Palomino.

Fast, focused RAW photo culling for macOS.

Palomino helps you get 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. It makes culling fast, and that's the whole job.

Download for macOS Get in touch

Requires macOS 15 Sequoia or later · Apple silicon & Intel

Free to download. Exports up to 50 photos per session. Palomino Pro removes the limit for a one-time $29.99 purchase.

iMessage from a photographer: This app has seriously cut my HB image culling time by 95%
A photographer, via iMessage
Palomino preview view with info panel, histogram, and filmstrip
Preview view. The next photo is already in memory before you press the arrow key, because Palomino prefetches ahead of you in the background. The info panel shows full exposure data and a live RGB histogram, and the filmstrip flags your picks.
Palomino grid view with filter bar and quality badges
Grid view. Filters control what the arrow keys see. Narrow the shoot to picks, rejects, star ratings, color labels, or capture days, and navigation skips everything else. Background analysis also finds burst groups and out-of-focus shots, each one a single click to review.
Palomino export sheet
Export. Copy your selects to a folder by flag or minimum star rating. You can split high-ISO photos into a separate folder for denoising, and optionally move unrated files to the Trash, with the exact count shown before anything happens.

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. Press ? for the full shortcut list.

Quality hints

Background analysis flags overexposed, underexposed, and soft photos, and groups burst sequences so you can keep the best frame and reject the rest with one shortcut.

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.

navigate   15 rate   P pick   X reject   G grid   C compare   E export

Your photos never leave your Mac

Palomino does its work on your Mac. There are no accounts, no cloud, no analytics, and no tracking, and your photos, ratings, and folders stay on the machine. The only network activity is Apple handling your Pro purchase, which never involves your photos.

Nothing to upload

Palomino ships in the macOS App Sandbox without the network entitlement, so the app cannot upload your photos anywhere. You can verify this yourself in the app's entitlements.

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 to us 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. No subscription, no recurring charges. 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, with no subscription and no recurring charges.

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. Palomino 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, 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.