Redlamp is a free native RAW editor for Apple Silicon — but still an alpha

Redlamp describes itself as a Mac-first RAW editor built in Swift and Metal for Apple Silicon, with familiar Lightroom-style panels and non-destructive sidecar edits. Its site currently labels the software Alpha 0.3.3, running on macOS 26 and priced free with an open-source MPL-2.0 license.

The interesting design choice is that Redlamp is an editor, not a photo catalog. It opens folders directly and stores changes beside the files. That may be attractive for quick shoots, one-off product photos and experiments where a heavyweight library would be overkill.

The site advertises mask-based editing, tone curves, color handling and a GPU-first interface. Some AI and computational features are described as ambitions or works in progress; treat those as roadmap items until demonstrated. Test a copy of a real RAW file, check camera support and color, and compare a final export with your established editor.

Try it on a copied folder of RAW photographs and compare masking, rendering and export with your normal photo workflow; keep Lightroom as the control.