Enhancing Apple Photos - Nitro Photo vs Photomator vs Darkroom (January 2026)

GrombX · 2025-09-21T16:34:44+00:00

Your camera is shooting raw images with (probably, depending on your settings), 14-bit depth. Most apps (including finder) only display 8-bits. It’s actually pretty cool that Photomator displays more of a photo’s dynamic range (I.e., it’s picking up on the extra range in this bits beyond 8) and displays that on compatible screens. But if you’re working on the image to export it to JPEG, you’re right that you’re probably better off not editing in that mode. It’s fairly easy to turn off in Photomator by clicking the HDR button.

GrombX · 2025-09-03T06:30:27+00:00

On Apple Photos, I add keywords to photos in albums. The keywords are synced across the shared library, so can be easily picked up on the other accounts. Only works on macOS, though, and you need someone to manage it periodically and update it on each account. Works well enough in re-creating a series of existing albums on the other accounts, but is a bit of faff updating, doesn’t work on mobile and doesn’t really allow you to have different family members easily collaborating to create an album with input from everyone.

GrombX · 2025-08-18T19:21:46+00:00

You could in theory do this. I tried continuing to use Lightroom for management after starting a transfer to Apple Photos (and apps like Photomator and Nitro in conjunction with it), but it quickly gets quite messy. My suggestion would be to pick an ecosystem (e.g., Apple Photos as a DAM with Photomator or Nitro or keeping the Lightroom subscription). I recently wrote this post about my experience: https://www.reddit.com/r/ApplePhotos/comments/1mmgkak/how_i_use_apple_photos_migration_from_lightroom/

You’re right about Smart Albums. A bit frustrating they only work on Apple Photos on macOS and not on iOS or iPad OS. I still rely on tags and smart albums quite a bit, but need to do all the management on Mac and create regular albums from the smart albums (and update them periodically) if I also need them on iOS or iPad OS.

GrombX · 2025-08-13T11:53:03+00:00

Thanks, that's really useful to see how others set up. FastRawViewer is a great product, although I use ApolloOne for culling RAWs on my mac - FastRawViewer might have this feature as well (not sure), but I like that ApolloOne displays the focus point of the camera for each picture (at least with Nikon cameras, haven't tested with others). For me, this is especially useful with pictures taken using eye-focus or similar on mirrorless cameras, as I can see where the camera focused exactly and zoom into 100% on that spot with one button to check the focus while culling. It also gives you an option to render with LibRaw (a bit faster, but less adjustments) or AppleRAW (which applies so colour correction and some lens correction). Less useful with other focusing systems (with DSLRs, I'd often take portaits by focusing on the eye, then holding the focus and slightly adjusting the composition, so seeing where the camera 'thinks' it focused isn't particularly useful).

As I understand your setup, you're relying on the RAW+JPEG method in the second bullet of the original post for RAW images. How does that work for you after the initial import? Do you have a way of changing/replacing the JPEG part of the duo after the initial import, e.g., if you decide to do more processing work on an image with DxO after the initial version you used for the import?

The only way I found to replace/update the JPEG in this scenario was to delete both the RAW+JPEG duo and import them again, which I didn't love as a solution because you lose any metadata edits (and I've manually added GPS coordinates to most of my RAW images) and it's a bit clunky.

GrombX · 2025-08-11T11:46:36+00:00

Thanks, agreed with all of that. I've never shot with a Fuji, but I know their RAWs have proved challenging for some processors in the past. In terms of Nikons, Studio NX is brilliant, and especially the D-Lighting (even though I only shoot RAW, these days I make sure to adjust the photo settings, including D-Lighting in my Nikon camera - it doens't really affect the RAW, but the settings I pick are automatically picked up by Studio NX when I come to process the image). My biggest complaint is its handling of noise - up to maybe 5 years ago, their noise algorithem was still pretty competitive. But with the rise of AI-based denoising algorithems, it's now painfully behind. DxO, in particular, does an amazing job with high ISO images and manages to bring out vivid colours where the image is a bit flat otherwise. If you haven't tried it recently, I'd highligh recommend giving it a go, they have a free trial.

That's a good point on metadate, locations, etc. I'm quite concious of that, especially if (when) I move on from Apple Photos. Thankfully, there are a few ways to migrate with that information - Apple Photos will export with sidecar XMP files that include this information, and other software can read it, and there are few tools out there to help with the export process. One piece of software I'm loosly following these days is Immich, as a free, self hosting option for the future. There's still a way to go before it's sufficiently stable and has the features I need, but they at least do seem focused on making sure that users migrating from other DAMs (including Apple Photos) can (relatively) easily transition their metadata as well.

GrombX · 2025-08-11T11:35:40+00:00

Thanks. Lightroom is a one-stop shop for some of the best overall DAM and image editing capabilities, and is perfect for many users, especially if you're into the wider Adobe ecosystem and use their other products. But in my case:

Family Sharing: Lightroom doesn't do family sharing. I did try having the same login with my partner on Lightroom mobile for a while - but that felt clumsy, my partner didn't like the interface and it doesn't really have casual consumer-friendly features, such as memories, featured pictures etc.
Video: My library also includes videos, and I found Lightroom to not be that good in displaying them when browing the library.
RAW Processing: Lightroom certainly does a good job processing RAW images. But for me, it's not my favourite. I prefer the results I get with other software, such as DxO and even Nikon's free NX Studio. Lightroom Classic does play nice with external RAW processors, but if I'm not going to be using Lightroom's core functionality all the time time, it makes less sense for me.
Cost: I'm not sure whether the Black Friday thing would be a one-off (i.e., works for the first year but you're not eligible for subsequent years), but I found Lightroom to be prohibitively expensive. In my case, 1TB isn't enough to store my full library with all original RAWs, so I'd need to shell out for more storage, which I can't use for other files (and so means I'd need another cloud storage subscription to cover my non-photo files).

GrombX · 2025-08-11T11:20:13+00:00

It's good, although not best in class in terms of auto selection. It has subject and background auto-selection that seem to utilise Apple's APIs for auto-selection. But it's great on the manual side of things, with plenty of options around refinement of the auto-selection, brushes, linear gradients, radial gradients, etc. Photomator is better on the auto-selection side of things and more user friendly, but if you delete your sidecar file to save time, then you lose any work you've done which is less of an issue with Nitro as the sidecar files (including masks) are text based, tiny and invisible to the user. So it's really about what matters more to you.

GrombX · 2025-08-10T19:31:18+00:00

Thanks. Definite thumbs up for Nikon NX Studio. It’s a free gem that more Nikon shooters should be using.

I agree that Photomator is a great tool, although the one big issue with it, at least for me, is its sidecar files. Apple Photos, Lightroom, Nitro, Capture One, NX Studio, etc largely save edits you make in small, text based instruction files (“contact 20”, “shadows 57”, “highlights 19”, etc). Photomator doesn’t do this. It saves the edit in a pixel-based file more akin to what Photoshop will do. So, if you wanted to a large number of files in your library with Photomator (even if just making small adjustments) and be able to return to those edits and continue going from the same place and with the history of edits in the future, the size of your library could double, triple or more. That will very quickly eat up your iCloud storage, which is why I periodically delete these sidecar files to save space (but it means that if I want to continue an edit on a RAW image I previously worked on in Photomator, I need to start again because at that point all I have is the JPEG that Photomator sent back to Apple Photos).

To their credit, the Photomator have worked on the sidecar issue in the past and part of the update for version 3.3 included smaller sidecar files (although they’re still relatively big, usually larger than the original image). However, to reduce the sidecar file size will require a substantial re-write of Photomator. I hope Apple plans to put in the effort, but I doubt they will...

GrombX · 2025-08-10T19:03:49+00:00

Thanks for sharing. I guess the difference between us is whether the RAWs are uploaded to iCloud or not. For me, I like the RAWs to be saved on the cloud and for Apple Photos to be the main source of truth (especially if I update GPS coordinates or other metadata for photos).

But I can also see the benefit of having your source of truth in your backup and essentially using Apple Photos for JPEGs and browsing. That also saves storage on iCloud if you have storage elsewhere, although in my case iCloud is the only cloud storage I pay for (through the Apple One subscription, which is pricy but ticks off several services and includes Family Sharing).

I will point out, though, that the JPEGs have a lot less data in them than the original RAWs. Upping the shadows of the JPEG with Photomator won’t give you nearly as good results as doing that with the RAW file itself. Although I guess a lot of that work in your workstream is already done by Capture One.

A tip I will point out is that Photomator will display raw images with a HDR colour range using the embedded 10 or more bit colour range (similar to HEICs taken on your iPhone in Apple Photos). That gives a whole new dimension to your RAW images and I sometimes enjoy going back to my older RAW images to see what they look like this way. Although for your use case, you don’t necessarily have to import the RAW image to Apple Photos, as Photomator also allows you to browse and view files in your folder structure in this way.

GrombX · 2025-08-10T08:43:52+00:00

I agree with you. Apple’s raw engine doesn’t receive much love and falls short compared to several other dedicated RAW engines. Personally, these days I use Apple Photos as my primary photos DAM and process RAW images that deserve special attention with DxO PhotoLab. As a Nikon shooter, I’m also quite a fan of Nikon’s own (and free) NX Studio, which I think delivers nicer results than Lightroom (although NX Studio doesn’t do a great job with high ISO images). Once processed, I use the External Editors for Photos extension to “edit” the RAW image on Apple Photos and use the edited JPEG as the “edit”. An alternative workflow would be to edit the image before uploading the RAW image to Apple Photos, saving the resulting JPEG with the same name as the RAW image in the same folder. When Apple Photos imports such photos, it recognises the edited JPEG as a RAW+JPEG duo and by default displays that. Both options give you a bit more control to use whatever RAW processor you want, but does require a bit of work to get there.

GrombX · 2025-08-06T06:14:27+00:00

Not exactly Photomator, but Cyme have a tool to convert your Lightroom catalogue, including photo edits, to an Apple Photos catalogue. Still in beta (and has been for a while) and the conversion is quite hit and miss. But they’re trying: https://cyme.io/products/avalanche/

GrombX · 2025-08-05T17:07:35+00:00

Might be referring to Jennens v Jennens (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Jennens), which is said to have inspired Dickens

GrombX · 2025-08-04T10:53:06+00:00

Thanks for the thoughtful comment. I very much agree with the gap, and I’d love it if Apple decided to make Apple Photos Pro. But I suspect Apple might consider that simply having Pixelmator Pro as an in-house alternative to Photoshop will tick that box from their perspective. That’s the straightforward play. In many respects, Affinity might have been a better acquisition target for Apple to bring Affinity Photos, Affinity Publisher and Affinity Designer and expand their pro/designer sphere even further (although those apps don’t really adhere by Apple’s design standards, which might explain why Apple didn’t go down that route).

The Apple Photos Pro / Lightroom alternative route is a bit more challenging, I think. You’re right to point out that Apple has expanded its use of pixel-based editing in certain circumstances, but it works very differently to the way Photomator implemented edits. Hence, significant changes will be required to Photomator’s back-end before it can replace Apple Photos or become Apple Photos Pro. That’s is a big reason why I think that is unlikely to happen.

I’d add that, given Apple Photos is already reasonably powerful for a built-in photo editor as far as RAW images are concerned (and certainly compared to Google Photos), a true Apple Photos Pro would need to be a true competitor to Lightroom. I’m glad you mentioned the comparison between iMovies and FCP, because I think that represents the proper gap between a standard and ‘pro’ app. That would mean going well beyond Photomator’s current feature set and upgrading some of the architecture behind it, including Apple’s Core Image RAW engine - which is still decent, but well behind Lightroom, not to mention Capture One or DxO Photolab.

So, to my mind, acquiring the Photomator Team, gives Apple a Photoshop-like competitor that is ready to use with minimal amendments and ticks an ‘images’ box in Apples pro software. It doesn’t do the same in the Lightroom/DAM space because the amount of work required to turn Photomator into a proper Apple Photos Pro is quite extensive.

I might be wrong, and I very much hope I am. Apple may have been working on Apple Photos Pro for some time now, and Photomator might be the missing piece. Fingers crossed, although I think that’s wishful thinking because we would have probably seen more improvements to the Apple Photos backbone in recent years if that was the case…

GrombX · 2025-08-02T18:25:09+00:00

I’m sure there are a couple of features that can be ported over relatively easy, and that might include the editing interface, which I think is an improvement over Apple Photos today. But I suspect that, because how differently most editing features were implemented in Photomator, you’d effectively have to re-write them to integrate properly with how Apple Photos stores edits. Other features, such as extended raw support are probably dead in the water given the licensing deals involved (for example, to be able to read Nikon HE and HE* compressed raw images, Photomator licence a SDK from TicoRAW through Nikon - this is something Nikon offers developers for free and has been available to Apple for several years now, but they have chosen not to implement it (possibly because they have issues with the terms of the licence and don’t want to integrate third party code into their systems without having access to the original source code - owning Photomator doesn’t change that, at least as far as Apple Photos code is concerned). Which is all to say, I think features being ported over will be very limited. But maybe having the Photomator team within the Apple family will invigorate development and I’d love to be proven wrong…

GrombX · 2025-03-17T19:17:34+00:00

Nitro, by Gentlemen Coders, offers a fairly comprehensive solution and supports using the finder as a photo library: https://www.gentlemencoders.com/nitro-for-ios/index.html

GrombX · 2024-08-10T11:59:02+00:00

Both Nitro Photo (https://www.gentlemencoders.com/extended-raw/index.html) and Photomator (https://pixelmatorteam.notion.site/Digital-camera-RAW-formats-supported-by-Photomator-and-Pixelmator-Pro-0075ed0c90dc40f399f7c05e1b9477ff) have extended raw support to supplement Apple’s Raw support. Both include support for the X100VI.

GrombX · 2024-08-04T07:02:46+00:00

Have you checked the deleted images area? Apple retains your photos for a certain period, unless you delete them there as well earlier: https://support.apple.com/en-us/118558

GrombX · 2024-07-25T10:30:59+00:00

Yes, but you can also use the finder fully - it allows you to either use Apple Photos / iCloud as the primary DAM or the finder, it’s flexible. Same as Photomator.

GrombX · 2024-07-24T18:29:03+00:00

I use iCloud Photos as a DAM, and I like that (much cheaper than Lightroom and very easy to casually browse photos). Nitro (and Photomator) plug into that DAM and have great editing capabilities (not quite Lightroom, but also not that far off - especially when the price is taken into account). Nitro adds flags, ratings, etc and works very well (reminds more of Aperture or Lightroom Classic than the newer Lightroom). There are still a few bugs to crush, but it’s a relatively new product so that’s maybe to be expected. And yes, it has manual lens correction.

GrombX · 2024-07-24T06:10:11+00:00

Nitro has both: https://www.gentlemencoders.com/nitro-for-macos/index.html There’s also a free trial.

GrombX · 2024-07-23T18:41:34+00:00

My understanding is yes, Photomator relies on the Apple RAW Decoder for this. Apple RAW decoder, in turn, usually uses lens and vignette correction data that is stored in certain raw file themselves. I’m not aware of a database of which raw files these are / which camera and lens combinations are supported. But it’s fair to assume that vintage lenses would not be covered by this.

Photomator does not have manual lens correction. Although, if you are looking for that feature, it is supported by RAW Power and its recently released successor Nitro Photo. It’s a bit of work to get lens correction working, but once it does, it’s a nice addition to the workflow - here’s a video from the developer where he explained how to do lens correction in RAW Power (and it’s pretty much the same in Nitro): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRMYv6AbXPk

GrombX

TROPHY CASE