Cull vs Astrian Light
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Cull
Read full descriptionHide full description
Cull is the fastest way to go from a full memory card to your best shots. Import a shoot, fly through your photos with keyboard shortcuts, and export your picks straight to Lightroom — all without your photos ever leaving your device. CULL FASTER THAN EVER Press P to keep, X to reject, and move to the next shot automatically. Cull hundreds of photos in minutes instead of hours. Every action has a keyboard shortcut so your hands never leave the keys. FOUR POWERFUL VIEWS • Grid — scan your entire shoot at a glance with adjustable column density • Loupe — full-screen single photo view with a floating filmstrip for quick navigation • Compare — two photos side by side to pick the better expression or moment • Burst — automatically groups burst sequences and surfaces the best frame using AI scoring ON-DEVICE AI SCORING Every photo gets an AI quality score powered by Apple Vision — running 100% locally on your Mac's Neural Engine. No cloud, no subscription, zero privacy cost. • Face shots scored on capture quality, eye openness, and focus • All other photos scored on aesthetics and sharpness • Blurry photos automatically flagged for rejection • Adjust the rejection threshold to match your standards COLOR LABELS Tag your keepers with Lightroom-compatible color labels (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple) directly in Cull. Labels carry through to Lightroom on export. EXPORT TO LIGHTROOM One click writes XMP sidecar files for all your keeps — Lightroom reads them automatically when you import, so your picks, ratings, and labels are already applied. No plugins, no manual tagging. DESIGNED FOR RAW SHOOTERS Cull works with every format your camera shoots: RAW (CR3, ARW, NEF, DNG, RW2, ORF, and more), JPEG, HEIC, and TIFF. Files stay exactly where they are on disk — Cull never copies or moves your originals. PRIVACY FIRST All AI analysis runs on your Mac using Apple's Vision framework. Your photos are never uploaded anywhere. ONE-TIME PURCHASE Pay once, cull forever. No subscription.
Astrian Light
Plan your celestial photography with precise calculations for eclipses, golden hour, and astrophotography. Visualize the sky's events with your real horizon and location data. Includes tools for hyperfocal distance and exposure.
- Eclipse shadow mapping
- Real horizon calculations
- Golden and Blue Hour timing
- Sky object identification
- Trip planning tools
- Photography calculators
- Camera and lens gear saving
Read full descriptionHide full description
Other apps tell you when the sun rises. This one tells you whether you'll see it. Astrian Light knows the real terrain where you're going to shoot —the ridge, the building, the hill in front of you— and tells you when the sun actually clears it. Not when it rises on a flat horizon that doesn't exist. WHAT IT ANSWERS · When the good light starts at your spot, and when the terrain takes it away. · Where the sun rises and sets, right on the map. · How many hours of dark sky the Moon leaves you tonight, measured against your horizon. · When the Milky Way core rises, and which is the next moonless night. · What the eclipse will look like from where you'll be, when, and how long totality lasts. ECLIPSES, ALWAYS FREE On August 2, 2027, a total solar eclipse crosses Spain. The map of every eclipse, how much of the sun is covered from any point, the timeline to the second, and whether your horizon lets you see it. No subscription, now or ever. YOUR GEAR, BUILT IN Over 600 lenses and 230 cameras in the catalog; if yours isn't there, type it in. From then on, the ten calculators speak your gear: exposure without star trails, hyperfocal, depth of field, field of view, filters, timelapse. And "Your frame" shows how the shot will look in your camera before you go. THE SKY, RIGHT NOW Point your iPhone at the sky and augmented reality tells you what you're looking at: planets, constellations, the space station, deep sky. PLAN BEFORE YOU LEAVE Compare several destinations and several nights at once. Save plans with their place, their date and the gear you're taking. And bring the verdict with you: the calculations work without signal. YOUR WAY Buttons with symbol and name, or name only. Light and dark themes. Times in your iPhone's format. In English, Spanish and Portuguese, on iPhone and iPad. WHAT IT WON'T DO It doesn't make data up. When it doesn't know, it says so: if there's no measured terrain for your point, it tells you the figure is for a flat horizon. If the forecast doesn't reach, it won't invent one. SUBSCRIPTION Astrian Light is free for eclipses and for today's sky where you are. Everything else —any date, any place, the whole sky, all your gear— needs the yearly subscription. It renews until you cancel, and you cancel from your Apple account settings. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Astrian Light at none against Cull's 1. Astrian Light also leads on update cadence (daily vs every 6 weeks). On price, ads, device support and iOS requirement there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Cull sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Astrian Light asks for nothing beyond the download.
Cull ships an update every 6 weeks, Astrian Light daily. The most recent releases landed on October 28, 2026 and October 22, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Cull | Astrian Light |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | — | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | — | 100.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | — | 1 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 6 weeks | Daily — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | — | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 3 MB | 60 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | briek keters | Javier Linero |
In-app purchases
Cull
- Lifetime License$39.99
Astrian Light
No in-app purchases









