Help · Best Shot
Best Shot sits under Clean Up, beside Duplicates. It finds the shots you took several times to get one right, marks the best of each group with the reason, and selects the rest for the Trash. Nothing leaves until you confirm.
Nothing, until you confirm a cleanup. Finding, grouping and scoring only read your photos, on your own computer. Move to Trash sends the shots you marked to the Trash (Recycle Bin on Windows), after a confirmation; Move to Folder… moves them to a folder you choose instead. The best shot of each group stays where it is.
Restore the last batch puts the last cleanup back. A RAW and its own JPEG are one photograph here: one tile, and both files go the same way.
The screen says what it is for in one line: Duplicates finds the same photo saved twice; Best Shot finds the dozen you took to get one. It does not write star ratings — for that, the results offer Rating picks for Lightroom instead? Open this folder in AI Cull ›.
Folder to scan · Include subfoldersFree
The folder to look in, and whether to go into its sub-folders.
Find near-identical shotsFree
Runs in three steps, shown as it goes: Reading capture times, Comparing shots, Picking the best. Two kinds of group come out of one pass:
Grouping needs the time each photo was taken, so photos with no capture time are counted but not compared. When nothing is found, the screen offers Look for copies of the same photo in Duplicates ›.
Bursts · seconds apart — Same scene · minutes apart
Show only one kind of group. If there is nothing of the kind you picked, the screen says so — for example No bursts in these results — every group here is a retake of the same scene.
Results from your scan on …
The last scan is kept. Close FolioSort halfway through and the groups are back the next time you open Best Shot, with the date of the scan above them; a shot changed or removed since then is left out. Scan again starts fresh.
Best — and the reason
In each group one shot is marked Best, with the reason it won: Eyes open, Best faces, Eyes in focus, Best exposed or Sharpest. The others say why they lost: Eyes closed, A face came out badly, Eyes are soft, Lost to clipping, Softer. When there is no clear winner the group reads Too close to call.
The shots that lost start out marked for the Trash. Click a shot to enlarge it and compare; the circle on it switches between Kept and Marked for the Trash.
Keep only best · Keep all
Per group: Keep only best marks every other shot of the group; Keep all clears the group so nothing in it is removed.
Selection › Select suggested · Clear selection
For every group in view at once: select what FolioSort suggests, or clear the whole selection and mark by hand.
Exposure bracket · kept whole
The frames of an exposure bracket are meant to be merged, not chosen between, so the group is kept whole and nothing in it is selected.
Fine-tune: who matters, what counts
Five sliders set how much each thing counts: Sharpness, Face quality, Eyes open, Eyes in focus, Exposure. The pick updates live, and shots you kept or marked by hand stay as you left them. When you have named people in Find a Person, WHO MATTERS lets you choose the ones whose face decides which shot is kept.
Move to TrashElite · first 20 free
The bar counts what you marked and the space it frees, and says where it goes: files go to the Trash — recoverable. After a confirmation the marked shots go to the Trash (Recycle Bin on Windows); the best of each group stays.
Move to Folder…Elite · first 20 free
Moves the marked shots to a folder you choose instead of the Trash.
Restore the last batch
Puts back the last cleanup, from the Trash or from the folder you moved it to.
Which plan
Finding and reviewing are free and unlimited. Cleaning up is free for the first 20 photographs in total, on Free and on Pro; Elite has no limit. See the plans.
FAQ
Duplicates finds the same photo saved twice; Best Shot finds the dozen you took to get one. Duplicates compares copies of one file. Best Shot compares different photographs of the same moment — a burst, or a scene shot again a minute later — and helps you keep the best one.
It scores each shot on sharpness, face quality, whether eyes are open, whether the eyes are in focus, and exposure, and marks the winner Best with one reason, such as Eyes open, Best faces, Eyes in focus, Best exposed or Sharpest. When two shots are too close it says Too close to call. Under Fine-tune you can change how much each of the five counts, and the pick updates as you move the sliders.
No. Finding and comparing only read your photos. The shots that lost are selected for you, but nothing moves until you press Move to Trash or Move to Folder and confirm. The best of each group always stays, files go to the Trash (Recycle Bin on Windows) where they can be recovered, and the last batch can be restored.
Finding and reviewing near-identical shots is free and unlimited on every plan. Cleaning up — to the Trash or to a folder — is free for the first 20 photographs in total, on Free and on Pro. Elite has no limit. See the pricing page for the plans.