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AI Labs · In development

Lashlan's Darkroom

A photo editor that runs on your own computer, never alters your original files and does not ask for a subscription. It is being built in the open, and it is early. There is nothing to download yet. This page says plainly what works today and what does not.

No download yet

What it does

  • You point it at a folder of photographs and it catalogues them.
  • You adjust them: brightness, contrast, highlights, shadows, warmth, colour strength, crop and rotation.
  • Nothing you do touches the original file. Every adjustment is stored as a small, readable instruction, so you can undo any of it, at any time, even after closing the program.
  • When you are happy, it writes a new picture out as a JPEG or a PNG, at whatever size and quality you choose.

Why

Photo editing has drifted toward rented software, files only one company can open, and pictures quietly copied to somebody else's computer. This is an attempt at the opposite, built small and honestly, one working piece at a time.

Naming

Darkroom is a working title. It has not been trademark checked, so it may change.

The rules it is built to

  • Your computer, your files

    Everything happens locally. No account, no upload, no cloud. It works with the network cable pulled out, and that is tested rather than claimed.

  • Originals are never changed

    The source photograph is opened read only. An automatic test checks the file byte for byte after a full round of editing, and fails the build if a single byte moved.

  • Nothing hidden

    No tracking, no analytics, no quiet connections. Exported pictures currently carry no hidden information at all, including location data.

  • Honest about limits

    A control that cannot be done properly is marked unavailable rather than faked. Camera RAW files are refused on import, with a reason, because RAW support is not built yet.

Working today

  • Importing a folder, with a per file report of anything it could not read and why
  • A catalogue that survives closing and reopening the program
  • Ten adjustments: brightness, contrast, highlights, shadows, warmth, tint, colour strength, muted colour strength, crop and quarter turns
  • Before and after comparison, side by side
  • Undo and redo, remembered between sessions
  • Resetting one control without disturbing the others
  • Exporting a new JPEG or PNG at a chosen size and quality
  • Refusing to write over an existing file, and refusing outright to write over an original
  • Finding photographs you have moved, and reconnecting them without losing your edits

Not built yet

  • A window with buttons. Today it is driven by typed commands, which is fine for testing and not fine for people.
  • Camera RAW files. Refused on import rather than half read.
  • Photographs in wide colour profiles are opened with a warning, because the conversion they need is not built yet.
  • Carrying camera information across into exported pictures.
  • Any speed claim. Nothing has been measured on real hardware, so nothing is promised.

How it is being built

I own the idea, the principles and every product decision, and I decide what is allowed to be called finished. The code is written with AI-assisted development tools, as with my other projects. This is not a claim to be a software engineer. It is a record of what careful direction and honest testing can produce.

One rule governs this project: nothing is called finished until it has been run and checked. A screenshot is not software.