Visual Search for Photographers on Mac: How to Instantly Find Shots in 2025

If you are a photographer, your Mac is probably filled with tens of thousands of images. RAW files from your Canon, Nikon, Panasonic, or Sony camera. Edited versions saved as JPEGs or PNGs. Client folders full of selects. Mood boards for upcoming shoots. Screenshots of lighting setups you want to recreate. That one perfect shot you swear you saved somewhere but have not seen since.

And if we are being honest, organizing all of it into neat folders is something we all mean to do. Maybe for a few weeks, we try. We create folders like "Weddings 2024" or "Iceland Landscapes" or "Best Portraits". We color-tag the files. We tell ourselves this time we will stay organized.

Then real life happens. Shoots pile up. Editing deadlines stack up. Travel days blur together. And that beautiful system you built? It vanishes. Drowned under a mountain of files named IMG_9382.CR2, DSC_1048.NEF, or Final_Edit_v2_final_final.DNG.

That is the reality for photographers in 2025.

What we need is not another Sunday afternoon spent reorganizing folders. We need a way to find what we remember. Instantly. That is exactly why we built Fenn.

Search the Way You Remember, Not the Way You File

Photographers do not remember filenames. Photographers remember light, feeling, or the way the shadows wrapped around a model's jawline, the glow of a mountain lake at sunrise etc.

But when it comes time to find that shot again? Spotlight and Finder expect us to remember exact filenames or hunt through metadata tags. And if you forgot to label that .rw2 or .arw file properly... good luck.

Fenn changes everything. It lets you search visually.

You simply type what you remember, and Fenn finds it.

Examples:

• "Bride under golden hour light"

• "Snowy mountains with dramatic clouds"

• "Portrait with neon blue background"

You do not need to remember if it was a .cr2 from your Canon, a .nef from your Nikon, a .rw2 from your Panasonic, or a .dng you exported later. You just describe the photo and Fenn surfaces it. Instantly.

Curious about how this works? Check out Visual Search on Mac: How Fenn Lets You Find Images by Content, Not Filenames.

The Power of Image-to-Image Search

Sometimes words are not enough. Sometimes you have a picture in your head or a visual you want to match.

That is where Fenn’s image-to-image search shines.

Drop any photo into Fenn — a RAW file, a quick JPEG, a HEIC from your iPhone — and it will instantly find visually similar images across your entire Mac.

Maybe you are building a new moodboard and want photos with a muted desert palette. Maybe you want to find all your best backlit portraits across five years of shoots. Maybe you want to pull up similar framing styles for an upcoming editorial.

Instead of digging through 100 folders trying to find your old .cr2, .nef, .rw2, or .dng files manually, you let Fenn do it in seconds. Fast. Private. Local.

This is a game-changer when you are assembling portfolios, pitching concepts, or just trying to spark new inspiration.

Want to learn more about this feature? Read How Creatives Can Use AI-Powered Search to Instantly Find Assets, References, and Inspiration.

Forget Folder Anxiety

One of the biggest lies creatives can tell themselves:
"Once I organize my files, then I will start creating."

Wrong. Creativity does not wait for you to sort folders.

With Fenn, you can stop stressing. You can shoot. Save. Forget. You do not have to be a librarian anymore. You can work messy. You can fill your drive with RAWs, HEICs, JPEGs, screenshots, moodboards, and never worry.

Want to find that dreamy overexposed shot you took last spring? Just type what you remember.
Want to gather every image featuring lavender fields? Drag in one reference photo and Fenn will match it across all your drives.

We dive deeper into this mindset shift in Forget Organizing Your Mac: Fenn Finds What You Need Instantly.

Built for Privacy

Unlike other AI-powered tools that send your images to the cloud, Fenn runs entirely on your Mac. It harnesses the power of Apple Silicon to index and understand your media locally.

No internet required. No files ever leave your machine. No risks to your client data. No leaks.

Whether you are editing from a mountain cabin, on a transatlantic flight, or just at your favorite coffee shop, Fenn works. Instantly. Privately. Reliably.

If you care about protecting your images as much as creating them, read Why Privacy Matters in File Search on Mac.

Supported File Types

If you are wondering what Fenn can index and search, here’s a quick overview of supported formats for photographers:

• .cr2 (Canon RAW)

• .nef (Nikon RAW)

• .rw2 (Panasonic RAW)

• .arw (Sony RAW)

• .dng (Adobe Digital Negative)

• .jpg, .jpeg

• .png

• .heic, .heif, .avif

Plus, Fenn also indexes PDFs, Word documents, Excel files, PowerPoints, videos, audio, and Apple Notes.

For the full list, check out What types of files can Fenn search and index?.

Final Thought

Photography is about capturing moments. But if you cannot find those moments when you need them, they might as well not exist.

You should not have to memorize filenames. You should not have to babysit folders. You should not waste precious hours scrolling thumbnails just to find the one frame you know you shot.

With Fenn, you can stop organizing and start finding. Search by memory. Search visually. Start from a photo. Find what you need, when you need it.

Shoot. Save. Forget.

Fenn will remember for you.

👉 Try Fenn now and experience the smarter way photographers find their images on Mac in 2025.