# RAWmakase RAWmakase is a free and [[Open Source|open source]] RAW photo developer for [[Linux]], macOS and Windows. It's written in [[Rust]] and released under the [[MIT License]]. The name is RAW + omakase (pronounced "raw-muh-KAH-say"). Piotr Chmolowski (`pch` on GitHub) builds it and describes it as a personal project in active development. The repo was created in September 2026 and had 26 releases by 2026-10-19, in about three weeks. The main feature is [[Adobe Lightroom]] compatibility. The controls are modeled on Lightroom's, it reads Lightroom XMP presets and DCP/XMP camera profiles, and it imports a Lightroom Classic catalog (`.lrcat`) with its ratings, flags, color labels, keywords and compatible develop settings. It never writes to the original catalog or to your photos. My scanned family photos live in a Lightroom catalog (see [[Process for transitioning information from analog to digital]]), so a read-only import means I could try it without touching that archive. Lightroom is subscription-only, so a way to carry your edits elsewhere matters for [[Data Ownership]]. Rendering aims to come close to Lightroom's output. The author doesn't claim an exact match and keeps a list of known parity gaps. The test suite renders synthetic color charts and compares them with Camera Raw's renders of the same charts (tolerance: ΔE00 0.5 per patch), so color drift gets caught. ## What it does - Develop panel: white balance, Auto tone and Auto white balance, exposure and tone, Shadows/Highlights, Clarity, Dehaze, curves and levels, HSL mixer, three-way color grading, denoise and sharpening, crop, straighten and Transform, lens corrections, effects and calibration - Spot removal (heal, clone) plus brush, gradient and range masks with local adjustments; the README labels these experimental - Library with [[SQLite]] catalogs, folders, ratings, flags, color labels and filtering - Opens RAW, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, WebP, AVIF and JPEG XL; exports JPEG, 16-bit TIFF or PNG (WebP, AVIF and JPEG XL export aren't there yet) - Non-destructive: edits live in the catalog, originals are never modified, and all writes are atomic - Previews render on the GPU (Metal on macOS, Vulkan on Linux, DirectX 12 or Vulkan on Windows) with a CPU fallback - A command line to inspect files, render with presets, export thumbnails and import catalogs or profiles without opening the GUI - External control through MIDI controllers, scripts and a built-in MCP server It supports almost every current camera. The exceptions are Sigma's Foveon cameras, monochrome cameras such as the Leica Monochrom, and "linear" DNGs that are already demosaiced (merged HDR or panorama files). No Adobe profiles are bundled: every camera with a usable color matrix gets RAWmakase's own Standard and Color profiles, and you can import Adobe's if you're licensed to use them. ## Agent control `rawmakase mcp` exposes the running editor to a local [[Model Context Protocol (MCP)]] client over stdio. No account, login or API key is needed, but you have to enable "Allow local scripts and applications" in the preferences first. An agent can then adjust edits, inspect previews, save and export. The docs show the setup for [[Codex CLI]]; any MCP client that can launch a local command should work the same way. The roadmap lists LUT support, AI object removal and agent-assisted culling. ## Caveats - It's early software. The rendering engine can change between versions, so photos you already edited may look different after an upgrade. Backward compatibility isn't guaranteed before 1.0; keep exports of finished work - The Windows installer isn't code-signed yet, so SmartScreen may warn you - The app asks once whether to send an anonymous weekly usage report (version, system, install method). It stays off until you agree, and `DO_NOT_TRACK=1` disables it - The CLI `render` command doesn't read edits from a catalog yet; exporting Develop edits happens in the app ## Install - [[Omarchy]] (my daily driver): `omarchy pkg add rawmakase-bin`, or through the Omarchy menu - macOS 15+: `brew install --cask pch/tap/rawmakase` via [[Homebrew]], or the signed and notarized DMG - Linux: `.deb`, `.rpm`, Arch packages, a tarball and an AppImage (glibc 2.39+) - Windows 10+ (x86_64) and 11 (ARM64): per-user installer or zip - From source: Rust 1.98+ and a C compiler [[RapidRaw]] is the closest alternative I have a note on: also free, also Rust, AGPL-licensed and built on Tauri. RAWmakase puts more weight on Lightroom compatibility (catalog import, XMP presets, profile import) and on letting agents drive the editor. ## References - Source code: https://github.com/pch/rawmakase - Official website: https://rawmakase.com - Parity gaps with Lightroom: https://github.com/pch/rawmakase/blob/main/docs/parity-gaps.md - MCP setup: https://github.com/pch/rawmakase/blob/main/docs/mcp.md - Author: https://ptrchm.com ## Related - [[Adobe Lightroom]] - [[RapidRaw]] - [[Omarchy]] - [[Model Context Protocol (MCP)]] - [[Data Ownership]]