Everything you need to get started with CodeReplacements.ai.
Follow these steps to set up CodeReplacements.ai and start captioning your game photos.
Download CodeReplacements.ai from the download page and drag the app to your Applications folder. Launch it from your Applications or Spotlight.
Sign in using your CodeReplacements.com credentials. Your existing subscription works — no separate account needed. If you don't have a subscription, sign up here.
Go to Settings and add the folder your camera writes to. This is typically your card reader folder or tethered capture directory. The app monitors this folder for new images automatically.
On the Dashboard, pick Home and Away teams for your game. Rosters sync automatically from CodeReplacements.com, giving the AI the context it needs for accurate identification.
Click Start Processing (Cmd+Shift+P). Drop photos into the hot folder and captions appear automatically. Review identifications, make edits, and captions are written directly to your image files.
CodeReplacements.ai is a patent-pending macOS desktop app for sports photographers that uses AI to automatically identify players in game photos and generate professional captions. It combines a 7-signal identification pipeline with a free Advanced CodeReplacements caption editor that uses the same proven captioning system as CodeReplacements.com.
Yes. CodeReplacements.ai requires an active CodeReplacements.com subscription for access to the roster database. Your existing subscription works — no additional subscription is needed for the app itself.
CodeReplacements.ai is currently macOS only (requires macOS 26.1 or later). Windows and iOS versions are coming soon.
Our AI player identification technology is patent pending. This means a patent application has been filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office covering the novel methods used in our multi-signal identification pipeline.
The app uses a patent-pending 7-signal identification pipeline: face recognition via a multi-model ensemble (3 independent models with weighted voting), 4-source OCR jersey number detection (deep learning digit reader, object detector, Vision text recognition, and pose estimation), skin tone consistency verification, play-by-play integration, session-level player tracking, automatic escalation for difficult images, and famous player recognition. These signals are combined to produce accurate identifications with confidence scores.
Standard processing costs 1 credit per image and is recommended for most situations. Premium processing costs 3 credits per image and provides the highest accuracy for challenging conditions. You select your preferred tier in the app's Settings.
No. Credits never expire. Purchase them when you need them and use them at your own pace across any number of games.
No. CodeReplacements.ai handles all AI processing. You don't need to set up API keys, configure models, or manage any AI infrastructure. Just purchase credits and the app takes care of the rest.
Configure your hot folder in Settings by pointing it to your card reader folder or tethered capture directory. The app watches for new files and processes them automatically. Supported formats: CR2, CR3, NEF, ARW, DNG, RAF, ORF, RW2, JPG, JPEG, PNG, and TIFF.
The app automatically batches images for processing. This means you can process photos during the game as they arrive — images are captioned continuously as you shoot.
It's a free desktop caption editor included for all subscribers. It uses the same proven captioning system as CodeReplacements.com with code expansion — type \h23\ to expand home team jersey #23 into the full player name and details. It's the same workflow you know from the website, but faster and native on your Mac.
Identifications are color-coded by confidence: green indicates high confidence, yellow indicates medium confidence, and red indicates low confidence. Low-confidence identifications should be reviewed before writing captions.
Yes! You can start with AI identification and then use code expansion to make corrections or add players that the AI missed. The two systems work together seamlessly.
For JPEG, TIFF, and DNG files, the app writes embedded IPTC/XMP metadata directly into the file. For RAW files (CR2, CR3, NEF, ARW, RAF, ORF, RW2), the app creates XMP sidecar files alongside the originals.
The app writes standard IPTC/XMP metadata (caption, headline, keywords, credit, etc.) — the actual image data is never modified. For RAW files, metadata is written to sidecar files so the original is completely untouched.
Yes. The IPTC/XMP metadata written by CodeReplacements.ai is fully compatible with Photo Mechanic, Lightroom, Capture One, and any other software that reads standard IPTC/XMP metadata.
The following keyboard shortcuts are available:
Standard processing uses 1 credit per image and is recommended for most situations. Premium processing uses 3 credits per image and provides the highest accuracy for challenging conditions. You select your preferred tier in the app's Settings.
Credits can be purchased at CodeReplacements.com/amember/signup. Credits never expire and can be used across any number of games.
Make sure you're running macOS 26.1 or later. If the app was downloaded from the web, you may need to right-click and select "Open" the first time to bypass Gatekeeper. If problems persist, try deleting the app and re-downloading from the download page.
Verify your credentials work at CodeReplacements.com. Make sure your subscription is active. If you recently changed your password, use the new one. Contact us if issues persist.
Verify the hot folder path is correct in Settings and that the folder exists. Make sure processing is started (Cmd+Shift+P). Check that your files are one of the supported formats: CR2, CR3, NEF, ARW, DNG, RAF, ORF, RW2, JPG, JPEG, PNG, or TIFF.
Make sure you've selected the correct Home and Away teams for the game on the Dashboard. Sync your rosters (Cmd+Shift+R) to ensure you have the latest data. Try switching to Premium tier in Settings for higher accuracy. Face recognition improves over time as the system builds embeddings — sync embeddings with Cmd+Shift+E. Also check that your photos have reasonable resolution and lighting.
Credits should appear immediately. Try signing out and back in to refresh your account. If the issue persists, contact us with your purchase confirmation.
Check your internet connection and make sure your subscription is active. Try manually syncing with Cmd+Shift+R. If rosters still don't appear, sign out and sign back in to refresh your session.
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