Done Right Image Processing
Your photos. Your workflow.
Drip is an open-source RAW photo editor that puts the whole processing pipeline in your hands. Start with a ready-to-edit workflow, explore your image at every step, and make the workspace your own.
From RAW to TIFF: your photo, processing steps and live scopes on one canvas.
CubeCL powers Drip's image processing, with the same kernels across Vulkan, Metal, CUDA and other compute backends. An optional CPU backend runs those same kernels, too. Adjust preview detail as you edit; export at full resolution.
Keep your image front and center, your scopes alongside it, and your favorite controls within reach. Previews, scopes and adjustment panels can live on the canvas or in their own windows. Arrange them your way.
A workspace built around the photo, with detached waveform and tone controls. Cyan highlights show colors outside the selected proof profile's gamut.
Wide-gamut previews, ICC softproofing and color-managed TIFF and JPEG export carry your edit from screen to file. Underneath, floating-point linear Rec.2020 processing and CAT16 white balance keep color handling explicit. Histograms, waveforms and vectorscopes let you see what each adjustment does.
A closer look at brightness and color: histogram, waveform and vectorscope, placed wherever you need them in the pipeline.
Branch the pipeline, reorder steps, or leave one out to see what changes. Drip connects any matching image types, then checks what each step needs as your photo flows through it. A step that cannot work with its input says why, right on the canvas; every node's help lists what it expects. Creative choices stay open: Exposure works on any RGB, camera colors included.
Skip camera color conversion and Sigmoid explains what it needs: Rec.2020 / D65, not camera RGB. Exposure takes the same image without complaint.
Save a pipeline as a reusable template, with the settings you want to change brought to the surface. Keep your starting look ready for the next photo.
Turn an adjustment into a template parameter—here, Exposure—so your reusable workflow presents the controls you choose.
Drip is an early 0.1.0-dev prototype for Bayer RAW photos, developed on Linux with Wayland. Windows and macOS builds and display behavior still need verification.
Install Rust 1.95 or newer and your platform's build tools. LibRaw, JPEG, zlib and LittleCMS are built from pinned sources; system installs of those libraries are unnecessary.
Fedora
sudo dnf install gcc-c++ cmake make nasm pkgconf-pkg-config wayland-devel libxkbcommon-devel git-lfsDebian / Ubuntu
sudo apt update
sudo apt install build-essential cmake nasm pkg-config libwayland-dev libxkbcommon-dev git-lfsUse rustup if your distribution's Rust version is too old.
macOS (Homebrew)
Install the Xcode Command Line Tools and Homebrew, then:
xcode-select --install
brew install cmake nasm git-lfsWindows x64 (MSVC)
Install Git with Git LFS, Rust's MSVC toolchain, and Visual Studio Build Tools
with Desktop development with C++ and a Windows SDK. Install CMake and NASM
and put them on PATH. Run the build below in Developer PowerShell.
From the checkout:
git submodule update --init --recursive
git lfs install
git lfs pull
cargo xtask dist
./dist/drip-guiOn Windows, run dist\drip-gui.exe. The distribution build selects Vulkan on
Linux, native Metal on macOS, and D3D12 on Windows. See
compute backends for alternatives.
Choose the RAW file under Template parameters to begin. You can also pass
an existing .drip project or .drip-template to drip-gui when launching it.
The canvas uses the left button to navigate and the right button to edit:
| Gesture | Action |
|---|---|
| Left-drag / scroll | Pan / zoom around the pointer |
| Right-drag a node | Move it |
| Right-click empty canvas / a node | Add / rename or delete |
| Right-click a port, then another | Connect; either direction works |
| Right-click a wire | Disconnect |
| Escape / right-click empty canvas while connecting | Cancel the pending wire |
| Left-click a port | Open the connected-node navigation menu |
Undo/redo, denoising, lens corrections and batch processing are still to come. Project formats may change during development. Display color has software validation; instrument-based verification is still pending.
See the roadmap, architecture and backend guide, design decisions and validation notes. Algorithm sources and dependency credits are in THIRD_PARTY.md.
AGPL-3.0-or-later; see LICENSE.