greycard

0.2.0 Early release · Linux, macOS, Windows

Raw photos, developed as light.

greycard is a free, open-source raw editor. The pipeline is physically correct, the controls feel familiar, and your folders stay in charge.

Download Why greycard

The editor on a mountain landscape: the file browser and history on the left, the picture in the middle, and on the right the histogram, the Develop tab's Light and Color sliders, with the folder in a filmstrip along the bottom.

  • Correct from sensor to screen

    Every edit works on light as the camera caught it, in linear Rec.2020, and nothing is squeezed to fit the screen until the last step. Exposure is a true stop, and highlights hold their color. Every step to your monitor is color managed, with soft proofing for print.

  • Your folders, not a catalog

    There's no database to back up or repair. Ratings, labels and keywords live in XMP sidecars next to each raw, where Lightroom and darktable can read them too.

  • Free, and it runs on your machine

    GPL-3.0 open source. The learned denoiser, subject and sky masks, and fill run on your own GPU, not in the cloud. It's built on the best published work from darktable and RawTherapee, credited in the source.

From card to finished frame

Culling

Get through a shoot fast.

Frames open instantly from the camera's own JPEG. Compare near-duplicates side by side, then rate, flag and reject from the keyboard.

Culling mode comparing two frames of the same aerial display side by side, with the culling panel on the right.

Library

Find any frame.

The grid fills in seconds, even for a cold folder of hundreds. Filter by camera, lens, ISO, focal length, day or keyword, with a count on every filter chip.

The grid of a folder of ten frames, with filter chips above it for rating, flag, label, camera and lens, each with a count.

Masks

Masks that know what they're looking at.

Subject, object and sky masks come from models that follow edges through hair and branches, alongside gradients, radials, brushes, and masks by lightness or color.

A sea stack under a clear sky, with the sky painted red where the Sky mask found it, and the Masks tab open on the right.

Finishing

Scopes, grading and film looks.

Waveform, parade and vectorscope, color grading wheels, presets (including Lightroom's), and 3D LUTs from .cube and HaldCLUT files.

A hillside at dusk with the parade scope above the panel and the color grading wheels below it; the history reads Preset: Warm Negative.

Early, and honest about it

Releases in 0.x are test builds, so some things are missing and some are wrong. If a picture looks off, Report a problem in the editor opens a bug report with your version, OS and GPU already filled in. Library collections, Lightroom catalog import, HDR and panorama merges, and tethering are next.

Read Where greycard fits How it compares with Lightroom, Capture One, DxO, darktable and RawTherapee, and what's built so far.

Version 0.2.0 · 2026-09-27

Download greycard

Free, for Linux, macOS and Windows. Needs a GPU with Vulkan, or Metal on a Mac.

All releases and their notes · What's new