Windows 10 & 11 · macOS 12+ (Apple Silicon)

A faster way to cull than Adobe Bridge.

Bridge is a free, general-purpose asset browser that leans on Camera Raw to do the actual photo work. PhotoTaken does one thing: it gets you through a card of images fast, so you rate, tag, and hand the shots you'll use to your editor. If culling is the bottleneck, that focus is the difference.

Try it free for 14 days See the full PhotoTaken site

Why photographers cull elsewhere

Bridge browses everything. We cull one thing.

Bridge is built to browse and manage every kind of Adobe asset: images, PSDs, InDesign files, video, PDFs. That breadth is real, and for a lot of people it is exactly the right tool. It is also free with any Adobe account, so we are not going to pretend otherwise or pitch you on price.

What we built instead is a culling tool. PhotoTaken (that is the name of the app) is the step before editing: load a card, rip through the contact sheet, star the shots you'll use, drop color labels, and hand off. Those ratings and labels are written to standard XMP, so your picks travel with the files into Lightroom, Camera Raw, or whatever you edit in next. Bridge writes XMP too, which is exactly why the handoff works in both directions. Where we pull ahead is the parts a general browser does not sweat: RAW+JPEG shot pairs that stay together through a rename, ingest that copies to two drives and verifies both, and a grid that stays fast when the folder is a few thousand frames deep.

PhotoTaken vs Adobe Bridge

Side by side, honestly.

Bridge is free and does far more than cull. Where we win is a workflow built only for culling, plus file-handling most browsers leave to you.

	PhotoTaken	Adobe Bridge
Free to use	—	✓
Purpose-built culling workflow (rate, tag, hand off)	✓	~
Stays fast on folders of a few thousand mixed RAW+JPEG frames	✓	~
RAW+JPEG shot pairs stay together through a rename	✓	—
Verified copy-to-two-drives ingest	✓	—
Ratings and color labels in standard XMP that travel to other tools	✓	✓
Built-in RAW editing and adjustments	—	✓

✓ Yes ~ Partial or with caveats (hover for detail) — No

The bottom line

Use both, honestly

These two are not really rivals. Bridge is a free, broad browser wired into Adobe Camera Raw for editing. PhotoTaken is the fast lane in front of it: cull the card, choose your best images, and because both speak standard XMP, those ratings and labels are already there when you open the shots in Camera Raw or Lightroom. If Bridge already handles your browsing and editing but the culling itself is slow, that is the exact gap we built PhotoTaken to fill. It is a one-time purchase, from $69 for Light or $189 for Pro, on Windows and Mac. See phototakensoftware.com.

Questions

What people ask before they try it.

Mostly some version of: Bridge is free, so what am I paying for.

Bridge is free. Why would I pay for this?

Because the cull is the part that costs you time, and that is the one job this is built for. A card of several thousand frames stays responsive, RAW and JPEG behave as one shot, and ingest copies to two drives and verifies both before you wipe the card.

If browsing is all you need, Bridge is free and good at it. We would not pretend otherwise.

Do my ratings and labels carry into Camera Raw?

Yes. Both speak standard XMP, so the stars and labels you set while culling are already on the shots when you open them in Camera Raw.

Is this a replacement for Bridge?

Not for everything Bridge does. Bridge is a broad browser across the whole Adobe world. PhotoTaken handles photos and video clips, and it is the fast lane in front of your editor rather than a file manager for every document type you own.

Will it open my RAW files?

26 RAW formats, plus JPEG, TIFF, PNG and HEIC, with video clips shown as poster frames in the same contact sheet. The full list is on the home page.

Is it a subscription?

There is a 14-day trial of the Pro edition, with no credit card. After that it is $69 for Light or $189 for Pro, bought once. No subscription, and every feature on the roadmap arrives as a free update.