Summary
We review a newly developed open-source Lightroom clone called Rapid Raw, created by a hobbyist developer in just two weeks ! Very briefly – The app’s features, interface, and functionality, highlight its promising potential despite its early stage of development.
Rapid Raw offers a simple, clean user interface with basic photo editing tools such as exposure, contrast, curves, temperature, saturation, noise reduction, clarity, and vignette controls. It supports nested folder structures, photo rating, batch copying of settings, and direct exporting in multiple formats. The app also includes cropping, masking tools with basic AI subject detection, and presets for saving edits.
Some sliders are overly powerful or less effective, and AI masking isn’t yet refined, BUT 2 weeks ! The developer is to be commended on the app’s progress so far.
We encourage you to download, test, and provide feedback to the developer.
Key Insights
- Rapid Raw is an open-source photo editing app developed in two weeks by a single hobbyist.
- The app supports nested folder indexing, showing all subfolders within a root directory.
- The user interface is clean, uncluttered, and easy to navigate, avoiding overly complex designs like some other open-source editors.
- Basic photo editing tools include exposure, contrast, white/black points, curves, temperature, tint, saturation, sharpness, noise reduction, clarity, dehaze, structure, vignette, and grain.
- Temperature and tint sliders lack numeric Kelvin values, relying on intuitive directional adjustments.
- The app includes cropping with standard ratios, custom size settings, and photo rotation.
- Masking tools offer linear gradients and rudimentary AI subject masking, though the AI is still in early development.
- Users can save custom presets for recurring edit styles.
- Export options include JPEG, PNG, and TIFF with adjustable quality settings.
- The developer plans to add advanced generative AI features like fills and content expansion.
Key Learning Points
- Open-source apps can be rapidly developed with meaningful functionality, even within a short timeframe.
- Clean, minimalist user interface design helps accessibility and usability, especially for novice users.
- Nested folder support is essential for effective photo organization in editing applications.
- Editing sliders must balance power and subtlety to allow precise adjustments without overwhelming the user.
- Lack of numeric values on sliders (like temperature in Kelvin) can be a usability challenge, requiring intuitive design or future improvements.
- AI-powered masking tools are promising
It’s available on Windows, Mac, and Linux here; The potential is there for it to be a future open-source alternative to Adobe Lightroom.