Darkroom
Darkroom is a premium photo & video editor that is easy to use by casual photographers, yet powerful enough for the pros. UNIVERSAL...
Description
Darkroom is a premium photo & video editor that is easy to use by casual photographers, yet powerful enough for the pros.
UNIVERSAL & FREE PHOTO EDITOR
All the tools you need to bring your photos to life are Live Photos, RAW images, and Portrait images offered for free, available on iPhone, iPad, and Mac!
VIDEO EDITOR (Darkroom+ Subscription)
Ridiculously fast and simple realtime color grading. All our filters and editing tools are video-compatible, including batch processing.
CURVES & SELECTIVE COLOR TOOLS (Darkroom+ Subscription)
This is the heart and soul of Darkroom: The most usable Curves and Selective Color tools on iOS. A dance of functionality, simplicity, and power.
PORTRAIT BLUR EDITING
Edit the foreground and background of your Portrait photos separately. Customize the blur in your Portrait photos, or the Brightness, Contrast, and Saturation of your foreground / background separately.
RAW EDITING
Edit RAW photos at their full resolution and the recover the full range of details in the shadows and highlights.
FULL ALBUM MANAGEMENT
Our complete suite of album management tools allow you to organize your library extremely quickly. Every action in Darkroom applies to your iCloud Photo Library!
CREATE YOUR OWN FILTERS
The same tools that professional photographs use to create filters. Edit any of the built-in or premium filters to suit them to your needs, or create your own from scratch.
NO IMPORTS
All your photos are instantly available. Darkroom does not have an import step.
BATCH PROCESSING
Apply edits and filters to many photos at once. Favorite/Delete/Hide many images with a single tap.
HASHTAG MANAGER & SIRI SHORTCUTS
Create sets of hashtags that you can export with one-tap from anywhere: Home screen, Today widget, Export sheet, and more. Create your own Siri Shortcuts to copy all your favorite hashtags from any app.
MEMBERSHIP TRIAL AND SUBSCRIPTION TERMS
Your Darkroom+ membership will automatically renew unless auto-renew is turned
Editor-checked details
Recommended for Apple Photos/iPhone-centered creators who do not need a professional catalog. Use: ingest to Photos; confirm iCloud originals are local; Flag; exposure/white balance; local masks; selective paste; inspect a small export; deliver with Save Copy. Do not treat edit history as cross-device sync. Choose Capture One/Lightroom Classic for DAM or tethering, Photoshop/Pixelmator Pro for compositing, and compare Photomator for Photos-centered batch RAW. Validate 5–10 RAW files and a short video first.
Pros
- Direct Apple Photos/iCloud Photos access avoids a proprietary catalog. Nondestructive photo/video editing includes curves, HSL, grading, frames, batch actions and Flag & Reject. AI, gradient and range masks are precise and work on video. RAW/ProRAW uses Apple’s pipeline; selective paste keeps a shoot consistent. The library is not uploaded to a Darkroom-hosted cloud.
Cons
- No independent catalog, deep keywording, external-folder browser, tethering or team DAM; media must be imported. Editable adjustments stay local and do not sync through iCloud. RAW support follows macOS and some compressed RAW needs DNG. True resize/upscale and complete Live Photo, ProRes, HDR and slow-motion workflows are absent. Large RAW/video can consume substantial memory. Masks and video grading require Darkroom+; premium edits may not export after membership lapses.
Installation steps
- Darkroom 6.0.7 is from the macOS 12 Monterey generation and supports Intel and Apple silicon. Grant Photos access; if Finder imports fail, add Darkroom under Privacy & Security > Full Disk Access. It cannot browse external-drive folders directly, so import media into Photos or Darkroom first. Ensure iCloud has downloaded RAW/ProRAW and video originals because optimized previews cannot export full resolution offline. Test copies with RAW, curves, HSL, masks, Flag & Reject, batch paste and export. Editing is nondestructive, but the adjustment stack stays on one device; use Save/Modify Original before changing devices and retain the original.
Uninstallation steps
- Before uninstalling, export deliverables as new files and retain the Apple Photos original, finished render and a filename/dimensions/color-space manifest for critical work. Confirm iCloud originals—not optimized previews—are local, copy them to a second medium and spot-check. Record custom presets. A lapsed Darkroom+ membership does not delete originals, edits or presets, but premium edits may not export until restored. Remove the app only after verification; do not purge its container or Photos library first.
Common errors and fixes
- Blurry iCloud media or failed export: wait for original download. Missing masks/curves on another device: the editable stack does not sync through iCloud, so save the finished render on the source device. RAW failure/color shifts: Darkroom uses macOS Camera RAW; verify camera/compression support and test a DNG copy while retaining RAW. Import failure: check Photos/Full Disk Access, free space and smaller batches. For large-RAW or long-video crashes, reduce Clarity, shadow/highlight and grain combinations, batch exports and restart. ProRes, HDR, slow motion and Live Photo playback are not complete workflows; validate a short sample.
What changed in this version
- Darkroom 6 centers on local masks: AI depth maps isolate subject, foreground, background and depth ranges; Smart Masks recognize sky, hair, skin, teeth and glasses, with linear/radial gradients plus luminance and color ranges. Masks extend to video with real-time 4K playback. Selective paste chooses adjustments, crop, rotation, frames and masks. Version 6.0.7 adds external-display/AirPlay mirroring, album scroll-to-top and an explicit selective-copy action; Mac/iPad use Command-C for simple copy and Command-Shift-C for selective copy, with navigation, Mac resizing and layout fixes.
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