I am excited to bring you a new update that significantly expands your retouching toolkit and refines how your images are processed under the hood. This release focuses heavily on local adjustments and HDR merging, introducing highly requested manual clone and heal tools for precise control, alongside major updates to AI inpainting, shadow shaders, and HDR alignment.
New Features
Manual Clone & Heal Inpainting
While AI is fantastic for many tasks, there are specific scenarios where you just need pixel-perfect, algorithmic manual control that operates at your image's full resolution. To give you that control, I have implemented dedicated Clone and Heal tools. They work beautifully: simply set your source point, and you can seamlessly heal blemishes or copy exact pixels over to your target area.
| Before | After Clone & Heal |
|---|---|
 |
 |
Here is a look at the new tools in action:
| Using the Tools | New Inpainting Tools |
|---|---|
 |
 |
Refined AI Inpainting
While building out the manual clone and heal tools, I took the opportunity to improve the AI inpainting engine. I spent time optimizing its performance, resolving color space issues, and ensuring the generated patches blend much more coherently with the surrounding pixels. I'm very happy with the new results.
Here is a quick comparison showing how the blocky quantization artifacts from previous versions have been eliminated:
| Original Image | V1.5.8 (Blocky Artifacts) | V1.5.9 (Clean & Coherent) |
|---|---|---|
 |
 |
 |
Improved Shadows & Blacks Shader
I noticed that the previous approach for lifting shadows and blacks could sometimes result in a plastic, unrealistic, or overbaked look. To fix this, I have rewritten and optimized the underlying shader algorithm, resulting in a much more natural and pleasing roll-off in the darker areas of your images.
| Original | Previous Algorithm | New & Improved Shader |
|---|---|---|
 |
 |
 |
HDR Merge Improvements
This version introduces robust deghosting and auto-alignment capabilities for merging HDR brackets. This means that even if your handheld source images aren't perfectly aligned, the final merged result will remain sharp and free of distracting ghost edges. Additionally, this update resolves several color space issues during the HDR merge process that were previously causing merged files to appear drastically underexposed
Core Improvements
- Performance: Improved thumbnail loading speeds by utilizing native file transfers and updating the core rendering engines for better overall performance and stability.
- Workflow: Added "Open With" external editor support, allowing you to easily hand off images to other applications.
- RAW Handling: Implemented a smart fallback mechanism that loads embedded JPEG previews for undecodable or currently unsupported RAW files.
- Local Contrast Tweaking: Clarity & Structure's intensity is now stronger.
- Bug Fixes:
- Fixed an issue where copying adjustments directly from the filmstrip wasn't behaving correctly.
- Resolved AI model and LUT download issues affecting Android users.
- Inpainting now also works on rotated or flipped images.
- Squashed several Windows-specific bugs, including an issue with offscreen windows and folder export errors.
- Under the Hood: Bumped various system dependencies to keep everything secure and up-to-date.
What to Download
| OS | Architecture | Format | Download Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| Windows | x64 | .exe |
RapidRAW for Windows |
| macOS (Apple Silicon) | ARM64 | .dmg |
RapidRAW for macOS ARM |
| macOS (Intel) | x64 | .dmg |
RapidRAW for macOS x64 |
| Ubuntu 22.04 | x86_64 | .deb |
RapidRAW for Ubuntu 22.04 |
| Ubuntu 24.04 | x86_64 | .deb |
RapidRAW for Ubuntu 24.04 |
| Android | ARM64 | .apk |
RapidRAW for Android (Experimental) |
For other platforms and formats (ARM builds, RPM, AppImage, etc.), check the full asset list below.
Running on Windows, macOS, Linux and Android
RapidRAW is not yet code-signed, so Windows and macOS may show warnings when launching the app. On Linux, GPU driver differences require a default compatibility mode.
-
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:
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/RapidRAW.app-
Linux: The app starts in compatibility mode by default to ensure stability across different GPU drivers and distributions.
- Disable compatibility mode in Settings to enable GPU acceleration.