A native macOS RAW photo editor built with SwiftUI and Core Image, featuring true RAW processing with non-destructive editing.
Mission: Photo freedom without subscription fees.
你的照片，你的自由。不需要月費，不需要帳號，不需要雲端。 Your photos, your freedom. No monthly fees, no accounts, no cloud required.
- Crop System Optimization: Draw new crop areas by dragging on dark region, instant aspect ratio application, CropPreviewThumbnail in Inspector
- Enhanced Zoom Controls: Scroll wheel and pinch gesture zoom (25%-800%), zoom-to-cursor anchor point, Fit/50%/100%/200% quick buttons
- Lightroom-Style Crop Toolbar: Aspect ratio picker, grid overlay picker (Rule of Thirds, Golden Ratio, Diagonals, Golden Spiral), straighten slider, flip/rotate buttons
- Performance: Fixed severe slowdown when loading 800+ images via concurrency-limited thumbnail generation
- Installation Fix: Fixed macOS 15.1 users unable to install (deployment target corrected to 14.0)
Full changelog: CHANGELOG.md
- Open Source - All essential editing features are free forever
- Folder-Based - No proprietary catalog, your files stay where they are
- Non-Destructive - Edits stored in sidecar JSON, originals never touched
- Local First - No cloud, no sync, no accounts required
| Category | Controls |
|---|---|
| Light | Exposure (±5 EV), Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, Whites, Blacks |
| Tone Curve | 5-point curve with visual editor |
| White Balance | Presets (Daylight, Cloudy, Tungsten, etc.), Temperature (2000-12000K), Tint |
| Color | Vibrance, Saturation |
| Effects | Vignette, Sharpness, Noise Reduction |
| Split Toning | Highlight/Shadow color grading |
| Composition | Crop with aspect ratios, Straighten, Rotate 90°, Flip |
| Resize | Pixels, Percentage, Long/Short Edge, Presets (Instagram, 4K, etc.) |
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Rating | 0-5 stars (keyboard: 1-5, 0 to clear) |
| Flags | Pick / Reject / Unflag (keyboard: P, X, U) |
| Color Labels | 7 colors (keyboard: 6-9 for Red/Yellow/Green/Blue) |
| Tags | Custom text tags with search |
| Filters | Filter by rating, flag, color, or tag |
- Two-Stage Loading - Instant embedded JPEG preview, then full RAW decode
- GPU Acceleration - Metal-powered Core Image processing
- Smart Caching - RAW filter and thumbnail caching
- Prefetch - Adjacent photos loaded in background
RAW: ARW, CR2, CR3, NEF, ORF, RAF, RW2, DNG, 3FR, IIQ
Standard: JPG, JPEG, PNG, HEIC, TIFF
(Coming soon)
- macOS 14.0 (Sonoma) or later
- Xcode 15.0+ (for building)
git clone https://github.com/888wing/latent.git
cd latent
open rawctl.xcodeproj
# Press ⌘R to build and run- Click "Open Folder" or drag a folder to the sidebar
- Browse photos in Grid view, double-click to edit
- Adjust sliders in the right panel
- Export with File → Export (⌘E)
rawctl/
├── Models/
│ ├── PhotoAsset.swift # Photo file representation
│ ├── EditRecipe.swift # Non-destructive edit parameters
│ └── AppState.swift # Global state management
├── Views/
│ ├── MainLayoutView.swift # 3-column NavigationSplitView
│ ├── SidebarView.swift # Folder browser
│ ├── GridView.swift # Thumbnail grid
│ ├── SingleView.swift # Photo preview
│ └── InspectorView.swift # Edit controls
├── Components/
│ ├── ControlSlider.swift # Custom sliders
│ ├── ToneCurveView.swift # Curve editor
│ ├── WhiteBalancePanel.swift # WB presets & sliders
│ └── FilterBar.swift # Photo filtering
└── Services/
├── ImagePipeline.swift # Core Image rendering
├── SidecarService.swift # JSON persistence
├── ExportService.swift # JPG export
└── ThumbnailService.swift # Thumbnail cache
Edits are stored in {filename}.latent.json:
{
"schemaVersion": 1,
"asset": {
"originalFilename": "DSC00001.ARW",
"fileSize": 25165824
},
"edit": {
"exposure": 0.5,
"whiteBalance": {
"preset": "daylight",
"temperature": 5500,
"tint": 0
},
"rating": 4,
"colorLabel": "green",
"tags": ["landscape", "sunset"]
}
}| Key | Action |
|---|---|
← → |
Previous / Next photo |
Space |
Toggle Grid / Single view |
1-5 |
Set rating |
0 |
Clear rating |
P |
Flag as Pick |
X |
Flag as Reject |
U |
Unflag |
6 |
Red label |
7 |
Yellow label |
8 |
Green label |
9 |
Blue label |
C |
Toggle transform/crop mode |
Enter |
Commit transform |
Esc |
Cancel transform |
⌘E |
Export |
- RAW processing with CIRAWFilter
- Non-destructive sidecar editing
- Tone curve editor
- White balance presets
- Rating, flags, color labels
- Filtering and search
- Keyboard shortcuts
- Two-stage loading optimization
- JPG export with sRGB
- Crop with aspect ratios & multiple grid overlays
- Straighten, rotate 90°, flip controls
- Resize with multiple modes & presets
- Transform mode with keyboard shortcuts
- Camera profiles (Neutral, Vivid, Portrait)
- Project workflow system
- Lightroom catalog import
- Enhanced zoom controls (scroll wheel, pinch, 25%-800%)
- Lightroom-style crop toolbar
- Concurrency-limited thumbnail generation
- Before/After comparison
- HSL color adjustment
- Lens correction profiles
- Batch export with progress
- Undo/Redo support
- Plugin system
- Fork the repository
- Create a feature branch (
git checkout -b feature/amazing) - Commit your changes (
git commit -m 'Add amazing feature') - Push to the branch (
git push origin feature/amazing) - Open a Pull Request
- SwiftUI for all views
actorfor thread-safe services@MainActorfor UI state- Prefer
async/awaitover callbacks
Latent is source-available under the Business Source License 1.1.
| Use case | Allowed? |
|---|---|
| Personal use | ✅ Free |
| Non-commercial projects | ✅ Free |
| Commercial use ≤ 200 photos/project | ✅ Free |
| Commercial use > 200 photos/project | 💼 Requires Pro license |
| View, modify, fork source code | ✅ Free |
| Each version after 4 years | ✅ Converts to MIT |
The source code is publicly available. The Additional Use Grant covers all personal and small commercial workflows at no cost. See LICENSE for full terms.
- Apple Core Image team for
CIRAWFilter - SwiftUI community for inspiration