One sentence
21 wordsObscura Flow is a local macOS application that helps photographers, studios, and institutions organize, document, and preserve their photographic archives.
Press
Everything you need to write about Obscura Flow.
Verifiable key facts, ready-to-quote boilerplate in three lengths, brand assets, and version milestones. Screenshots are supplied on request, and anything still to be confirmed is marked as such.
Key facts
What is verifiable today.
Every line describes a capability present in the shipped application. Anything designed but not delivered is flagged further down, not listed here.
- Product name
- Obscura Flow
- Category
- Photo cataloging, archiving, and digital preservation
- Platform
- Native macOS application (Swift 6 / SwiftUI), signed and notarized
- Current version
- 1.46.0
- Distribution
- Universal DMG via GitHub Releases, automatic updates through Sparkle
- Interface languages
- French and English
- Network behaviour
- Local-first — the application is fully usable offline
- Website
- obscuraflow.app
- Press contact
- contact@obscuraflow.app
Boilerplate
Three lengths, quote them as they are.
Copyable without rewriting. If you need a different length or a particular angle, write to us rather than assembling fragments.
Short
55 wordsObscura Flow is a native, local-first macOS application for cataloging and preserving photographic archives. It combines verified import, EXIF, IPTC, and XMP metadata, Lightroom Classic catalog migration, re-checked SHA-256 checksums, and 3-2-1 backup to remote storage or a NAS. It is built for photographers, studios, and heritage institutions.
Long
126 wordsObscura Flow is a native macOS application built for a specific problem: a photograph doesn't survive because it is backed up, but because it stays readable, documented, and verifiable after the software that produced it. It is local-first, with no dependency on an online service, and covers the full chain — import verified before the source is erased, durable identifiers, EXIF, IPTC, and XMP metadata written by merging sidecars, read-only Lightroom Classic catalog migration, SHA-256 checksums re-checked in audit campaigns, and 3-2-1 backup to S3, Backblaze B2, Cloudflare R2, or a NAS with resumable transfers. Since version 1.34 it also documents holdings as a catalogue raisonné: works and prints as distinct entities, attribution with a degree of certainty, provenance, and Ed25519-signed certificates verifiable independently of the software.
Editorial angle
What sets the product apart.
Four technical commitments with concrete consequences, rather than adjectives.
Local-first, not cloud-first
The catalog and the images live on the machine. No account is required to work, and the application stays fully usable offline. Remote backup is a chosen destination, not a mandatory route.
Default deny as a principle
Since version 1.34, provenance carried over from an older data model is confidential by default and does not enter a report until a human has reviewed it. A migration cannot know what a curator considers publishable, and a purchase price or a living buyer's identity are commercial and personal data.
Evidence verifiable without us
Checksums are SHA-256; certificates are Ed25519-signed over a canonical projection of the content. A third party can reimplement verification without Obscura Flow — that's a precondition of preservation, not a sales point.
Documented exit by construction
Flat CSV inventory export, LIDO 1.1 and CIDOC CRM exports for institutional exchange. The cost of leaving is part of the product: a collection must not depend on the software that built it.
Origin
A tool born from a real archive.
Obscura Flow was initiated by Solomon Jamy Brown, a photographer whose work questions the memory and trace of the image. While organizing his own archive, he ran into a question that went beyond filing: how do you guarantee these images will still be readable, documented, and verifiable in ten, twenty, or fifty years.
That question, rather than a market gap, sets the product's priorities — which is why it treats preservation as the core subject rather than an option.
The work of Solomon Jamy BrownScreenshots
Screenshots supplied on request.
We would rather send you captures taken on a representative collection than publish the ones illustrating this site.
The screenshots on the product pages are taken on a demo library: around fifteen photographs, counters at zero, a dashboard showing no backup coverage because nothing has been archived yet. That reads fine as a thumbnail in a montage, and misleadingly full-page in an article.
Write to us with the screens and format you need: we supply full-resolution captures taken on a release build and a representative collection, with an exact caption of what they show.
Reproduction terms: free to use in editorial coverage of Obscura Flow, without cropping that would change the meaning of the interface and without retouching the displayed content.
Request screenshotsBrand assets
Name and icon.
The name is written “Obscura Flow”, two words, two capitals. No italics, no all-caps, no contraction to “ObscuraFlow”.
- Do not alter the icon's proportions, colours, or corner radius.
- Do not embed it in another logo or place it beside a third-party mark in a way that suggests a partnership.
- Leave clear space around the icon at least equal to a quarter of its width.
- For print use or a vector format, write to us and we'll supply the right file.
Milestones
What shipped, version by version.
An extract of the public history. The full detail is published on the site changelog.
- 1.24Lightroom Classic catalog migration (`.lrcat`), opened read-only.
- 1.29Pinned-key trust anchor, signing-key backup, hardened integrity checks.
- 1.30Native Help Center with offline-readable documentation.
- 1.32Professional report engine: table of contents, catalogue indexes, verification QR codes, PDF/A export.
- 1.34Catalogue raisonné foundation: attribution, prints, provenance, exhibitions, verifiable certificate.
- 1.36LIDO 1.1 and CIDOC CRM exports for exchange with heritage institutions.
- 1.37Registry publication for certificates and in-app revocation.
- 1.46.0Photo ↔ artwork links and certificate issuance from the artwork record.
Clarifications
What we do not claim.
This section exists to save you a good-faith error. A guarantee implied but absent would cost us more than a missing feature.
- Obscura Flow does not show a trust badge in Acrobat: certificate signing is a detached Ed25519 signature, not a PAdES signature issued by a qualified trust service provider.
- A signature without third-party timestamping carries a self-declared date. RFC 3161 timestamping is designed but not yet shipped.
- A revoked certificate still verifies cryptographically: only its state changed. That's why the online registry exists, and why the limit is printed on the document.
- The catalogue raisonné currently targets a single author or estate, on a single workstation. The multi-user institutional target is deferred, not delivered.
- No public pricing is announced and consumer downloads are not open: DMG builds are distributed through GitHub Releases.
Press contact
Interview requests, additional screenshots, trial access, or checking a claim before publication: write to contact@obscuraflow.app. We would rather correct a fact before it runs than after.
Decision
Build an archive that stays understandable.
Tell us about your context before the public opening of downloads and commercial offers.