cybertimon/rapidraw

★ 6,808TypeScriptAudience · designerComplexity · 2/5LicenseSetup · easy

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((rapidraw))
    What it does
      Edit RAW photos
      Non-destructive edits
      Batch processing
    Features
      AI subject masking
      Noise reduction
      Parametric curves
      EXIF metadata editing
    Export formats
      AVIF
      JPEG XL
      Standard JPEG
    Tech stack
      Rust image core
      React UI
      Tauri desktop
      wgpu GPU rendering

mindmap root((rapidraw)) What it does Edit RAW photos Non-destructive edits Batch processing Features AI subject masking Noise reduction Parametric curves EXIF metadata editing Export formats AVIF JPEG XL Standard JPEG Tech stack Rust image core React UI Tauri desktop wgpu GPU rendering

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Things people build with this

USE CASE 1

Edit and export RAW camera photos non-destructively without paying for Lightroom or any subscription

USE CASE 2

Apply the same exposure, color, and noise reduction settings to hundreds of photos at once using batch editing and presets

USE CASE 3

Use AI subject masking to automatically isolate a person or object in a photo and adjust only that area

USE CASE 4

Export edited photos as AVIF or JPEG XL for modern web-optimized formats

Tech stack

RustTypeScriptReactTauriwgpu

Getting it running

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 5min

AGPL-3.0, free to use and modify, but if you distribute a modified version you must release your changes under the same AGPL terms.

In plain English

RapidRAW is a desktop photo editing application for Windows, macOS, and Linux that works with RAW image files, the high-quality uncompressed format that cameras produce before any in-camera processing is applied. It positions itself as a free, open-source alternative to Adobe Lightroom, packed into an installer that weighs under 20MB. The project was started by an 18-year-old developer as a personal challenge to build a tool fast enough for their own photography workflow. The technical stack combines Rust (a programming language known for speed and low memory use) for the image processing core, along with React for the user interface, all bundled together using Tauri, a framework that lets web technologies run as native desktop apps. Image rendering is GPU-accelerated using wgpu, which is why edits appear and respond quickly even on large files. Editing is non-destructive, meaning the original photo files on disk are never modified. Every adjustment you make, such as changing exposure, tweaking colors, applying noise reduction, or drawing masks around specific parts of an image, is stored as a set of instructions that get applied at export time. The app supports batch editing, so you can apply the same settings or presets across many photos at once. The feature list has grown quickly. Recent additions include AI-based subject masking (where the software automatically detects and selects objects in a photo), manual noise reduction with separate luma and color controls, parametric curves, EXIF metadata editing, AVIF and JPEG XL export, and an image analytics panel showing histograms and waveforms. There is also an inpainting tool for removing unwanted objects from a photo. The developer notes that RapidRAW is still actively being developed and is not yet as polished as more mature tools. It is licensed under AGPL-3.0, which means anyone can use and modify the code as long as they share changes under the same terms. The full README is longer than what was shown.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1

I have 200 RAW photos from a shoot. Walk me through creating a preset in RapidRAW and batch-applying it to the whole folder with one action

Prompt 2

How do I use RapidRAW's AI subject masking to select just the person in a portrait and reduce their exposure without changing the background?

Prompt 3

I want to export my edited RAW files as AVIF from RapidRAW. What export settings should I use and what quality value gives the best size-to-quality balance?

Prompt 4

RapidRAW is built with Tauri and Rust. How do I build it from source on macOS so I can contribute a new feature?

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