I came home from Morocco with thousands of photos on a card. It took me a whole evening to find the few that mattered. That happened after every trip. So I built my own tool. It's called LumaFold.
What LumaFold is
LumaFold is a Windows app for the part between the card and the edit. You open a folder. You pick the keepers. You let the rest go.
It also does the chores I used to put off. It sorts keepers and rejects into their own folders. It renames everything with dates and numbers. It suggests keywords. And it saves your stars and labels where Lightroom and Capture One can read them.
The part I'm proudest of: it learns your taste. Every photo you keep teaches it what you like. Shoot after shoot its suggestions get closer to your own eye. You always make the final call.
Your photos never leave your computer. Nothing is uploaded. There's no account and no subscription.
Why I made it
As a kid I loved the stars and the Milky Way. In Amsterdam there's too much light for that, so I started shooting sunsets and blue hour instead. Later my camera came with me to Vietnam, Morocco and Iceland.
Every trip ended the same way. A full card and a whole evening gone before I found the photos that mattered.
The tools I tried were made for editing. Not for choosing. I wanted something simple. Open the card. See each moment once. Press a key. Next.
One rule mattered to me from the start. A good photo should never be thrown away for something I can fix later. A dark frame is easy to bring back in Lightroom. So LumaFold suggests and I decide.
It started small. Then it grew. Now it's the first thing I open when I get home.
How I use it
After a shoot I put the card in and open the folder in LumaFold. I run Analyse first. It flags the soft and blurry frames and finds the best one in every burst.
Then I go through the shoot from the keyboard. P to pick. X to reject. Space to see a photo big.
For my street photos I press B to see the whole shoot in black and white before I decide.
When I'm done I organise the folder. Keepers go into one folder and rejects into another, renamed with the date. Then I open Lightroom and my stars are already there.
For a series I use the Board. I drop my keepers on it and move them around until the story feels right. My Morocco contact sheet started there.
Quick tutorial: your first shoot
Install it. Download LumaFold from lumafold.app/download. Windows may show a SmartScreen warning. Click More info and then Run anyway. You can try it free for 14 days.
Open your folder. Choose the folder with your shoot in the sidebar. Click the star to pin the folders you use most.
Run Analyse. It spots soft focus, motion blur and closed eyes and finds the best frame in a burst. Nothing gets moved or deleted. Don't like the result? Click Undo Analyse.
Pick and reject. Press P to pick and X to reject. Press 1 to 5 to give stars. Press Space for Focus View. Use the Unrated filter to sweep through what's left. Don't agree with a suggestion? Press P and the photo is yours again.
Add keywords. LumaFold suggests keywords for every photo. Keep the ones you like.
Organise and rename. Choose Organise / Rename into folders. Keepers go into one folder and rejects into a folder called rejected. Batch Rename gives every file a clean name with the date and a number. Changed your mind? Ctrl+Z.
Open Lightroom. Your stars, labels and keywords are already there. Your edits stay untouched.
Make a series. Drop your keepers on the Board. Crop them all to 4:5 in one click. Export them as a contact sheet or an Instagram series.
The trial lets you try Analyse and culling. Organising, exports and keyword suggestions unlock with a licence.
Try it
Everything about LumaFold is on lumafold.app. The features page shows every part of the app in detail.
LumaFold costs €49.99 once. You get lifetime access and every update. No subscription.
Found a bug or missing something? Send me a message at hello@lumafold.app. I use LumaFold after every shoot, so when something bugs me it gets fixed.
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