crop

Detects dead space, aligns to rule-of-thirds, and suggests optimal framing with confidence scoring.

Color Grading

6 cinematic grades: Natural, Film Warm, Film Cool, Moody, Vibrant, and Cinematic, with live preview thumbnails.

Batch Processing

Parallel multi-threaded export through darktable or RawTherapee. Process thousands of photos hands-free.

9+ RAW Formats

Canon CR2/CR3, Nikon NEF, Sony ARW, Fujifilm RAF, Olympus ORF, Panasonic RW2, Adobe DNG, Pentax PEF, and more.

edited by imagic
Everything in one bundle
Full AI power on your machine. One download, one license — RawTherapee integration included.

Or install via pip: pip install imagic

edited by imagic
Simple, honest pricing
One payment. One license. No subscription. RawTherapee integration included.
Available now Pay once, use it forever
Desktop

Everything unlocked for one small payment

Best value
$10
One-time payment, unlimited license
Unlimited photos
Full AI toolkit
Local processing
No subscription
AI culling + duplicate cleanup Batch editing + color grades Batch export + CLI mode RawTherapee integration Feedback learning No ads, no account
Buy Desktop License
Built for photographers who want ownership, speed, and a clean workflow.

For context: imagic Desktop is a one-time $10 purchase — everything included, no subscription, no recurring fees.

Frequently asked questions
Everything you need to know about imagic, the AI photo culling and editing software.
Is imagic really free?

imagic Desktop is available with a one-time $10 license key and no recurring fees. Instead of locking you into a subscription, the product keeps improving through direct feedback from photographers and a tight development loop focused on real workflow pain points.

Does imagic work on Mac, Windows, and Linux?

Yes. imagic runs natively on Windows, macOS, and Linux. You can download platform-specific installers or install it via pip: pip install imagic.

What RAW formats does imagic support?

imagic supports all major RAW formats: CR2 & CR3 (Canon), NEF (Nikon), ARW (Sony), RAF (Fujifilm), ORF (Olympus), RW2 (Panasonic), DNG (Universal/Adobe), PEF (Pentax), plus JPEG, PNG, TIFF, and WebP.

How does the AI photo culling work?

imagic's AI analyses every photo across 5 quality metrics: sharpness, exposure, noise, composition, and detail. Each photo gets an overall score. The AI automatically flags duplicates and burst groups, selecting the sharpest shot from each group. You can keep or trash photos with a single click, and the AI learns your preferences over time.

Can imagic replace Adobe Lightroom?

For most photographers, yes. imagic covers the full Lightroom workflow: import RAW files, AI-cull the best shots, batch edit with color grading and exposure adjustments, and export. The key advantage is imagic's built-in AI culling (Lightroom has no equivalent), plus it costs a one-time $10 instead of $9.99/month. For full RAW demosaicing, pair it with the optional RawTherapee integration.

How long does it take to cull 1,000 photos?

The AI analysis pass typically takes 30–90 seconds for 1,000 photos on a modern machine. Manually culling 1,000 photos in Lightroom takes 2–3 hours. imagic reduces culling time by up to 10×, meaning a typical wedding shoot of 3,000 photos takes minutes instead of a full day.

Do I need an internet connection to use imagic?

No. imagic processes everything 100% locally on your machine. No photos are ever uploaded to any cloud server. An internet connection is only needed for initial license key activation. This means your photos stay private and processing speeds are only limited by your hardware.

Does imagic learn my editing style?

Yes. imagic's feedback learning system tracks your keep/trash decisions, the manual edits you make, and the color grades you prefer. Over time, the AI adjusts its scoring weights to better reflect your personal taste, like training a photo editor who knows exactly what you look for. After a few sessions, the AI's suggestions align closely with your eye.

How does imagic improve over time?

imagic is built as a focused product, not as an editable codebase for end users. Improvements come from a strong community, direct bug reports, feature requests, and ongoing feedback to the dev team so the roadmap stays aligned with how photographers actually work.

Stop paying Adobe to cull photos manually

Join photographers who've replaced their Lightroom subscription with AI-powered culling.

Download Desktop - $10