Facet vs Narrative Select

Facet is a free, local tool for scoring, culling, organizing, and serving a web gallery for photo libraries. It runs on the user's machine without cloud services, accounts, or API keys. Its scoring evaluates nine dimensions, including aesthetic quality, composition, sharpness, color, exposure, face quality, subject saliency, and dynamic range. It detects bursts, similar photos, blinks, and duplicates, with a dry-run preview for automatic culling. The gallery includes natural-language semantic search, filters, timeline and map views, albums, and themed slideshows. Face tools group people and support searching, renaming, merging, and organizing clusters. XMP sidecars provide metadata interoperability with Lightroom, Capture One, digiKam, and darktable. Users can send photos to a WebDAV inbox, or share revocable album links that need no recipient login; proofing supports hearts and comments, with an optional PIN. Core functions work on CPU, while an NVIDIA GPU unlocks additional models and features. Facet can be installed with Docker or natively on Linux and macOS, requires Python, and does not provide RAW editing or development.

Narrative Select is photo culling and editing software for photographers working on macOS or Windows. Its AI detects faces, evaluates focus and eye state, and assesses whether another frame in a scene may be stronger. It sorts and ranks images, while the photographer makes the final selections. Scenes View organizes shoots, the Close-ups Panel helps inspect expressions, and People Filter groups images by named faces. Supported formats include CR2, CR3, NEF, DNG, RAW, JPG, HEIC, and HEIF. Culling runs locally and offline, with side-by-side comparison and batch actions. One-click workflows connect to Lightroom Classic, Lightroom CC, Photoshop, and Capture One; Capture One support is listed for Mac. The maker says thousands of RAW files can be imported in seconds, with unlimited projects and images. New accounts receive a free Ultra trial without a credit card, with no duration stated. Annual-billed plans are 10.00, 20.00, 40.00, and 60.00 USD monthly.