Why I Built Scrapbook

I spent most of my career as a graphic designer. Years of juggling files, project folders, client archives, visual references. Hunting for one specific image among thousands. Extracting a color from a photo to pass on to a printer. Organizing without losing track.

When I retired, I did something simple: I cancelled my Adobe subscriptions. After years of paying monthly for a suite I was using a fraction of, the time had come to turn the page. And that's when the problem became concrete.

The tool that disappeared

There was once a remarkable piece of software on Mac: iView MediaPro. For those who never knew it, it was exactly what a media manager should be — fast, lightweight, native macOS, built for creatives. Not for studio photographers with NAS servers, not for agencies with dedicated IT budgets. For graphic designers, independent photographers, people who work alone or in small teams with their files.

In 2006, Microsoft acquired iView and rebranded the software as Expression Media. The integration into the Microsoft world gradually distanced the tool from its Mac roots. In 2010, Phase One picked it up and launched Media Pro — a version more oriented towards professional photographers, with large catalogs and advanced RAW workflows.

To migrate, Phase One recommended switching to Capture One — an excellent piece of software, but one that requires a subscription and does much more (and costs much more) than most graphic designers need to simply browse and organize their files.

Since 2018, that niche has remained empty on Mac. Adobe Bridge exists, but it requires Creative Cloud. Cross-platform alternatives work, but none of them are truly native macOS in the deeper sense of the word.

Going back to learning

Retirement is also an opportunity to do things you've been putting off. For me, that meant learning to develop Mac apps. Not to make it a career — but because I had a concrete problem to solve, and after decades of using tools built by others, I wanted to build one myself.

Swift and SwiftUI are languages designed for exactly that. Apple has done remarkable work to make macOS development accessible. I learned, stumbled, started over. And gradually, Scrapbook took shape — the result of my cogitations, as I like to say.

What I kept, what I added

From iView's spirit, I kept the essentials: lightness, speed, focus on the file rather than the catalog. Scrapbook works with your existing folders — no importing, no indexing, no database to manage. You open a folder, you see your files.

But in 2026, needs have evolved. RAW files are everywhere. So are 3D files — USDZ, OBJ, GLB. Designers extract color palettes from reference photos. They work simultaneously in InDesign, Photoshop, After Effects and need to drag and drop in a single gesture.

So I added what iView was missing: automatic color palette extraction (K-means++ algorithm in CIE LAB space, export as HEX, CMYK, RAL, .ase), interactive 3D preview, a complete EXIF and IPTC metadata inspector, customizable color labels, custom extension filters.

Pricing as a statement of values

I could have made it a subscription. That's the model that maximizes revenue on paper. But as a former graphic designer who just cancelled his Adobe subscriptions, I know that feeling too well: paying every month for a tool you use maybe twice a week.

Scrapbook is sold as a one-time purchase. You try it free for a month. If the tool fits your needs, you buy it once. That's it. The price varies slightly by country — Apple adjusts automatically based on local pricing zones — but the idea stays the same: pay once, use forever.

No account required. No data sent anywhere. Your files stay on your Mac, as they always have been.

What comes next

Scrapbook 1.0 is a solid starting point, not a final version. There are features in the pipeline — font recognition in particular — and improvements to come on search and libraries.

What I want to avoid is doing everything halfway in order to do a lot. iView was good because it did a few things perfectly. I'd rather ship a feature when it's truly ready than deliver something half-baked.

If you knew iView or MediaPro, if you're looking for a simple tool to manage your creative files on Mac without subscriptions or cloud, Scrapbook is built for you.