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Why RAWdemption exists
RAWdemption started when I stopped paying for Lightroom. What I needed was simple: go through my photos, keep the good ones, adjust them, export.
The free editors I tried were capable, but none of them suited the way I work. So I built one, and it's the editor I use for my own photography.
It's free, and it isn't a trial. I plan to keep working on it for years. Your photos stay in their folders, and your edits sit beside them.
Free forever, for anyone.
It's just me making it. If you find it useful, Patreon is how you can help.
How it works
From the card to the export, the way I do it.
The details
Every button and slider responds straight away.
How your RAW files are developed
RAWdemption has no colour science of its own. Every RAW file is developed by Apple's RAW engine, the one built into macOS that Photos and Preview use. What I wrote sits around it.
Apple's engine
- Reads the file and demosaics it at full sensor resolution
- Applies Apple's colour profile for your camera
- White balance, Exposure and Sharpness, with Apple's own controls
- Noise reduction, at Apple's default for your camera
- The final rendering: Apple's tone curve and highlight roll-off
RAWdemption
- Shadows, Highlights, Contrast, White, Black and Dehaze, on the linear, demosaiced data inside Apple's engine, after white balance and before its tone curve. Recovered highlights come from the raw data, not from a finished picture.
- Clarity, Brightness, colour, masks, black & white, vignette and grain, after Apple's rendering, in linear light
- Gamut mapping: colours outside sRGB or Display P3 lose saturation at the same hue instead of being clipped
- Crop, the library, copy and paste, export
In practice:
- With no edits, a RAW looks much like it does in Apple Photos. It won't match Lightroom, Capture One or your camera's JPEG, and those don't match each other either.
- Colour for each camera is Apple's work, not mine.
- There are no camera-matching looks (film simulations, picture styles) and no camera or lens profiles of my own.
- New cameras arrive when Apple adds them, usually with a macOS update. If Photos can't open your files yet, RAWdemption can't either.
- Exports go through exactly the same steps, at full resolution unless you pick a smaller size: JPEG or HEIC in 8 bits, TIFF or PNG in 16 bits, sRGB or Display P3.
Your profile
Your photos already record how you shoot: which cameras and lenses, which focal lengths, what time of day. RAWdemption puts that together in a profile. It's worked out on your Mac and stays there.
The full profile is a thank-you for supporters on Patreon (€2 a month). Editing, exporting and everything else are free and unlimited, for everyone.
What's in it
The tools I use most. Click a card to play it again.
Favourites .
Press . to heart a photo. Hearts are saved next to the photos, so they move with the folder.
Copy & paste edits ⇧⌘V
Copy the edit from one photo and paste it on the rest. Crops and masks stay with their photo.
Masks M
Brush, linear and radial. Each mask gets its own exposure, colour and clarity.
Crop & straighten C
Common ratios or free, plus straighten. It never leaves empty corners.
Border & date
Optional white border, and the capture date stamped in the corner like an old film camera.
Where it's going
I work on RAWdemption as often as I can and plan to keep going for years. Updates come often, and most of them are small.
Regular updates
Updates install from inside the app, signed and checked first. Problems people report get fixed before anything new.
Faster, lighter
I keep working on speed and memory, so it runs well on older Apple silicon Macs too, not only new ones.
New tools, slowly
I add a tool when it makes editing better, not just longer. I'd rather have fewer tools that work well.
Requests from supporters
Supporters on Patreon can request features. I add the ones that would make RAWdemption better for everyone, when the app can support them properly.
Windows, maybe
Once the Mac version is mature, I'd like to look at a Windows version. No dates.
Free stays free
No subscription later, no paid version, no ads. Nothing that's free today will ever be put behind a payment.
Recent releases
Questions
Will it stay free?
Yes. Editing and exporting are free and always will be: no limits, no subscription, no ads, and nothing that's free today will be put behind a payment later. Patreon is optional. It lets me spend more time on RAWdemption, and as a thank-you, supporters get their full profile and can request features.
Did you use AI to make it?
Yes. I'm a photographer, not a professional developer, and I wrote RAWdemption with AI coding assistants, mostly Claude. Without them, a RAW editor made by one person in their spare time wouldn't exist.
I'll keep using them. They make fixing bugs and adding features much faster, and I'd like RAWdemption to become one of the best free photo editors around. It's a trade-off, and I'm fine with it.
Your photos never go near AI. RAWdemption doesn't use it to edit or analyse anything, and nothing leaves your Mac.
If the way it was made puts you off, that's fine. Personally, I dislike Adobe's subscription a lot more.
Which cameras does it open?
RAWdemption develops RAW files with the RAW engine built into macOS (more on that), so it opens what Apple Photos opens: most cameras from Canon, Fujifilm, Leica, Nikon, Olympus/OM System, Panasonic, Pentax/Ricoh, Sony and more, plus DNG. Apple publishes the full list on its support site (“Digital camera RAW formats supported by macOS”), and new cameras arrive with macOS updates. JPEG, HEIC, PNG and TIFF open too.
Why Apple's RAW engine and not your own?
Because it's good, Apple keeps it up to date for hundreds of cameras, and it's already on your Mac. Writing a demosaicer and profiling cameras properly is years of work for a team. The downside is that colour is Apple's interpretation, and a brand-new camera has to wait for macOS to support it.
Will my photos look like they do in Lightroom?
Not exactly. Lightroom starts from Adobe's profiles, RAWdemption from Apple's. Neither is more correct than the other, but you'll see differences in contrast and in some colours. If you're used to Adobe Standard, give it a few photos.
Is it scene-referred?
Partly. The tone controls (Shadows, Highlights, Contrast, White, Black, Dehaze) work on linear data before Apple's tone curve. Apple's rendering then takes the photo to display, and Clarity, colour and masks work after that, in linear light. It isn't a fully scene-referred pipeline like darktable's.
Does it change my photos?
Never. Originals are only read. Each edit is a small recipe saved in a hidden .lightbox folder beside the photos, along with your favourites, so edits travel with the folder to another drive or Mac. Exports are always new files.
Which Macs does it run on?
Macs with Apple silicon (M1 or later) on macOS 13 Ventura or later. 16 GB of memory is recommended for smooth editing of 24-megapixel RAW files; Intel Macs aren't supported.
Why does installing need Terminal?
macOS only opens an app downloaded in a browser if Apple has notarised it, which takes a paid developer membership. RAWdemption is free and made by one person, so it isn't notarised, and macOS calls it “damaged” instead. The Terminal command installs the very same app without the “downloaded” label that triggers this. The install script is short enough to read, and every update after that is signed and checked by the app before it installs.
Can it replace Lightroom?
For a lot of hobbyists, yes. It covers what I used Lightroom for day to day. It doesn't do catalogues across many drives, tethered shooting, print layouts or plugins, and I don't plan to add them.
Is it finished?
No. It's in public beta and gets better with each release. If something breaks or looks wrong, Settings › Feedback sends it straight to me from inside the app. I read every report.
Install RAWdemption
Version 0.9.27 beta · 2.8 MB download, 7.0 MB installed · Apple silicon · macOS 13 or later · 16 GB memory recommended · RAW, JPEG and HEIC
The quickest way. Open Terminal (press ⌘ Space and type Terminal), paste this line and press Return:
curl -fsSL https://rawdemption.com/install.sh | bashIt downloads RAWdemption, checks that it arrived complete and intact, and puts it in Applications. It never asks for your password and installs nothing else. Read the script first if you like; it's short.
- Download RAWdemption (2.8 MB) and move it to Applications.
- Run this once in Terminal, so macOS lets it open:
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/RAWdemption.app
SHA-256 of the zip: a63d6afa5e73c39bfa0715761e856fbd7852cd507a292821e82b2b830a7d69cb
Why not a plain download button? I make RAWdemption on my own and give it away. macOS only opens a browser-downloaded app straight away if Apple has notarised it, which needs a paid yearly developer membership, so for now it blocks RAWdemption and calls it “damaged”. Nothing is wrong with the file.
Each way above does what you would do by hand: put the app in Applications and tell macOS you chose to open it. After that, every update is signed with RAWdemption's own key, and the app checks that signature before installing anything.
This is the editor I use every day. It's still in beta, and there are cameras and Macs I haven't tested. If something breaks or looks wrong, Settings › Feedback sends me a note, with the crash report if it quit, right from the app.