Welcome to DarkRay

DarkRay is a photo catalog and RAW editor. It keeps your photos where they are on disk, lets you rate, sort and search them, and edits them without ever changing the original file.

How DarkRay keeps your photos

• A catalog is one file that remembers your photos: where each file is, its ratings, labels, keywords, collections and edits. You can have several and switch between them.
• Your files stay yours. DarkRay never writes into an original. An edit is a recipe saved in the catalog, and the photo is rendered from the original each time.
• Two workspaces. Catalog is for finding, sorting and judging photos. Edit is for developing one. Switch with the tabs at the top of the window, or press E and G (by default).

Where to begin

1. Install DarkRay
2. Create and open catalogs
3. Import your photos
4. Find your way around the window

Then browse the grid, rate and label your keepers, and open one in Edit (see Editing).

Tip

Hold Shift while dragging a slider for fine steps.

Technical details: how DarkRay processes light

Every adjustment works on linear light in a wide ProPhoto working space, and the image is mapped to your screen only at the end. That is why exposure behaves like a real change of light, and why bright areas fade into white smoothly instead of clipping.

Edits never change your file. DarkRay re-renders the photo from the original each time.