A RAW editor and catalogue for macOS

Choose your best.
Make the final edits.

BBrowseCChooseDDevelop

Review a shoot from the keyboard, compare photographs and edit your favourites. Work with Apple Photos and folders in one catalogue. All photo processing and analysis run on your Mac.

Get Frames See all features
  • 30 daysevery feature included
  • $99.99 oncelimited launch price, no subscription
  • All processing localno photo uploads for analysis
Explore the workflow
California · 2024BrowseChooseDevelop
A photograph open on the canvas in Frames
297 frames in19 worth keeping

I The workflow

First, get everything together.

A shoot on a card. A library in Photos. Years of work on a drive. Bring them into one catalogue, then find the photographs you want to work on.

Gather and find

II The workflow

Less second-guessing. More keepers.

Start with a quick pass, then give the strongest photographs a closer look. The decisions stay yours; the tools help you make them.

Make the stars your own. Write a short meaning for each rating. Optionally let Frames on your Mac favorite Apple Photos images above a rating you choose; existing favorites stay yours. See how it works.

05 · Choose

Review a shoot in four steps.

  1. I Sweep\X]undecidedReview undecided photographs and mark each one Keep or Reject.
  2. II Rate0–5kept, unratedRate the photographs you kept from one to five stars.
  3. III Inspect0–5kept, rated ≥ 3Inspect kept photographs above your chosen rating threshold, which defaults to three.
  4. IV Cleanup\]rejectedReview rejects before deleting. Deletion is available only here and requires confirmation.

297 photographs from one afternoon, with 19 kept. The diagram shows their proportions and the shortcuts for each phase.

05 · Choose · try it yourself

IKeep or reject each photograph.

Start with twenty undecided photographs. Keep or reject each one. Related photographs remain together until every member of the set has a verdict.

San Francisco — 2024

Verdict

Rating

Filter undecidedGrid · 0 of 0

Click the window, then \ keep · X reject ·] clear · 1–5 rate ·←→ move · ⌘Z undo. Double-click a frame to open the Loupe; double-click again to return to Grid.

Compare and look closer

Inside Frames

A closer look at the app.

Real photographs. The actual workspace. From the first pass to the final edit.

Frames Choose view with a shoot laid out for review

Find the keepers

Review the shoot and keep your decisions in view.

Frames Compare view showing neighbouring photographs

Compare the details

Look at neighbouring frames side by side.

Frames Develop view with an edited photograph and adjustment controls

Finish the photograph

Shape the light, colour and final crop in Develop.

III The workflow

You found the frame. Now find its finish.

Shape the whole photograph, work on a small detail or try a different treatment. Keep the original and your alternatives close at hand.

08 · Develop

Make the final edits.

The keeper, as shot
as shot → developed · original file unchanged
Crop with eight aspect choices and five composition guides. Set the angle with a slider, drag outside the crop, draw along a straight edge or use Auto-level. Rotate in 90° steps or flip horizontally and vertically after closing the crop tool. Frames reports when it cannot detect a horizon.
Adjust exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, whites and blacks. Click the wand for a balanced starting point that accounts for the subject. Option-click for a flatter result ready for curve editing.
Adjust overall tone or individual red, green and blue curves. Press T and drag on the photograph to change the tone under the pointer.
Adjust RAW temperature in Kelvin and set tint separately. Press W and click a neutral area to calculate both from the original data.
Vibrance strengthens less saturated colours. Saturation changes overall colour intensity.
Adjust hue, saturation and luminance across eight colour bands. Press H and click the photograph to select a band from its colour.
Adjust clarity, texture and dehaze, add a crop-relative vignette, or choose film grain by stock and format. Check the manual for grain-preview limits at small display sizes.
Detail provides the controls supported by the current RAW file and decoder. Available settings can include sharpening, noise reduction, moiré and highlight recovery.

Composition review

What matters here?
Start with your intention.

Choose what you want the photograph to do. Point to what matters, or mark an area yourself. Frames brings forward a measured observation and, when available, one crop comparison to judge by your intention.

Explore composition review
Intention: let the subject dominateIllustrated example
The Golden Gate Bridge in warm light, with leafy foreground below the main tower.
Golden Gate Bridge
Explore this example

The tower is the chosen area in this illustration. In Frames, your choice helps focus the review.

Your photograph. Your decision.

Compare Before and After. Keep current, Use comparison or Adjust further. Save a note with the photograph and carry a relevant shooting prompt to the camera.

Every measurement. On your Mac.

Composition analysis runs locally. No photographs are uploaded for analysis.

Processed locally

Explore the illustration above. Frames measures each photograph individually. Your intention guides the review; confirmed protections constrain automatic crops. Comparisons and shooting prompts appear when available.

09 · Local work

Adjust part of a photograph.

The keeper, during local work
Illustrated tower and foreground masks · V cycles the overlay · off, a tint in the layer’s colour, 45° hatching, then the matte
Layers
Foreground68%
Bridge tower100%
Background
  1. Choose a detected maskSelect a subject, background, person or object detected on your Mac. Create masks for available face parts, hair and clothes. Hover with M to select from the photograph, or use Select to define and refine another object.
  2. Draw a maskDraw Radial, Linear or Brush masks, or select a luminance or colour range. Set brush size, softness and flow. Snap includes detected objects crossed by a stroke. Add or subtract shapes to refine the mask.
  3. Repair spots and scratchesPress Q and click to repair a spot, or Option-drag to paint a longer repair. Drag an empty area to pan. Frames finds nearby source material; drag the source grip to choose another area. Press ⇧K to highlight possible dust, then save repairs as a map to reuse across a shoot.
RecipeExposure +0.6 — Bridge towerShadows +14 — ForegroundRepair — one spotAll three are stored in the recipe: a radial is five numbers and a stroke is a list of points. The original file is untouched.

10 · Masks by part

Mask a face, one part at a time.

Frames finds each person on your Mac and offers masks for the face, skin, eyes, eyebrows, lips, teeth, hair and clothes. Choose the parts, then create a layer for each or combine them in one layer.

When a mask misses something, use the Select tool. Click an object or draw a box around it, click to add a missed area and Option-click to exclude one. Each click is one undo step.

Explore in the manualPeople, part by partThe Select tool

  • Eight parts for each person
  • A layer for each, or one layer
  • Detected and refined on your Mac
Illustration

Select tool · ⌥-click the hatSelect tool · refinement 1 of 12 · ⏎ Done

People by part

1 person · face found

Teeth needs an open mouth.

LAYERS

    Creating the whole set of layers is one undo step.

    11 · Sensor spots

    Clean sensor dust from a whole shoot.

    Repair the spots on one photograph and save them as a dust map. Apply the map to a selection, or to every photograph from that camera between two sensor cleanings.

    Press ⇧K in Develop to highlight possible dust in amber. Frames skips spots that an existing repair already covers and warns when a photograph comes from a different camera body. The whole run is one ⌘Z.

    Explore in the manualRepairing a photograph

    The Ferry Building clock tower against a blue sky, with sensor dust drawn into the sky
    Dust drawn for illustration

    Sensor spotsLEICA Q3

    A map’s date: the photograph it was collected from, after a sensor cleaning.

    247 photographs · 7 spots · 205 receive their first treatment

    1693 spots placed · 36 skipped because a repair already covers them

    220 photographs · 4 spots · 183 receive their first treatment

    862 spots placed · 18 skipped because a repair already covers them

    Applying a map changes treatments in the catalogue. Originals are not fetched or rendered.

    12 · Looks

    Apply a look. Adjust it to suit.

    Start with one of 29 included looks, then adjust its strength. Controls you change yourself keep their settings when you adjust the strength again. Hover over a look to preview it before applying it.

    Explore colour, film styles, split tones and monochrome. Save and share your own looks, or import Lightroom presets with a clear report of unsupported settings.

    • 29 looks in five groups
    • Adjust strength after applying
    • Import Lightroom .xmp presets
    Placeholder film frame for the original preview
    Original
    Placeholder film frame illustrating a treatment
    Warm colour · 65%

    One frame. More possibilities.

    Find a starting point.

    Try a direction, then dial it back.

    Interactive colour study with placeholder pictures. The app’s looks are applied to your photograph’s RAW adjustments.

    13 · Monochrome

    Shape your black-and-white photographs.

    The keeper, as shot, in colour
    colour → monochrome · the colour edits stay in the recipe
    Switch between Colour and Monochrome at the top of the sidebar. Each change is one undoable edit.
    Monochrome converts the photograph to black and white and displays conversion and toning controls. Your colour settings remain saved.
    Start with one of six filter settings. Yellow gently darkens blue skies and lightens warm colours.
    Red darkens blue skies more strongly and lightens warm colours. Adjust the eight band sliders to refine the result.
    Each band changes how an original colour becomes grey, by up to 2.5 stops for saturated colours. Neutral grey stays unchanged. Adjusting a band clears the filter preset selection.
    Set separate shadow and highlight hues and strengths, then adjust their balance. Selenium adds a cool tint mainly to shadows.
    Sepia adds a warm tint. Pure black and white stay neutral. Toning applies after every layer and affects the whole photograph.
    The histogram shows luminance with highlight and shadow clipping. Save the conversion in a look, or use Browse’s Monochrome filter to find black-and- white treatments.
    Explore the finishing tools

    IV The workflow

    Make something worth sharing.

    Carry a treatment across the shoot. Prepare the finished files. Send an edited photograph back to Photos, with the original still there.

    17 · Export

    Export files. Share your photographs.

    Export JPEG, HEIF, 16-bit TIFF or PNG to a folder or the macOS share sheet. Choose a colour space, output size, metadata and filename pattern. Resizing never enlarges photographs; output sharpening applies only after resampling. Location metadata is off by default. The export sheet estimates downloads and disk space before you start.

    Exports run in the background, can be cancelled and report any files that could not be written. For photographs in Apple Photos, after you allow publishing, Frames sends a full-resolution rendering when you leave a changed photograph. iCloud Photos can then sync it to your other devices. Photos keeps the original, and Revert restores it.

    • JPEG · HEIF · 16-bit TIFF · PNG
    • filename templates, resolved as you type
    • Publish to Photos, with Revert
    Export — 19 photographs
    FormatJPEGHEIFTIFF 16PNG
    Colour spacesRGBDisplay P3Adobe RGB
    Resize2 048 px long edge
    MetadataCameraCapture dateCopyrightLocation
    Filename{date:yyyy-MM-dd}_{name}_{seq:3}2026-02-14_L1008804_001.jpg
    19 photographs · 6 need fetching · ≈ 124 MB to download
    writing…

    Allow Photos publishing to sync full-resolution edits through iCloud Photos. Revert restores the original in Photos.

    18 · Getting started

    Learn Frames while you use it.

    Getting Started opens beside the main window and explains the view in front of you. Hover over a control or use its shortcut to read what it does. Eight short tasks lead from adding photographs to exporting an edit.

    Press ? to show shortcuts and gestures beside the controls. In Develop, the field guide explains each adjustment, what to try and how the processing works, and it is available offline. Put Getting Started away when you are done; Help › Getting Started opens it again.

    Explore in the manualGetting startedLearning to develop

    B C D⌘1 ⌘2 ⌘3E
    \ X1–5

    Getting Started

    2 of 8 tasks

    1. Choose where your photographs are
    2. Let Frames read them
    3. Look at one up close⌘2
    4. Put two side by side⌘3
    5. Keep one, reject one\ X
    6. Give one a rating1–5
    7. Develop oneD
    8. Export oneE

    Hover over a control in the window to read what it does.

    Modes B · C · D

    Browse finds photographs in a collection, Choose reviews a shoot in four phases and Develop edits one photograph.

    Views ⌘1 · ⌘2 · ⌘3

    Grid shows the selection, Loupe shows one photograph and Compare puts photographs side by side.

    Keep and reject \ · X · ]

    A verdict says whether a photograph stays. It is separate from the rating.

    Rating 1 – 5

    Rate a photograph from one to five stars. 0 clears the rating.

    Export E

    Write the selected photographs as files, or open the macOS share sheet.

    NextLook at one up closePut two side by sideKeep one, reject oneGive one a ratingDevelop oneExport oneAll eight tasks are done. Put Getting Started away when you are ready.

    19 · Your work, your originals

    Your originals stay unchanged.

    Frames stores ratings, verdicts and edits in its own catalogue. Editing leaves the original file unchanged. Photos also keeps the original when Frames publishes an edited rendering. Cleanup is the only place to delete a photograph, and deletion requires confirmation. There is no Frames account or library reporting.

    Photo processing and analysis run entirely on your Mac, including mask detection, scene search analysis and composition measurements. Frames does not upload photographs for processing or analysis. Machine learning helps detect subjects, skies and faces, and find similar photographs. It does not choose your photographs.

    The details that keep work moving

    More tools. Fewer detours.

    Find the right photograph, finish the small adjustments and keep your export settings ready for next time.

    Organise

    Photographs like this one

    Press S to find up to 100 visually similar photographs, subject to active filters.

    Explore in the manual

    Keywords you type

    Add keywords to a photograph and search them alongside detected words.

    Explore in the manual

    Captions and credit

    Add photograph captions and shared creator and copyright details for export.

    Explore in the manual

    Saved searches

    Save queries and filters under a name in the sidebar, with counts that update as the catalogue changes.

    Explore in the manual

    Refine

    Auto tone

    Set a starting point for the six Tone sliders with one click and undo it in one step.

    Explore in the manual

    Lens corrections

    Apply a saved lensfun profile or manual distortion adjustment before other edits.

    Explore in the manual

    Dust maps

    Save sensor spots and apply them to a selection or camera date range, with a summary and one-step undo.

    Explore in the manual

    Mask selectivity

    Limit individual mask shapes to matching colour and brightness, including subtracting shapes.

    Explore in the manual

    Share

    Soft proofing

    Preview sRGB, Display P3, Adobe RGB or ProPhoto and highlight out-of-gamut colours.

    Explore in the manual

    Watermarks

    Add text or image watermarks with nine positions, size, inset and opacity controls.

    Explore in the manual

    Export presets

    Save, rename and reuse export settings, including the destination.

    Explore in the manual

    File naming

    Build folder and filename patterns from dates, sequence numbers and photograph metadata.

    Explore in the manual
    See every supported feature

    20 · Pricing

    One purchase. No subscription.

    Every feature in one app: organise a collection, select the strongest photographs and make the final edits. Buy once at the limited launch price, with no subscription.

    Limited launch price

    $99.99

    One payment. All features included.

    Try Frames

    From the first selection to the finished photograph.

    • Organise, select, edit and export in one app.
    • Work with Apple Photos, folders and external drives.
    • Process and analyse photographs on your Mac.
    • Try every feature free for 30 days.

    Available at launch for a limited time. The price will increase afterwards.

    Before you bring a shoot

    A few practical details.

    Can I use the folders I already have?

    Yes. Add local folders, connected drives or your Apple Photos library as sources. Your files stay where they are. Read about sources →

    What happens to my originals?

    Editing leaves your original files unchanged. Frames stores edits in its catalogue. Apple Photos also keeps the original when you publish an edited rendering.

    Do I need an account?

    There is no Frames account. Editing, analysis and the catalogue run on your Mac. Fetching originals stored in iCloud requires a connection.

    What will the trial include?

    At launch, you will have thirty days to try every feature with your own photographs. The limited launch price will be $99.99 once, with no subscription. Frames requires macOS 15.2 or later.

    21 · Get Frames

    Try it with your own photographs.

    Frames is on the Mac App Store with a thirty-day trial. Every feature is included. Add a folder or your Photos library, review a shoot and try the editing tools.

    30days

    Bring a shoot. Try the whole app.

    Choose your keepers, make the edits and export the results. Every feature is included in the launch trial.

    Download on theMac App Store

    • macOS 15.2 or later
    • Thirty-day trial
    • One payment, no subscription