Aphera Blog

Groups Are for Collecting

2026-10-02T17:00:00Z

Sometimes photos belong together for reasons a star rating doesn’t capture: the six frames for a couple’s preview the night of the wedding, a sequence for a carousel post, every portrait from an event, or a shortlist of contenders to compare before choosing one.

In Aphera 1.6, you can collect these with the B key. Press it and the selected photos go into a group. That’s the whole feature.

Quick Collection

As a long-time user of Lightroom Classic, I loved its Quick Collection feature: it’s versatile because it doesn’t label what’s in it; you throw photos in and decide later what they’re for. Its weakness is that it’s one-per-catalog, and a Lightroom catalog often holds tons of unrelated photos. That makes it temporary: you’re always clearing it out to pull a new set of photos together.

Lightroom’s commands for saving, clearing, and retargeting the Quick Collection.

Lightroom sees this, and adds yet-more features to make it feel like a system: Save Quick Collection… turns it into a regular collection, and Clear Quick Collection empties it for the next task. Did you know that Quick Collection is only the default for a larger Target Collection feature? You can assign the B key to any collection in the catalog. Powerful? Yes, but it further complicates what happens to photos when you press the key, and where you go to find them.

All things considered, it’s a great feature because the B key becomes instinctual. I wanted something similar in Aphera: a way to collect photos using the keyboard, without changing their star rating.

We ended up with something great, and even borrowed the B key: it’s easy to reach, and LrC users already have the muscle memory.¹

Failed attempt

In our first design of the feature, we thought each project should have at least one group. We called that group “Picks”, and set it as the target for B. It seemed like a good place to start.

In use, it immediately caused decision fatigue. On a first culling pass, I couldn’t decide whether to pick a photo or star it. I tried to keep stars and picks in sync, and failed miserably. The name Picks implies a purpose, and that purpose is too similar to star ratings. For me, it really clarified that the act of collecting is very different than rating, even if they sometimes overlap.

Names matter

Projects now start without any groups. The first time you press B, Aphera asks for a name, creates the group, and adds the selected photos to it.

This simple act of naming is important: it states why you’re collecting. A group called “Preview for Sam & Alex” doesn’t compete with stars the way Picks did. Of course, you’re free to call a group Picks, Selects, or anything you like. That’s fine; the name comes from your intent, not from ours.

Once assigned, B goes to the group marked with the collect icon in the sidebar. To change it, right-click another group and choose Collect Here. Any group can be used for collecting, and there is no separate Quick Collection. That means B has one meaning: send to the group you assigned.

Since groups are part of each project, there’s nothing to clear when you start the next one.

A few more details:

When the selected photos are all in the group, B removes them.
Ctrl+G shows the group you’re collecting into.
Organize > Collect into lists every group. Choosing one sets it as the target and adds the selected photos.

See Collecting Photos.

Stars rank, groups collect

When we redesigned culling for Aphera, we found ourselves using a baseline single ★ to collect. That works for some people, and for a while it did for us too, until it didn’t. But, it just didn’t quite feel right — a little nagging crept up. Stars say how good a photo is. We like that distinction, and for some, they need that distinction, including ourselves.

With groups and collecting into them, a group’s name says what it’s for. It feels purposeful, and you can assign any purpose to a group at whenever you need or like — whether it’s hyper specific, a loose grouping, or thematic.

And that feels right to us.

Also shoutout to Capture One’s Selects (command-J), Photo Mechanic’s tag (T), and Apple Photos’ Favorite (.) for further inspiration. ↩︎

Aphera 1.6

2026-10-02T02:08:13Z

Project preferences and memory

New Display options in Settings > New Projects let you set the Grid columns and Surround Color default for new projects. Start each project the way you like.

Once created, each project opens right where you left it: surround color, grid columns, selected photos, filters, and view are now restored.

New Projects showing Display options for Grid columns and Surround Color" loading="lazy" />

See Projects.

Groups are for collecting

You can now choose a group for collecting photos into, by pressing B. Selected photos are added (or removed) to that group. Right click other groups and choose Collect Here to change where the B key sends them.

See Collecting Photos.

Also — importing no longer creates groups. We found that automatically created groups were never quite right; either too specific or too generic. Now, when you import photos they’re always visible in Last Imported.

The sidebar has been rebuilt and redesigned, with new features:

A Last Imported row shows the photos from the current / most recent import.
The Starred row can be expanded to view each star rating.

The toolbar has also been redesigned, providing access to the current Grid, Zoom, and Surround Color settings.

In Grid mode, set the number of grid columns from 2-12.
In View and Develop modes, the toolbar shows the current zoom level. Click it to toggle zoom, the same as Space. Use the menu to set the target magnification for each mode: Fit to View and Pixel Accurate
Background Color is now Surround Color, with a menu in the toolbar: Black, Dark Gray, Middle Gray, and White.

See Workspace.

More updates and fixes

The Filter options moved from View > Filters to the new Organize menu.
Double-click a group to rename it.
Drag and drop to the sidebar sizes the images for easier targeting.
The histogram no longer shows a false peak at the left edge.
The waveform no longer appears dim on some images.
The crop editor stays in sync after undo.
Filenames with spaces no longer show %20.
Long filenames truncate in the middle instead of breaking the layout.
Fixed a delay on zooming to 1:1 view on some larger images.
Fixed that some images would fail to render at 1:1 when denoise is enabled.
Improved image rendering performance in some pretty significant ways.

Aphera 1.5

2026-09-11T16:00:00Z

We’re always listening and learning from user feedback. Histogram was a widely requested feature, now implemented in the app, in addition to Waveform and Color Scopes.

Scopes

Three scopes now sit at the top of the Inspector: Histogram, Waveform, and Color. They read the photo with your edits applied, and update in realtime.

Histogram — how many pixels hold each brightness value, per channel. A spike against either edge is clipping.
Waveform — the same reading laid out across the width of the frame, so you can see where in the image each value lives.
Color — hue and saturation with brightness removed. Understand color intensity and hue shifts over the entire image.

Scopes measure the full image at a fixed resolution, unaffected by pan and and zoom. Histogram bars scale against a fixed reference so that the graph stays consistent across photos.

See Scopes.

Redesigned inspector panel

We‘ve redesigned the right side panel in View mode, bringing it in line with other photo apps. Scopes sit at the top, with Balance and Looks below. The most important tools are more present in your view. Export moves to the bottom, out of the way until you need it.

30-day trial

The trial is now 30 days (up from 14) and we‘ve extended all existing trials. Enjoy some extra time to explore Aphera!

Other changes

The Develop panel headers are renamed. The header is Image Pipeline, replacing the file name, and the layer stack below it reads Effects Layers.

Aphera 1.4

2026-08-27T16:00:00Z

Lens corrections from your camera

Sony, Fujifilm, and Olympus record their own lens corrections in the RAW file. Aphera now prefers that data over DNG correction data or a Lensfun profile.

Applies to new imports: existing photos are unaffected. See Lens Corrections.

Bring in photos from other apps

Aphera now supports standard macOS operations to move files between apps: drag and drop, and copy and paste.

DAM-focused apps such as digiKam, Iris, Capture One, Adobe Bridge, and Adobe Lightroom are powerful tools for organizing your photos, and you can now more easily bring those photos to Aphera to edit. In many other apps you can select photos and Copy, then Paste in an Aphera project. The files are imported into the current project, without changing their location on disk. Verified in these apps:

App	Copy and Paste	Drag and Drop
digiKam	Multiple photos	Multiple photos
Iris Photos	One photo	One photo
Capture One	—	Multiple photos
Adobe Bridge	Multiple photos	Multiple photos
Adobe Lightroom Classic	—	Multiple photos
Adobe Lightroom CC	—	—

Aphera provides the complementary function: copy selected photos to paste into other apps. Per standard macOS conventions, the copied data is the file name and file path. Note that this is for working with source files, not exports: use File > Export or the Share toolbar item to render the edited image for sharing.

Smarter groups

With more ways to get photos in, we’ve improved how Groups work when importing.

A group is no longer created when importing fewer than 5 photos. A RAW + JPG pair counts as one. This keeps things tidy for copy/paste from other apps. Importing any folder still creates a group.
When importing into a group, duplicate files (those already in the project) will be added to that group. Previously they were skipped completely.

More export options

TIFF exports now use LZW by default, with ZIP and None as options.
PNG exports have a new Filter setting with Adaptive or None as options.

Color Profile adds Adobe RGB, ProPhoto RGB, and ITU-R BT.2020, alongside sRGB and Display P3. The profile is used to tag the exported file: it does not change how the image is rendered.

See Exporting

Other changes

Fixed that grain could render inconsistently due to an improper random seed. This can affect the visual strength of grain on photos you have already edited, and in your saved looks.
Fixed a crash caused by unexpected values in the OffsetTime EXIF tag.

Aphera 1.3

2026-08-11T16:00:00Z

Shoot RAW + JPG, and tune Aphera to your Mac.

RAW + JPG pairs

If your camera writes a RAW and a JPG for every frame, Aphera used to import the RAW and skip the JPG. Now it imports both and treats them as one photo with two source files: the RAW, and the SOOC — your camera’s own rendering.

It stays one photo, with one rating and one slot in the grid. Switch which file it uses from Photo > Source File, from the photo’s context menu, or by clicking the file name in the metadata under a thumbnail. Each file keeps its own adjustments, so switching back returns to the edits you made there.

Trashing a photo takes all of its files. See Importing and Source File.

Performance

Settings has a new Performance pane, with sliders ranged to your hardware.

Processing — how many images Aphera may decode at once. Faster imports, at the cost of memory while the work runs.
In-Memory Cache — RAM held for image previews.
On-Disk Cache — space for RAW proxy files.

Importing is now up to 25% faster. Here is a comparison of importing 100 photos on an M2 Max MacBook Pro with 64GB:

Aphera Version	Processing	24MP DNG	100MP RAF
`1.2.1`	–	`0:19`	`1:32`
`1.3.0`	Default: 8	`0:15`	`1:08`
`1.3.0`	Raised: 12	`0:13`	`1:06`
`1.3.0`	Lowered: 4	`0:20`	`1:30`

A Statistics section reports active memory and the maximum reached this launch, so you can size the sliders by watching what they actually cost. Reset to Defaults goes back to the values Aphera picks for your Mac. See Performance.

Anamorphic desqueeze

Manual Perspective in Crop mode now uses Aphera’s custom sliders, and the Aspect control has a text field and a menu of common anamorphic factors, 1.25 through 2.00. Type an exact factor or pick one. See Crop & Perspective.

Other changes

Export quality for JPG and HEIC now goes down to 60%, from 80%.
Files on external drives are matched by location rather than volume name, fixing photos reported as offline when the drive name contained an unusual character.
Undo now works correctly in all open project windows.
Toasts appear in the window that caused them.

Is Aphera a Lightroom Replacement?

2026-08-06T17:23:31Z

Adobe Lightroom is the app we get compared to the most. It’s the long-standing behemoth of photographic imaging tools, so it’s no surprise. There are similarities: we make a desktop app, cater to RAW shooters, and give you the tools to modify and develop your images to taste.

We think that’s where the comparisons end. Aphera is Mac-native, lightning-fast, and employs a keyboard-driven workflow designed to disappear. Its modern image pipeline produces tasty images with little effort. We let you focus on the joy of photography, rather than giving you more work to do.

So yes, we are a Lightroom alternative. We are not a 1:1 Lightroom replacement. Our early users get what we’re trying to do, and one thing is clear: we’re our own thing. The point was never to recreate Lightroom, but to provide a new ground-up approach to work with your prized moments.

This is intentional. We made Aphera for ourselves. The things that drained the pleasure of working with our own images in other apps made us stop doing it. Our biggest complaints: colors that didn’t feel right, monolithic catalogs, constant beach-balling, endless features, and an app bundled into a mega-subscription of other software that we’d never touch. Taken together: no joy. This feels like failure.

Adobe Lightroom Classic, 2026. Lightroom Classic app open in Develop mode with all the chrome and panels open. It’s... a lot.

Adobe Lightroom CC, 2026. Lightroom CC, open in its default mode, which is similarly busy but more streamlined.

Aphera’s Develop mode, 2026. It looks simpler, with two short sidebars on the left and right. The UI is meant to not overwhelm, only revealing itself when needed. You add effects or expand panels when you need them.

Features

If your work requires tools that Aphera doesn’t have yet, then why change? Masking, local edits, and heavy DAM functionality aren’t part of the product yet.

We believe there’s a segment of people using Lightroom (or Capture One, Photomator, etc) that only need what Aphera already provides. For them, the philosophy and user experience we’ve built may resonate better than the endless panels and options, AI-driven tools and tricks, and feature bloat that many other apps keep piling on. If that sounds like you, download and try Aphera for free.

Kinship

I’m keen to think of certain companies who’ve made products that I think are spiritual compadres: Teenage Engineering and Apple.

Teenage Engineering doesn’t make most powerful synths or electronic music-making instruments, but it makes the best-designed and delightful tools to do so. They innovated with their flagship OP-1 by combining multiple pieces of the electronic musician’s instruments into a singular package, and a tiny and portable one that looks like a Dieter Rams fever dream. Sure, you could buy a Roland, KORG, BOSS, Yamaha, or other large brand for much less. That isn’t the point. The point is that Teenage Engineering pioneered a unique point of view on instruments for the modern musician: one that values an integrated system, portability, and speed. And that makes it enough for people to consider them the best.

Look at not only the design, but the scale of these two devices — the top is Teenage Engineering’s OP-1, and the bottom is Yamaha’s Motif XF6, a similar-ish synth at the time.

Two decades ago, I’d argue Apple was similar. It made the best creative computers, not the best computers. They were machines that felt like the future, and even fun. Not boring beige boxes that lined the computer labs of my university youth. When the iMac G3 was released with its candy-like hardware, you wanted one. And if you knew anyone that owned one of these, you started to look at them differently. They were creative. Apple realized that it’s not only how it works, but how it looks and feels. Any tool that you use may be judged purely on utility, but a tool that makes you want to pick it up every day should have a form of beauty in it, picking up its own cultural look and desirability.

The computer labs I worked in as a student in university all looked like this. Seeing an iMac G3 when a friend who lived in the dorms had one was a revelation. Images by Ben Schumin and Felix Winkelnkemper respectively.

Aphera is imbued with that spirit, combining a number of new and novel ways to speedily interact with your images, get them into a great state with ease, make it easy to go deeper when needed, and move onto sharing them.

When you open Aphera, we want you to be excited to make things. On that, we’ll compete with the big apps any day.

Does Aphera support my camera?

2026-08-05T16:00:25Z

Our recently published Camera Support page lists 541 camera models, each of which was verified by us. Because “we support your camera” is a promise, and we wanted it to be one that we can keep.

Read on for a look at what goes into building that list: not just once, but for every update we make.

Our camera list

There are dozens of digital camera manufacturers, selling 100s of camera models. Each of them uses a different format for their RAW capture (.ARW, .NEF, .CR3, .DNG, .IIQ, and more), varying everything from how the pixels are stored to how we’re supposed to crop the data before giving it to the user.

We wanted our list to be something you could trust, and something that represents both what the app actually does, and what we claim it does. To do this, we first had to really nail down what “supported” means.

For every one of the 541 names on our list, we can tell you: which version of LibRAW read it, which sample files we’ve opened from it, the name its owner would recognize, and which color matrices are available. Where a person overrode an automated rule, the reasoning why.

That is an unusual thing to be able to say about a support page. Most are a list of names and nothing else: no library version, no date, no indication of what was tested or when.

Organizing the raw data

Almost every RAW application, ours included, uses the open source LibRAW. It does the hard job of decoding every camera maker’s unique data formats, and we’re very grateful for that work. LibRAW itself maintains details of which formats it supports, but it doesn’t give the kinds of guarantees or clarity that we wanted to give to users of Aphera.

To be clear: LibRAW does an enormous amount of testing and validation on their tool, but they have a different goal. Given a file to read, the software does its best to figure it out. If it doesn’t work, that’s because it wasn’t supported. Instead, we wanted to say up front: these are the files we support.

Internally, LibRAW maintains two lists. The first is cameralist.cpp: the names of camera models whose files LibRAW knows how to decode. The second is colordata.cpp: the sensors LibRAW has color information for. They are maintained independently, by different work, and they often disagree.

A camera in the camera list but not color data will open. The pixels will be correct but the colors will be wrong (like, very wrong: think green skin). A camera in color data but not camera list is a sensor whose colors we know how to interpret, but in a file format we cannot read.

Given this, the rule is:

A camera is supported if it appears in both LibRAW’s camera list and color data.

It sounds simple, but each list uses different names to identify a camera. So we manually mapped each one to a common name: what does LibRAW itself call the camera when reading a file?

Reading real files

A name in a list is a claim about a camera, but we wanted proof that it would work when a real file was opened.

To do that, we use a corpus of real RAW files. Most come from raw.pixls.us, a community archive that exists so that software can be tested against real cameras. Another gem of the open source community to which we are grateful. The rest we collected ourselves. Combined that’s 2,191 sample files, across 37 formats.

For each file, we simply hand it to LibRAW and ask which camera made this? The answer comes from LibRAW’s own internal process of identifying a file for purposes of decoding and rendering. That means it’s the same thing that will happen in-app when we ask LibRAW to decode your imported RAW files. Once we have this name, we can link the file to everything else we know about a camera.

That link is what lets our tools answer questions such as: which files in our corpus are from cameras that LibRAW can’t name? Which cameras claim support in both lists but disagree with themselves about color? And importantly: which cameras do we claim support for via the lists, but have never actually opened a file from?

Today, we have 38 cameras in that last category: ones we don’t physically have a file to verify against. Almost all of them are medium format — Hasselblad and Phase One digital backs, several long discontinued, and none of them equipment you can easily borrow. The rest are bodies so new that nobody has posted a file yet.

Those 38 are supported on the strength of LibRAW’s two lists agreeing, without a file of our own to confirm it. That’s a weaker claim than we make for the rest of the list, but we know exactly which 38 they are, and can fill them in as we get our hands on files.

Human powered

The rule and the corpus get us a long way. What’s left is a list of judgment calls. In the current set we recorded 431 manual approvals, and 983 manual rejections. Every one has a written comment so we know why each camera is supported or not.

Phase One IQ3 100MP Trichr — “I want to support it, we need files, and we need a matrix for it as well”

Sigma fp — “its a dng, we could support if we had a file” (the fp L, a different body, is on the list) Kodak DCS Pro 14N — “very old camera”

509 cameras were rejected with some version of “old camera, ok if not supported.” 150+ phones were excluded from the list because they use DNG, Adobe’s standard for RAW files. DNG being a standard means that it doesn’t matter which camera created it, we can accept all such files universally.

By writing each decision down, a year from now when somebody asks why their Kodak is missing, we can provide an answer.

Decisions that expire

There’s one problem with recording decisions like this: they rot over time.

Every one of those 1,414 decisions was made against a specific build of LibRAW. “This camera is fine even though color data doesn’t list it” may have been true of LibRAW 0.22. But LibRAW is actively developed. Cameras get added. Sensor data gets corrected. The reasoning behind a decision can quietly stop applying while the decision itself still looks authoritative.

So we attach each decision to the LibRAW version it was made against, and the moment we import a newer LibRAW, every one of them goes stale and drops out of the published list. All 1,414. A dependency upgrade invalidates every human opinion in the system, deliberately, and then we go and re-confirm them.

It is a genuinely annoying design and we would not change it. The alternative is a support page that drifts: true once, then carried forward forever because nobody remembered to check.

What is your camera called?

Everything above produces a correct list for use by the app. But it’s not enough for our support page, because the names in it are not real camera names. In extreme cases, the names have very little to do with the models you can buy. Take Hasselblad for example. Here’s how LibRAW names them in color data:

The camera you can buy	What the data calls it
Hasselblad X2D 100C	`100-20-Coated6`
Hasselblad H6D-100c	`100-17-Coated5`
Hasselblad H4D-60	`60-Coated`
Hasselblad CFV	`16-Uncoated`

Those names describe sensors — a resolution, coating, revision — and say nothing whatsoever about the camera anybody can buy. They are good keys for matching one dataset against another. But they’re not something we can list on our support page.

In another case, Canon sells a body in Japan as the Kiss X9. The same body is the Rebel SL2 in the United States and the EOS 200D in Europe. One camera, sensor, file type, but three names. It’s completely reasonable that the camera’s owner only knows one of these names.

If we list only one of the three names then two-thirds of the people who own that camera won’t find it on the list: it will appear as if Aphera doesn’t support it.

There are plenty more cases to deal with, for example: a Leica D-LUX7 is a rebadged Panasonic DC-LX100M2. A Leica owner is not going to think to look under Panasonic, and should not have to.

Names come from products, not sensors

Fortunately, LibRAW’s camera list is written to describe the cameras that people buy, whereas color data is written to describe sensors. So we do a reverse mapping back into the camera list to find all of the names it can go by.

The camera list is generous: it lists regional names, market designations and rebadges, because it was written by people who knew perfectly well that a camera has more than one name.

When we find missing names, we add them by hand. Fortunately, unlike support decisions, they do not expire when LibRAW is upgraded: the name doesn’t change when the library does.

In all, the result is 433 distinct cameras that go by 541 names. Every name a camera is sold under gets its own line, so a Kiss X9 owner and an SL2 owner each find their camera without having to know it is also an EOS 200D.

Aphera Calibrated, or Standard

Our Camera Support page has two columns: the Camera, and the Color Matrix.

A color matrix is a 3×3 set of numbers that maps what the sensor recorded onto colors that mean something. If it’s the wrong numbers, your photo’s colors look off or just plain wrong. It’s one of the most important things to get right so that each camera’s images look good, edit well, and match closely with other cameras.

There are six places to find a matrix, and we collect all of them for every camera: LibRAW’s built-in color data; what LibRAW derives from a sample file; Adobe’s, by running a sample file through the DNG Converter and reading the matrix that comes out; the manufacturer’s own, when a camera writes it directly; values contributed from published references; and ours, measured. 11,622 matrices in total, from which each camera gets the best available, by priority:

Aphera — measured by us
Manual — contributed or from published references
Adobe’s DNG Conversion
The manufacturer’s original DNG
LibRAW’s built-in – also sourced from Adobe’s data

For simplicy of the Color Matrix column, we list option (1) as “Aphera Calibrated” and everything else as “Standard”.

You’d think camera makers would publish these values, but alas. In Aphera, every supported camera gets the best matrix available. Over 70% of them have our own tuned values.

You’re supported

Every camera on Aphera’s Camera Support page is something we can vouch for. As we make changes to our own software and bring in new versions of LibRAW to support newly released cameras and formats, we wanted to be confident that every camera keeps working, and keeps rendering the same as it did. Where it changes for good reason, we’ll communicate that.

Aphera 1.2

2026-07-30T16:00:00Z

Aphera 1.2 is a solid quality-of-life update, especially if you’re outside of the US and love keyboard shortcuts.

Move to Trash

Culling often ends with getting rid of the outtakes. Cmd+Shift+Delete now removes the selected photos from the project and moves their files to the Trash.

If you change your mind, Cmd+Z puts the photos back and returns their files from the Trash. Remove from Project is now undoable as well. See Browsing.

Camera Support

We’ve added and improved a few cameras, and published a full list of Cameras Aphera Supports.

Added Canon EOS R50 V
Added Sony A7R VI
All compression modes for Sony A7 V and Sony A7R VI are now supported

Shortcuts follow your keyboard

Shortcuts are bound to where a key sits on the keyboard, not to the character it produces. The Balance controls form a cluster of keys that a US keyboard and a German keyboard order differently. Now, the keys are in the same physical place on every keyboard layout, and labels throughout the app match the characters on your actual keys. Crop, Lightbox, Before Edits, and the bracket, minus, and no-stars keys are also defined positionally to keep the ergonomics we intended.

Keyboard settings

Settings gains a Keyboard pane for the two shortcuts that are a matter of taste.

Assign number keys divides the number row between star ratings and looks:

Option	Stars	No Stars	Looks	Base Look
Stars	`1-5`	`0`	`Cmd 1-9`	`Cmd 0`
Looks	`Cmd 1-5`	`Cmd 0`	`1-9`	`0`
Both	`1-5`	` (left of 1)	`6-0`	`-` (right of 0)

The Stars and Looks options give you nine keyboard-assignable looks, versus five when using Both.

Repeated Assignment decides what pressing the key for a value a photo already has should do: keep the value, or clear it back to No Stars or the Base Look. Ratings and looks are set separately.

New installations start on Stars, which is what the manual documents. Installations prior to 1.2 keep Both and the repeated-press behavior they had, so nothing moves under you. See Keyboard Settings.

Rename and trash projects

Right-click a project in the Projects window to Rename Project… or Move Project to Trash. See Projects.

Color Temperature presets

The Balance layer on RAW photos gains a Balance Presets menu: As Shot, Daylight, Cloudy, Shade, Tungsten, Fluorescent, and Flash. Each sets Temperature and Tint and leaves your other adjustments alone. See Balance.

View Before Edits

Holding \ to see the photo before your edits is now discoverable as View > Before Edits. The menu item leaves it on until you switch it off. A status readout on the toolbar shows when it’s active.

Other changes

Zoom shortcuts now line up with each other: Cmd+Shift+Minus fits the window, Cmd+Shift+Plus is 1:1 Pixels, and Cmd+Shift+0 fills the window. No more Cmd+Option+Shift+Plus.
The unstarred filter moved to Cmd+Option+0, matching the 0 that clears a rating.
Save Look now reads New Look…, with a clearer dialog for naming.
The Balance panel in Develop is now ordered the same as in Grid, following the broad-to-narrow order of the tools.
Return now works as expected for the default button in alerts.

Aphera 1.2.1

Fixed a rare crash that could happen when closing a project window

Aphera 1.1

2026-07-21T16:00:00Z

Support for Fujifilm LUTs, and a round of bug fixes.

Fujifilm LUT inputs

Custom LUT image formation now accepts Fujifilm F-Log2 as an input log function and Fujifilm F-Gamut C as an input color space. See Formation to learn how to set up custom LUTs.

To use many of Fujifilm’s Film Simulations within Aphera’s RAW image pipeline, you may download the Fujifilm GFX Eterna LUTs and use them in Aphera. LUTs may be combined with all other Color Effects and Texture Effects layers to further build your own look.

LUT Settings for Fujifilm GFX Eterna:

Input Log Function: Fujifilm F-Log2
Input Color Space: Fujifilm F-Gamut C
Output Color Space: BT 1886

Fixes

Editing a look and saving it no longer loses those edits on the curreent photo.
Save Look is now available for custom and formation-only looks, instead of being greyed out.
Export Look… now works on looks assigned to a shortcut key (6-0).
Shift-click and Cmd-click in the grid no longer scroll the view back to the first selected photo.
A photo with a malformed orientation tag no longer crashes the app on import.
Fixed the Settings window title alignment on macOS 26.
File > Export menu items now use title case: Export Selected, Change Export Preset.

Hello, Aphera

2026-07-16T23:34:38Z

2.5 years in the making, a from-scratch imaging pipeline and color science, a new way to edit and work with your images, all wrapped up in a Mac-native app.

Download and use it for 14 days — no credit card required. You can get it for $99 (50% off) until July 28. After that, it will be $199.

Buy it once, own it. Updates (features, cameras, and macOS support) are included for a year; renewals after that are optional. We recently wrote about the independent Mac software companies we grew up with, and how that shaped Aphera’s pricing.

We’d like to thank everyone on the newsletter and especially the beta testers! We’ve come a tremendous way with their help.

The Docs are your friend and a great place to learn more about the experience of the app, and if you haven’t seen it yet, the video walkthrough gives you a handle on the basics. More videos are in the works, and we have much more to build.

Aphera 1.0 is just the start. We hope to be a part of your photographic journey: working through images with intention and flow, and making photographs that inspire.

Thank you.

Aphera 1.0

2026-07-13T16:00:00Z

Aphera is now available for download.

Free 14-day trial

Every feature is available for 14 days, no credit card required. A countdown in the Sidebar shows the days remaining; click it any time to buy a license or enter a key.

Licensing

Enter your key from App > Register Aphera…, which also shows your registration status and a link to manage purchases. See Buy Aphera.

First launch

The first launch walks through the essentials: agree to the license terms, choose where projects are stored, optionally install Lens Corrections data, and create your first project.

About and support

App > About Aphera now includes Acknowledgements for the open-source components Aphera builds on.
App > Check for Updates… installs new releases covered by your license.

Other changes

Star ratings now dim the empty stars, so a photo’s rating is more apparent at a glance.
The Solaris Look now defaults to key shortcut 0. Aphera Standard now appears first under More Looks.

Aphera 1.0.1

Fixed the built-in LUT looks — Minerva and Kita — which could fail to render after updating from a beta build to 1.0.0.

Own Your Tools

2026-07-09T16:00:25Z

When I started using Adobe Photoshop 4.0, the software cost $649 — itself a price reduction from the 1.0 price of $895 in 1990. Professional software for professionals.

Adobe Photoshop 4.0. I used this!

Adobe formalized a different logic in 2013 with Creative Cloud: instead of selling you software, they’d rent it to you by the month. Cheaper up front, sure. But over the long term, a much bigger squeeze. Two years of monthly Photoshop alone runs close to that original $895 price — and almost no one pays for just one Adobe app. You pay for the whole Creative Cloud, with a stack of apps and features you’ll never touch. And if you stop paying, modifying old files becomes impossible.

Meanwhile, a different kind of software company kept making excellent, focused tools for the Mac. They’re independent, bootstrapped, and stubbornly committed to selling you something you own. These are the companies we’ve long admired. They’re the ones holding the line while the rest of the industry added one subscription after another. Software, streaming, media. Now cars. Now fridges?!

We admire long-time indie software makers, selling directly since the 2000s.

This is the company we aim to be. We’re three people making software with care, consideration, and intention. We have no investors. We built Aphera to be the kind of product and company we want to see in the world.

We believe there’s a modern way to work with the images and moments that matter to you most. Aphera is our answer to that: durable, speedy, intentional, and built for editing flow.

What Aphera Costs, and Why

Aphera will be $199. At launch we’re offering it at $99 for a limited time.

That’s a one-time purchase. You get the full application plus a year of updates — new features, new camera support, and actual human support (that’s us).

After year one, continual updates are optional at $99/year. You decide whether new features, cameras, and macOS support are worth it. If you stop, Aphera doesn’t — it keeps running exactly as it did with your last update. You can resume updates later, no penalties.

The big apps like Lightroom and Capture One have complex pricing that runs from $360 to $600+ over three years. When the subscription ends, so does your editing.¹ Our model is different: Aphera is $199, once, and updates are optional. So three years runs $199 to $397 depending on what you choose. Whatever you’ve paid for keeps on running.

Photography is never just forward. Sometimes you’re active, sometimes you need a break. Sometimes you look back at old images and reimagine them anew — a different stylistic preference or a different intention. To be able to pick up the tool you made those with, far in the future, and and know it’s still there. That’s what owning your tools means.

The same way you’ve invested in your camera bodies, lenses, and supporting tools, we aim for Aphera to be another tool in your kit — one that helps you make images that inspire.

To be fair: canceled Lightroom subscriptions retain read-only browsing, and Capture One offers a one-time purchase option at $349 (as of July 2026). ↩︎

Why We Chase Feeling

2026-07-07T16:20:15Z

Kyoto, Japan, 2026 • Photo by Ryan Carver, developed in Aphera using the Verra Look

There’s a lot to say about Aphera’s image pipeline, and our approach to photo editing in general. The more interesting place to start isn’t how the pipeline works, but why we made the choices we did. And that starts with a question that took me years to answer.

Is the goal of a photograph to represent reality?

For me, the answer is no. The goal is to recreate the feeling that reality gave you.

I didn’t understand this as a kid. I’d scribble something, and call it an elephant. My parents could see it — like spotting pictures in clouds — they recognized the shapes and colors. As I got older, I wanted to draw realistically: black and white, technical, precise. But those drawings felt dry. Technically correct and emotionally empty.

Drawing by Juan Pablo Zambrano

It wasn’t until I made little comics with my cousin that it clicked. His drawings were rougher, less realistic, but they felt like something. He didn’t worry about accuracy. He cared about conveying a mood. That’s when I understood: the goal was never to recreate reality. It was to make people feel what I felt.

This explains something that confuses a lot of people: photography isn’t closer to reality than painting. Cameras are appealing because they seem objective, with less human bias. But photography, whether film or digital, is still a medium with limits. We can’t send signals straight to the brain. All we can do is make an image evoke the right feeling.

Drawing by Juan Pablo Zambrano

Our eyes aren’t very good cameras anyway. The brain does an enormous amount of work to improve the signal — what we call qualia, the feeling we actually perceive. That’s different from what’s objectively real. Painters and photographers do the same thing: they use 2D shapes and colors to create a feeling. It’s not the details that matter, but the clarity, and how the parts interact, not the parts themselves.

You can see this play out across photography’s history: black and white to color to digital to HDR. At each step we added tools to make images “more realistic.” Ironically we look back at the best images of the previous generation and most of us prefer them, even though they’re “less accurate” by today’s standards. Early color film was far from reality with high contrast and heavy saturation. Engineers worked for decades to make it more accurate. Viewers kept preferring the less accurate look. We are chasing feeling, not accuracy.

Shot on a Holga camera with Fuji Velvia film • Photo by Zé Valdi

With film, chemists made deliberate choices over decades. Kodak rendered differently than Fujifilm, and people chose a stock for the look. Digital could have done the same. Instead we got the opposite: more options, less constraint. Every knob became available to turn, accompanied by a constant hunt for “what’s real?”

From FujiFilm's Data Sheet on Velvia RVP for Professionals. This shows the curves that shape and create Velvia's deep hues, saturation, and rich blacks.

The irony is that limitations increase creativity. When you have one film stock, you learn to work with it instead of fighting it. You make creative decisions within those boundaries. With infinite digital options, we reach for more controls instead of understanding what we already have.

Why this matters for Aphera

With Aphera 2499 (the core of our imaging pipeline), the goal was never to recreate reality. It was to give you a good starting point, a good image. A good image isn’t objective, so the choices and controls matter — but not infinite control. Aphera 2499 gives you just enough control with guardrails that keep the image within the realm of a photograph. But you’re not limited to our tastes: LUT-based image formation lets you bring in your own rendering choices that work within the system.

Tokyo, Japan, 2026 • Photo by Ryan Carver, developed in Aphera using the Verra Look

Every part of the imaging process shapes the final feeling. We’ve poured everything we know about photography into Aphera’s pipeline, image formation, and looks. When those tools are well considered, they work naturally across most images without constant tweaking. You shoot. You learn the tool’s limits. You work within them. Later, you explore.

There’s a time for tweaking and a time for just shooting. Learn from the boundaries instead of fighting them. That’s where the real creativity happens.

Beta 15

2026-06-09T16:00:00Z

A bit of polish and fixes. Here’s what’s new in this release:

A clearer Develop panel

The right side of Develop has been tidied up:

The Editing Stack header is now Editing Layers, with a Save Look button.
The Add to Stack menu is now Add Layer, grouped into Color and Texture.
The RAW Processing layer now names the engine directly: RAW: Aphera, RAW: Apple, or JPG Image.
The Image Formation row is labeled directly: Formation: Aphera 2499 or Formation: Custom LUT.
The Contrast tool is now called Grading, and the Ratio slider inside is now called Contrast
The Balance panel is open by default.

JPG editing

Using Looks and copy/paste now work across RAW and JPG. Apply a look to a JPG, or copy adjustments from a RAW and paste them onto a JPG (and the reverse) — the edits resolve to something renderable instead of erroring out. A few things behave differently by necessity:

Image Formation (Aphera 2499, Custom LUT) apply to RAW only. Apply a look that carries one to a JPG and the formation is skipped; the rest of the look still renders. The Develop panel marks it with a warning.
White balance is measured differently for RAW and JPG, so pasting it across that boundary resets it to the target’s neutral.

Other changes

Added Lumix V-Log input to LUT-based image formation.
File > Import now lists image files only, so stray sidecar files (like XMP) no longer try to import.
Fixed bug where two drives sharing a name could flip to an offline status by mistake (often caused by Time Machine)

Beta 14

2026-06-02T16:00:00Z

What’s new in this release:

Perspective

The crop editor now carries a tool switcher along the bottom — Aspect Ratio, Straighten, and Perspective tools. Edits apply directly and save as you go; reset each one independently from the right-click menu, or undo.

Perspective can be corrected using guided drawing modes. Drag the guides onto lines that should be straight, then click Apply Perspective and Aphera works out the correction:

Vertical — two guides for converging verticals, like a building shot from below.
Horizontal — two guides for converging horizontals.
Full — four corner handles placed on something that should be a rectangle.

Prefer to dial it in by hand? Manual mode swaps the guides for sliders — Vertical and Horizontal lens shift, Shear, and Aspect. Auto Crop keeps the frame filled as the image warps.

Straighten is now its own guided tool too: drag the guide onto something that should be level (horizontal or vertical) — a horizon, a doorframe — and click Apply Straighten.

Relink moved files

Move or rename your photos in Finder and Aphera follows them automatically (via macOS bookmarks). When a file can’t be found, it’s flagged as Missing in the project status — distinct from a file that’s on a disconnected drive (Reconnect).

Manage Imports lists every import with its current status. When files go missing, open it, choose Locate on Disk… for that import, and point Aphera at the folder they moved to; it reconnects them in place. Relinking only updates references — it never moves or copies your files.

Send Feedback

Help > Send Feedback… opens an email straight to us. Tell us what’s working and what isn’t.

Other changes

Importing automatically skips files that are already in the project.
Fixed issues in Develop where the edits would get stuck or suddenly jump back to a previous state.
Fixed importing sometimes scrolled to the bottom-most image instead of pinning to the top.
Fixed ‘picker’ UI elements on Tahoe.
App binary reduced from ~100MB to ~80MB.

Beta 13

2026-05-14T16:00:00Z

A new beta version has been released.

Heads up: First-launch migration

Aphera now runs outside the macOS sandbox, which means the app’s internal data moves from ~/Library/Containers/… to standard locations inside ~/Library/…. On first launch, Beta 13 migrates your existing data to the new locations. It takes just a moment, and your projects and settings should be unaffected. Please contact us (hello@aphera.co) if you see anything out of the ordinary.

Projects window

The Projects window has been expanded and fixed to accurately show everything in your configured projects folder. Open existing projects, create new ones, and see each project’s cover image at a glance. Sort projects by name or last opened.

Project Cover Image

Each project now has a cover image used in the Projects window and in QuickLook previews. Right-click any photo in a project and choose Use as Cover Image to set it. By default, the cover is the highest rated, oldest photo.

QuickLook for projects

Aphera project packages now preview in Finder via QuickLook. Select a project file and press Space to see its cover image without opening the app.

Look shortcuts toggle

Keys 6 through 0 now toggle the assigned Look. Press the key once to apply, press again to remove. Previously these keys only applied the Look.

Toggle Rejected

Option+Delete now toggles the rejected flag on the selection. Press once to reject, press again to clear back to unrated. When the selection is mixed, all selected photos are set to rejected.

Other changes

Drop images on the Dock icon while a project is open to import directly into that project.
Clicking the dock icon when no windows are open shows the Projects window
Fixed some rough edges in macOS full screen and Lightbox

Beta 12

2026-04-24T16:00:00Z

A new beta version has been released. This one refines where your projects live, how they’re named, and how exports are configured.

New Project Setup

Open Settings (Cmd+,) to choose where projects are stored and how they’re named. New projects are saved to disk the moment you create them, and auto-save as you work — no manual Save needed.

Workflows, Simplified

We have a big vision for Workflows in Aphera, but we’ve heard from many of you that the current feature is confusing. We’ve trimmed it back to a simple Exports feature.

In Settings, you can create any number of Export Presets — where to save files, how to name them, how to version, plus all the image format settings you already had. Three are built in to get you going: Archival, Web, and Social.

A preset can be setup to write to each project’s Exports folder (good for project-specific output) or to a fixed global location (good for sending all your client deliveries or social posts to the same Dropbox).

Each project remembers the last used preset. Select your images, hit Cmd+E, and the exports go out.

Naming Patterns

Both Project and Export Settings now have a Naming Pattern field where you shape filenames and folders using tokens like {date}, {filename}, or {preset}. It’s a powerful way to set up your on-disk files just the way you want. A few favorites for power users:

Per-Project

{preset}/{filename}-{version}.{ext} – Keep each version exported for comparing the changes.
{preset}/{seq}-{filename}.{ext} – The order on disk matches your selection.
{preset}/v{version}/{filename}.{ext} – Each exported batch goes in a separate folder.

Global Exports (Desktop, Dropbox, etc)

{filename}.{ext} – Drop everything into one folder
{project}/{filename}.{ext} – Drop everything into a folder by project
{year}/{project}/{filename}.{ext} – Keep the final export by year and project (with Overwrite mode)
{year}/{project}/{filename}-{version}.{ext} – Keep all of your exports by year and project

The full set is in the docs. Let us know which other tokens you’d like to use.

Improvements to Import

Use the folder’s name to create a Group. If you import a single folder of images, we’ll create a Group with that name.

If you shoot RAW+JPG, the import process now only brings in the RAW file to Aphera. We think that’s the right thing most of the time, so please let us know if you have a different workflow in mind.

Disallow importing from an SD card. Since Aphera always references files on disk, this probably isn’t what you want. A full import/ingest tool is in the works.

Beta 11

2026-04-17T15:25:16Z

A new beta version has been released, a small set of fixes on the heels of Beta 10.

Drag and drop images (or a folder) to the Dock icon to import
Fix potential crash when saving a project
Fix the minimum window size to not squish the layout
Fix a slightly soft rendering of images in the main view
Fix a slightly soft rendering when grain is applied

Beta 10

2026-04-14T20:25:16Z

Beta 10 is another huge update — over two weeks of intense work from the three of us that lays down a solid foundation for the app that we can grow into and improve. It’s feeling like home.

Unified UI

The three spaces you know today have been simplified. Grid for reviewing and acting on images in quantity, Quick for flowing through a selection or subset of images with your editing workflows (Balance + Looks), and Detail for going deeper into a single image to develop it further.

These ideas and modes of operating felt analogous to these distinct spaces, but as we used it more and heard from you, we realized we needed to bring things closer together. Why weren’t Looks and Balance in Grid? The keyboard controls worked, but why were those controls only visible in Quick?

Keeping these spaces distinct felt more like work than flow, so we unified Grid and Quick. Balance and Look tools (we call them internally, chiclets) are now present in Grid, which we consider the default view. Working through an image is now much more seamless — size up your grid, filter starred selections, or select batches of images. And now, double-click an image to bring it to a singular isolated view and work on it in context of your project’s groups, starred, and workflows.

Detail is still where the work happens, and we now call it Develop. Duh! An obvious name for when you want to further work on an image with effects or develop your Looks. No major changes here (but a Develop V2 is on the roadmap). You can now access Develop by hitting Enter/Return (or the big button on the bottom right). Esc to exit back to Grid, or hit Enter again to isolate the image in Grid.

The toolbar provides navigation between Grid, Develop, and Crop, while displaying real-time project status.

There’s one other way to get to Develop, which is the other new addition: the top toolbar. It’s both navigation and an informational readout. You can access Grid, Develop, and Crop from here on the left. The right side shows you the status of your project. It’ll show you the images and selection ranges, Export, and Import status. Click to toggle through each state, and the disclosure caret will give you live updates if any combination of the three are active.

We’ve added a Lightbox view, the L key toggles it. Lightbox is a very fast way to isolate an image in full-screen with no UI and just metadata. All the keyboard tools work here, so think of this as a better version of Quick + Focus. If you have a second display, you can place the Lightbox there as a large reference while accessing the rest of the project.

More UI changes

We changed the delete key slightly. In beta 9 pressing delete would always set the image to Rejected. In practice we found this to be unexpected when inside a Group or Workflow. Now, delete will remove an image from its Group or Workflow when in those views. The heavier operation of Reject is now option-delete and works in all contexts.

The Balance tools now correctly return to “no change” when you increase by several steps and then decrease by an equal number of steps. Previously the value would be effectively zero but still show a “modified” state in the UI.

The Balance tool also gained a right click (context menu) allowing you to Reset each control.

The Crop tool now has an orientation button for correcting the overall rotation of an image.

Changes to image rendering

We made two changes to the Grain tool: the default value for “Blend > Overall” which controls the visible effect of the grain is now lower. We think this is a better starting place when adding grain on most images. Note that any grain settings in existing projects will be honored but you might wish to explore the more subtle behavior of the “Blend > Overall” slider. We also modified the grain itself, in subtle ways that you may or may not notice.

The performance of Denoise is improved; previously using this tool could slow down the overall image rendering speed and cause the UI to feel slow.

Lens Corrections have been upgraded; your cameras should be identified more correctly now.

Disk, memory, and performance

Upon import, Aphera creates several proxy images to avoid the time-consuming process of decoding and debayering a RAW file. We now require fewer of these images over time as you edit, saving disk space. Additionally, we put a limit on the total size of this proxy cache, currently 10GB (tools to change that or clean it up will be coming).

When those proxy files are missing, Aphera now more efficiently creates them as needed. Previously this regeneration step could cause the app to slow and consume too much memory.

Several other fixes have been put in place to keep memory usage under control; we generally see it stabilize around 6GB once an import has completed.

The UI layer which displays images on screen has been revamped to reduce memory usage and be much more efficient. It should feel noticeably snappier when moving moving between images. Rapid movement such as holding down the right arrow key shows a significant improvement.

How We Redesigned Culling

2026-03-23T17:30:28Z

In the beginning, there were stars.

…and there were also picks, flags, colors, rejects, tags, and more.

Across photo management software, people use all of these culling tools to identify and organize their best photos. With so many options, we see a wide variety of patterns in use. We knew Aphera needed powerful culling tools, but which systems should we add?

In early development we added many of the common culling tools, but for the private beta we simplified Aphera to the simplest option: Faves. The hypothesis for this was “how much culling do people need?” Is a single signal enough for a photographer to organize their shoot? The Apple Photos app works this way: a single way to Favorite your photos. When Ryan and Naz were at VSCO, they found that due to this limitation, users culled from Camera Roll → Favorites → VSCO Studio. Exporting to share was the final approval.

Left: Mid-2025 Aphera with many culling tools. Right: Early 2026, simplified to Faves.

Follow the user

With Aphera on macOS, we’re dropping a new tool right into the middle of a huge variety of existing workflows. We heard quickly from beta testers that they missed stars. Coming from Lightroom primarily, but also other apps like Capture One, Photo Mechanic, and even Aperture, we realized that we needed more nuanced culling tools. But to what degree?

Some of the answers were found in our beta group: we heard over and over about using stars. In different ways, though mostly as a tool for doing multiple rounds of refinement.

My process of culling is that I do one pass and assign 1 star, then do another pass and do 2 stars, and so on. I missed that here a bit because unfaving a photo felt destructive.
Marcin Wichary

Stars to cull (2 or 3 stars). Stars to cull again (4 stars). Develop the 4 stars to find the feel. Stars to cull (5 stars).
Troy Sandal

1 star: potential, 2 stars: I know it's going to be a banger. Reject would be REALLY nice, a main part of my workflow is to delete the cruft.
Al Power

Sometimes stars are given special meaning:

Different stars for different purposes. 3 stars for website, 4 stars for emails, 5 stars make it to social.
Tyler Nutter

Follow the data

Another set of answers came from researching other apps and data formats. As expected, we didn’t find much consensus.

	XMP Spec	Lightroom	Capture One	Photo Mechanic	Bridge
Stars	`xmp:Rating 1-5`	✓	✓	✓	✓
Pick	`xmpDM:pick`	Flag (`xmpDM:pick` since 2024)	Session Selects (file move)	Tag (proprietary XMP)	None
Color Labels	`xmp:Label` (text)	5 colors	8 colors	9 classes	5 colors
Reject	`xmp:Rating = -1`	Flag (`xmpDM:pick` since 2024)	Session Trash (file move)	Trash (Color Label)	✓

We can see that Stars are universally supported, with xmp:Rating representing them well. The other options are filled with problems:

With multiple axes come contradictions: in Lightroom, you can have a photo that’s 5-star AND rejected.
Color labels are notoriously fragile across apps — they’re stored as text strings, and if the text doesn’t match between apps, the color doesn’t display.
Flags are worse: Lightroom only started writing them to XMP in 2024, and Bridge uses an entirely different mechanism for rejects.
Photo Mechanic’s Tag — the standard for speedy culling — writes a proprietary value, so users who care about interop end up relying on stars for a durable rating.
Capture One doesn’t have flags at all — users migrating from Lightroom end up repurposing color tags as a workaround, mixing two systems that weren’t designed to work together.

So what is this xmp:Rating? We can learn its intent from the XMP Specification:

A user-assigned rating for this file. The value shall be -1 or in the range [0…5], where -1 indicates “rejected” and 0 indicates “unrated”. If xmp:Rating is not present, a value of 0 should be assumed. NOTE: Anticipated usage is for a typical “star rating” UI, with the addition of a notion of rejection.

A single value that can represent both star ratings and rejections? That’s exactly what we want.

Design

The answer was clear: Stars backed by xmp:Rating perfectly lined up with both user requests and data standards. The question became how do we design a simpler experience around XMP Rating? How could we add stars without losing the simplicity of the Fave?

The first insight came by looking at XMP Rating as categories:

No Signal (0)
Signal + Strength (1-5)
Rejected (-1)

With this view, we can turn seven signals (-1 0 1 2 3 4 5) into three: Rejected, No Stars, and Starred.

In previous versions of Aphera, Faves was binary — on or off. Starred replaces it with a view of anything with a star set. To respect the hierarchy, we group photos by their rating, and changing a rating within this view elegantly moves the photo between groups.

Stars are grouped by rating, making it easy to see your culling progress.

By showing all ratings in a single view, users can use stars however they like: thinking like Favorites? Use 1-star. Doing a multi-pass refinement? Use whatever number feels right as you progress. The Starred view shows everything you’ve given a signal.

The Rejected view shows the inverse: photos you don’t want to see again. When a photo is rejected, it’s hidden from all other views. It’s like a soft delete, so we don’t need an additional “trash” or other features.

Keyboard

Keyboard control is critical for a fast workflow, so why fight the obvious? We assigned keys 1-5 to set a star.

To remove stars (No Signal), we opted for the ~ key, which neatly sits to the left of 1, an easy reach when keeping your right hand on the arrow keys.
To Reject, we decided on the delete key. It just feels good to hit delete.

Filters, Groups, and Workflows

Stars join two other tools for organization in Aphera: Groups and Workflows. Both of these tools now have a filter allowing you to focus in on any set of stars.

Use the star filter to focus on specific ratings in Groups and Workflows.

Groups are a lightweight way to collect photos for any reason. Separate your photos by location? Looking for portraits? Groups can do that.
Workflows act as buckets for processing and export. Sharing to social? Saving full size JPGs? Workflows collect those photos along with the settings to get it done.

In terms of culling, we think Workflows tie it all together. Where we see users giving meaning to a specific star rating (“5-star goes to the client”) or color tag (“red is ready to print”) we offer Workflows. Workflows free you from using star ratings consistently across your entire catalog. Instead, you can use them however feels appropriate for the current culling task. For example in a Lightroom Catalog, if 5-star means client pick, you’re stuck with that meaning forever. In Aphera, stars are local to each project, and Workflows handle what happens next.

Compatibility

We want Aphera to sit comfortably within whatever tools and workflows you currently use. By building our culling system on top of XMP Rating, we get a solid foundation for interoperability. Aphera will use an existing rating on import (with xmp sidecar support in the works), and on export we can simply write the value. When importing from tools with other signals (Apple Photos’ Favorite, color tags, even keywords) we can map them to a specific star rating, group, or workflow. Those features will continue to evolve.

Stars all the way

The new Starred feature extends Faves with a meaningfully more nuanced system for culling. We’ve designed it to work across a variety of tools and workflows, while keeping the experience simple.

Aphera Blog

Groups Are for Collecting

Quick Collection

Failed attempt

Names matter

Stars rank, groups collect

Aphera 1.6

Project preferences and memory

Groups are for collecting

Last Imported and Stars in the sidebar

Updated toolbar

More updates and fixes

Aphera 1.5

Scopes

Redesigned inspector panel

30-day trial

Other changes

Aphera 1.4

Lens corrections from your camera

Bring in photos from other apps

Smarter groups

More export options

Other changes

Aphera 1.3

RAW + JPG pairs

Performance

Anamorphic desqueeze

Other changes

Is Aphera a Lightroom Replacement?

Features

Kinship

Does Aphera support my camera?

Our camera list

Organizing the raw data

Reading real files

Human powered

Decisions that expire

What is your camera called?

Names come from products, not sensors

Aphera Calibrated, or Standard

You’re supported

Aphera 1.2

Move to Trash

Camera Support

Shortcuts follow your keyboard

Keyboard settings

Rename and trash projects

Color Temperature presets

View Before Edits

Other changes

Aphera 1.2.1

Aphera 1.1

Fujifilm LUT inputs

Fixes

Hello, Aphera

Aphera 1.0

Free 14-day trial

Licensing

First launch

About and support

Other changes

Aphera 1.0.1

Own Your Tools

What Aphera Costs, and Why

Why We Chase Feeling

Why this matters for Aphera

Beta 15

A clearer Develop panel

JPG editing

Other changes

Beta 14

Perspective

Relink moved files

Send Feedback

Other changes

Beta 13

Heads up: First-launch migration

Projects window

Project Cover Image

QuickLook for projects