Photos · photo editorIn developmentWindows build first

Develop the RAW.
Keep Every Layer.

Photos is Avlory's photo editor. Develop camera RAW, edit in layers with masks and adjustment layers, heal and crop, open and save Photoshop files, keep every version and edit with someone else, all in one .avphoto file. Every demo below runs in your browser; the screens are from Photos itself, and every number says how it was measured.

  • Windows
  • Linux
  • macOS
  • iOS
  • Android
All planned. Downloads open through the waitlist.
Join the Photos waitlist What's built, what's not
01 · Develop

Camera RAW, with room to recover.

Exposure, white balance, highlights and shadows, contrast, colour mixer, detail, lens and effects, on RAW and on any other photo. The RAW stays untouched inside the file, so every slider can be changed later. Pull Highlights down to bring the sun back, then drag the split to compare.

Drag, or focus the picture and use the arrow keys, to move the split. A synthetic scene with RAW-like headroom, developed by a few lines of script, not Photos' engine.

RAW, in the installer

First build

Camera RAW is read by a separate component (rawler, LGPL) that ships beside Photos as its own replaceable file, with its licence in the installer and in About, and its exact source on avlory.com.

Cameras tested

Partly

Nikon NEF is tested with real files. Canon, Sony, Fujifilm and other makers are decoded, but not tested here yet.

One self-contained file

First build

An .avphoto made from a RAW keeps a copy of the RAW inside, so it's one file to send or move.

Lens corrections

Partly

Distortion and lens vignetting by hand. A lens-profile database isn't decided yet.

about 1 sfrom opening a 24-megapixel RAW to the first fitted picture
214 msto read a 16-megapixel Nikon D4 NEF (compressed)
21.4 msexposure dragged on a 24-megapixel JPEG, edit to drawn draft frame, median
0.55–0.64 san exposure move on a 24-megapixel RAW at fit, on the processor

Measured on Photos' 4-core development VM with no graphics card, so on the processor path, while other builds shared the machine: pessimistic and noisy. The RAW was a synthetic 6000 × 4000 DNG, read in the app's own process. The 16 ms slider target belongs to the graphics-card path, which hasn't been measured on a real graphics card yet. avlory-photos bench-raw; cargo test --release -p avlory-photos-ffi --test engine -- --ignored latency

Photos in Pro with the Develop panel: a histogram marked Highlights clipped, Auto and Compare, the Profile and Light groups with Exposure, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, Whites and Blacks, and Colour with Temperature. Three photos sit in the filmstrip below.
Develop in Pro, from Photos' screen tests. The test photo is a simple drawn scene.
02 · Layers and masks

Every edit a layer you can change.

Pixel, adjustment, text, fill and group layers; eleven adjustment kinds; all 27 of Photoshop's blend modes, so PSDs look the same both ways; masks from a gradient, a radial or a brush, and selections that become masks. Darken the sky with a Curves layer, then drag on the picture to move its gradient mask.

Drag from where the effect is full to where it fades out. Arrow keys move the mask when the picture has focus.

  1. Curves adjustment · gradient mask
  2. Lake.jpg photo · develop
Blend mode
Mask
0.2 msto write an edit to the file's journal, before it counts
90 msa slider on the top layer of a 20-layer stack, at fit, median
0.004ΔE 2000 between the fast drawing path and the exact reference

Measured with avlory-photos bench on the shared 4-core development VM, on the processor: a 6000 × 4000 JPEG under 20 layers (18 adjustments of nine kinds and Curves on top), 30 slider moves. The colour difference comes from the engine's reference harness; anything under 1 is too small to see. A slider lower in a 20-layer stack is slower on the processor, because every layer above it is drawn again; the graphics-card path is meant to fix that, and isn't measured on a real graphics card yet.

Photos in Pro with the Layers panel: a Curves adjustment layer over Lake.jpg, blend mode Normal at 100% opacity, Curve sliders for shadows, midtones and highlights, and Gradient and Radial mask buttons. The photo shows a draggable Before and After split.
Layers with a Curves adjustment and the before-and-after split, from Photos' screen tests.
Photos with the Select tool: a feathered selection on the photo with Mask the layer and Deselect above it, and the Develop panel open at Detail with sharpening and noise reduction sliders.
A feathered selection about to become a layer's mask, with Develop's Detail group open, from Photos' screen tests.
03 · Heal and crop

Heal it once. It stays healed.

Spot heal, heal, clone and patch, with a membrane solve that blends the borrowed texture into its new place. As in Photoshop, heals go into the pixels of a Retouch layer just above the photo; editable Lightroom-style spots come later. Click the dust spots to heal them, then try Clone on the sky to see why the blend matters.

Keyboard: arrow keys move the brush, Enter heals. The demo runs a small membrane solve on your device, not Photos' engine.

Tool

History
  1. No heals yet.
  1. Retouch pixels · heals and clones
  2. Lake.jpg photo · develop

Spot heal

First build

A click finds clean texture nearby. Tested on gradients, where a bad blend shows first.

Heal, clone and patch

First build

Single spots or strokes; Alt-click or Set source picks where texture comes from; Patch is drawn round the problem.

Crop and straighten

First build

Ratios, an angle, and Level the horizon, which finds the horizon by rule, not AI. Non-destructive.

Brushes

First build

Size, hardness, opacity, flow and pen pressure, on pixel layers and masks.

Photos with the Crop and straighten tool at 250% zoom: ratio buttons Original, 1:1, 4:5, 3:2, 16:9 and 9:16, an Angle slider, Level the horizon, a rule-of-thirds grid on the photo, and a navigator in the corner showing the visible area.
Crop and straighten, zoomed in with the navigator, from Photos' screen tests.
04 · Easy and AI

Easy writes layers. Pro can read them.

Easy shows tasks instead of tools. Each writes the same ordinary layers and develop settings that Pro shows, so you can start in Easy and finish in Pro. Turn the tasks on and off and watch what Pro would see.

What would you like to do?

For this photo: Brighten the shadows. Most of the photo is dark.

What Pro shows

    No AI in this build yet

    • Subject and sky select, remove, fill, denoise and upscale are planned as on-device AI in phase 3. Nothing will be uploaded, and generated pixels will be marked.
    • No permissively licensed model was available to run on the device for this build, so none was added. The Easy cards say so.
    • Auto, Fix the light and Level the horizon are rule-based: they read the histogram and the picture, they don't learn from it.
    Photos in Easy: What would you like to do?, a task search, a suggestion to brighten the shadows, and cards for Fix the light, Straighten, Make it pop and Black and white. Remove something and Cut out the subject are greyed out as later, on-device AI in phase 3.
    Easy with its tasks, from Photos' screen tests.
    05 · Versions and editing together

    Every version kept. Two editors at once.

    Versions: first buildEditing together: testing relay only

    Sprout, Avlory's version control, is built into Photos. Save a version with a message, try a different look on its own line, and compare any version with now, side by side or overlaid with a slider, with the changed areas outlined. Pick a version to compare.

    Left: the version. Right: now. Changed areas are outlined.

    Versions

      Big files stay out of Git

      First build

      Photos, originals and camera RAWs go into Sprout's big-file store; a copy fetches only the photos someone opens.

      Go back without losing

      First build

      Going back to a version keeps what was there as a version first. The last versions action can be undone.

      Edit together

      Testing relay

      Share opens a session: faces on the layer each person is on, locks on the photo, a layer or an artboard, and undo that takes back only your own edits.

      Sealed, and safe to drop

      Testing relay

      Messages and painted tiles are sealed with the room's key. A dropped connection loses nothing, and after a crash, Rejoin the session picks it up.

      Editing together runs on a testing relay

      • Two people editing one photo is tested through a testing relay only. The real relay behind Avlory ID, with invited people checked by the server, isn't built yet.
      • Versions shared to Sprout hosting or GitHub carry big files only through Sprout hosting; that hasn't been run against a Sprout server yet.
      The Versions dialog in Photos: What changed and Save a version on main, Try a different look with a black-and-white line to Switch, Keep or Drop, Sprout hosting with Share and Bring in, and three versions by Ana: Straightened the horizon, Warmer sky and First version, with Compare the two.
      Versions through Sprout, from Photos' screen tests.
      The Edit together dialog in Photos: a note that this is a testing relay only and that messages and tiles are sealed with the room's key, an invite link, Ben Ode here now on Lake.jpg, Lock the whole photo and Lock this layer, Bring in edits now and Leave the session.
      Editing together on the testing relay, from Photos' screen tests.
      06 · Open and export

      Photoshop files in. Your location out.

      Photos opens and saves PSD with a report of anything that didn't carry across. Exports come in several sizes at once, with the location stripped by default, and an export never overwrites a file. Nothing is added to an export unless you choose it: no watermark, no badge. Choose what to export.

      Lake.jpg · 6000 × 4000

        Sizes are a rough estimate for a typical 24-megapixel photo; the real size depends on the picture.

        Format
        Sizes
        FormatOpenSaveNote
        JPEG, PNG, TIFFYesYesJPEG is encoded in strips on every core
        WebPYesYesExport is lossless only for now
        Camera RAWYesNoThrough the bundled RAW component; kept inside the .avphoto
        Photoshop PSDYesYes, 8-bitWith a report of what didn't carry across; 16-bit in the engine. PSB opens.
        JPEG XLYesNoDecoded in pure Rust
        HEIC, AVIFLater buildLater buildThe Windows decoders aren't wired up or checked yet
        0.58 sexport a 24-megapixel photo to JPEG: drawing and encoding
        4.95 sthe same under 20 layers
        3.1–4.1 sa full-size export from a 24-megapixel RAW, full demosaic and JPEG
        13.6–19.8 ssave a 20-layer 24-megapixel PSD, 8-bit (364 MB)

        Measured with avlory-photos bench, bench-raw and bench-psd on the shared 4-core development VM, on the processor. PSD saving is slow because each adjustment Photoshop doesn't have is saved as a full picture up to it; faster saving is on the list. Opening that PSD took 3.8 to 5.4 s.

        The Photos start screen: Open a photo to start, listing JPEG, PNG, WebP, TIFF, JPEG XL, camera RAW or a Photoshop file (PSD, PSB), with Open photos and New document, a summary of Develop, Layers, Easy and Safe, and a note that camera RAW support isn't installed.
        The start screen, from Photos' screen tests. In this test the RAW component isn't installed, and the screen says so.
        Status

        Where Photos is today.

        In development. RAW develop, layers and masks, PSD open and save, versions and editing together are in the first build, which comes to Windows first; phones and tablets follow on the same engine. Basic text is in the first build; the full text engine, vectors and page layout come in phase 2, and on-device AI in phase 3. Downloads open through the waitlist.

        Tested

        • On a Linux build machine with 4 processor threads and no graphics card; the Windows engine under wine.
        • 182 engine tests, a 3,000-step random-action test, and 4,000 damaged files: each opened or refused with a reason, none crashed, the slowest took 130 ms.
        • The app's widget, accessibility, screen and update tests, and the app against the real engine.
        • Killing the app mid-session: every finished edit came back.

        Not tested yet

        • The Windows installer, including the bundled RAW component.
        • Any number on a real graphics card.
        • RAW files from makers other than Nikon.
        • Editing together through the real relay behind Avlory ID.
        • macOS, iOS and Android builds.

        • No feature moves up a tier

          A saved project always opens and exports, even after a plan ends.

        • Never locked out offline

          A failed licence check never stops editing or export.

        • AI never changes work silently

          Every AI change is a visible, undoable suggestion in the AI ledger.

        • Free to start

          Plans and prices are announced at launch. All the promises

        Waitlist

        Try Photos First.

        Photos' downloads open through the waitlist. We'll email you when it's ready on your platform.

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