Closed beta
Get early access — the beta’s warm.
The whole loop — ingest, cull, caption, export, transmit — across 17RAW formats, on macOS and Windows.
There’s no public build yet
We could put a download button here and hand strangers an unsigned app with no way to update it. We are not going to do that. Windows would flag it as an unknown publisher, macOS would refuse to check it, and any bug in it would live on your machine forever.
So the beta runs in small waves instead — enough people to find real problems on real cards, few enough that every report gets answered by the person who wrote the code.
The signup form isn’t connected yet — we’d rather show you a dead button than quietly drop your address. It goes live with the first beta wave.
Where it actually stands
What’s done, and what isn’t
The feature audit below is dated. Anything not on the left-hand list is not built — we are not going to describe a roadmap as if it shipped.
Working today
- Ingest from card, dual destination, SHA-256 byte-verified
- Culling: 0–5 stars, eight colour labels, pick and reject, undo across batches
- Filtering by rating, verdict, colour, text, capture date, ISO and focal length
- IPTC captioning: synchronised XMP and legacy IIM, stationery with variables
- JPEG export with resize, quality and filename templates
- FTP, FTPS and SFTP transmit with keychain-stored passwords
- Non-destructive crop, straighten and rotate
- Capture-time sync across bodies, GPS with offline reverse geocoding
- Batch rename in place, live folder watching, multi-tab sessions
Not built
- Collections, virtual sets and saved selections
- Histogram, exposure warnings and focus peaking
- Contact sheets and print layouts
- Watermarking, and any export format other than JPEG
- Saved filter and export presets
- Slideshow, duplicate detection, multi-monitor
- Plugins and scripting
- Licensing, trial and payment — you cannot buy it yet
- An auto-updater
Requirements
What it runs on
macOS
macOS 10.15 or newer — universal (Apple silicon and Intel)
One universal binary for both architectures. HEIC and HEIF decode through the system image pipeline, with nothing to install.
Windows
Windows 10 or newer — x64 and ARM64
A native ARM64 build, not emulation. HEIC and HEIF decode through Windows itself — out of the box on current Windows 11, and older machines are pointed at the free HEIF Image Extension.
There is no Linux build and none is planned. Anyone who tells you otherwise is reading an old document.
Weighing it against what you already run? The Photo Mechanic comparison opens with a box telling you when to stay where you are, and the format matrix names every camera body we have tested.
Installing
The awkward questions
Why does my Mac say it can’t check the app for malicious software?
Because the build you have is not notarized yet. A notarized build does not show that dialog at all, and that is the bar we intend to ship at publicly — Apple Developer Program, hardened runtime, notarization in CI. If you are in the beta and see it, right-click the app and choose Open, which gives you an Open button the plain double-click does not. If you are not in the beta and you see this from a file claiming to be Lamplit, do not open it; we have not published one.
Why does Windows warn me about an unknown publisher?
SmartScreen shows that for any executable without an established code-signing reputation. Public builds will be signed through Azure Trusted Signing, which removes it. Until they are, a beta build will trigger it — and we would rather tell you that here than have you discover it mid-install and wonder what you just ran.
How do I check that a download is really from you?
Every public release will publish a SHA-256 alongside it, shown on this page next to the download. Hash the file you got and compare. If the two do not match, do not run it, and tell us.
Does it update itself?
Not yet — the auto-updater is not configured, and that is one of the things blocking a public release rather than a detail. Shipping an app to strangers with no way to fix it afterwards means every bug lives forever on their machine. It goes in before the beta widens.