Fit
FIRST PROOF v0.1.0
An honest RAW photo editor
Version 0.1.0 • macOS & Web
FIRST PROOF
An honest RAW photo editor.
I built this because I wanted a photo editor that was honest. It should show the world as it looks and shouldn’t require a million tweaks to look good—the first proof should come out right.
As a software engineer I generally know better than to do things that are unreasonable to vibe code, but I also like to take an idea, a cheap model, and see how far I can get.
Along the way, I gave myself a strict rule: no magic constants to make photos artificially look "good." Everything had to be grounded either in color science or darkroom chemistry. Because of that, I went a bit down the rabbit hole and spent a lot of innovation tokens on physical film and print media emulation.
Finally, I wanted to be less beholden to Adobe and take true ownership of my own photos. (Though to be fair, the library management component right now is rudimental, to put it kindly.)
Runs 100% locally
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No subscriptions or logins
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Open XMP sidecars
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Zero telemetry
Downloads
Standalone Apps
Native desktop app and command-line utilities. Completely offline, self-contained, and free.
Apple Silicon
Native macOS darkroom for viewing, culling, and developing RAW folders.
- Fast preview loading for quick culling through burst shots
- 14-bit CFA demosaicing and 16-bit linear color pipeline
- Bundled Lensfun database for automatic lens correction
- Edits saved directly into standard .xmp sidecars
SHA256:
de6e220ac0b39243f0002f721f16c5aeed232ecceaeecfbdf2511d6e2db52be9
macOS Gatekeeper Notice
This build is ad-hoc signed and not notarized through Apple's paid developer program. When opening for the first time, macOS will block it as an unidentified developer app.
To launch: right-click (or Control-click) FirstProof.app in Finder and choose Open, or go to System Settings > Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway.
Terminal:
xattr -cr /Applications/FirstProof.app
macOS & Linux
Headless command-line utility for batch demosaicing and scriptable workflows.
- Multi-threaded batch demosaicing across CPU cores
- Reads and writes the same .xmp sidecars as the app
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Bundled lens database compiler (
bundle-lensfun) - Easy to integrate into shell scripts and automated exports
SHA256:
2d8fb27a4d589af0a0dba58804013bd955c1b5f7988c09a79aaa9acfd936833a
Comparison
In-Camera JPEG vs. First Proof
Drag the divider to compare the camera's baked 8-bit JPEG against First Proof's render straight from the RAW file.
01 ▶
◂ ▸
In-Camera JPEG
First Proof (RAW)
01A
Natural sky & water tones
Camera JPEGs often push blue skies toward cyan to make them look punchier. First Proof preserves the natural depth of the sky and water reflections without shifting hue angles.
True color, not neon saturation
Instead of boosting saturation across the board, colors retain their real-world character: the torii gate stays a deep architectural vermilion, blossoms keep subtle pinks, and foliage looks like real trees.
Clean, unsharpened detail
No artificial edge halos or heavy compression artifacts. Detail in the wood texture and distant branches comes from proper optical demosaicing rather than digital sharpening filters.
Principles
A Few Ground Rules
The constraints that guided how this editor was built.
Rule I
An Honest Baseline
A RAW photo should look right the moment you open it. If you need 40 micro-adjustments just to rescue an image from looking dull, the baseline color engine isn't doing its job.
Rule II
No Magic Constants
No arbitrary multipliers or curve hacks to force photos to look "pop." Every slider and tone model is tied to published optical physics, color science, or darkroom film chemistry.
Rule III
Fast Where It Matters
Flipping through hundreds of photos during a cull should feel instantaneous. Previews are generated fast with 2×2 Bayer binning so you don't wait on progress bars just to pick your best shots.
Rule IV
Your Files, Your Control
No cloud locks, no subscription checks, and no proprietary databases. Edits are saved in plain-text XMP sidecars alongside your photos, so your work stays yours forever.
Acknowledgments
Built on Decades of Open Work
First Proof wouldn't exist without decades of shared research, community tools, and public chemistry.
Film & Paper Chemists
Sensitometry & Emulsion ChemistryKodak, Fujifilm, Ilford, and Agfa for decades of published sensitometric data and dye chemistry. Honestly, seeing what it takes to model physical film digitally mostly just makes me want to put down the laptop and take out an actual film camera.
Troy Sobotka
AgX Filmic Color SciencePioneering research on open-domain filmic tone mapping and highlight desaturation matrices in wide-gamut imagery.
Marti Maria
LittleCMS (lcms2)Author and maintainer of LittleCMS, the open-source color engine powering ICC profile management and soft proofing.
Dave Coffin & RAW Maintainers
dcraw, libraw & rawlerDecades of reverse-engineering camera sensor formats, allowing photographers to read raw sensor data without proprietary software.
Torsten Bronger & Lensfun
Lens Calibration DatabaseA community-maintained database of optical distortion, vignetting, and chromatic aberration profiles for thousands of camera lenses.