ColorForge vs Luminance HDR

ColorForge is a browser-based RAW and HDR photo editor that processes images on the device. It supports camera RAW files including CR2, CR3, NEF, ARW, DNG, RAF, ORF and RW2, with controls for exposure, tone curves, HSL adjustments, LUTs and presets. For HDR images, it can combine bracketed exposures, including RAW brackets, using GPU processing. Exports are available at full native sensor resolution as JPEG, PNG or TIFF, without watermarks; HDR output also includes 16-bit TIFF. ColorForge says photos stay local and are not uploaded to its servers. Editing, RAW decoding, HDR merging and exporting do not require an account. After the web app loads into the browser cache, it can continue working offline. It supports Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari, and the maker lists Windows, macOS, Linux, ChromeOS, iOS and Android availability. ColorForge is free: free, with no installation required. Presets are stored in an account database when signed in, or local browser storage when signed out.

Luminance HDR is a graphical application for creating and editing high dynamic range images on Linux, macOS, and Windows. It can merge JPEG, TIFF, or RAW photos of the same scene taken at different exposures. Supported HDR formats include OpenEXR, Radiance RGBE, 16-bit and 32-bit TIFF, RAW, and PFS; it also handles JPEG, PNG, PPM, PBM, TIFF, and FITS.

The workflow includes loading and saving HDR files, rotation, resizing, tone mapping, projective transformations, and copying EXIF data between image sets. RAW processing uses the LibRAW library. Other listed features include multiple tone-mapping operators, batch HDR merging, batch tone mapping, a command-line interface, and color management. The software is free and distributed under the GNU General Public License version 2.0. Prebuilt installation options are documented for all three desktop platforms. Building from source can require dependencies including Qt5, Exiv2, Little CMS, and LibRaw.