RAWmakase 0.4.0

TL;DR: RAWmakase 0.4.0 reads every RAW file with its own decoders, written in Rust, instead of LibRaw. Black and white levels and colour follow Adobe's reading of each file, so default renders land closer to Camera Raw, and opening a RAW takes about a fifth less time. Photos from cameras that record no crop of their own (most Nikons, Samsung NX, some Pentax) now start at the camera's own image size. Existing crops and local adjustments on those cameras shift by a few pixels; see the upgrade notes.

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)

New

• RAWmakase decodes RAW files itself (#526). Every format RAWmakase opened before is now read by its own decoders, written in Rust, instead of LibRaw. On our test set of 2,947 RAW files, every file that opened before still opens, except five files from the three cameras listed under Removed. Where LibRaw and Adobe read a file differently, RAWmakase now follows Adobe.
• AppImages can update themselves (#535). The AppImage now carries update information and each release publishes a matching .zsync file, so AppImageUpdate, Gear Lever and similar tools can update it, downloading only what changed.

Improved

• Default renders are closer to Camera Raw (#526). Black and white levels and colour matrices now follow Adobe's reading of the file wherever LibRaw's differed. On the 564 test photos whose decoding changed and that have a Camera Raw reference, the median difference from Camera Raw fell from 1.04 to 0.71 ΔE00 (measured during development, before the framing described below was settled).
• Phone DNGs get their lens-shading correction (#526). Many phones store a gain map in their DNGs that evens out shading and colour toward the corners. LibRaw ignored it; RAWmakase applies it, as Lightroom does.
• More cameras have a colour matrix (#526). Cameras LibRaw had none for now have one. In our test set these include the Nikon Z5II and Z50II, OM System OM-3, Fujifilm X-E5 and GFX100RF, Canon PowerShot V1, Nikon Coolpix P1100, the Raspberry Pi HQ camera, Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Cameras and several iPhone, Pixel and Galaxy models. Their photos no longer look flat without an imported profile.
• Photos start at the camera's own framing (#526). A camera file that records no crop of its own (most Nikons, older Sonys, Samsung NX bodies, some Pentax and Minolta) used to open at its whole sensor area, a few to a few dozen pixels wider than the image the camera itself makes. It now opens at the image size the camera records, centred, which also brings it closer to Lightroom's framing.
• Faster opening (#526). Opening and decoding a RAW takes about a fifth less time than with LibRaw: the median over 45 test files, three per format, measured on one Mac; no format was slower beyond measurement noise. The largest gains are on compressed Fujifilm RAF (about a quarter of LibRaw's time), Phase One IIQ and Hasselblad 3FR (about half) and Pentax PEF. Fujifilm X-Trans photos also develop 10–20% faster.
• Drag and drop works on Wayland (#534). Folders and photos can be dropped onto the window on Wayland desktops too.

Fixed

• Nikon Z5II and Z50II photos no longer look flat (#526). The known limitation of the previous release is gone: RAWmakase now has a colour matrix for them, with or without an imported Adobe profile.
• Importing a camera's Adobe profiles no longer fails when some are HDR (#524). For newer bodies (Nikon Z5II, Z50II, Z6III, Z8, Zf, ZR) Camera Raw ships HDR profiles RAWmakase can't read, and one of them made the whole import fail, so Adobe Color never applied. RAWmakase now imports the rest and names what it skipped.
• Sony's built-in lens correction keeps the camera's framing (#533, fixes #531). A ZV-1 photo with the correction on was cropped tighter than the camera's own JPEG.
• No violet fringes on sharp edges in Fujifilm X-Trans photos (#523). The X-Trans demosaic of 0.3.3 could leave a stair-stepped violet fringe on sharp edges and mottle soft colour detail. A few faint coloured dots can remain on very fine regular patterns (#532).
• Pentax ISO matches Lightroom (#526). Where a Pentax file records two ISO values, RAWmakase now shows the EXIF one, as Adobe does.
• Canon PowerShot raw files from CHDK get a sensible white balance (#526). These files record none; RAWmakase now uses the camera's daylight balance.
• The Linux launcher works through a symlink (#535). Starting usr/bin/rawmakase from an extracted archive through a link elsewhere, such as ~/.local/bin, no longer fails to find its libraries.

Changed

• Building from source needs only Rust and a C compiler (#526). LibRaw, Little CMS, OpenMP and pkg-config are no longer needed.
• Fewer package dependencies (#526). DEB and RPM packages no longer depend on libgomp, and the Arch package no longer depends on libraw or lcms2. The Mac app no longer bundles LibRaw, Little CMS or the OpenMP runtime, and releases no longer attach a native-sources archive.

Removed

• LibRaw's demosaic is no longer offered (#526). Preferences > Performance no longer lets you choose LibRaw's AHD (Bayer) and Markesteijn (X-Trans) demosaic. If you had chosen it, RAWmakase's own demosaic is used instead, so fine detail and edges render somewhat differently.
• A few very old camera files no longer open (#526). The Minolta RD 175 (1995, .mdc) and the Kodak DC50 and DC120 (.kdc) each store images in a format of their own that RAWmakase's decoders don't read. LibRaw opened them. Keep a previous release if you need to develop these files.

Upgrade notes

• Crops, spots, red-eye fixes, masks and Upright guides may shift on some cameras. Edits are stored relative to the photo's frame, which changed on cameras that record no crop of their own: by a median of about 10 pixels a side on Nikon, 16 on Pentax and 30 on Samsung NX (at most 64), 4 on Minolta. Check the edges of tight crops and the positions of small spots on those cameras. Other cameras keep their frame.
• Existing edits render with the new levels and colours. Photos whose levels or colour matrix changed look slightly different, closer to Camera Raw.
• Previews are rebuilt once. Thumbnails and stored previews made by an earlier release are made again the first time they're needed, and decoded images are decoded again.

Known limitations

• Linear DNGs (already-demosaiced DNGs, such as some converter and phone outputs), Sigma X3F, GoPro GPR and other formats RAWmakase didn't open before still don't open.
• Fine regular patterns on Fujifilm X-Trans photos, such as louvres, can still show faint coloured dots, most visibly at zoom levels just below 100% (#532).

Requirements

Mac downloads require macOS 15+. Windows downloads are for Windows 10 and later on x86_64, and Windows 11 on 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: v0.3.3 → v0.4.0