Edit RAW photos online, free and without uploading

What this RAW editor is and who it’s for

Lightframes is a free RAW photo editor that runs entirely in a web browser, built for photographers who want to develop camera files without installing software, signing up or sending their pictures to a cloud service. It suits a quick edit on a borrowed laptop, a look at a card of files while travelling, or a full editing session on your own computer. The code is open source under the MIT license.

How RAW decoding works, and why nothing is uploaded

Every RAW file is decoded on your device by LibRaw, a RAW decoding library compiled to WebAssembly, and the pixels never leave the browser. Here is what happens to a file once you open it:

• Thumbnails come from the JPEG preview that cameras embed in the RAW, so a folder of files shows up in the filmstrip quickly.
• The editing preview is developed from the sensor data at half size into 16-bit linear RGB, using the camera’s recorded white balance. That keeps highlight detail an embedded JPEG has already thrown away, so pulling back a bright sky works better.
• The export is developed again from the sensor data at full resolution. If LibRaw cannot develop a particular file, Lightframes falls back to the embedded JPEG instead of failing.
• Your edits are non-destructive. They are stored as settings, and the original RAW is never written to.
• Sessions survive a refresh. Open photos and their edits are kept in your browser’s local storage (IndexedDB), so reloading the page brings them back.

Because the work happens locally, the app keeps working offline after its first load, including RAW decoding. You can install it as an app (PWA) from the browser.

Supported RAW and image formats

Lightframes recognises the following file extensions:

Extension	Common source
.arw	Sony
.cr2, .cr3	Canon
.nef, .nrw	Nikon
.dng	Digital Negative (many cameras and phones)
.raf	Fujifilm
.orf	Olympus / OM System
.rw2	Panasonic
.pef	Pentax
.srw	Samsung
.jpg, .jpeg, .png	Any camera, phone or app

Only need a JPG? The RAW to JPG converter guide shows how to convert one file or a whole card in one export, with a dedicated page for Canon CR3 to JPG.

You can export to JPEG, PNG or WebP, with a quality setting (50–100) for JPEG and WebP, a long-edge size from 800 to 8192 px, and a filename pattern such as {name}-edited.

What you can adjust

The editor covers the usual development controls, all applied live on the preview:

• Light: exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, whites and blacks, with an Auto button that sets them from the histogram.
• White balance: temperature and tint, a picker for clicking something neutral, and Auto.
• Presence and color: texture, clarity, dehaze, vibrance, saturation, an HSL editor with eight colour bands, and colour grading for shadows, midtones and highlights.
• Tone curve: a master curve plus red, green and blue curves.
• Detail and effects: sharpening, luminance and colour noise reduction, vignette and grain.
• Geometry: crop with aspect presets, straighten and rotate.
• Local adjustments: radial, linear (graduated) and brush masks, plus a Subject mask found automatically.
• Retouching: spot healing and cloning, and AI object removal (see remove objects from photos).

Tips for better RAW edits

• Recover highlights first. Lower Highlights and Whites while the clipping overlay (J) is on, then lift Shadows.
• Fix white balance before colour work. The picker gives a neutral starting point for HSL and grading.
• Save your look. Once a photo looks right, store it as a custom preset and apply it to the rest of the shoot.
• Edit a whole shoot at once. Copy and paste edits across a selection and export everything as one ZIP with the batch photo editor.

Limitations

• Preview vs. export resolution. The preview is developed at half size for speed; full resolution is developed only on export, which takes a few seconds per RAW and longer for large batches.
• Maximum size. Exports are capped at 8192 px on the long edge, so files from very high-resolution sensors are scaled down slightly.
• Rendering. Lightframes uses one default tone rendering for all RAW files. It does not apply camera-specific colour profiles or lens corrections.
• New cameras. Very recent camera models may not be readable by the bundled LibRaw version. In that case you can still edit the embedded JPEG preview.
• Memory. Large RAW files use a lot of memory. A desktop browser handles big sessions better than a phone.
• Browser. Any modern browser can open files with Open. Opening a whole folder needs a Chromium-based browser such as Chrome, Edge or Brave.

More answers are on the FAQ page.