AircropEvery frame centered
Aircrop finds the aircraft in each frame and centers the crop on it, so the burst plays back like one steady shot.
Free beta for Mac
Airshow bursts, centered on the plane.
Aircrop re-centers every frame of a burst on the aircraft, so the whole sequence plays back smooth and steady. Export the crops and an animation, or save them back to Photos as edits. Everything runs on your Mac.
Download for Mac
Version 0.14.0 (beta) · macOS 15 or later · Apple silicon · 136 MB · Free
What it does
Shoot a continuous burst of a pass, open it in Aircrop, and get back a sequence where the aircraft holds its place in every frame. It handles the parts that make this tedious by hand.
Vignetting and dust removed first
Open sky shows every bit of lens vignetting, and once a frame is re-centered the falloff turns lopsided. Aircrop measures and removes it in each frame before cropping, and takes out sensor dust spots so they don’t jump around the animation.
Finds the plane, not the smoke
Apple’s Vision framework refines the subject box, so smoke trails, contrails and wing vapor stay out of it. Over land or water it tells the aircraft from the shoreline, a bridge tower or a passing gull. Click another object to follow that one instead, or draw a box around a whole formation.
Follow Subject or Lock Background
Follow keeps the plane in the middle. Lock lines every frame up on the landscape and holds it still, so the plane flies across a steady scene (it needs land, water or a structure in the frame).
A crop box like Photos
Drag, resize and turn the crop on the photo. Straighten a tilted horizon, choose an aspect ratio (Original, Square, 16:9, 4:3, 3:2 or Freeform), or pick Max Fit for the largest crop that stays inside every frame.
Smart fill past the edge
When a crop reaches past the edge of a photo, Smart fill extends the sky with matching grain and carries contrails on across the gap, using Core ML on your Mac.
Works with Photos
Open a folder or files from the Finder, import the photos selected in the Photos app, or choose Share › Aircrop in Photos. For photos that came from Photos, Save to Photos stores each crop as an edit of its original that you can revert.
Crops and an animation
JPEG originals export as JPEG at their own quality, everything else as 10-bit HEIC, keeping the color space and metadata. Add a GIF and an MP4 of the sequence, playing at the burst’s real speed.
Projects keep your work
Save a burst as an .aircrop project to keep your picks, crop and options, and open it later to carry on where you left off.
In the app
Each frame on the left with its crop, the rendered result on the right, and the whole burst along the bottom.
How it works
Open a burst
Drop a folder or photos on Aircrop, import them from Photos, or share them from Photos. It analyzes the burst and finds the aircraft in every frame.
Check the picks
Step through the frames with the arrow keys. If a frame picked the wrong thing, click the right one. Set the crop, then render to see the result.
Export or save
Export the crops with a GIF and an MP4, or, for photos from Photos, save the crops back to them as edits.
Download
System requirements
- Mac
- Apple silicon (M1 or later)
- macOS
- 15 Sequoia or later
- Download
- 136 MB disk image
- Photos
- HEIF (
.HIF,.HEIC), JPEG, TIFF and PNG. RAW files aren’t read: shoot RAW + HEIF or JPEG, or export from your RAW editor first. - Disk
- Renders are cached, up to 5 GB (Settings › Clear Cache empties it)
- Price
- Free
Install
- Open the downloaded
Aircrop-0.14.0.dmg. - Drag Aircrop to Applications.
- Open Aircrop from Applications.
Aircrop is signed with a Developer ID and notarized by Apple. The first time you use Photos with it, macOS asks to let Aircrop access your photos, and the first import from the Photos app also asks to let it control Photos (to read which photos are selected).
This is a beta: expect rough edges. To update, choose Aircrop › Check for Updates… any time. The second time you open Aircrop it asks whether to check automatically, and it checks only if you say yes. New versions are also posted here.
The disk image is hosted on GitHub (JosephLin/aircrop-releases); the button above takes you there. GitHub sees your IP address, like any web server.
Tip jar
Aircrop is free. If it saves you an evening of cropping, a tip says thanks and keeps it going. There’s nothing to unlock: every feature is in the free download.
Privacy
Aircrop works entirely on your Mac.
- Aircrop never sends your photos anywhere. Finding the aircraft, Smart fill and every edit run on your Mac. Crops you save to Photos sync through iCloud Photos like any other edit, if you use it.
- No account, no analytics, no tracking.
- Aircrop contacts the internet only to look for updates, at aircrop.kamatiam.store, and only if you allow automatic checks (it asks on the second launch) or choose Aircrop › Check for Updates…. The request names the app and its version, with no system profile. Nothing else is sent. If an update is available, it downloads from GitHub, like the first download above.
- Photos access is used only to import the photos you choose and to save your crops back as edits. Control of Photos is used only to ask which photos are selected; nothing in Photos is changed that way.
- Nothing is written into your folders except what you export or save there.
macOS itself may contact Apple, for example to check the app’s notarization the first time you open it, or to download originals from iCloud Photos when you import or save them. This website uses no cookies and no analytics. Downloading the app involves another company too: this site only redirects you to the disk image, which GitHub hosts (the public repository JosephLin/aircrop-releases), and GitHub sees your IP address when you download it, as any web server would, and that you came from aircrop.kamatiam.store (browsers send only the site’s address as the referrer, no page or path).
What’s new in 0.14.0
- The first public beta.
- Aircrop can update itself: choose Aircrop › Check for Updates…, or allow automatic checks when it asks.
- Apple’s Vision framework refines the subject boxes, so smoke trails stay out of them. On a 59-frame Blue Angels burst trailing smoke, 20 frames used to box the smoke along with the jet; now all 59 box the jet.