Developing a RAW — the simple way

Before you start: what Photo Developer is

Photo Developer opens a RAW file, lets you adjust it, and exports a finished image. That's the whole job. It doesn't manage your library, it doesn't have layers, and it doesn't hide anything behind a magic "enhance" button. Every slider does one thing and does it the same way every time.

Your edits are never baked into the original file. They're saved as a small text file next to your RAW (an .xmp sidecar), so the original is always untouched and you can change your mind forever.

The five-minute edit

If you do nothing else, do these six steps in order. They follow the order the tools are meant to be used, so you won't fight yourself.

1. Open the file

Drag a RAW file straight onto the window, or use File → Open. Photo Developer reads every RAW format Apple's camera engine supports, so whatever camera you shoot — Nikon, Canon, Sony, Fujifilm, OM System, Panasonic — it should just open.

2. Get a starting point (the one-button move)

Press ⇧⌘D for Smart Develop. It looks at the scene and sets a sensible, photo-like starting point for you — the same "make it look like a photo so I can take it from there" move you might know from other apps. If you prefer something gentler, ⌘U runs a lighter Auto Enhance instead.

This is a starting point, not the final answer. Every slider it moved is visible and yours to change. If you don't like it, ⇧⌘R resets everything and you start clean.

Tip: You can tell Photo Developer to do this automatically every time you open a file — Settings → Auto-develop on open. Set it to Smart Develop and every new image greets you already in the ballpark.

3. Fix the white balance

If the colors look too warm (orange) or too cool (blue), open the Color panel and nudge Temperature. Or, faster: press W for the white-balance picker and click something in the photo that should be neutral grey or white. The whole image corrects to match.

4. Set the light

Open the Light panel. This is where most of your edit happens, and four sliders do most of the work:

• Exposure — overall brightness. Because this reaches into the RAW data, recovering a too-dark or too-bright shot here is remarkably clean.
• Highlights — pull this down (negative) to rescue blown skies and bright detail. It rolls off gently, like film, instead of clipping.
• Shadows — push this up (positive) to open up dark areas and reveal detail hiding in them.
• Contrast — adds punch to a flat, hazy image. A little goes a long way.

Watch the photo, not the numbers. When it looks right, it is right.

5. Make the color sing (optionally)

Still useful most of the time: in the Color panel, nudge Vibrance up a touch. Vibrance is the "smart" saturation control — it boosts the muted colors more than the already-bright ones and goes easy on skin tones, so things pop without looking radioactive. Use Saturation only when you want every color pushed equally.

6. Export

Press ⇧⌘E. Pick a preset:

• Web — 2048px, sRGB. For posting online.
• Social — 1080px, sRGB. For Instagram and the like.
• Print — full resolution, high-quality TIFF (Adobe RGB).

Choose JPEG for sharing, set quality, and save. Done.

Three things that will make you happier on day one

Use the Before/After toggle. Tap Y at any time to flip between your edit and the original. It's the fastest way to see whether you're actually improving the photo or just moving sliders.

Trust the clipping warning. Press J to show a colored overlay where highlights are pure white (lost detail) or shadows are pure black. If your sky lights up red, bring Highlights down until it calms.

Don't over-sharpen on the fit view. The preview you see fitted to the window is a fast, scaled-down version. Sharpening, grain and noise reduction always look stronger on it than in the real export. Judge those at 100% zoom (press Z to toggle), not on the fit view.

If you only remember one thing

Work top to bottom through the panels — Light first, then Color, then Detail, then anything creative. The tools are arranged in the order they're designed to be used. Starting at the top and working down means each adjustment builds on the last instead of undoing it.

That's the whole simple workflow. When you're ready for curves, the tone equalizer, masks, split-toning, and getting your edits in and out of Lightroom, the advanced guide picks up where this leaves off.

Quick reference: the shortcuts from this guide