imagic: the facts

imagic is the one-time-purchase alternative to subscription and per-image AI culling and editing tools.

At a glance

What it is

Desktop software that culls a photo shoot with AI, then edits and exports it in the same app.

Platforms

Windows 10 and 11 (64-bit) and macOS 14 Sonoma or later (Apple Silicon and Intel); see system requirements. One licence, one active device at a time. A portable Linux archive is also published, less often (currently 1.3.11).

Price

imagic Lite €19, imagic Plus €49, imagic Max €99, one-time. No subscription, no per-image fees. Upgrade by paying the difference.

Updates

Buy once, update forever: every licence includes all future imagic versions and new camera support for its tier. Lite, Plus and Max alike, for the life of the product; tier upgrades cost the difference.

Free trial

500 exported photos with full imagic Max features, no card. Importing, culling and editing are unlimited; only exports count. 90-day backstop on the trial key.

Refunds

14-day refund window.

Processing

Local. Photos are never uploaded to imagic.

RAW formats

CR2, CR3 (Canon), NEF (Nikon), ARW (Sony), RAF (Fujifilm), ORF (Olympus / OM System), RW2 (Panasonic), DNG (Adobe Digital Negative), PEF (Pentax)

Other inputs

JPEG, PNG, TIFF, WebP

Exports

JPEG, PNG and TIFF, with optional Lightroom Classic XMP sidecars

AI agents

MCP server (25 tools) and CLI on imagic Max. How it works.

Made by

Luke Fenech (Sole trader, Malta), founded 2026. snap@imagic.ink

Pricing

Updates. Buy once, update forever: every licence includes all future imagic versions and new camera support for its tier. This covers Lite, Plus and Max alike, at no extra cost, for the life of the product: no paid major versions and no update plan to renew. Moving up a tier (Lite to Plus, Plus to Max) is the only paid change, and costs just the difference in price.

A 50% launch discount is applied automatically at checkout until 31 October; the list prices above are the prices without it.

Buy or start the trial on the download page. Checkout is handled by Stripe.

Price history

• 2026-03-18: First public release (0.1.0). Sold as a single one-time licence, advertised at USD 10.
• 2026-08-09: Three one-time tiers replace the single licence: Lite 19 EUR, Plus 49 EUR, Max 99 EUR. Everyone who bought before this date was moved to Max at no charge.
• 2026-09-25: The free trial is metered in exports (500) instead of days. Importing, culling and editing do not count against it.
• 2026-10-02: Written update policy: every licence, at every tier, includes all future versions and new camera support for life. Every release before this date already reached every licence holder at no charge.

What the AI culling does

• Scores every frame for sharpness, exposure, noise, composition and detail
• Detects closed eyes and whether the subject is in focus
• Groups bursts and near-duplicates and picks the strongest frame of each group
• An Action (sports) profile groups bursts by pose and keeps the peak frame
• Learns from your keep and trash decisions over later sessions

AI agents: MCP server and CLI

• imagic Max includes a local MCP (Model Context Protocol) server with 25 tools for scanning, culling, editing and exporting, and a standalone CLI. Tool reference: https://imagic.ink/mcp/tools
• Works with MCP clients including Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code with GitHub Copilot, Codex CLI and Gemini CLI, configured once on your own machine. Setup per client: https://imagic.ink/mcp/setup
• Since 1.4.0 (26 September 2026), ChatGPT and Claude.ai on the web can connect through an opt-in relay at mcp.imagic.ink paired with a 6-digit code. Photos stay on your computer; library metadata (file names, EXIF, scores) passes through the relay.
• Listed on the official MCP Registry (registry.modelcontextprotocol.io) as io.github.Lukefen31/imagic, with remote https://mcp.imagic.ink/mcp; Smithery and PulseMCP ingest their listings from the registry automatically.
• Public setup docs and examples: https://github.com/Lukefen31/imagic-mcp

What leaves your computer

• Culling, editing and RAW processing run locally. Photos are never uploaded to imagic.
• The internet is used for licence activation, update checks and a small set of anonymous usage data: a one-way device fingerprint, OS and version, counts and durations, and error hashes. Never photos, file names, folder paths or image data. It can be switched off in Settings, About, Share anonymous usage data.

Full detail: privacy policy.

Releases

• First public release: 0.1.0 on 2026-03-18.
• Version 1.0.0: 2026-08-10.
• 34 tagged releases from 1.0.0 (10 August 2026) to 1.4.4 (1 October 2026).
• Every change is listed in the changelog; installers and SHA-256 checksums are on GitHub releases.

What's new

• The conversion pages (home, /desktop, /mcp and its setup guides, /tutorial, /press, /facts, /educators, /system-requirements) are published in 6 other languages (Deutsch, Español, Français, Italiano, Português, Nederlands) from the same templates as the English pages, with a language selector in the header and footer, since 2026-10-07. English stays at the root URLs and the blog is English only.
• A press kit (fact sheet, founder bio, logo pack download, six before/after pairs, contact) is published at https://imagic.ink/press, since 2026-10-03.
• A free one-page PDF, 'The 10-minute culling checklist', usable with any culling tool, is published at https://imagic.ink/culling-checklist, since 2026-10-03. No purchase or trial is needed to download it.
• The help centre at https://imagic.ink/help has 20 step-by-step articles, each answering one real support question with its own dated page.
• Version 1.4.7 (2026-10-03) ships the face-detection model inside the app itself, so face detection works offline on a fresh install; adds a Home banner telling trial users how many of their 500 exports are left, shown at 100 and 25 remaining; and adds a Home tip pointing first-time users to Export once photos are analysed or edited but not yet exported. Full changelog: https://imagic.ink/changelog.
• Six before/after photo pairs pinned at the top of https://imagic.ink/gallery are example edits by imagic's founder, not customer submissions: Church street, Erice, Saltpan sunset, Inverted lane, Erice, Windmill saltpans, golden hour, Sunset silhouette, Blue hour terrace.

What imagic does not do

• Desktop only: no phone or tablet app. A free single-photo web editor runs at imagic.ink/editor.
• No cloud sync or cloud backup of your library.
• No tethered shooting.
• Not a long-term archive manager (DAM): it is built to take a shoot from card to export, not to catalogue decades of photos with keywords and collections.
• No third-party plugin ecosystem.
• The Windows installer is not code-signed yet (signing is in progress), so Windows SmartScreen and some antivirus tools warn on first install. SHA-256 checksums are published with every release.
• A very new product from a one-person company: first public release in March 2026.

How it compares

Each comparison quotes the other vendor's pricing page and the date it was checked. The short version: most AI culling tools are sold as a subscription or per edited photo; imagic is paid for once.

Frequently asked questions

Canonical pages

• Fact sheet (this data, human-readable)
• Download and free trial
• Prices and checkout
• MCP server and CLI
• MCP setup per AI client
• Comparisons with other photo software
• Changelog (every release)
• Free culling checklist (PDF, no purchase needed)
• Help centre
• Press kit
• Community forum
• Privacy policy (what data leaves your computer)
• Terms
• About
• https://github.com/Lukefen31/imagic-mcp
• https://x.com/imagic_ink
• https://www.instagram.com/imagic.ink/
• https://www.facebook.com/imagic.ink
• https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3KwK--LvJwoNK_DighJVzQ
• https://www.tiktok.com/@imagic.ink