Narrative

Overview

Narrative is a desktop application built for professional photographers who shoot high volumes of images. It uses AI to assess focus, detect faces, evaluate eye states, and organize scenes, helping you cull thousands of photos down to your best shots in a fraction of the time. The AI-assisted approach keeps you in control of final selections rather than fully automating decisions. Once culled, you can apply AI-trained editing presets that learn your personal style, then send everything to Lightroom, Capture One, or Photoshop. Available on Mac and Windows.

Key Features

AI Focus & Eye Assessments: Automatically detects faces and evaluates whether subjects are in focus and eyes are open, showing colored indicators so you can scan large sets quickly.
Scenes View: Groups your images by scene using AI, displaying what it considers the strongest shot first while letting you dig deeper for more artistic picks.
Close-ups Panel: Zooms into faces across group shots so you can compare expressions without manually panning and zooming each image.
Personal AI Presets: Trains on at least 1,500 of your edited Lightroom images to create editing presets that match your style, improving accuracy over time.
Artist AI Presets: Pre-built editing presets created by well-known photographers, ready to use without any training period.
Image Assessments: Flags the weakest images in each scene and lets you hide them, reducing your review set by 20-30%.
Fast RAW Import: Imports thousands of RAW or JPEG files in under 3 seconds with full offline support and no cloud uploads required.
One-Click Export: Ships your culled and edited selections directly to Lightroom Classic, Lightroom CC, Photoshop, or Capture One.

Pros

Major Time Savings: AI-assisted tools speed up image selection and reduce the number of photos you need to review.
You Stay in Control: AI-assisted approach means the software suggests and highlights, but you make every final selection rather than trusting full automation.
Accurate Style Matching: Learns your editing style and applies consistent adjustments that improve over time.
Works Fully Offline: No cloud uploads needed. Process images on your laptop anywhere without an internet connection.
Supports Major RAW Formats: Works with CR2, CR3, NEF, ARW, RAF, DNG, ORF, and many more formats from all major camera brands.
Free Plan Available: Get started with core culling features at no cost, with a 30-day free trial of premium features and no credit card required.

Cons

Optimized Mainly for People Photography: AI assessments focus on face detection, eye states, and expressions, making it less useful for landscape, product, or wildlife photographers.
AI Still Requires Manual Review: The AI is good but not perfect. Photographers still need to review rejected images to avoid accidentally losing important moments.
Personal AI Presets Need Training Data: You need at least 1,500 edited images in Lightroom before the AI can learn your personal editing style.

Use Cases

Wedding Photography Workflow: Wedding photographers who shoot 2,000-8,000+ images per event can import their full card into Narrative, use AI face and eye assessments to quickly eliminate blinks and out-of-focus shots, review scenes in order, and export their final selects to Lightroom. What used to take hours of culling can be done in under an hour.
Portrait and Family Sessions: When shooting group portraits, the Close-ups Panel lets you compare facial expressions across every person in the frame side by side. This makes it easy to find the one shot where everyone looks their best without zooming into each face individually.
High-Volume Event Coverage: Sports photographers, conference shooters, and event documentarians who produce thousands of images per job can use Image Assessments to automatically hide the bottom 20-30% of shots, then work through the remaining images faster with focus indicators.
Consistent Editing at Scale: Studios that need a uniform editing style across multiple photographers can use Personal AI Presets to apply the studio's signature look to every shoot, reducing per-image editing time and keeping output consistent.
Freelance Photographers Managing Turnaround: Solo photographers juggling multiple clients can speed up delivery times by culling and applying AI edits in Narrative before doing final touches in Lightroom, potentially saving 7-10 full working days per busy season.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Narrative?

Narrative is an AI-powered photo culling and editing application for professional photographers. It helps you quickly sort through large sets of images by using AI to assess focus, detect faces, evaluate eye states, and organize photos into scenes. It runs as a desktop app on both Mac and Windows.

How does Narrative's AI culling work?

Narrative uses an AI-assisted approach rather than full automation. The software analyzes each image for technical quality (focus, eye openness, exposure) and groups shots into scenes. It highlights what it considers the strongest images and flags potential issues, but you make every final selection yourself.

What editing software does Narrative integrate with?

Narrative exports directly to Adobe Lightroom Classic, Lightroom CC, and Photoshop on both Mac and Windows. Capture One integration is available on Mac. You can ship your culled and edited selections with one click.

How much does Narrative cost?

Narrative offers a 30-day free trial with no credit card required. Paid plans start at $10/month (Lite) for basic AI culling, $20/month (Standard) for advanced culling plus AI editing, $40/month (Premium) for custom AI editing with up to 2 users, and $60/month (Ultra) for up to 4 users with 5 Personal AI Presets.

What image formats does Narrative support?

Narrative supports a wide range of RAW and image formats including CR2, CR3, CRW, NEF, NRW, RAF, DNG, RAW, RWL, ARW, RW2, ORF, PEF, FFF, 3FR, and JPEGs.

Do I need an internet connection to use Narrative?

No. Narrative works fully offline. Your images are processed locally on your computer without any cloud uploads, so you can cull and edit anywhere.

What are Personal AI Presets?

Personal AI Presets are custom editing profiles trained on your own Lightroom editing history. You need at least 1,500 previously edited images for the AI to learn your style. The presets improve in accuracy over time as you continue editing. Artist AI Presets from professional photographers are also available without any training required.

Is Narrative good for non-portrait photography?

Narrative's AI features are primarily designed around face detection, eye assessment, and expression evaluation, making it strongest for people photography like weddings, portraits, and events. While you can still use it for other genres, the AI-specific features will be less relevant for landscape or product work.