Fast RAW photo culling for the Mac.

Palomino gets you through a 2,000-photo shoot in one sitting.

I built Palomino to get you through a large shoot quickly: rate the keepers, skip the rejects, and hand a tight selection to your editing software. It doesn't edit, organize, or sync anything, because making culling fast is the only job I set out to do.

Download Palomino on the Mac App Store

Palomino requires macOS 15 Sequoia or later and runs on Apple silicon and Intel Macs.

Palomino is free to download, with exports up to 50 photos per session. Palomino Pro removes the limit for a one-time $29.99 purchase.

Palomino preview view showing a BMX rider mid-air, with filter and EXIF panels on the right and a filmstrip of burst-grouped photos along the bottom
iMessage from a photographer: This app has seriously cut my HB image culling time by 95%
A photographer, via iMessage

Why it's fast

Embedded previews

Palomino reads the JPEG preview your camera already wrote into each RAW file. That's 10 to 100 times faster than decoding the sensor data, and it looks identical at normal viewing size.

Keyboard-first

Press 1 through 5 to rate, P to pick, X to reject. Each action advances to the next photo, so you can work through a shoot without touching the mouse. In the grid, hold Command or Shift while clicking to select several photos, and one keystroke rates, flags, or labels all of them with a single undo. Press ? for the full shortcut list.

Quality hints

Background analysis flags overexposed, underexposed, soft, and closed-eye photos, and groups burst sequences, so the work of a first pass is already done when you open the folder.

Standard sidecars

Ratings and labels are written to standard XMP sidecar files, so they carry over to any editor that reads XMP. Sessions reopen exactly where you left off.

A tour of the app

Palomino grid view filtered to picked photos, with a filter bar for picks, rejects, ratings, bursts, and exposure problems, and burst badges on the thumbnails
Grid view. The filter bar narrows the shoot to picks, rejects, star ratings, bursts, or the photos that background analysis flagged as overexposed, underexposed, or out of focus. Filters control what the arrow keys see, so navigation skips everything you filtered out. Burst badges group rapid sequences, and a crown marks each group's suggested keeper.
Palomino compare view showing two burst frames of a BMX rider side by side, with a reference pane on the left
Compare view. Select two rivals and press C to see them side by side. One pane holds your reference while you browse the rest of the burst in the other, and you can zoom, rate, pick, or promote the challenger without leaving the view.
Palomino export sheet with a Copy, Clone, and Link mode, preset, file naming, high-ISO split, and verification options
Export. Copy your selects to a folder by flag or minimum star rating, or skip the copy: Clone uses an APFS copy-on-write clone and Link creates a hard link, so a same-drive export lands in well under a second with no extra disk space. Rename files with tokens as they copy, and save the settings you reuse as named presets. High-ISO photos can split into their own folder for denoising, exports are verified after copying, and moving unrated files to the Trash shows the exact count before anything happens.

Watch me cull a shoot

I recorded this screen capture while culling 2,124 RAW files from a BMX jam in Cupertino: 116 GB shot on a Sony A1 II at 50 megapixels, down to a handful of keepers. The screenshots on this page come from the same shoot. You can also watch it on YouTube.

Tools for culling at volume

Best of a burst

Palomino ranks the frames in a burst by sharpness and marks the suggested keeper with a crown. With the reject-others shortcut, you keep the crowned frame and reject the rest of the burst in two keys.

Face-priority zoom

Press V to zoom straight to the largest face at 300 percent, so checking eyes and focus takes one key. A badge flags photos where someone blinked.

Color labels and filters

Press 6 through 9 to set a red, yellow, green, or blue label. Filters then narrow the arrow keys to picks, ratings, labels, bursts, or capture days, and skip everything else.

Session stats

A session summary shows your total time, photos per minute, and the spread of ratings, so you can see how the cull went and where your time was spent.

← → move   1–5 rate   P pick   X reject   V face zoom   G grid   C compare   E export

Your photos never leave your Mac

I designed Palomino to do its work on your Mac. There are no accounts and no cloud, and your photos, ratings, and folders stay on the machine. The app itself carries no analytics or tracking. The only network activity is Apple handling your Pro purchase, which never involves your photos.

Nothing to upload

The app runs in the macOS App Sandbox and has no analytics, no tracking, and no third-party SDKs. It never sends your photos or ratings anywhere.

No accounts, no cloud

Nothing to sign up for and nothing synced anywhere. Your ratings are written to standard XMP sidecar files next to your photos, where they stay.

You control the only exit

The one piece of data that can ever leave is a debug log, and only when you choose to save it and send it in for a bug report. Until you do, nothing goes anywhere.

Pricing

Palomino is free to download. The free version exports up to 50 photos per session, which covers most hobbyist shoots without any payment. Palomino Pro removes the export limit for a one-time $29.99 purchase. You can upgrade from inside the app under Settings → Pro.

Frequently asked questions

Is Palomino free?

Palomino is free to download and use. The free version exports up to 50 photos per session. Palomino Pro removes the export limit for a one-time $29.99 purchase.

Does Palomino edit or change my photos?

No. Palomino reads your RAW files to show and rate them, and writes ratings and labels to standard XMP sidecar files. It never alters the original image files.

Does Palomino send my photos anywhere?

No. Your photos and ratings never leave your Mac. The app itself has no analytics, tracking, or accounts, and the only data that can leave is a debug log, and only if you save it and send it yourself for a bug report.

What RAW formats does Palomino support?

Palomino supports ARW, DNG, 3FR, NEF, CR3, RAF, ORF, HEIC, JPEG, and more than 20 other formats.

What do I need to run Palomino?

Palomino requires macOS 15 Sequoia or later and runs on both Apple silicon and Intel Macs.

How does Palomino make culling fast?

Palomino reads the JPEG preview your camera already embedded in each RAW file, which is much faster than decoding the full sensor data, and it prefetches the next photo in the background so navigation feels instant.

Get in touch

I build and support Palomino myself, so a message to any of these addresses reaches me directly.

Support

Email about anything broken, confusing, or not working the way you expect.

support@palomino-app.com

Feedback

Feature requests and ideas are welcome. I read every message myself.

feedback@palomino-app.com

Everything else

Press, partnership, and general questions go here.

info@palomino-app.com