Show HN: Free open source Adobe Lightroom alternative, completely local with AI
github.com
github.com
Edit: One criticism of Darktable is that it emphasizes its "scene-referred workflow" as opposed to a "display-referred workflow" like Lightroom does, making it not a true Lightroom alternative. Seems like this also happens to be written in C++ and also uses a scene-referred workflow? Quite the coincidence. How much of the important design decisions (or implementation) are just copied from Darktable?
I built Rembrandt because darktable’s learning curve kept me from using it, not because it’s worse; it has far more control. The goal here is approachability: fewer, broader controls, on-device AI for masks and denoise, and Lightroom catalog import.
Stack: the engine is JavaScript with WebGL/WebGPU shaders, in a small Rust (Tauri) desktop shell. LibRaw (C++) decodes RAW files.
Edit: corrected my earlier reply. I wrongly said it was written in C++, and I overstated the darktable answer.
I mean really, you had to ask Claude whether the workflow was Darktable-inspired. The people in this thread who read Claude's README probably know more about how "your" software works than you do.
I think it's asinine that HN of all places upvotes every vibe coded bespoke app and with a straight face compares it to decades old projects whether open or closed source.
I could have my own version of this app for the effort I've put into writing comments about it.
You don't even need to know what that means for it to be useful. In practice, it just means less artifacts, less weird stuff that happens with color near clipping highlights, etc. You use the software in exactly the same way you'd use the display-referred workflow, except that under the hood, the modules are working with the linear Raw data.
IP addresses
185.199.108.133
Hostname: cdn-185-199-111-133.github.com.
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Virus Total: Activity related to AMADEY - according to source Cluster25 - 6 months ago This DOMAIN is used by AMADEY. Amadey is a botnet agent that appeared around October 2018 sold on Russian-speaking hacking forums. It periodically sends information about the system and installed AV software to its C2 server. It can also load other payloads to the victims' devices.
macOS download url after downloading with librewolf and rightclicking "copy downoload url": https://www.virustotal.com/gui/url/f1e08a34d17fd85cd8896ba86...
Edit: i dont get this when copying direct links from the readme.md. Its just when i click them and copy the url it used to download.
Edit2: i get this too when i download the x64 exe and copy the download link from the librewolf (firefox fork) download manager https://www.virustotal.com/gui/url-analysis/u-6a55e124c22f9b...
Edit3: maybe false alarm and the botnet used the github url https://release-assets.githubusercontent.com/ to spread malware?
They definitely work but...
Unlike Lightroom or Darktable (an open source Raw editor that took years to get to a sophisticated level), they are all rough around the edges. Maybe in the future they'll get better in terms of being really refined to handle advanced photography, but right now they're hobby applications.
To me this highlights the absurdity of AI, because enormous amounts of energy is wasted on duplicating stuff and making something new.
I won't try and argue that nothing nice can come out of it, but it seems absurd to me to waste so much energy as a species this way. I wouldn't be surprised if there were a hundred more of these apps in another year.
Not that Adobe's getting my money either.
Fellow photographer here. Really interested in Rembrandt, couldn't give less of a shit about how you made it or any philosophical discussions about AI. Congrats on building something that looks genuinely useful.
Two things:
Will you add the ability to import Lightroom presets?
Will you add auto blemish removal? Adobe Cloud has it, Lightroom does not. My latest workflow includes putting photos in the Adobe Cloud, auto detecting and removing blemishes and then bringing those images into Lightroom. If you could figure out a way to auto detect and remove blemishes for portraits, that would be a true game changer. But that also includes being able to keep moles/beauty marks etc.
I do not however feel urge to upload it an ask strangers to look at what code tool assembled from bits and pieces of existing software by hallucinating into compiler.
It is objectively bad. Also very fun. Even useful. I do not understand the bit about publishing though.
This excites them and they share it under the assumption someone else has their exact needs but lacks the inclination to have AI make one of their own.
The real question is why does HN keep upvoting them?
Because a significantly large demographic of HN is aggressively pro-AI to the point of cultishness and the mere existence of such applications, to them, is a vindication of all of their beliefs and an expression of triumph over all of the critics and doubters.
Note that it doesn't actually matter how well they work, or whether they work at all. Many people will assume by default that they do, and that anyone claiming otherwise is just a deluded, bitter Luddite, and will praise and defend them regardless of quality. The rules and standards that apply to human written software don't apply to AI generated software.
I do however think sharing your own personal vibecoded software is a bit like saying "hey world! Check out how good the plot is on the latest page of my diary!"
The problem is many AI developers don't want to have to care about the code, or human expertise. They consider the process beneath them. They want to trust the LLM implicitly, believing in its superior intelligence. They want to already be living in the sci-fi post scarcity post singularity universe where they can just say "Computer make me a photoshop" and it just happens, perfectly and without error. And all else being equal... that attitude will never lead to quality software, it will only lead to vibecoded slop.
It's sad because there are already plenty of open source alternatives to Adobe[0], but none of them are AI generated, so no one is going to bother trying to support or contribute to them. Except with vibe-coded slop PRs.
That is to say, maybe they'd put down for something professional for a special occasion, but the one they can make with the thing in their pocket is good enough 99% of the time.
The world where that's possible with photographs has been here for over a decade, but with software it has only arrived this past year. So it's novel. I guess I've answered my own question about why it gets upvoted. I still hate seeing it. I wonder if something similar happened when digital cameras first got cheap.
This compares more closely with Darktable, RawTherapee, ART etc.
No excuses this time.
Where that's good, I don't know..nobody seems to care telling.
> Clean-room.
> * Never read, disassemble or copy anything inside the Acrobat bundle (names and listings only). Never open Contents/Resources/JavaScripts/.
> * Behaviour comes from public docs, specs (ISO 32000-2, the Arlington model) and black-box observation (plan/acrobat/).
> * Never copy GPL/AGPL code. MuPDF, Ghostscript, Poppler, veraPDF and DSS run only as external oracle processes.
> * See plan/README.md §Clean-room and plan/adr/0001.
It really looks like they have AI running Adobe (and other apps) as sources of truth and have rules against disassembly or including source from GPL projects which left me pondering the ethics of it.
[1] https://github.com/storytold/pdfcraft/blob/main/CLAUDE.md
I only came across it recently as it's trending. I had no idea they had already started developing adobe apps clones for so many years
Supposedly clean-room implementations are legal. But they're so easy with AI - it seems like that will need to change. Or the world will come crashing down. Hard to say which is more likely right now.
The AI disruption means now, your product better be fucking good. Beacon status in a sea of slop. That's all, no pressure.
Interesting the community pushback on datacentres. I wonder if people are asking "do we need 7 trillion vibe-coded photocraft apps in our neighbourhood?"
By the way I don't think Adobe hangs around lamenting its status as original king of media editing tools, with its own word, who others like to imitate and aspire to. It's not the drag it sounds like!
A huge barrier to entry for getting people to switch platforms is that they're set in their ways and like their UIs exactly how they're used to seeing them.
The guy who made it said there's lots of work to do, a "long way to go" and that he needs help fixing the bugs. Doesn't sound easy.
I responded to someone who sounded like they were upset on Adobe's behalf "Oh no! Price-hiking subscription monster might feel the pressure!" So what? We all feel pressure, every day. Adobe has billions of dollars to help them threw uncertain times. They'll be fine.
You could try asking someone who works for one.
I can't help you with that sorry.
> "terrified"
Says you. Did you ask someone who works for Adobe? Maybe you could try.
Again, what you call "clone software" is an image editor. There's always been "clones" in that case. Maybe Photoshop "cloned" Photon Paint or Deluxe Paint.
There's a website called Photopea.com where you can open a PSD file and edit it. Big deal.
Big players supply long term support, innovative new features, and all the things people pay for and depend on. The little clones are cute. The Vibe-coded software is nice.
Maybe stop being terrified on behalf of big subscription enforcing companies? They will be fine. Let them adapt. Maybe Adobe will bring back a perpetual license option they never should have abandoned.