LightCraft
storytold/lightcraftReviewed by Radar
What it does
LightCraft is a photo library and RAW photo editor for photographers. You can rate and sort photos, adjust light and color, paint masks, crop, merge panoramas and export. Edits never touch the original files, and it works without an account or cloud. There are ready installers for Windows, Mac and Linux. The project calls itself alpha and says support varies by camera. Some AI features (object masks, face recognition, AI noise removal) need models you install separately.
How easy it is to install
A · download and open · Windows
The latest release has a code-signed Windows .msi installer and a portable .zip for x64, arm64 and 32-bit PCs; Rust is only needed to build it from source.
Numbers on GitHub
- Stars
- 15,188on Oct 31, 2026
- Downloads
- 1,760,725280,690 this week
- Growth
- +430stars in 5 days
Stars over time
Facts
- Runs on
- Windows, macOS, Linux
- You need to install
- Nothing extra
- To build from source
- Rust
- Disk space
- 87 MB–261 MB · from the installer
- Accounts or keys
- None
- Cost
- Free · No account or subscription, according to the README.
- License
- Apache-2.0 (Permissive)
- Can replace
- Lightroom, Capture One, Camera Raw
- Last update
- Oct 31, 2026
Risk signals (4)
- AttentionVery new repository with many stars
14756 stars in 26 days
automatic check
- Infoalpha software
README.md: "LightCraft is young and moving fast: **alpha**." and "As a day-to-day tool we're nearer 61% for the whole product".
AI review
- Infooptional models installed separately
README.md: Object and Describe masks "use SAM 3 ... with a separately installed model"; face detection uses "optional models installed through Settings → Faces; no weights are bundled".
AI review
- Infobuilt in updater
Cargo.toml depends on craft-update from github.com/storytold/craft-libs (features = ["egui"]), which suggests the app can check for and download updates.
AI review
Evidence is shown in its original language.
What Radar could not check
- Whether your specific camera's RAW files open with correct colors (the README says support differs by camera).
- Real disk use once the optional AI models for masks, faces and denoise are installed.
- Where the optional AI models are downloaded from and under what license terms.
- Whether the built-in updater contacts the internet without being asked.
- Speed on PCs without a strong graphics card.