RapidRAW Files

I am thrilled to share a massive new update centered around spatial creativity, intelligent automation, and raw processing precision. This release transforms the editing workspace with an innovative 2.5D spatial engine that brings dynamic relighting, ray-traced shadows, and volumetric fog straight into your scenes, while bringing major workflow speedups through one-click auto-straightening and a fully non-destructive AI denoiser integrated directly into the develop pipeline. Paired with RAW baseline exposure compensation, interactive on-canvas focal points for vignettes and centré presence, granular per-tool visibility toggles, and multi-threaded rendering optimizations across all platforms, this release gives you complete creative command and control over every photo in your library.

New Features

### Spatial Effects & 2.5D Relighting I’ve added a brand-new **Spatial Effects** section that transforms flat 2D images into interactive 2.5D environments in real time. Under the hood, the system automatically analyzes the scene to estimate a depth map and derive surface normal maps. By reconstructing surface orientations (normals) and distance (depth), the rendering pipeline can accurately compute how light bounces off surfaces, handle specular/diffuse falloff, cast occlusion shadows, and drive depth-aware atmospheric effects like ground fog and lens blur. #### Real-Time Relighting (Point, Spot & Directional Lights) Using the generated normal maps, you can place dynamic light sources directly into your scene with realistic surface response. | Original (No Relight) | Spot Light | Point Light | | :---: | :---: | :---: | | | | | #### Ray-Traced Shadows The relight engine can also cast realistic shadows emitted from newly placed lights by ray-marching against the reconstructed depth buffer: | Original | Ray-Traced Shadow of a new Spot Light | | :---: | :---: | | | | #### Volumetric & Ground Fog Leveraging the estimated scene geometry, you can simulate realistic atmospheric haze and ground fog that naturally wraps around objects based on their height and distance from the camera: | Original | Ground Fog Simulation | | :---: | :---: | | | | ### Non-Destructive AI Denoise Cleaning up high-ISO noise no longer requires generating massive duplicate files, as AI Denoise is now built directly into the main editing pipeline. Previously, running the denoiser meant triggering a context menu action that produced an enormous standalone TIFF file with compressed dynamic range. Now, it operates as a native, non-destructive tool inside the Details panel, preserving the full dynamic range of your original image with zero quality loss. Dedicated sliders for reduction strength and fine detail recovery give you complete control over texture without locking you in. *Note: Dedicated GPU acceleration and non-destructive batch-denoising are actively in development and will arrive in upcoming releases to make high-volume throughput even faster.* ### Auto Straighten Leveling crooked photos now takes just a single click or keyboard press with the new auto straighten feature. By analyzing structural lines such as horizons, architecture edges, and natural contours, the editor automatically calculates the ideal rotation angle and reframes your crop to keep the composition tight without empty corners. You can trigger it instantly in the Crop panel with Shift+S, through the right-click menu, or even batch-apply it across multiple selected photos directly from the library grid. We're still fine-tuning the detection algorithm to improve accuracy across tricky scenes and complex geometry, so expect further refinements in upcoming releases. ### Custom Center Point for Vignette & Centré Framing off-center subjects is now much easier with interactive center positioning for Vignette and Centré adjustments. Instead of being locked to the middle of the frame, you can now drag an on-canvas pin directly over your subject to draw the viewer's eye exactly where you want it. A subtle, real-time contour overlay shows you the exact shape and falloff of the effect as you position it, and double-clicking the marker instantly snaps it back to the center, giving you precise compositional control for portraits and dynamic compositions. ### Individual Tool Visibility Controls Comparing before-and-after edits is now much more precise with granular tool visibility controls. Instead of turning an entire category of edits on or off all at once, each individual tool, and sub-section now has its own dedicated toggle. This lets you quickly isolate and evaluate specific adjustments, like checking the effect of just your grain, sharpening, or color grading, without disabling the rest of your grade or losing your slider settings. ### RAW Baseline Exposure & Highlight Preservation Compensation This update introduces intelligent baseline exposure handling and camera highlight-preservation compensation to deliver more balanced, true-to-scene exposures for RAW files right out of the box. Users can now apply a configurable baseline exposure bias (defaulting to +0.7 EV, similar to darktable's scene-referred workflow, alongside embedded DNG baseline tags) and automatically restore exposure intentionally held back by in-camera highlight protection features, such as Fujifilm DR200/DR400, Canon Highlight Tone Priority & Auto Lighting Optimizer, Nikon Active D-Lighting, Olympus Gradation, and Pentax D-Range expansion. Both options can be fine-tuned in Preferences, integrate seamlessly across previews, auto-adjustments, and exports, and are tracked per-image so previously edited photos remain completely unaffected.

What to Download

For other platforms and formats (ARM builds, RPM, AppImage, etc.), check the full asset list below.

Running on Windows and macOS

RapidRAW is not yet code-signed, so Windows and macOS may show warnings when launching the app.

• Windows: When launching the app, you may see a Windows Defender SmartScreen warning.

• Click "More info" → "Run anyway" to proceed.

• macOS: You'll need to remove the quarantine flag after installation, otherwise macOS may report the app as corrupted:

  :::bash xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/RapidRAW.app