Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc. for Windows and macOS. It was originally created in 1987 by Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, the software has become the most used tool for professional digital art, especially in raster graphics editing. The software's name is often colloquially used as a verb although Adobe discourages such use.
StuffIt is a discontinued family of computer software utilities for archiving and compressing files. Originally produced for the Macintosh, versions for Microsoft Windows, Linux (x86), and Sun Solaris were later created. The proprietary compression format used by the StuffIt utilities is also termed StuffIt.
libjpeg is a free library with functions for handling the JPEG image data format. It implements a JPEG codec alongside various utilities for handling JPEG data. It is written in C and distributed as free software together with its source code under the terms of a custom permissive (BSD-like) free software license, which demands attribution. The original variant is maintained and published by the Independent JPEG Group (IJG). Meanwhile, there are several forks with additional features.
Picasa was a cross-platform image organizer and image viewer for organizing and editing digital photos, integrated with a now defunct photo-sharing website, originally created by a company named Lifescape in 2002. "Picasa" is a blend of the name of Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, the word casa and "pic" for pictures.
Digital Negative (DNG) is an open, lossless raw image format developed by Adobe and used for digital photography. It was launched on September 27, 2004. The launch was accompanied by the first version of the DNG specification, plus various products, including a free-of-charge DNG converter utility. All Adobe photo manipulation software released since the launch supports DNG.
LiVES (LiVES Editing System) is a free and open-source video editing software and VJ tool, released under the GNU General Public License version 3 or later. There are binary versions available for most popular Linux distributions (including Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Suse, Gentoo, Slackware, Arch Linux, Mandriva and Mageia). There are also ports for BSD, and it will run under Solaris and IRIX. It has been compiled under OS X Leopard, but not thoroughly tested on that platform. In early 2019, a version for Microsoft Windows was announced, with a release slated for in the second half of 2019.
digiKam is a free and open-source image organizer and tag editor written in C++ using the KDE Frameworks.
Raster graphics editors can be compared by many variables, including availability.
The Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP) is an ISO standard, originally created by Adobe Systems Inc., for the creation, processing and interchange of standardized and custom metadata for digital documents and data sets.
Aperture is a discontinued professional image organizer and editor developed by Apple between 2005 and 2015 for the Mac, as a professional alternative to iPhoto.
A camera raw image file contains unprocessed or minimally processed data from the image sensor of either a digital camera, a motion picture film scanner, or other image scanner. Raw files are so named because they are not yet processed, and contain large amounts of potentially redundant data. Normally, the image is processed by a raw converter, in a wide-gamut internal color space where precise adjustments can be made before conversion to a viewable file format such as JPEG or PNG for storage, printing, or further manipulation. There are dozens of raw formats in use by different manufacturers of digital image capture equipment.
Linux color management has the same goal as the color management systems (CMS) for other operating systems, which is to achieve the best possible color reproduction throughout an imaging workflow from its source, through imaging software, and finally onto an output medium. In particular, color management attempts to enable color consistency across media and throughout a color-managed workflow.
Digital Photo Professional (DPP) is the software that Canon ships with its digital SLR cameras for editing and asset management of its Canon raw (.CR2) files. It can also work with the older .CRW format of selected models, and also JPEGs and TIFFs from any source. The full version ships on a CD with the camera, and updates can be downloaded from Canon's website. Even though officially DPP only supports Windows and Mac operating systems, it is possible to run DPP on Linux systems by using Wine.
dcraw is an open-source computer program which is able to read numerous raw image format files, typically produced by mid-range and high-end digital cameras. dcraw converts these images into the standard TIFF and PPM image formats. This conversion is sometimes referred to as developing a raw image since it renders raw image sensor data into a viewable form.
RawTherapee is application software for processing photographs in raw image formats, as created by many digital cameras. It comprises a subset of image editing operations specifically aimed at non-destructive post-production of raw photos and is primarily focused on improving a photographer's workflow by facilitating the handling of large numbers of images. It is notable for the advanced control it gives the user over the demosaicing and developing process. It is cross-platform, with versions for Microsoft Windows, macOS and Linux.
PhotoLine is a graphics editor for Windows, MacOS X and Linux/WINE. Its capabilities include 16 bits of color depth full-color or management, support of RGB, CMYK, and Lab color models, layer support, and non-destructive image manipulation. We can use it for desktop publishing.
Darktable is a free and open-source photography application and raw developer. Rather than being a raster graphics editor like Adobe Photoshop or GIMP, it comprises a subset of image editing operations specifically aimed at non-destructive raw image post-production. It is primarily focused on improving a photographer's workflow by facilitating the handling of large numbers of images. It is freely available in versions tailored for most major Linux distributions, macOS, Solaris and Windows and is released under the GPL-3.0-or-later.
LazPaint is a free and open-source cross-platform lightweight image editor with raster and vectorial layers created with Lazarus. The software aims at being simpler than GIMP, is an alternative to Paint.NET and is also similar to Paintbrush.
This article presents a comparison of image viewers and image organizers which can be used for image viewing.
High Efficiency Image File Format (HEIF) is a container format for storing individual digital images and image sequences. The standard covers multimedia files that can also include other media streams, such as timed text, audio and video.
