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Software · Photo & graphics

darktable

Organize and develop images from digital cameras.

  • Completely free
  • Windows, macOS and Linux
  • Open source
  • No account

Overview

darktable is a RAW processing program, available on Windows, macOS and Linux.

Features described in its Flathub listing, in its GitHub repository and on its official website: EXIF metadata and geotagging, hardware acceleration.

Overview written by LicitPro from the documentation published by the authors and the cited sources; we have not tried the resource ourselves.

Excerpts that establish this information
  • “darktable is an open source photography workflow application and raw developer” — official website, 10 November 2026
  • “Other modes besides lighttable and darkroom are a map for geotagging, tethering, print and a slideshow.” — Flathub, 10 November 2026
  • “Professional color management features ensure fidelity all the way to print and GPU accelerated processing means you can speed up your workflow using your video card.” — official website, 10 November 2026
  • “Made for and by photographers that value full control, its flexible stack-based and scene-referred editing approach provides advanced raw photo processing, while the library features offer versatile digital asset…” — official website, 10 November 2026

At a glance

All of darktable is free: no feature is locked behind a paid plan, and its code is open.

Its licence (GPL-3.0+) is a copyleft open source licence: you may use, study, modify and redistribute it, including commercially; modified versions must keep the same licence.

Strengths

  • RAW development (capability established by the official page)
  • Open source code
  • No account needed
  • Commercial use allowed

About

darktable manages your camera raw files and images in a database, lets you view them through lighttable mode and develop/enhance them in darkroom mode. Other modes besides lighttable and darkroom are a map for geotagging, tethering, print and a slideshow. darktable supports most modern cameras' raw formats, and does all of its processing at very high precision.

Description from Flathub — AppStream (Flathub)

Sources and checks

  • Facts collected from Flathub (credit card, publisher, licence, free status, platforms, commercial use, version) —
  • Facts collected from Official plan pages (pricing, licence, terms) (commercial use) —
  • Facts collected from Winget (Windows Package Manager) (credit card, account, source code, publisher, licence, free status, platforms, commercial use, version) —
  • Facts collected from Wikidata (licence, platforms) —
  • Last technical check: 5 November 2026
  • Description from Flathub — AppStream (Flathub)

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