Open source Lightroom alternative available for Windows users

Those who are looking for a cheaper alternative to Lightroom to manage and process raw photos, the free and open source software, darktable, is now finally available for Windows users.

Photographers have been using darktable on Mac and Linux based systems since its release in 2009. Now, after eight years, darktable has been officially ported to Windows in its new version 2.4.0. It is a software that contains a set of photo editing features that help you do nondestructive post-processing on raw files, especially in large batches.

For quite some time, photographers have been requesting a Windows build. The project leaders had refrained from venturing into Windows due to a lack of people who could be dedicated to maintaining it in the long term. Recently, developer Peter Budai brought new hope for Windows users.

In its announcement, sources at darktable shared their intent to support it in the future too. The release also highlighted a few missing features such as the lack of printing support and the need for installing special drivers for tethering. The new version comes with its own set of bugs (TIFF import and export don’t support nonASCII characters in file names) too.

In addition to a Windows build, darktable version 2.4.0 has a host of improvements including a new module for haze removal, undo support for masks, intelligent grouping of undo steps, and more.