Narrative Select is a good portrait culler. It is also a Lightroom Classic plugin that costs $20 a month before you get advanced AI culling, and it has no free plan. If you shoot events, sports or concerts — or you simply do not live in Lightroom Classic — FilterPixel culls the same shoot in about 8 minutes, tells you why it picked each frame, and gives you four free projects to test that claim.
No credit card required • 4 free projects • Cancel anytime
Narrative Select does one job well. These are the six reasons photographers tell us they went looking for something else.
Narrative's Lite tier is $10/mo billed annually, and what you get is fast browsing, unlimited projects and focus scores. Advanced AI culling, Scenes View and the Close-Ups Panel start at Standard — $20/mo billed annually, $29 month to month. The honest comparison is $20 against FilterPixel Standard at $14.99.
New accounts get a trial of Ultra, and then it stops. FilterPixel gives you 4 complete projects free, unlimited photos and no credit card, so you can run it against a gallery you have already culled by hand and compare the two.
Narrative Select is a plugin, not a standalone app. If you cull in Capture One, hand selects to a second shooter, or deliver from a venue without opening a catalogue, that is a hard dependency. FilterPixel runs on its own and exports to both.
The Close-Ups Panel for comparing expressions across a series is genuinely good. In our own test it was weaker where faces were not the primary subject — which is most of a sports sideline, a concert pit or a conference keynote wide.
Narrative Select has basic presets but no AI editing. You still need a second tool and a second subscription to get a consistent look across 3,000 frames.
Narrative has no personalised learning. FilterPixel Pro gives you two custom trainable profiles built from your own catalogue, so it gets closer to your taste the more you use it.
A direct, honest look at what each tool does, and where each one wins.
| Feature | FilterPixel | Narrative Select |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | ✓ 4 projects, unlimited photos | ✗ No permanent free plan
Trial only
|
| Entry price | $14.99/mo | $10/mo (Lite)
Billed annually
|
| Advanced AI culling | ✓ Included from $14.99/mo | $20/mo (Standard)
Not in Lite
|
| Lightroom Classic Plugin required | ✓ No | ✗ Yes
Plugin only
|
| Speed, 1,000 images | ✓ ~8 minutes | ~18 minutes
Our test, M3
|
| Genre-specific models | ✓ Sports, wedding, conference, concert | ✗ One model, portrait-led |
| Why a photo was picked | ✓ Score + written reason | Focus scores |
| AI editing | ✓ Included | ✗ Culling only
Basic presets
|
| Learns your selections | ✓ 2 custom profiles on Pro | ✗ No personalised learning |
| What is uploaded | Embedded previews only | ✓ Nothing
Originals stay local
|
Speed figures from our own test on the same MacBook Pro M3 and the same 1,000-image gallery, set out in full in our comparison of AI culling software. Narrative Select pricing read from narrative.so/pricing on 22 October 2026. Narrative Select is a product of Narrative. Want the feature-by-feature breakdown instead? See FilterPixel vs Narrative Select.
We would rather be upfront than sell you something that is not right for you.
"The culling is surprisingly accurate, especially for events and large shoots."
"Amazingly fast, even with RAF files."
Rated 4.7 out of 5 from 179 reviews on Trustpilot.
For portrait work Narrative Select is hard to beat on expression comparison. For event, sports and concert work FilterPixel is faster, about 8 minutes per 1,000 images against about 18, runs genre-specific models, includes AI editing, and has a free tier of 4 projects with unlimited photos.
Yes. Narrative Select runs as a Lightroom Classic plugin and needs Lightroom Classic installed. FilterPixel is a standalone app that exports to both Lightroom Classic and Capture One.
No. New accounts get a trial of the Ultra plan with no credit card, but there is no permanent free plan. FilterPixel gives you 4 projects with unlimited photos free, no card required.
Billed annually: Lite $10/mo, Standard $20/mo, Premium $40/mo and Ultra $60/mo. Month to month they are $15, $29, $59 and $79. Advanced AI culling starts at the Standard tier.
It is built around faces and expressions, which is a portrait strength. On galleries where the face is not the main subject it was less accurate in our testing. FilterPixel runs a separate model for sports, concert, conference and wedding work.
Four projects, unlimited photos, no credit card. Run FilterPixel against a shoot you culled by hand and see how close it gets.
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