After twenty years with Lightroom, I had opinions about how a RAW editor should work. So I built one.
After twenty years with Lightroom, I had opinions about how a RAW editor should work. So I built one.
Lightroom's catalog was its genius — and eventually its trap. Twenty years of ratings, keywords, develop history, collections. All inside one database. Stop paying the subscription, and your creative decisions are still there, visible, locked behind glass.
The thought that finally stuck was simple: XMP sidecar files already exist for my RAW files. They should exist for everything. Every rating, every keyword, every develop setting — a small text file sitting next to the image, readable by any tool. The database becomes what it always should have been: a fast index. Delete it, rebuild from files. No data lost. No lock-in.
Your photos, your metadata, your creative decisions — stored in open formats, on your own disk, readable by any tool that understands XMP.
That's not a hot take or a rage-quit. It's more like selling a house you've outgrown.
Every slider does exactly one thing. Move Highlights to −40 and you get a predictable tone curve compression with film-like rolloff. Same input, same output, every time. No hidden AI fighting your adjustments.
Settings live in XMP sidecars — open, readable text any tool that speaks XMP can read. Delete the app and your creative decisions still exist as plain text next to your images.
AI-powered masks and auto features set visible sliders to concrete values. You can see what it did, agree or disagree, and adjust from there. Smart Develop reads the scene — it doesn't override the photographer.
Every RAW developer has a pipeline — a fixed sequence of stages the image flows through. Photo Developer's runs in one fixed order, set by philosophy: broad before specific, corrective before creative. Most stages run on a custom Metal shader, purpose-built for exactly one job. The result is a processing chain where nothing is hidden and nothing fights your adjustments.
Move a slider, and the image responds before your finger lifts. That's GPU proxy rendering — instant feedback at editing resolution, full resolution at export. The delay between moving a slider and seeing the result is what breaks creative flow. Eliminate the delay and you stop thinking about the tool. You start thinking about the photograph.
The inspector has 13 panels with solo mode, so you see what you need and nothing else. Snapshots let you branch your edit without duplicating files. Thirty levels of undo mean you can explore fearlessly.
No account required. No cloud. No tracking or telemetry. No subscription verification. Just the app, working, on your machine, with your files.
One tap to isolate a person or subject — Apple Vision does the heavy lifting. Select by luminosity for precision tonal control, or use color range with eyedropper. Paint with the brush for freehand masking. Add selective blur to any mask for portrait work.
Live preview — click to try, apply or cancel. Layer presets by selecting which panels to include. Copy and paste develop settings across images. Export any of them as a .pdpreset file and hand it to someone. No black-box LUTs.
Portra 400, Ektar 100, Gold 200, Fuji Pro 400H, CineStill 800T, Kodachrome 64, Superia 400, Slide Film, Rich Shadows, Flash 400
Tri-X 400, HP5+, Pan F 50, T-Max 100, OM Classic B&W, IR 720nm, IR 850nm, Spacious Greys, High Contrast
Painterly, Atmosphere, Diffusion Print, Dreamy Soft Glow, Fine Art B&W, Fine Art Color, Skin Tone Correct
Contre-Jour, Field Study, Concrete & Glass, Clean Vivid, Lifted Shadows. The Suggested view reads the photo in front of you and puts the ones that suit it first.
Alongside them: Auto Enhance reads the scene, Smart Develop sets visible sliders you can inspect and override, and Auto White Balance finds the neutral tones. Starting points, not verdicts.
Manuals that take you from your first RAW to a full advanced pass, honest comparisons against every major developer, and answers to the common questions — all in the support hub. Want to see how the app has grown? The release notes track every update in plain language.
The five-minute edit: six steps from a RAW file to a finished photo, no jargon.
Curves, the Tone Equalizer, masking, color grading and diagnostics — built around the pipeline.
Where Photo Developer fits among Lightroom, Capture One, DxO, darktable and the rest.
Sidecars, catalogs, and what actually survives when you switch apps.
"The kill list is longer than the feature list. I think that says something good about the app."
Built on native Apple technology — Metal shaders, Vision AI, Display P3 color. One-time purchase. No subscription. No account required.