SuperPicky - AI Bird Photo Culling Tool 🦅
中文文档 (Chinese) | Release Notes
Smart AI Culling Tool for Bird Photographers
Shoot freely, cull easily! A smart photo culling software designed specifically for bird photographers. It uses multi-model AI technology to automatically identify, rate, and filter bird photos, significantly improving post-processing efficiency.
🛠️ Installation for Developers
To run SuperPicky from source or build it yourself, you must first download the required AI models:
git clone https://github.com/jamesphotography/SuperPicky.git
cd SuperPicky
pip install -r requirements.txt
python scripts/download_models.py
🌟 Core Features
🤖 Multi-Model Synergy
- YOLO11 Detection: Precise bird detection and segmentation masks.
- SuperEyes: Detects eye visibility and calculates head sharpness.
- SuperFlier: Identifies flight poses for bonus points.
- TOPIQ Aesthetics: Assesses overall image aesthetics, composition, and lighting.
⭐ Smart Rating System (0-3 Stars)
| Stars | Condition | Meaning |
|---|
| ⭐⭐⭐ | Sharpness OK + Aesthetics OK | Excellent, worth editing |
| ⭐⭐ | Sharpness OK OR Aesthetics OK | Good, consider keeping |
| ⭐ | Bird found but below threshold | Average, usually delete |
| 0 | No bird / Poor quality | Delete |
⚙️ Skill Level Presets (New)
Automatically set thresholds based on your experience:
- 🐣 Beginner: Sharpness>300, Aesthetics>4.5 (Keep more)
- 📷 Intermediate: Sharpness>380, Aesthetics>4.8 (Balanced)
- 👑 Master: Sharpness>520, Aesthetics>5.5 (Strict)
🏷️ Special Tags
- Pick (Flag): Top 25% intersection of sharpness & aesthetics among 3-star photos.
- Flying: Green label for bird-in-flight photos.
- Exposure: Filters over/under-exposed shots (Optional).
📂 Auto-Organization
- Sort by Stars: Auto-move to 0star/1star/2star/3star folders.
- EXIF Write: Writes ratings, flags, and scores to RAW metadata.
- Lightroom Compatible: Sort and filter immediately after import.
- Undo: One-click reset to restore original state.
- Working data (
.superpicky folder): Each folder you process gets a hidden
.superpicky folder holding SuperPicky's own data: report.db (scores, ratings,
species and bursts, so the results browser can reopen the folder without
re-analysing) and cache (preview images and bird crops, most of the size). It is
hidden so it stays out of the way of Lightroom and your file browser; your photos
are never stored there. Deleting it doesn't lose your ratings or species names,
which are written into the photos' metadata (or XMP sidecars), but the folder would
need to be analysed again before you can browse it. To free up space and keep the
results, use Settings → Output → Clear All Preview Caches, which removes only
cache.
📥 Downloads
macOS
Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3/M4) (v4.2.0)
Intel (Pre-2020 Mac) (v4.2.0)
Windows
CUDA-GPU Version (v4.2.0 Beta)
CPU Version (v4.2.0)
🚀 Quick Start
- Select Folder: Drag & drop or browse for a folder with bird photos.
- Adjust Thresholds (Optional): Sharpness (200-600), Aesthetics (4.0-7.0).
- Toggle Features: Flight detection, Exposure check.
- Start: Click to begin AI processing.
- Review: Photos are organized; import to Lightroom to see ratings.
📝 Update Log
v4.0.5 (2026-02-15)
- 🚀 Architecture: SQLite migration, ~1.9x speedup.
- 🌟 Community: Thanks @OscarKing888 for Sony ARW & UTF-8 fixes.
- 🧹 Clean: Unified temp files to hidden cache dir.
- 🔧 Fixes: Chinese path support, ExifTool deadlock, Plugin metadata.
🐦 Species Naming Standards (AviList Mapping)
SuperPicky supports multiple English naming standards for bird species via the AviList v2025 mapping. Choose your preferred format in Settings > Culling Criteria > Species Name Format:
| Format | Source |
|---|
| Default | Original species-database names |
| AviList v2025 | AviList unified English names |
| Clements / eBird v2024 | Cornell/eBird taxonomy |
| BirdLife v9 | BirdLife International |
| Scientific Name Only | Binomial nomenclature |
Updating AviList: The mapping is built from AviList-v2025-11Jun-extended.xlsx (located in scripts_dev/) using an offline build script. When a new AviList version is released (typically annually), replace the xlsx file in scripts_dev/ and re-run:
pip install openpyxl # first time only
python scripts_dev/build_avilist_mapping.py
Review unmatched species in the report output and add manual overrides to scripts_dev/avilist_manual_overrides.json if needed.
📄 License
Open sourced under GPL-3.0 License.
This project uses:
