RapidRAW: A non-destructive and GPU-accelerated RAW image editor

https://github.com/CyberTimon/RapidRAW

by l8rlump • 1 year ago

278 126 1 year ago

github.com

mrbluecoat• 1 year ago

a personal challenge at the age of 18 ... with the support from Google Gemini

I'm no AI fanboy, but it's neat to see some dreams come true because of it.

tux1968• 1 year ago

He's no doubt a talented young man as well. Google Gemini would be much less helpful in many other people's hands; kudos to him. That said, at some point the people so dismissive about the capabilities of current AI systems, will have to admit that they're quite powerful indeed, even with their limitations.

cybertimom5• 1 year ago

Thank you for the feedback. Yes - Gemini was a big help but as I also work / train LLM's I know very well how to use them and their limitations. With this, I can use them much more efficiently.

kookamamie• 1 year ago

I found it unnecessary to highlight their age.

rrgok• 1 year ago

Yeah me too, sometimes it feels like some marketing technique that I’m not aware the purpose of it.

dylan6043• 1 year ago

Why the decision to store edits in sidecar instead of the app’s library? I’m sure there’s pros/cons that were considered, so curious how the pros won out.

cybertimom5• 1 year ago

Its pretty simple to explain: Imagine you have your images in a folder and you rename this folder, without RapidRAW knowing this. It would fail to associate the edits with the image. Lightroom does it the same way. Or imagine you‘re editing on your computer and want to move to your laptop to continue editing - the edits would only be saved on the computer, if it‘s only saved in the app library.

dylan6043• 1 year ago

My folders do not have a series of sidecars written by Lightroom. The edits are stored within Lightroom’s library. I have other programs that use sidecar files, but Lightroom does not. Maybe it’s a preference, but I’ve never looked. If I move/rename a folder Lightroom was looking at, it asks me to relink it when I next open Lightroom. It’s not an earth shattering situation to fix.

ethan_smith• 1 year ago

Sidecar files (like XMP) are the industry standard for non-destructive RAW editing - they maintain file portability between different apps and preserve your original files. Library-based approaches offer better performance and organization but create vendor lock-in and complicate backups.

vladvasiliu3• 1 year ago

Aren't edits app-specific anyway? Last I tried (a month or so ago) sharing edits between darktable and lightroom didn't exactly work.

runxel• 1 year ago

That's why I love DNGs. No Sidecar file to lose! Just one file, and still non-destructive.

dylan6043• 1 year ago

Great, so if I use an app that creates XMP files, this app is going to create a second sidecar called rrdata. So I guess I could have amended that to the original question on why create a different sidecar than the images’ default.

Xevion• 1 year ago

Wild, I was literally just today looking at this repository to see how I could do raw image thumbnailing in Rust. Coincidences...

bjelkeman-again• 1 year ago

Looks very interesting. How much work would it be to get this code signed for the Mac?

notpushkin• 1 year ago

Not much, but you might want to donate to help the author offset the Apple Developer account cost :^)

cybertimom5• 1 year ago

I think it's pretty simple. I'm just focused on the core features right now but I definitely plan to sign it in the next 1-2 weeks. Thanks :)

9999000009992• 1 year ago

I wouldn't make the Apple Developer dance a priority unless you intend to sell a commercial signed version.

Few reasons.

1. It's 100$ a year, which isn't pocket change when it's making you no revenue.

2. Apple likes to randomly deny developer accounts.

3. They have no issue with outright rejecting apps with vague reasoning.

4. Plenty of high quality raw editing apps already exist for OSX.

If someone really wants to use it on OSX you've provided clear instructions.

polishdude20• 1 year ago

Hey congrats on the app! This is just what I'm looking for :)

Just installed it on my m1 mac and opened a folder of RAW files. The initial loading lagged my whole macbook. Couldn't even open the dock. Once the thumbnails all loaded it's better but not as buttery smooth as I would have hoped! Would love to know what other commercial apps do that make them not lag. Is it just that they're written natively?

kamranjon• 1 year ago

If you haven’t tried ansel: https://ansel.photos/en/ or darktable: https://www.darktable.org/ I’d recommend trying them out - they are the current open source raw editing apps that perform well that are out there. It could be that this app is competitive with them, but I haven’t had a chance to try it out yet - but both ansel and darktable run well on my M1.

donatzsky2• 1 year ago

While certainly an impressive effort, it's not even close to competitive yet. As is pointed out in a comment on [1] and as can be seen from the rat piss yellow in the sky, the algorithms are very much on the naive/simple side of things.

[1] https://youtube.com/watch?v=7QymsCRNRHE

cybertimom5• 1 year ago

Thanks for trying out RapidRAW and for the feedback. Currently I optimized the app to load small-medium sized folders (e.g. 1-300 images). Its expected that the app lags for folders with more images.

Its a high priority to optimize the loading speed of large folders and you can expect an improvement in the coming days.

Kind regards, Timon

TheDong• 1 year ago

I mean, it's making 720px width jpg thumbnails using the CPU https://github.com/CyberTimon/RapidRAW/blob/fc21ede729b45d97...

And then it's sending these thumbnails back from rust to javascript as base64 encoded strings, not using a shared buffer: https://github.com/CyberTimon/RapidRAW/blob/fc21ede729b45d97...

This is the sorta stuff that native apps mostly don't do. They don't base64 an image just to send it to a different app (react) to base64 decode it (via a third app, webkit) via a slow ipc mechanism (tauri) from itself to itself, allocating 6x the chunks of memory along the way for one bit of data (the 6x are: raw data in rust, base64 data in rust, json encoded base64 in rust for tauri ipc, json encoded base64 in javascript, base64 in javascript, raw image data in webkit to finally view).

rossant2• 1 year ago

6x sounds bad. Might be a sign of vibe coding?

cybertimom5• 1 year ago

Yes you are completely right. This part is definitely not optimal yet. I haven't had lots of Tauri / Rust experience before this project.. it's on my todo list to improve. While trying to use the asset localhost protocol I ran into a lot of permission issues.

miladyincontrol• 1 year ago

Will def keep an eye on things. If theres one 'must have' feature I can request, luminosity masking? Its hard to go back to raw editors that dont have it. Its not the end all or be all to masking (ie color, saturation masking, etc) but is def one the most useful to have access to without having to bust open PS or similar.

Already having a workflow for AI based subject masking is def nice to see.

strogonoff20• 1 year ago

The best raw image processing tool I know is called “RawTherapee”. It was developed by one or more absolute colour science geeks, it is CLI-scriptable, its companion RawPedia is a treasure trove of information (I learned many basics there, including how to create DCP profiles for calibration, dark frames, flat fields, etc.), and not to make a dig (fine, to make a bit of a dig) you can see the expertise starting with how it capitalizes “raw” in its name (which is, of course, not at all an acronym, though like with “WASM” it is a common mistake).

Beware though that it tends to not abstract away a lot of technicalities, if you dig deep enough you may encounter exotic terms like “illuminant”, “demosaicing method”, “green equilibration”, “CAM16”, “PU”, “nit” and so on, but I personally love it for that even while I am still learning what half of it all means.

I’d say the only major lacking feature of RT is support for HDR output, which hopefully will be coming by way of PNG v3 and Rec. 2100 support.

mikae14• 1 year ago

Local adjustments are really difficult though, as it only supports the good ole "Nik u point" tech. For this reason only I use darktable instead.

Would really like to be able to use RawTherapee's dual-illuminant DCPs (not available in darktable).

strogonoff20• 1 year ago

I can see that it would not work well for cases like painting over parts of the image, which Lightroom et al. allow with ease. If you try to be “holistic” in your raw treatment and like me at most do a graduated filter or mask by colour, RT works well enough (the latest versions improved it a lot, too).

donatzsky2• 1 year ago

ART (Another RawTherapee) has a more Lightroom-like approach to masking that you might like better.

actionfromafar• 1 year ago

https://github.com/aurelienpierreeng/ansel there's also a fork to play with

appleaday1• 1 year ago

I like this one its simple and easy to use

strogonoff20• 1 year ago

May I ask why choose to shoot raw given simplicity and ease of use are priorities?

Sharlin4• 1 year ago

IME in photo post-processing, good UX, smooth multi-photo workflow and intuitive controls beat technical details every time.

RawTherapee is better than Darktable. But that’s a pretty low bar to clear. There are reasons people pay for Lightroom.

strogonoff20• 1 year ago

IME GUI is mainly important when you craft a new profile. In many workflows, you don’t do it very often. I create a profile once and then apply it to hundreds of frames without launching the GUI at all or mostly using it just to preview how the profile works with a particular frame and make a couple of minor tweaks.

simonmales• 1 year ago

Partner is getting into photography and I don't have the stomach to purchase some software.

I threw darktable and rawtherapee on the table but without technical grit you get nowhere really fast.

It's no my wheelhouse so they are mostly in there own.

t0bia_s3• 1 year ago

Because those open-source editors are made by coders, not photographers.

Those tools you really need for properly edit raws are hidden in blated features (multiple demosaic algorithms) or completely missing (AI masking). And UI is not user friendly.

Jaxan2• 1 year ago

I used RawTherapee a ton, but changed to Lightroom because the denoising is so much better. (I’m sure a more expensive camera would also help here, but I have what I have.) Now that I’m used to Lightroom it will be hard to switch back.

account42• 1 year ago

you can see the expertise starting with how it capitalizes “raw” in its name (which is, of course, not at all an acronym, though like with “WASM” it is a common mistake).

Language pedantry has nothing to to with photographic image processing expertise and if anything this would be a sign that the developers care more about being "right" than what users want.

strogonoff20• 1 year ago

I disagree; it shows understanding of subject area.

thrtythreeforty• 1 year ago

I mostly prefer RawTherapee's processing, with one exception: Darktable's stupidly good "filmic" emulation can beautifully recover overexposed raws that I thought were trash. It manages to make it easy to shift the entire scene one or two stops darker with just a few clicks (yes, there is data up there in raws).

I have not found an equivalent mechanism in RawTherapee. Does anyone know if it has an equivalent tool?

igouy8• 1 year ago

https://rawpedia.rawtherapee.com/Exposure#Highlight_Reconstr...

sitkack• 1 year ago

https://github.com/RawTherapee/RawTherapee

patrakov• 1 year ago

HDR output is present in ART, which is a fork of RawTherapee. But it is not really usable, as the preview will show the beyond-SDR areas as pure white or something like that. I.e., you will be working blind.

roblh• 1 year ago

RawTherapee is great in most ways, except that all of the curves for adjusting anything have absolutely catastrophically bad handling. It's so amazing having access to the Lab colour adjustments but the sliders are abysmal, impossible to make any kind of precise adjustments, impossible to reset an individual slider/point back to it's default placement, impossible to undo the last action without resetting the entire widget to its default state. It's unusable, and I'm convinced that the popularity of it would skyrocket if they'd finally just sit down and address that it's miserable to use. I would drop lightroom in a heartbeat if they made them even a little bit better.

I know it's a different space, but as a counterexample, FabFilter makes audio plugins that are the gold standard for that kind of interface and it isn't even close. Anybody making an interface for interacting with points on a curve should sit down with the free demo of FabFilters Pro-Q3 for just a few minutes to experience what's actually possible and how it should feel.

igouy8• 1 year ago

impossible to make any kind of precise adjustments

That claim does not match my experience in any way.

For example, Control Cage curves have node value adjustment to 1/1000th.

https://rawpedia.rawtherapee.com/General_Comments_About_Some...

strogonoff20• 1 year ago

I think control cage or parametric curves can be quite precise…

Springtime• 1 year ago

I'm glad there are an abundance of visual overviews in the readme. Too many readmes about GUI programs lack them (or they'll point to a site which still lacks a clear indication of how it behaves).

That said, they're all GIFs and each ~10-22MB. Making loading the readme larger than the program size itself. Embedding some video would be snappier.

dxroshan• 1 year ago

In my opinion, a web based UI for something like an image editor is a bad idea. It will be slow and resource intensive.

pvdebbe• 1 year ago

Check out color.io for reference. It is a color grading focused app but nevertheless has bells and whistles for many workflows regarding raw photos. The thing is that it is offline, runs on browser, and is much faster than Rawtherapee or Darktable on my aging PC.

zero_bias• 1 year ago

It’s not "web" in a way you mean that, it uses rust and gpu processing very heavily, up to the point where it just launched by web browser and that’s it

brcmthrowaway• 1 year ago

What is the difference between RAW and Bitmap. I thought Bitmap had no compression

cfn• 1 year ago

No an expert here but RAW is the data generated by the sensor and requires some heavy processing before you can show it on screen. A bitmap is an image format (assuming you mean the BMP files).

mkl• 1 year ago

They are different lossless image formats. What is called "raw" is quite a few different formats from different manufacturers, and they contain lossless image data from the camera sensor without significant postprocessing. They usually need some postprocessing to look "good". A "bitmap" is just pixel data, not a file format, but .bmp is a file format, which does support some compression, and usually won't contain raw camera sensor data but something ready to be displayed on a screen.

Jaxan2• 1 year ago

A big difference is bit depth. BMP normally is 8bits per pixel per channel (colour). RAW is often more bits (say 10 or 12 or even more). This means you can adjust lighting without introducing banding and so on.

_bent• 1 year ago

most importantly a RAW file hasn't been demosaiced, ie instead of pixels of colors, it's a grid of scalar sensor measurements that, depending on the pattern (eg Bayer) each represent either red, green or blue intensity. since we only know one for each position in the image, the other two have to be interpolated (which is demosaicing)

Mashimo6• 1 year ago

Neat.

We need an easy to use RAW editor. For a long time I used Darktable, with default settings I would get images that where close to the camera jpeg. I just had to change in what artistic direction I wanted to go. With update after update I had to fight to even get decent skin colors.

Currently on a pirated copy of CaptureOne, but would rather use something open source (Or buy something affordable)

Do you have default camera and lens profiles build in?

rkagerer• 1 year ago

Is there a System Requirements page? What's the minimum OS version required?

ioma8• 1 year ago

Very nice, I will probably join your efforts on the project.

pradn• 1 year ago

I couldn't immediately find information about how the metadata is stored? Is it one shadow file per RAW file, as I've seen in other OSS RAW editors?

I'm not sure what the perfect solution is, but it is hard to sync a ton of shadow files to cloud storage, versus one big catalog file.

Is the metadata in an open format, so I can take the edits to other programs?

I am glad there's alternatives to having to shell out for Light Room every month. I only need to edit RAW files after holidays!

Melatonic2• 1 year ago

Capture One I always thought was highly underrated and still easy to use. And I've never used of their PhaseOne cameras

vsviridov• 1 year ago

Running it on Windows 10 / AMD RX 6900 XT, and the app is extremely slow, dragging the window, adjusting any sliders takes considerable amount of time with 6000x4000 DNG files...

RapidRAW: A non-destructive and GPU-accelerated RAW image editor

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