FreeGPL-3.0C

darktable

A raw photo developer and library manager, a Lightroom replacement

Alternative toLightroom ClassicCapture One

darktable imports, organises and develops raw photos non-destructively, with masks, colour tools and batch editing. It is the open source alternative to Adobe Lightroom Classic, under GPL-3.0, for Windows, macOS and Linux.

Website Source Docs

Best for when

you shoot raw and want to stop paying for Lightroom
you like precise control over colour and tone
you edit large batches of photos from one shoot

Watch out for

existing Lightroom edits do not transfer, only ratings, tags and a few basics
the interface is technical and the many modules take time to learn
very new cameras can take a while to be supported

A digital darkroom with a library

Like Lightroom Classic, darktable has two halves: a lighttable to import, rate, tag and filter your photos, and a darkroom to develop them. Edits are stored as a history stack next to the original, so the raw file is never touched and you can go back to any step.

Its processing is more technical than Lightroom's. It works in a scene referred pipeline with modules like filmic or sigmoid for tone mapping, color calibration for white balance, and parametric and drawn masks on nearly every module. You can copy a development to hundreds of photos at once and export in batch.

What switching really costs

Your Lightroom edits do not come with you. darktable can import a Lightroom catalog's ratings, tags and some basic adjustments, but the look of your photos will not match, so treat old work as finished and use darktable for new shoots.

The learning curve is the real cost. There are many modules, several ways to do the same thing, and defaults that changed across versions, so older tutorials can mislead. There is no cloud sync and no mobile app, and support for a brand new camera depends on the open source raw libraries catching up.

Last checked: 2026-10-25.md