Two RAW decoders, side by side
rawler and LightCraft's own decoder: one fixed pipeline against five stages, a body table against the DNG colour model.
Blogs
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Which cameras do LightPhotos and LightCraft support?
18 RAW files, camera support, and why processing at preview size changes the time.
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Catalogs, a first version
Named lists of folders you switch between from the header. Your edits still live next to your photos.
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A free, open-source alternative to Lightroom
LightPhotos and Lightroom side by side: where LightPhotos wins, and what it does not do yet.
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A fast RAW photo editor for Linux
Lightroom has no Linux app. LightPhotos has native ARM and x86 builds.
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Two Rust photo apps on the Mac
The same comparison on the desktop. LightPhotos uses Apple's ImageIO, and LightCraft uses its own decoders.
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Two Rust photo apps in the browser
LightPhotos and LightCraft side by side, with the same twenty RAW files.
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Exporting to your own Immich server
How LightPhotos uploads finished photos to the Immich server that you choose.
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Challenges with WebAssembly
What broke when the Rust app moved into a browser tab.
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My plan, and what is not in it
Where LightPhotos will go, and what it will never become.
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Measuring a GUI app without lying to yourself
A repeatable way to measure a GUI app, with no guesses.
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Never load the whole folder
Why the first version of a photo browser ran out of memory.
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Six queues and a reserved worker
How background decoding stays fast when the app is busy.
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Your data lives where you are allowed to write
Why photos, edits and metadata stay in ordinary folders.
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What ImageIO gives you free, and what it costs to leave
What ImageIO gives you, and what it costs to make the app portable.
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How a photo gets on screen
The path from a RAW file to pixels on your display.
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Learning Rust while the agents write it
A practical process to learn Rust while agents write the code.
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Why Rust
The architecture decision behind LightPhotos.
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Why I started LightPhotos
The lost photo library that started a small photo editor.