RAWmakase 0.3.0

TL;DR: RAWmakase 0.3.0 has a new layout, with one persistent catalog sidebar in both Library and Develop, and a new Synchronize Folder command that finds photos moved, renamed, added or deleted outside the app. It also brings a new rendering engine measured against Camera Raw. That engine is not perfect yet, and some known issues will be patched in 0.3.1.

Download: Mac Apple Silicon · Mac Intel · Windows (x86_64, ARM64) · Debian / Ubuntu (x86_64, ARM) · Fedora (x86_64, ARM) · Arch Linux · AppImage (x86_64, ARM)

Highlights

• A new layout (#456). Catalog, Folders and Collections are one sidebar that stays in place in both Library and Develop. In Develop, Presets, Snapshots and History sit in a tab panel beside the adjustments, with Crop, Remove, Red Eye and Masking on a slim rail next to it. The Navigator and Histogram move to the top of the right panel, and the toolbar sits under the photo. The look is calmer and more consistent throughout.
• Synchronize Folder (#442, #450). Right-click a folder, or use the catalog menu, to scan for photos moved, renamed, added or deleted outside RAWmakase. You review what was found before anything changes, so edits, ratings and keywords follow moved photos. A Previous Import collection shows what the last Add Folder or Synchronize added.
• A new rendering engine, still being tuned (#416). Tone controls now run in a scene-referred stage measured against Camera Raw, replacing the four earlier engines. Across our Camera Raw comparison sets, the median colour difference from Camera Raw fell from 1.73 to 1.48 ΔE00, with the largest gains in Dehaze, Whites, and Exposure combined with Whites. It is not yet better everywhere: it can render slightly worse than before on some photos, such as dark scenes where you push Shadows to +100, and Blacks is a little further from Camera Raw. We now have a dataset setup that catches these differences, but running the tests, fixing and repeating takes time. Some known issues will be patched in 0.3.1.

New

• Export PNG (#425, thanks @priard). PNG joins JPEG and TIFF in the Export dialog, with the colour profile, camera EXIF and XMP embedded.
• Select all and none in Develop's filmstrip (#460, thanks @Phlogi).
• Windows ARM64 installer (#401, thanks @acseven) and AppImages for Linux (#454, #457, thanks @sergionoodles).

Improved

• Large catalogs open faster and the Library stays responsive (#400, thanks @dmortell). A catalog of 325,000 photos no longer takes seconds to show anything.
• Glide after a trackpad swipe in the grid and filmstrip (#444).
• Colour noise reduction works as Camera Raw's does, from each photo's own noise (#466).
• Highlights −100 no longer solarizes, and wide, partly clipped highlights keep their colour (#477). Isolated highlights in dark scenes still differ from Camera Raw.
• Better colour on macOS displays for sRGB previews (#397, thanks @teich), and JPEG, PNG and TIFF files now show through their embedded colour profile (#426, thanks @priard).
• More Adobe profiles and lens profiles matched: per-module phone profiles (#431), cameras LibRaw names differently (#458), Nikon lenses by lens ID (#429, thanks @Phlogi), lens profiles in Adobe's newer layout (#428, thanks @Phlogi) and Sony lens tables (#405).
• The GPU is kept when a region is too large for it instead of falling back to the CPU (#440).
• The Windows window and taskbar show the app icon (#388, thanks @BlueBlock).

Fixed

• Shift+Cmd+C and Shift+Cmd+V work in Develop again (#451).
• Develop's arrow keys no longer freeze the app (#459).
• Non-ASCII camera text survives TIFF export (#447).
• Nikon High Efficiency NEFs are refused rather than decoded as noise (#412).

Changed

• Existing edits render with the new engine and look different, closer to Lightroom. Slider values and unknown settings are kept.
• Older versions can't open what 0.3.0 saves. Once 0.3.0 saves an edit into a catalog, earlier versions refuse that catalog, and they refuse the presets and sidecars it writes. A backup of the catalog is kept beside it when it is upgraded.

Requirements

Mac downloads require macOS 15+. Windows downloads are for 64-bit Windows 10 and later (x86_64 and ARM64). Linux packages are for x86_64 and ARM (aarch64): Ubuntu 24.04+ or Debian 13+, or Fedora 43+. The Arch Linux package is x86_64. AUR publication remains paused, so get the Arch package from the link above. Homebrew users update with brew upgrade --cask rawmakase.

Full changelog: v0.2.4 → v0.3.0