All notable changes to Safelight are documented in this file.
- Delete from disk — the Library grid's context menu can move selected photos' files to the OS Recycle Bin / Trash (recoverable — never a hard delete) and remove the photos from the catalog. A photo stays in the catalog if its file couldn't be trashed (e.g. a write-protected card), with the reason reported. Virtual copies are skipped, since a copy shares its master's file. The action is also available as a rebindable shortcut that ships unbound.
- Thumbnail size from the keyboard — - / = shrink and grow the Library grid thumbnails one slider stop per press (rebindable, numpad + works too).
- More app shortcuts — Ctrl+O opens a folder, F2 renames the active photo, and Ctrl+R shows it in the OS file manager. All rebindable in Preferences ▸ Shortcuts.
- The Library remembers your view — the sort order chosen in the toolbar (imported, captured, name, rating, direction — including extension-contributed sorts) and the thumbnail size now persist across restarts. Preferences ▸ Library ▸ Default sort now applies immediately; the Preferences defaults seed fresh profiles.
- Faster imports and folder opens — importing now runs its pixel work (decode, orient, thumbnail) in a pool of background workers sized to your CPU, so big imports use all cores and the app stays responsive. Embedded camera previews (and plain JPEGs) decode straight to thumbnail size instead of at full resolution, and are decoded once instead of twice per RAW; the embedded-JPEG search hops between markers natively instead of walking every byte; sibling folders are listed concurrently; the per-file sidecar probe only runs for sidecars that exist; catalog progress saves re-serialize less often during a long import; and cached grid previews load three at a time when reopening a catalog.
- B&W and HDR image support
- HDR / focus stacking and photo merge
- AI masking via ONNX.js (Select Subject, Sky)
- Lightroom catalog import (sql.js)
- Mobile-responsive viewing
- Camera profile / base tuning controls
- Stage-by-stage migration of the develop shader to extension-contributed processing stages
- Read-only sources (memory cards, immutable systems) — Safelight can now open folders it can't write to, such as a mounted SD card or a read-only mount on systems like Fedora Silverblue. When the photo folder can't host its
.safelightcatalog, the catalog, previews, and cache are redirected to a writeable location automatically and a non-blocking banner shows where they went; when the folder later becomes writeable, edits made during the read-only session are folded back into the in-folder catalog. - Catalog storage preferences — Preferences ▸ Previews now lets you keep each project's
.safelightcatalog in the photo folder (default) or in a separate folder (to keep photo folders clean), choose where separate catalogs live, and browse and delete every catalog stored outside its photo folder to reclaim disk space. - Sliders jump to cursor — an optional toggle (Preferences ▸ Interface): click anywhere on a slider track to snap the value to that point and drag from there, instead of grabbing the current value.
- Display-transform quick switch — a status-bar control next to Assess in Develop switches the active display transform when an extension provides one (for example a film-simulation or denoise look) without opening Preferences.
- Black and white surround endpoints — the neutral canvas surround adds pure black and white beyond the five-shade grey ladder; middle grey stays the default and the colour-assessment standard.
- Extension network permissions — extensions can declare the network origins they need in their manifest; the store shows them, and requests to undeclared origins are blocked.
- Full-resolution rendering for extensions — extensions such as web-gallery publishers and batch / sync-edit tools can render any library photo through the full develop pipeline at export resolution, not just from low-resolution previews.
- Back to pure GPLv3 — the dual-licensing scheme and Contributor License Agreement introduced in 2.4.1 are removed. Safelight is free software under the GNU GPL v3 with the standard inbound = outbound model: you license your contribution under GPL v3 and keep your copyright, with no agreement to sign. Added
THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md,TRADEMARKS.md,PRIVACY.md,EXTENSIONS.md, and a security policy, all linked from Preferences ▸ About. - Clearer extension trust states — install prompts and detail pages now distinguish verified (reviewed at a point in time), stale (verified, but the installed version is newer than the reviewed one, shown as an amber ✓*), and unverified, and spell out that verification is not a guarantee of safety — extensions run with full access to your photos, metadata, and files.
- Read-only source folders (mounted memory cards, immutable Linux systems) no longer fail silently when opened.
- Rename and re-import in the Library — rename a photo's file on disk from the grid context menu (the original extension is preserved), and Re-import selected photos to rebuild thumbnails and re-read EXIF/file metadata while keeping ratings, labels, keywords, and edits.
- Show in folder / Open folder (desktop) — reveal a photo in the OS file manager from the Library, and jump straight to the export destination after a folder export.
- HSL "All" layout — show every HSL band stacked at once (in addition to the one-band-at-a-time tabs), with a compact band selector while the on-image target picker is active.
- Coloured slider tracks — sliders can draw a hue / lightness gradient behind the track (used by the HSL mixer).
- Lens correction is now an extension — distortion, chromatic-aberration, defringe, and vignetting correction, along with the bundled Lensfun profile database, move out of the core app into a standalone Lens Correction extension, keeping the base app lean. Install it from its repository if you need it.
- More mask adjustments — local-adjustment masks gain whites, blacks, vibrance, texture, and dehaze.
- Smarter preset saving — the save dialog separates global adjustments (offered when changed) from per-image edits like crop and retouch (hidden under "Show all," since they don't transfer meaningfully to other photos), and presets can include extension-stage adjustments.
- Hold-to-preview on more panels — the per-panel preview-off eye is now momentary (press and hold) and works on Crop & Straighten and Transform, hiding their on-canvas overlays while held.
- Accurate crop dimming — the crop overlay dims only the image area, not the canvas surround, so straightened photos no longer show a dark frame in colour-assessment (Assess) mode.
- Colour picker when zoomed — eyedroppers sample the correct pixel when the canvas is zoomed or panned into a region.
- HSL target picker accuracy — the on-image picker uses the same band weights as the shader, so dragging matches the result.
- Keyboard input on a focused slider no longer creates spurious undo steps when a global shortcut (Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y) is released over it.
- macOS "Safelight is damaged" guidance — the app isn't notarized by Apple, so macOS can block the unsigned download with a misleading "damaged" message. Installation and the FAQ now document the one-time
xattr -cr /Applications/Safelight.appfix (with a code-signing fallback for macOS Sequoia and later) and explain why an un-notarized build is shipped.
- Rebuilt noise reduction — the Detail panel's noise controls expand into separate luminance and colour sliders (amount and detail, plus contrast, shadow / highlight balance, and chroma smoothness) driven by a new multi-pass, edge-aware wavelet denoiser. It only runs when an amount is above zero, so there's no cost when unused, and Alt/Ctrl-drag previews the luminance and colour passes on the canvas.
- Per-panel preview-off — each adjustment panel header gains an eye toggle that temporarily renders the photo as if that panel's adjustments weren't there, for a quick before/after of a single panel, without touching your edit history.
- Clearer Library labels — grid thumbnails and list rows gain colour-label bars and a faint cell tint, keyword-count badges, and repositioned pick / reject flags for easier at-a-glance culling.
- Web-gallery publishing support — the desktop app now lets extensions reach gallery backends (Cloudflare Workers and configurable origins), enabling the Web Tools extension to publish proofing galleries.
- Dual licensing and sponsorware funding — Safelight gained a commercial license alongside GPL v3 and a Contributor License Agreement for core contributions, under a sponsorware funding model (the app stays free; features are funded through sponsorship). (Reverted in 2.4.4 — see above.)
- Refined Clarity and masked Sharpness — Clarity uses an edge-aware blur to avoid halos on hard edges, and mask Sharpness blends fine and broad detail to tame overshoot at bright edges.
- A failed processing stage (including the new denoiser) is now disabled for the session instead of stalling the Develop view.
- When a community extension provides its own noise reduction, the built-in denoiser steps aside instead of stacking with it.
- Accessibility tools — a new built-in Accessibility extension (Preferences ▸ Extensions; disable it if you don't need it) layers opt-in accommodations on top of any theme without altering the theme itself:
- Match system accessibility settings — also honour the operating system's reduced-motion, increased-contrast and reduced-transparency preferences (Windows High Contrast mode is always respected). The options below add to these; they never switch a system preference back off.
- High contrast — override the active theme with a maximal-contrast WCAG-AA palette (the Dark and Neutral themes switch to a high-contrast dark palette, the Light theme to a high-contrast light one). Your default theme is untouched while this is off.
- Interface scale up to 200%, Larger text (enlarges the smallest labels and drops their all-caps styling), and Larger controls (≥24px hit targets).
- Lowercase headings (Title Case instead of UPPERCASE), Strong focus indicator, Reduce transparency, and Reduce motion.
- Colour-vision simulation — preview the whole window through protanopia / deuteranopia / tritanopia filters to check how the interface and your photo read to colour-blind viewers (turn off for colour-critical editing).
- Keyboard canvas editing — drive direct-manipulation tools with the keyboard: focus a tool such as the tone curve or a mask and use the arrow keys, with a numeric point/geometry editor. Editing highlights toggles the on-canvas selection/focus ring.
- Colour overrides — fine-tune individual interface colours on top of the active theme.
- Accurate Develop histogram — the live histogram is now computed in the render worker from the float (RGBA16F) render pipeline instead of being read back from the 8-bit display canvas, so it no longer shows comb/banding gaps after a tonal stretch (exposure, white balance, or curve adjustment).
- Black exports from some extensions — exports now seed the export renderer with the active display pipeline and the live stage-texture set (film LUTs, spectral tables, …), so extension GPU processing stages (e.g. custom film simulations or denoise) bake into the output correctly instead of rendering pure black.
- Copy/paste develop settings in the Library — right-click a photo and choose Copy settings… to pick adjustments from the same checklist used for presets (including extension stages); Paste settings then merges the chosen adjustments onto every selected photo, undoably, without opening Develop.
- Faster Extensions store thumbnails — browse cards now resolve their image in the main process (manifest icon → custom social preview → owner avatar), batched with per-fetch timeouts and pushed progressively, so a single slow repo no longer stalls the whole grid.
- Removed photos stay removed — a photo removed from the catalog is no longer re-imported on the next folder open. Its file is tombstoned (the original on disk is untouched); the tombstone clears automatically once the file leaves the folder.
- Embedded-preview orientation — RAW thumbnails from cameras that store the embedded preview already upright no longer double-rotate; orientation is disambiguated against the master RAW's EXIF using the preview's aspect.
- Geometry/warp tool extension APIs — a
geometry-phase processing stage that warps source coordinates, plus per-photo opaque sidecar storage (api.develop.putPhotoData/getPhotoData) for large tool payloads such as warp displacement fields. - Extension trust registry — a GitHub-backed verified/banned list with a sealed privileged bridge so extensions can't reach raw filesystem or the update installer.
- More usable Library grid selection.
- Heal tool and develop-canvas render fixes.
- TIFF export — 8-bit and 16-bit TIFF output through the same GPU pipeline as editing, with the selected color space's ICC profile embedded. 16-bit uses float render targets and falls back to 8-bit when unavailable.
- Assorted bug fixes.
- Expanded the extension API surface and filled in previously missing extension UI.
- Network connectivity handling for the Extensions store, plus documentation updates.
- Extension updater fixes.
- Extension store thumbnails failing to display.
The orchestrator release. The core became a blind orchestrator: it exposes contribution points and extensions fill them, with every stock panel and tool now a pre-installed extension registered through the same public API external plugins use.
- Rendering moved into a Web Worker on an
OffscreenCanvas(render-worker+RenderBridge); no render-path code touches the DOM. Added a budget-bounded GPU source cache for instant photo switching. - Greatly expanded the extension API beyond panels/themes/layouts/slider icons/settings to include: render pipelines (display transforms), GPU processing stages (forward path), keyboard shortcuts, export processors, filename templates, lens profiles, catalog lifecycle hooks, preset importers, grid filters, library sorts, and named UI slots — plus
preferences,navigation,keybindings,pipelines, anddevelop(overlay + off-screen capture) API objects. - Installable extensions now live at the repo-root
extensions/folder, are built with rolldown, and install into<userData>/plugins/served under the cross-origin-isolatedapp://origin. - Extensions store rebuilt as a GitHub-backed app store (master/detail, READMEs, categories, update checks).
- Upright perspective correction (Auto / Level / Vertical / Full / Guided, with on-canvas guide lines).
- Mask components model: each mask combines radial / linear / brush / luminance-range / color-range components with add / subtract / intersect, plus opt-in per-mask sub-panels (white balance, HSL, tone curve, detail).
- Global color-grading wheel alongside shadows / midtones / highlights; white-balance and HSL eyedroppers; on-canvas clipping indicators.
- Keyword tagging and a dedicated Metadata panel; sixth purple color label.
- Export gained output color-space conversion with embedded ICC profiles (sRGB / Display P3 / Adobe RGB / ProPhoto), output sharpening, folder delivery, filename templates, and export-processor extensions.
- Advanced Library Sort — sort by camera / lens / focal length / ISO, a live search bar, and saved smart searches.
- Image Comparison — hold-to-preview and draggable before/after split in Develop.
- XMP Tools — XMP sidecar read/write and Lightroom preset import via catalog hooks.
- Built-in Lensfun-derived lens-correction database with EXIF matching.
- Linux packaging across deb / rpm / pacman / AppImage / Flatpak; macOS universal
.dmg; in-app update checker with patch/minor channels. - Stack: React 19, TypeScript 6, Vite 8, TailwindCSS 4, Zustand 5, dockview 6, Electron 42.
- Reworked the Masking panel and the mask/heal workflow for clearer per-mask controls
- Faster application startup
- Re-importing a folder no longer duplicates or mis-keys existing photos
- Black-image rendering issue on certain RAW files
- Folder support / project scanning fixes
- Assorted stability and rendering bug fixes
build-scripts/folder with one-click builds for every distribution target: Windows NSIS installer, Linux.deb,.rpm,.pacman(Arch/Manjaro), Flatpak, and AppImage (built via WSL2 on Windows), and a macOS.dmgscript (run on a Mac)- Linux packaging config (
build.linux) in package.json
- Improved Library browsing and Export
- Forward-compatibility groundwork for the extension API
build-electron.batrenamed and moved tobuild-scripts/build-electron-windows-exe.bat; it now prunesrelease/to the single signed installer file- Code-signing certificate subject changed to
CN=Safelight
First stable release.
- Project-based catalogs: open any folder; ratings, flags, and edit histories persist in
.safelight/inside it (portable, originals untouched) - Catalog reconciliation against the disk on every open; last project remembered
- Folder tree, grid/list views with adjustable thumbnails, sorting
- Full culling workflow: ratings 1–5, color labels 6–9, pick/reject/unflag, rotate, filters by rating/flag/label
- EXIF metadata Info panel
- Full-resolution RAW decoding via libraw-wasm plus an in-house linear-float decoder for uncompressed CFA/DNG
- 19 RAW formats (NEF, CR2, CR3, ARW, DNG, ORF, RAF, PEF, SRW, RW2, IIQ, 3FR, NRW, KDC, MOS, MRW, ERF, SR2, X3F) with embedded-preview fallback
- Decoded-RAW preview cache and background pre-decoding for instant Develop opens
- Non-destructive editing with labeled undo/redo history and reset
- White balance, Basic panel (exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, whites, blacks, texture, clarity, dehaze, vibrance, saturation)
- Point tone curves (RGB + per-channel), 8-band HSL mixer, color grading wheels (shadows/midtones/highlights + luma)
- Detail: capture sharpening (amount, radius, detail, masking), luminance and color noise reduction
- Lens correction (distortion, fringing, defringe, vignetting); effects (post-crop vignette, film grain)
- Crop & straighten with guide overlays, aspect lock, Ctrl+drag leveling, constrain-to-image; transform (perspective, aspect, scale, offset)
- Local adjustments: radial, linear, and brush masks (up to 8) with per-mask tone/color/clarity/sharpness
- Heal and clone retouching (up to 16 spots) with size, feather, opacity, and content-aware source selection
- Presets in an open JSON format (
safelight-presetv1) with import/export - 1:1 loupe zoom/pan; Shift fine-adjust and double-click reset on all sliders
- Batch JPEG/PNG/WebP export through the same GPU pipeline as editing
- Quality and long-edge controls; single-ZIP or per-file delivery
- Camera EXIF, GPS, and XMP stripped from output (wide-gamut exports embed a standard ICC color profile)
- Dockview-based workspace: dock, tab, minimize, or float every panel; per-module persisted layouts; named layouts via the Layout menu
- Detachable Library/Develop windows with synchronized state for multi-monitor work
- Dark and light themes; UI scale and font preferences
- Fully rebindable, module-scoped keyboard shortcuts
- Preferences dialog (Ctrl+,): interface, library, performance, export defaults, shortcuts, extensions
- Everything-is-an-extension architecture: every stock panel is a pre-installed extension that can be disabled and replaced
- Install extensions live from GitHub (
owner/repo, branch refs, or URL; official topicsafelight-extension) - Extension API v1 (
window.safelight): panels, themes, layouts, slider icons, declarative settings dialogs, persisted per-extension settings, access to the app's React instance, stock components, and state stores
- Windows desktop app (Electron + NSIS installer) serving the renderer over a cross-origin-isolated
app://scheme so libraw-wasm runs at full speed on SharedArrayBuffer workers - Forced high-performance GPU path (D3D11 ANGLE, discrete GPU, no software fallback); background throttling disabled for uninterrupted decodes
build-electron.batone-step signed installer build
- WebGL2 render pipeline with optional 16-bit float textures for high-bit-depth editing
- React 19, TypeScript, Vite 8, TailwindCSS 4, Zustand 5, dockview
- Multi-window sync via BroadcastChannel + storage events
- Fully offline, zero telemetry