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AI agents and MCP

Updated 2026-11-04

On the Mac, RAF Film Lab can be driven by an AI agent such as Claude or Codex. The agent searches your library, looks at your photos, changes their looks, recipes and edits, culls, files them into albums and exports them, through the same paths as the app itself. Every change shows in the app as it happens, syncs like your own, and can be undone.

What you can ask

Agents are good at the work the editor makes tedious: anything rule-based, done to many photos, or done by looking and adjusting again and again.

Ask in your own words; you don't need to name the app. RAF Film Lab tells connected agents that it holds your photo library, so a request about your photos, imports, ratings, albums, looks or recipes goes to it.

Sample prompts

Finding and looking

• “Show me the last 5 photos I imported.”
• “How many photos from my X-T5 did I import this week, and which looks are they in?”
• “What recipe was my photo DSCF1234 shot with?”

Looks and edits

• “Find my four-star photos from the last import, set them to Classic Chrome, and warm them up a little. Show me one before and after.”
• “Apply this recipe to the photos in my Kyoto album:” followed by a recipe pasted from a forum post, a share link, or the name of one of your saved recipes.
• “Make these thirty frames consistent with my photo DSCF1234.”
• “Straighten and auto-tone everything from yesterday's import.”
• “Darken the sky a little in my landscapes from Saturday, and give them a gentle S-curve.”
• “Brighten the subject in DSCF1234 and add a soft vignette around it.”
• “Save how DSCF1234 looks now as a snapshot, then try it in Acros. Make a virtual copy in Classic Negative too, so I can compare.”

Culling and organising

• “Cull Saturday's import: reject anything out of focus, pick the best five and give them five stars.”
• “Find the bursts in the last import and keep the sharpest frame of each, with everyone's eyes open.”
• “Which photos from the wedding are badly overexposed?”
• “Import the new RAFs in my import folder into an album called Lisbon.”
• “Put my picks from the last import into a new album called Lisbon.”

Cameras and recipes

• “Which cameras have I shot with, and which film simulations doesn't my X-T3 have?”
• “Save the recipe of my photo DSCF1234 as Golden Hour, with a little more grain.”
• “What's on my camera's custom settings? Save any I don't have yet.”
• “Put my Golden Hour recipe in C4 on my camera.”
• “Give me a link to share my Kodachrome recipe.”
• “Read the recipe in this screenshot in my import folder and save it.”
• “Export my Golden Hour recipe as an X RAW Studio profile for my X-T5.”

Exporting and undoing

• “Export every pick in the Blog album at 2048 pixels into a blog folder.”
• “What have you changed in my photos so far? Undo the last one.”

If the agent looks somewhere else

Coding agents such as Codex and Claude Code can also read the files in the folder they're working in. Given a bare file name like “DSCF1234”, Codex may search that folder instead. Saying photo (“my photo DSCF1234”) is usually enough; naming RAF Film Lab always is.

To settle it for good, tell your agent app once. Add this line to its standing instructions: ~/.codex/AGENTS.md for Codex, ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md for Claude Code, or your personal or project instructions in Claude Desktop:

My photos are in RAF Film Lab. For anything about my photos, use its tools, not files on disk.

The agent sees each photo through previews the app renders for it, so it judges what the photo looks like, not just its settings.

Agents connect over the Model Context Protocol (MCP), an open standard supported by Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Codex and many other AI apps. The MCP server is part of the Mac app. On iPhone and iPad, the same actions are available in Shortcuts.

Turning agents on

Agents are off until you turn them on. Open Settings (⌘,) and find Agents:

• Let AI agents use the library turns the server on.
• Agents can sets how far they may go:
  • View Only (the default): search, read settings and see previews.
  • View and Edit: also change looks, recipes and edits, add masks and curves, keep snapshots and virtual copies, rate, flag, label, make and rename albums, save and change recipes, save recipes to a connected camera, and import RAFs from a folder you choose.
  • View, Edit and Export: also export photos and recipe files, into a folder you choose.
  • View, Edit, Export and Delete: also delete albums, recipes and snapshots, and remove photos from the library.
  A connected agent sees the new level straight away; it isn't offered what it isn't allowed.
• Status says whether the server is ready and which agent is connected.

Connecting Claude, Codex and other clients

RAF Film Lab comes with a small program, raffilmlab-mcp, inside the app. AI apps start it to talk to the library, and it opens RAF Film Lab in the background if it isn't running. Settings › Agents has buttons that copy the exact setup for wherever your app is installed; use those rather than typing the path. Pick your agent app:

claude mcp add --scope user raf-film-lab -- "/Applications/RAF Film Lab.app/Contents/Helpers/raffilmlab-mcp"

{
    "mcpServers": {
      "raf-film-lab": {
        "command": "/Applications/RAF Film Lab.app/Contents/Helpers/raffilmlab-mcp"
      }
    }
  }

codex mcp add raf-film-lab -- "/Applications/RAF Film Lab.app/Contents/Helpers/raffilmlab-mcp"

[mcp_servers.raf-film-lab]
  command = "/Applications/RAF Film Lab.app/Contents/Helpers/raffilmlab-mcp"

{
    "mcpServers": {
      "raf-film-lab": {
        "type": "stdio",
        "command": "/Applications/RAF Film Lab.app/Contents/Helpers/raffilmlab-mcp"
      }
    }
  }

{
    "servers": {
      "raf-film-lab": {
        "type": "stdio",
        "command": "/Applications/RAF Film Lab.app/Contents/Helpers/raffilmlab-mcp"
      }
    }
  }

{
    "mcpServers": {
      "raf-film-lab": {
        "command": "/Applications/RAF Film Lab.app/Contents/Helpers/raffilmlab-mcp"
      }
    }
  }

What agents can do

What an agent can do depends on what you allow in Settings. Photo ids come from search_photos, and changes can take up to 500 photos at once.

Agents never change your original RAF files, and read files only from the import folder you choose. They can't paint brush masks or heal spots: those need a hand on the photo.

Looks and recipes

A new look or recipe is developed again in the background, on your Mac, the way Develop with Film Lab does, so the library and exports show it. Previews show the change straight away, before that develop finishes. To get the camera's own render instead, plug in the camera that shot the photos with CONNECTION MODE set to USB RAW CONV./BACKUP RESTORE and ask the agent to develop in the camera: a change can develop there directly, or develop_photos can develop photos there afterwards. The develop shows in the Develop panel, where you can pause or stop it too.

Undo and safety

• Changes show as they happen. A photo open in the editor updates in front of you, and the library's thumbnails follow.
• Changes to photos and recipes can be undone. Ask it to undo, or, for the photo open in the editor, press ⌘Z: an agent's edit is an undo step like your own. If you've changed a photo or recipe since, undo leaves your change alone.
• So can new albums, imports, virtual copies and deletions. Undo deletes an album or virtual copy an agent made, takes an import back out of the library, and brings back a deleted album, recipe or snapshot.
• Three things undo doesn't cover. Removing photos from the library, which is why agents can only do it once you allow deleting, and must confirm each time. A new recipe stays until you delete it in Recipes. A recipe saved to your camera replaces what the slot held; that is backed up on your Mac first, and the agent says if the camera didn't keep a setting.
• Undo lasts while the app is open. It remembers the last 50 changes agents made.
• Agents can check first. Every change can be tried as a dry run, which says what would change without changing it. A change to more than 100 photos at once is refused unless the agent confirms it.
• Changes sync to your other devices like your own edits, when iCloud sync is on.

Exporting

Agents export only into a folder you choose: set Agents can to View, Edit and Export, then click Choose… beside Export Folder. Agents can make folders inside it, but can't write anywhere else.

• Exports never replace a file. If DSCF1234.jpg is already there, the new one is DSCF1234 2.jpg.
• An export runs in the background. The agent can follow it and stop it; files already written stay.
• Agent exports count towards the free exports like any other, and an export larger than what's left is refused before it starts.

Importing

Agents import only from a folder you choose: set Agents can to View and Edit or higher, then click Choose… beside Import Folder. A memory card or the folder your camera's photos land in works well.

• An import is like one you make with the Import button: RAFs already in the library are skipped, and the new ones are the Last Import. On your Mac they stay where they are.
• Agents can import the whole folder, folders inside it, or single files, and can't reach anything outside it.
• Recipe files and pictures of recipes in the folder can be read with read_recipe.

Prompts and resources

Some clients offer MCP prompts as ready-made tasks, often from a menu or a / command:

• Match a Look: make photos look like a reference photo, then fine-tune each one.
• Cull Photos: rate, pick and reject against criteria you give, starting from the bursts and the measured focus, exposure and faces.
• Apply a Recipe from Text: read a recipe written out in a post or note, check it, and apply it.

Clients that support resources can attach photos and lists to a conversation: photo://{id} for a photo's details, photo://{id}/preview for its preview, and library://looks, library://albums and library://recipes.

Shortcuts and Siri

On iPhone, iPad and Mac, RAF Film Lab adds actions to the Shortcuts app: Find Photos, Set Look, Apply Recipe, Rate Photos, Flag Photos, Add Photos to Album, Export Photos and Undo Last Library Change. Chain them: find last import's picks, set them to a look, export them, and save the files wherever the next action puts them. Some work with Siri too, such as “Find photos in RAF Film Lab”.

Shortcuts don't depend on the Agents setting; you build them yourself. Their changes can be undone the same way.

Privacy

• The server isn't on the network. It listens only to programs on your Mac, and only while agents are turned on.
• What an agent reads, including the previews it asks for, goes to the AI service your agent app uses, such as Anthropic for Claude or OpenAI for Codex, under that service's terms. RAF Film Lab sends nothing to us, and agents never receive your RAF files.
• Measuring photos, finding bursts and reading recipes from pictures happen on your Mac, with Apple's Vision.
• View Only lets an agent see your library without being able to change it.

See the privacy policy.

Troubleshooting

“RAF Film Lab isn't accepting agents”

The agent couldn't reach the app. Check that Let AI agents use the library is on in Settings › Agents, then reconnect the server in your agent app (in Claude Code or Codex, /mcp; in Claude Desktop, restart it).

The agent says it can't change, export or delete

Raise Agents can in Settings › Agents. The agent is told, and sees the new tools.

“No export folder is set” or “No import folder is set”

Choose one beside Export Folder or Import Folder in Settings › Agents.

A preview doesn't show a recipe change yet in the library

The photo is still developing in the background. Its develop status in get_photo says developing until it's done, and exports wait for it.

Moved the app?

The helper's path changes with it. Copy the command or config from Settings › Agents again and update your agent app.