Focalis
A desktop photo editor and culler, built to replace Lightroom without the subscription.
Live: three bursts are rendered here, some out of focus. Each frame is scored by the variance of the Laplacian at its AF point, and the sharpest of each burst is kept. Every number is computed in your browser.
The problem
Adobe Lightroom is the default for photographers, but it comes with two complaints: you pay a subscription forever, and culling a big shoot is slow and clunky. After an event, the first job is going through hundreds of frames to find the sharp keepers, and that is exactly where the existing tools are weakest.
What I built
Focalis is a desktop app built around fast culling first. It starts with a culling engine for Sony cameras that uses autofocus-point metadata and local sharpness analysis to pick the keepers.
The project is open-core. The engine, focalis-engine, is public. The full app is private.
How it works
- The engine reads where the camera actually focused from the Sony metadata, then measures sharpness at that spot instead of across the whole frame.
- Face and eye detection and burst grouping help it suggest one keeper per burst.
- The app shows every frame in a thumbnail grid with keyboard-driven culling, and stores picks and ratings in standard XMP sidecar files, so nothing is locked in.
Results / status
In progress. The engine has been tested against real Sony RAW files from ADK Media shoots, and the app already has a thumbnail grid, keyboard culling, burst clusters with a suggested keeper, and packaging as a self-contained macOS app.
What I'd do next
- Signing and notarizing the macOS build.
- Licensing and an auto-updater.
- Support for cameras beyond Sony.