In the embedded video I’m taking a look at the most recent version of RawTherapee. It’s open source software capable of managing and editing photos with a focus on RAW formatted images. They’ve added a few interesting features such as the spot removal tool and the local adjustments tool, which increase the flexibility of doing non-destructive RAW image editing.
 |
| The interface |
Check it out on their website:
https://www.rawtherapee.com/
The software I’m using a lot these days is Acdsee Photo Studio Ultimate. It’s paid software, but does offer a lot of additional functionality. Acdsee isn’t perfect and feels relatively slow sometimes on my old i7-6700 based PC.
 |
| The main screen. |
I tried out version 5.9 with cameras spanning years. Nothing failed to load, which is great. There were some photos that did fail to have their camera name extracted properly and were labeled as “unknown”. The majority of those photos were CR3 Canon RAWs, so it looks like there still needs to be work done with that format.
On the main screen you can adjust what is currently displayed in a folder by various filters such as text search, aperture, Shutter, ISO, focal length, exposure compensation, camera, lens, and file type.
 |
| The Inspect tab is a quick way to see detail in an image. |
The interface is pretty intuitive, but I did make the mistake of forgetting that the little power button icon must be clicked for each adjustment in the software. At times I was trying to see how something worked and I didn’t have that tool enabled so no adjustments would show up.
 |
| The spot removal tool in action. |
RawTherapee has a good mix of features to manage and adjust RAW photos in a non-destructive way.
Updates from the version 5.9 webpage:
*** The Spot Removal tool (Detail tab) was added, for removing dust specks and small objects.
*** The Color Appearance & Lighting tool (Advanced tab), formerly known as CIECAM02, now includes CAM16. By taking into account the conditions of the photographed scene and the conditions under which the image is viewed, it allows you to adjust the image in a way which matches human color perception.
*** The Local Adjustments tool (Local tab) was added, for performing a wide range of operations on an area of the image determined by its geometry or color.
*** The Wavelet Levels tool (Advanced tab) received various improvements.
*** The White Balance tool (Color tab) received a new automatic white balance method named “temperature correlation” (the old one was renamed to “RGB grey”).
*** The Film Negative tool (Color tab) received various improvements including support for non-raw files.
*** The Preprocess White Balance tool (Raw tab) was added, allowing you to specify whether channels should be balanced automatically or whether the white balance values recorded by the camera should be used instead.
*** A new Perspective Correction tool (Transform tab) was added which includes an automated perspective correction feature.
*** The Main Histogram was improved with new modes: waveform, vectorscope and RGB parade.
*** Improvements to the Inspect feature (File Browser tab).
*** New dual-demosaicing methods in the Demosaicing tool (Raw tab).
*** The Haze Removal tool (Detail tab) received a saturation adjuster.
*** The RawTherapee theme was improved, including changes to make it easier to see which tools are enabled.
*** The Navigator (Editor tab) can now be resized.
*** The Resize tool (Transform tab) now allows to resize by the long or short edge.
*** The Crop tool (Transform tab) received a “centered square” crop guide, useful when the resulting non-square image will also be used on social media which crop to a square format.
*** The Pixel Shift demosaicing method (Raw tab) now allows using an average of all frames for regions with motion.