LrGenius vs. Aftershoot
Free all-in-one AI plugin vs. dedicated AI culling and editing tool.
Quick verdict
Choose Aftershoot if AI culling is your primary bottleneck — particularly for high-volume event or wedding photography where you need a battle-tested tool that has processed millions of frames and integrates tightly with Lightroom's culling workflow. Aftershoot also offers AI editing that learns your personal style.
Choose LrGeniusAI if you want AI keywording, captions, semantic search, and culling in a single free, open-source plugin, and are willing to work with a product that is still maturing. LrGeniusAI can run 100% locally via Ollama or LM Studio — no subscription, no cloud upload required.
Feature comparison
| Aspect | LrGeniusAI beta | Aftershoot |
|---|---|---|
| Primary purpose | Keywording, captions, search, culling, edit training | Dedicated AI culling + AI editing |
| Lightroom integration | Plugin (runs inside Lightroom) | External app, hands culled selections back to LR |
| AI keywording | Yes — open-vocabulary, prompt-tunable | No |
| AI captions / titles / alt-text | Yes | No |
| Semantic / natural-language search | Yes | No |
| AI culling | Yes, face-aware (beta) | Yes — mature, high-volume ready |
| Face recognition (culling) | Yes (beta) | Yes (closed-eyes, soft focus detection) |
| Learns personal editing style | "Looks" — experimental | Yes — mature |
| Runs locally / offline | Yes (Ollama, LM Studio) | Yes (local processing) |
| Platform | macOS + Windows | macOS + Windows |
| Open source | Yes (AGPL-3.0) | No |
| Pricing | Free | Subscription |
Where each tool excels
Aftershoot: purpose-built for high-volume culling
Aftershoot is trusted by a large community of wedding and event photographers who cull hundreds or thousands of frames per shoot. Its AI is trained specifically on culling tasks — detecting blur, duplicate frames, closed eyes, and unflattering expressions — and improves over time as you train it on your own selections. The editing component applies your personal style to approved picks with minimal manual intervention.
LrGeniusAI: broader workflow, zero cost
LrGeniusAI bundles culling alongside AI keywording, semantic search, face recognition, captions, and edit recipes in one Lightroom-native plugin. For photographers who need all of those features and don't want to pay for multiple subscriptions, LrGeniusAI covers the entire AI metadata and selection workflow at no cost. Because it's open-source, you can also inspect or contribute to the code.
The culling feature is currently in beta — it works well for smaller personal libraries but may not yet match Aftershoot's output quality and reliability for professional client work. See the Cull Photos guide for current capabilities.