We’re excited to offer you a 50% discount on your first year of Darkroom+. For just $16.49 (instead of $32.99), you’ll unlock premium features that take your creativity to the next level. No need to wait for Black Friday—we’re starting early!

The sale runs from Friday, November 15th to Monday, December 3rd, ending on Cyber Monday. Don’t miss this chance to elevate your editing game at half the price.

To claim your discount, simply download the latest version of Darkroom from the App Store and follow the steps in the app. No promo code needed! You can also tap the button below to go directly to the membership page.

And don’t keep this deal to yourself! Share it with friends, family, and fellow photographers so they can join Darkroom+ at an unbeatable price too.

Shout Out to Glass

This Black Friday, we want to give a shoutout to our longtime friends at Glass, who are also running a 50% off sale. We go way back with them—before either of us even started our companies—and have been cheering each other on ever since. It’s the kind of indie camaraderie that keeps this community strong. If you haven’t explored Glass yet, their sale is the perfect excuse to jump in and see why we’ve been fans from day one.

Get 50% off your first year of Glass membership!.

Glass is a thoughtfully designed and built photo-sharing community made for photographers who care about quality, simplicity, and a creative-first community. It’s free from ads, algorithms, and all the distractions you usually find in social media—just pure photography in its best form. If you love using Darkroom to craft the perfect edits, you’ll appreciate how Glass gives your images the stage they deserve. For Darkroom customers who are serious about their photography, it’s a great place to showcase your work, get inspired, and connect with fellow creators who share your passion.

Darkroom+

Darkroom+ is our membership that provides access to the growing bundle of already 9 premium features. Whether you want to add a distinct style, make precise adjustments, or manage your photo library efficiently, Darkroom+ has you covered with its collection of premium features.

With Color Grading, AI Powered Masks, Video Processing, Flag & Reject, Curves Tool, Selective Color, Premium Presets, Watermark, and Custom App Icon, you will have toolkit ready to transform your photos on the go without the hassle of complex legacy software.

Don't miss out on this incredible opportunity to elevate your creativity and unlock endless possibilities with Darkroom+!

New to Darkroom?

Whether you're a seasoned shutterbug or just casually dipping your toes into the world of mobile photography, Darkroom offers a comprehensive suite of foundational tools beyond Darkroom+ that cater to all your photo management and editing needs.

1. Manage: Darkroom seamlessly integrates with Apple iCloud Photos, so all your memories are already there, waiting for you. So you can effortlessly import, browse, and organize your growing photo library. Plus, the intuitive interface means you can view, edit, and manage your photos, albums, and folders across iPhone, iPad and Mac with familiar ease.
2. Select: Dive into your photo library and the confidently curate. With Darkroom you can efficiently swipe and edit through your collection. Use the batch feature to speed up the process. Keep what captures your heart, and effortlessly discard what doesn't make the cut.
3. Adjust: Unleash your inner artist with Darkroom's professional, non-destructive adjustment tools and broad file format support. Embrace the power of state of the art tools like Clarity and Highlight & Shadow recovery, and the wealth of Community Presets to make your photos stand out. Even better, share your own unique presets with the world or apply your favorite edits to multiple photos with just a few taps. And for that extra flair, add colorful frames or conveniently export your shots for social media stories.
4. Export: Ready to show off your work? Darkroom makes it a breeze to share your beautifully crafted photos, videos, and even your custom presets with anyone, anywhere and any app. It's not just about editing; it's about sharing your vision and creativity with the world.

Darkroom is more than just a tool; it's a gateway to expressing your creativity and sharing your story with the world. Serious or amateur, every mobile photographer has a home here.

Frequently Asked Question

Our longtime friends at Glass have generously offered an exclusive 60% discount on their Glass Membership for just $15.99 (instead of $39.99) for all Darkroom+ members, available for a limited time! If you haven’t explored Glass yet, this is the perfect opportunity to dive in and see why we’ve been fans since day one.

The above link will redeem on the web, you can also redeem it through the App Store.

Glass is designed for photographers who value quality and a distraction-free experience. Free from ads and algorithms, it’s all about pure photography in its best form. For Darkroom members, Glass offers the perfect space to showcase your edited images in stunning full-resolution. The Glass membership includes private profiles, detailed EXIF data, and an engaged community that provides thoughtful feedback. With an exclusive 60% discount for Darkroom+ members, this is your chance to join a community that’s focused on creativity and connection—without the usual social media traps.

Darkroom+ Black Friday Sale Reminder

We'd also like to remind you that we are currently to offering a 50% discount on your first year of Darkroom+. For just $16.49 (instead of $32.99), you’ll unlock premium features that take your creativity to the next level. Share it with friends, family, and fellow photographers so they can join Darkroom+ at an unbeatable price too.

The sale runs through December 3rd, ending on Cyber Monday. Don’t miss this chance to elevate your editing game at half the price.

To claim your discount, simply download the latest version of Darkroom from the App Store and follow the steps in the app. No promo code needed! You can also tap the button below to go directly to the membership page.

As a small, independent product, we rely on word of mouth and sharing to spread the word about how great Darkroom is. If you’re already a member and know a photographer who would love Darkroom, be sure to share this deal with them. We really appreciate it.

Claim your 50% Darkroom+ discount now, or share it with a friend.

As we wrap up 2024, we thought it would be fun to reflect on the presets that have defined the year for the Darkroom community. This year alone, you all shared over 1,400 new presets with the community, making for a total of over 2,300 presets to discover, install and export! Your presets were used in over 1 million exports and installed by photographers in more than 50 countries.

This year’s two most popular presets, GTD_Warm and Malediven 6, and the two all-time most popular presets, Glass Pop and Classic Negative, all stood out for their versatility and stunning results.

This year we enhanced Community Presets with search functionality and, auto-generated preset descriptions (soon to be searchable). Making it easier to distinguish presets, and improve discoverability in the app and on serach engines. We also added dedicated pages to explore the All-Time Most Exported and All-Time Most Installed presets, celebrating the community’s all-time favorites since the launch of community presets 2 years ago. We’re excited to continue refining and expanding these tools in the coming year.

To celebrate 2024, we curated a list of presets we love and use ourselves. Whether you’re looking to enhance your cozy family shots or elevate your outdoor adventures, these presets will help you tell your holiday stories beautifully.

Warm and Cozy Moments

Here’s a curated list of excellent presets for intimate gatherings, candlelit dinners, and family portraits, selected to enhance warmth, natural tones, and the cozy atmosphere of life’s little moments.

Bold and Vibrant Adventures

Infuse every shot with energy and excitement. Whether you’re capturing the beauty of the great outdoors, or highlighting vibrant colors and intricate details, these presets bring your photos to life. Enhance everyday scenes with a burst of vibrancy, or bring out the drama in landscapes and cityscapes.

Year-Round Favorites

These versatile presets have been the MVPs of 2024, used in countless projects for their ability to elevate any photo. From portraits to landscapes, street photography to still life, these presets consistently deliver stunning results while maintaining a natural, timeless look.

How can you share a preset?

Perhaps you already created a preset you’d like to share? You can do so by selecting the preset you want to share, tap on it again (•••) to view its options and you’ll find the new “Share” button. From the share sheet, you’ll be able to share a link to anyone, whether they have Darkroom installed or not.

Anyone with your link can preview and install your presets with a tap. That’s pretty much it! There are no files to manage, host, download or import. It couldn’t be simpler or more flexible.

We also have this detailed guide explaining how to create and share a preset!

Create your own custom preset

Learn how to create and develop your own unique preset and share it with the community.

We are thrilled to see how many of you have created and shared your unique presets—it’s truly inspiring! Don’t hesitate to tag us or send your creations via message or email; we love seeing your artistry in action. As we continue to grow this vibrant community of photo editing enthusiasts, we are more excited than ever to support your creative journeys.

Wishing you a joyful and fulfilling end to the year filled with inspiration, beautiful moments, and, of course, stunning photos. Here’s to an even more creative 2025!

The Darkroom Team

We’re spreading holiday cheer with 30% off your first year of Darkroom++. For just $23 (down from $32.99), you can unlock premium features that will take your photo editing to the next level—perfect for capturing the magic of the season.

The Holiday Sale runs from Monday, December 23rd to Friday, January 10th. Don’t miss this chance to elevate your editing game at half the price during the holidays and new year.

To claim your discount, simply download the latest version of Darkroom from the App Store and follow the steps in the app. No promo code needed! You can also tap the button below to go directly to the membership page.

And since sharing is part of the season, spread the joy by letting friends, family, and fellow photographers know about this special offer. Everyone deserves to create beautifully!

Happy Holidays and happy editing,

The Darkroom Team

Darkroom+

Darkroom+ is our membership that provides access to the growing bundle of already 9 premium features. Whether you want to add a distinct style, make precise adjustments, or manage your photo library efficiently, Darkroom+ has you covered with its collection of premium features.

With Color Grading, AI Powered Masks, Video Processing, Flag & Reject, Curves Tool, Selective Color, Premium Presets, Watermark, and Custom App Icon, you will have toolkit ready to transform your photos on the go without the hassle of complex legacy software.

Don't miss out on this incredible opportunity to elevate your creativity and unlock endless possibilities with Darkroom+!

New to Darkroom?

Whether you're a seasoned shutterbug or just casually dipping your toes into the world of mobile photography, Darkroom offers a comprehensive suite of foundational tools beyond Darkroom+ that cater to all your photo management and editing needs.

1. Manage: Darkroom seamlessly integrates with Apple iCloud Photos, so all your memories are already there, waiting for you. So you can effortlessly import, browse, and organize your growing photo library. Plus, the intuitive interface means you can view, edit, and manage your photos, albums, and folders across iPhone, iPad and Mac with familiar ease.
2. Select: Dive into your photo library and the confidently curate. With Darkroom you can efficiently swipe and edit through your collection. Use the batch feature to speed up the process. Keep what captures your heart, and effortlessly discard what doesn't make the cut.
3. Adjust: Unleash your inner artist with Darkroom's professional, non-destructive adjustment tools and broad file format support. Embrace the power of state of the art tools like Clarity and Highlight & Shadow recovery, and the wealth of Community Presets to make your photos stand out. Even better, share your own unique presets with the world or apply your favorite edits to multiple photos with just a few taps. And for that extra flair, add colorful frames or conveniently export your shots for social media stories.
4. Export: Ready to show off your work? Darkroom makes it a breeze to share your beautifully crafted photos, videos, and even your custom presets with anyone, anywhere and any app. It's not just about editing; it's about sharing your vision and creativity with the world.

Darkroom is more than just a tool; it's a gateway to expressing your creativity and sharing your story with the world. Serious or amateur, every mobile photographer has a home here.

Frequently Asked Question

It’s crazy to think that ten years ago, we launched Darkroom publicly to the world. We were just two people working out of a shared office in the Mission district of San Francisco. I remember the excitement of pushing the launch button, watching the dots appear on a map of the world showing new users discovering Darkroom for the first time, followed by that electric mix of nerves and hope that what we had built would resonate with the world. On our 10th birthday, I can say it did, thanks to you.

We set out to build a place where photographers and creators could get into a flow state, not to be overwhelmed by complexity, but to be empowered by simplicity and design.

Today, Darkroom turns 10! And whether you’ve been here since the early days or you just found us, this milestone belongs to you as much as it does to us.

To celebrate today's milestone, we released a small update, Darkroom 6.8.10 (yes, that last number is a funny coincidence!). While it's only a small update, we've included three special new celebratory app icon variants to commemorate our 10th anniversary.

A Decade of Defining Moments

When we launched Darkroom on iPhone February 12th 2015 after 8 months of hard work. Mobile photography was on the rise but still underestimated. Lightroom Mobile didn’t exist, Apple Photos was very limited, Snapseed, VSCO, and After light were the dominant players, but primarily single-purpose and single-image focused. The photo editing process was cumbersome and slow. The initial version of Darkroom gave you super-fast access to all your photos, with the ability to make your own presets and batch export them. You know what? Turns out a lot of photographers loved the convenience of that! What started as a passion project became something much larger because of you: the photographers, creators, artists, and hobbyists who chose to believe in what we were building.

It’s hard to summarize a decade of growth. But I can tell you what stands out most:

• In 2015, we launched with a commitment to speed and simplicity. It was basic, sure, but it was fast and delightful—and that mattered.
• By 2017, we expanded beyond photos to offer depth editing and RAW support (version 3), pushing mobile editing into professional territory.
• In 2018, we came to the iPad (version 4), which later allowed us to come to the Mac (version 5).
• 2020 was a landmark year. We received an Apple Design Award—a powerful validation of our focus on design excellence. Our transition to a subscription model enabled significant company growth. We launched on Mac (version 5), and with our then new rendering engine, we introduced video processing capabilities. The success of 2020 wasn't just our achievement; it was a testament to the community that helped shape Darkroom into an award-worthy product.
• By 2022, the new foundation enabled us to rapidly ship features like Clarity, Flag & Reject, Masks (version 6), Color Grading, and Preset Sharing. The speed at which we were able to deliver these amazing new features was incredible.
• In the past two years, we've heavily invested in rebuilding our foundations, which we'll discuss later. During this time, we released our Leica partnership, built a massively improved album list, added mask previews, launched the updated Mac transform tool, introduced Vision Pro support, and further developed community preset discovery, search and sync features. We also strengthened our app onboarding, membership management, business model, and website—all of which have improved our company's overall health.

Looking back, every major feature—every risk we took—was driven by you. Your feedback, requests, and creativity kept us pushing boundaries.

The Past Two Years: A Necessary Slowdown

I want to address something head-on: the last couple of years haven’t been as feature-packed as many of you hoped. And you’re right to feel that way. While we worked quietly on core infrastructure, it may have seemed like we weren’t listening—but I assure you, we were.

So, what happened? Simply put, we had to refactor the very core of Darkroom: its rendering engine. This wasn’t a flashy, feature-rich project—but it was essential. The previous architecture was limiting our ability to innovate. Every new feature added technical debt, making future updates increasingly slower and more difficult. We knew we had to fix this before we could truly scale the product to match our ambitions (and yours).

It was a tough decision. No software company likes delaying user-facing features, and no business likes slowing down momentum. But we knew that without this work, we’d be stuck, as we internally already had hit a wall.

I’m sorry if you felt left behind during this time. It’s never easy to tell a community that they need to wait—especially when there was a period of great momentum, and with a community that has been so supportive.

I also want to acknowledge something important: we've made promises in the past about features and timelines that haven't materialized as quickly as we anticipated. While our vision and commitment to these improvements hasn't changed, we got the timing wrong. Rather than make new specific promises today, we want to let our upcoming work speak for itself. To those who felt misled by our previous announcements, we sincerely apologize. The foundation we've built will enable us to deliver on these long-standing promises, and we're excited to show you rather than tell you what's coming next.

What’s Next?

Now, for the part I’m most excited to share: the beta release is around the corner. This isn’t just a typical beta—it’s the culmination of two years of foundational work. Here’s what you can expect:

• A smoother, more stable experience: Slowdowns and crashes should be a thing of the past. The new engine is built to scale with your creative demands.
• Advanced editing tools: We’ve been prototyping some powerful new tools that we can’t wait to get into your hands.
• Faster updates: The new architecture allows us to ship features more frequently.

Keep an eye on our social channels and this blog for beta invites. We want you to be part of this next chapter, not just as users but as collaborators.

Gratitude

Every milestone we’ve hit, every challenge we’ve overcome—it’s all because of you. Whether you’re a Darkroom+ member, a free user, a critic, a fan, a friend, a partner, or a team member, you’ve shaped what Darkroom is today. Your feedback, both good and bad, has been a guiding light.

To those who stuck with us during the quiet years: thank you. To those who pushed us to do better: thank you. To those who shared their art using Darkroom: thank you. You’ve made this journey worth it.

Looking Ahead Together

When I think about what excites me most, it’s not just the new features or the technical improvements—it’s knowing that Darkroom is part of your creative journey. We’re not just building an app; we’re crafting a space where your creativity can thrive, where you feel empowered to create, share, and evolve.

With your continued support, we’re more motivated than ever to push the boundaries of what mobile editing can be. There’s so much to explore, and we can’t wait to share the innovations, surprises, and milestones ahead.

Thank you for being part of this journey.

Majd Taby, Co-founder

As we shared in our ‘24 Wrap-Up post, we’ve spent the past year steadily evolving Community Presets into one of the most powerful and creative parts of Darkroom. With a few new major updates now live, we thought this was the perfect moment to not only highlight the latest improvements, but also revisit everything that makes Darkroom’s Community Presets such a powerful and unique part of the app.

• Smarter Search — Thanks to auto-generated preset descriptions, search is now more useful—and more fun—than ever, and because we use a fuzzy approach instead of literal search. Looking for film vibes? Try keywords like film, analog, kodak, fuji, or grain. Want a specific aesthetic? Search for wes anderson, matrix, sepia, or cinematic. Need a mood match? Type warm, blue, vintage, or summer. However you search, you’ll find creative presets tailored to your style.
• Auto-Generated Descriptions — We explored allowing custom descriptions, but quickly ran into challenges with quality, consistency, and spam. Instead, we turned to AI with the help of Anthropic’s Claude LLM, which—through careful prompt engineering—has allowed us to generate unique, rich, natural language descriptions for every preset, automatically.

• Easier Discovery Navigation — We’ve added a persistent navigation bar across all preset and collection pages, so you can jump between collections or start a new search no matter where you are. Discovering presets is now faster and more intuitive—on any device.
• Updated Preset Design — We gave preset pages a thoughtful refresh, specifically for desktop, making space for auto-generated descriptions and improving overall clarity. Every preset you’ve installed is now clearly marked Installed when browsing in the app. QR codes are now also available on iPhone, making it easier to share your favorite presets with friends. All small touches that make a big difference.
• Directory Pages - We’ve added comprehensive directory pages for our community presets to help new users discover all the amazing work being shared, and to further improve SEO.
• App-Wide Improvements — We’ve made browsing and searching community presets inside the app faster and smoother. On Mac, keyboard shortcuts are more responsive. We polished scrolling, refined transitions, and improved a ton of little details—all to keep you in your flow.

And that's just what's new. Darkroom's Community Presets is such a substantial feature that entire web platforms and apps dedicate themselves solely to preset discovery. What makes Community Presets in Darkroom unique is its seamless integration and ease of use. There's no need to manage, host, download, or import files—just web links that anyone can freely view, install, and try.

• Preset Discovery — Over the past year we also launched dedicated collections like the All-Time Most Exported and All-Time Most Installed presets—highlighting the best of what the community has shared since launch. On top of the 3 automated (Top Exported, Fresh Arrivals, Top Installed) and 2 curated (Analog Film Favorites, Independent Favorites) collections we already had.
• Preset Sharing — You can share your custom presets with your friends and the world, it’s quick and seamless. Just select the preset you want to share, tap the options menu (•••), and tap “Share.” You’ll get a simple web link that anyone can preview and install—whether or not they have Darkroom. Once shared, your preset is also added to Community Presets, making it discoverable by others.
• Custom Presets — Want to create your own preset? If you’re thinking about making and sharing your own preset but aren’t sure where to start, we’ve got you. We put together a detailed step-by-step guide that walks you through the entire process—from developing a strong look to publishing it with confidence.

Create your own custom preset

Learn how to create and develop your own unique preset and share it with the community.

Custom presets—originally called filters—have been a core feature of Darkroom since we launched in 2015. That same year, we experimented with preset sharing for the first time, but it didn’t quite take off. Our community was still small, and while sharing is essential, we later learned that discovery—and making both effortless—is an entirely different challenge.

When we reintroduced preset sharing in late 2022, adoption was slow. But with the rollout of discovery features a year later, usage swiftly took off. Now, with new features and fresh community presets added daily, it’s become one of the most creative and vibrant corners of the Darkroom experience.

With hundreds of new presets published each month—and more than 2,800 already shared to date—there’s never been a better time to explore.

To celebrate the arrival of spring, we’ve curated a fresh batch of presets perfect for the season. Whether you’re capturing blooming landscapes, golden hour bike rides, or quiet morning moments, these presets will help you bring out the warmth, color, and clarity of your spring stories.

Fresh Starts & Soft Light

Celebrate the softer tones and new beginnings of spring. This theme is perfect for early morning light, delicate textures, and the understated magic of renewal.

Spring in Bloom

Vibrant colors, bursting flowers, street markets, and lush gardens—this set captures the full bloom of spring. Great for city strolls, tulip fields, and saturated street scenes.

Everyday Wanderlust

For spontaneous getaways, bike rides, beach walks, and life lived outdoors. These presets are about capturing candid joy and natural beauty with clarity and subtle pop.

Summer’s in full swing, and so is our push to get Darkroom 7 out the door. We originally planned to launch much sooner, but our internal testing surfaced enough issues that we decided to hold back. We spent the extra time making sure today's Mac Beta release feels as smooth and solid as it deserves to be.

We’re now thrilled to introduce the Mac Beta for Darkroom 7, a major milestone that just so happens to coincide with our 10-year anniversary as your photo editing app of choice. You can read all about it in our Darkroom 7 Beta for Mac post.

Darkroom 7 Beta for Mac

Join us in testing Darkroom 7 for Mac, featuring a completely rebuilt rendering engine that delivers unprecedented speed, stability, and performance.

Behind the scenes, there’s been a lot happening. Our founder Majd just went on paternity leave (🎉 welcome to the world, little one!), and other members of the team have been taking well-earned summer breaks. Things might feel a little slower, but it’s all part of building with care.

With the Mac beta out, we’re already lining things up to bring the same attention to iPhone and iPad, including finishing some updated tools and making video playback as smooth and accurate as possible.

While we’re not focused just yet on making Darkroom shine with Liquid Glass on iOS/iPadOS/macOS 26, it’s absolutely on our radar. First, we want Darkroom 7 to be the strongest possible foundation for the next generation of updates and features.

Thank you for your patience and excitement. This release is one of our biggest yet, and we can’t wait for you to try it.

Until then, stay cool and keep creating.

The Darkroom Team

We’re excited to introduce the Mac Beta 1 for Darkroom 7, a major milestone in our journey, and one that happens to coincide with our 10-year anniversary as your photo editing app of choice. Your edits are about to get faster, sharper, and more precise, and you can try it today in the Darkroom 7 Beta.

At the core of this release is a completely rebuilt rendering engine. Dramatically improving speed, responsiveness, stability, and accuracy. This is the engine that will power the next generation of features, and we’re incredibly proud of how it performs.

But before we launch it to everyone, we need your help.

Join the Beta

Today, we’re opening up the Mac Beta for Darkroom 7, and we’re inviting you to help shape its final form. We will open up the beta for iPhone and iPad soon as well, but first we want the Mac to be rock solid. You should expect some issues, and we hope you’ll help us work through them. To ensure we can connect with you more directly during the beta period, we’re starting fresh with a new TestFlight group. If you’d like access, we ask that you sign up with your email and fill out the form. This allows us to send you updates, reach out for feedback, and keep you in the loop as new builds land.

As we’ve rebuilt the engine that powers every tap, swipe, every zoom, every slider, every mask, and every edit, we now want to know: how does it feel in your hands? What’s faster, what’s smoother, what still needs work? While we’re keeping the full nitty gritty details under wraps for now, we couldn’t resist giving you a quick peek. Here’s a taste of what’s new in Darkroom 7.

Performance & Quality

Most of the work in this release likely won't be noticeable at first glance, as it happened under the hood — and for good reason. Over the past few years, your files have ballooned in size. Apple’s ProRAW, larger sensors, more advanced DSLR’s, and increasingly high-resolution video formats like ProRes and 8K have pushed average file sizes from just a few megabytes to as much as 150MB or much more for video.

We’ve optimized Darkroom 7 to meet this challenge head-on. Opening RAW files is sharper, and more stable. Video loads just as fast, and playback has many new features. Zooming, as well as Crop, and Mask overlay controls are super smooth. We’ve introduced smarter caching, optimized our memory footprint, and reworked how tools load so that editing feels responsive right from the first touch or swipe.

Whether you’re working through a massive shoot or fine-tuning a single photo, Darkroom 7 gives you more speed and stability than ever before. Even long editing sessions that used to bog down now glide smoothly from start to finish.

Why We Rebuilt the Engine

To be honest, this wasn’t the plan. We set out to build new features, to push forward creatively. But as Darkroom matured and grew in complexity after introducing Masks, we started to feel the cracks. Performance issues cropped up. Crashes became more frequent than we wanted with large files. And we realized that to keep delivering the quality product we all expect and are proud of — and to build what we wanted next — we had to go back to the foundation.

So we did. Just like in ’19, we paused, rethought, and rebuilt. The new engine in Darkroom 7 is faster, more efficient, and far more resilient. It’s designed not just for today’s needs, but for where photography and video are headed next.

Looking Ahead

This release is a recommitment to one of our oldest principles: Darkroom should never get in your way. When you’re editing, your focus should be on enabling your creativity — not on Darkroom.

That’s why we did this work. To make sure Darkroom fades into the background, while your creativity takes the lead. And in today’s fast-moving, high-resolution, multi-device world, that’s more important than ever.

For little bit more behind the scenes context, please check out our Summer Update post.

Summer Update

Summer’s in full swing, and so is our push to get Darkroom 7 out the door.

We can’t wait to hear how it feels in your hands. If you want to stay in the loop of new beta's, and the latest news, please sign up to our newsletter!

The Darkroom Team

Frequently Asked Question

As you gear up for the new school year, we’ve got something special just for you, a sizable 30% discount on your first-year subscription to the Darkroom+ yearly membership! Instead of the regular $39.99, you can get it for just $27.99 ($12 off) for the entire first year. Darkroom+ gives you access to a suite of premium tools designed to unleash your creativity, making it easier than ever to capture and share stunning photos.

The Back to School Sale runs from Monday, September 15th to Tuesday, September 30th.

To claim your discount, simply download the latest version of Darkroom from the App Store and follow the steps in the app. No promo code needed! If you want, you can also tap the button below to directly claim the discount if you already have the app installed.

Don’t keep this awesome deal to yourself, share it with your classmates, fellow photographers, and friends. This is a perfect, budget-friendly way to kick off the school year with Darkroom+.

The Darkroom Team

Darkroom+

Darkroom+ is our membership that provides access to the growing bundle of 9 premium features. Whether you want to add a distinct style, make precise adjustments, or manage your photo library efficiently, Darkroom+ has you covered with its collection of premium features.

With Color Grading, AI Powered Masks, Video Processing, Flag & Reject, Curves Tool, Selective Color, Premium Presets, Watermark, and Custom App Icon, you will have toolkit ready to transform your photos on the go without the hassle of complex legacy software.

Don't miss out on this incredible opportunity to elevate your creativity and unlock endless possibilities with Darkroom+!

New to Darkroom?

Whether you're a seasoned shutterbug or just casually dipping your toes into the world of mobile photography, Darkroom offers a comprehensive suite of foundational tools beyond Darkroom+ that cater to all your photo management and editing needs.

1. Organise: Darkroom seamlessly integrates with Apple iCloud Photos, so all your memories are already there, waiting for you. So you can effortlessly import, browse, and organize your growing photo library. Plus, the intuitive interface means you can view, edit, and manage your photos, albums, and folders across iPhone, iPad and Mac with familiar ease.
2. Pick: Dive into your photo library and confidently curate. With Darkroom you can efficiently swipe and edit through your collection. Use the batch feature to speed up the process. Keep what captures your heart, and effortlessly discard what doesn't make the cut.
3. Edit: Unleash your inner artist with Darkroom's professional, non-destructive adjustment tools and broad file format support. Embrace the power of state of the art tools like Clarity and Highlight & Shadow recovery, and the wealth of Community Presets to make your photos stand out. Even better, share your own unique presets with the world or apply your favorite edits to multiple photos with just a few taps. And for that extra flair, add colorful frames or conveniently export your shots for social media stories.
4. Export: Ready to show off your work? Darkroom makes it a breeze to share your beautifully crafted photos, videos, and even your custom presets with anyone, anywhere and any app. It's not just about editing; it's about sharing your vision and creativity with the world.

Darkroom is more than just a tool; it's a gateway to expressing your creativity and sharing your story with the world. Serious or amateur, every mobile photographer has a home here.

Frequently Asked Questions

We’re excited to announce opening our Darkroom 7 Beta to iPhone & iPad, after a successful Mac Beta period since the summer in which you really helped us iron out issues. For this Beta, we specifically focussed on making RAW editing and video playback as stable and low memory as possble, and rebuilt the Histogram and Color Grading tool to leverage GPU acceleration.

Darkroom 7 is a major milestone in our journey. Your edits are about to get faster, sharper, and more precise, and you can try it today in the Darkroom 7 Beta.

But before we launch it to everyone, we need your help.

Join the Beta

We’re inviting you to help shape its final form. You should expect some issues, and we hope you’ll help us work through them. To ensure we can connect with you more directly during the beta period, we’re starting fresh with a new TestFlight group. If you’d like access, we ask that you sign up with your email and fill out the form. This allows us to send you updates, reach out for feedback, and keep you in the loop as new builds land.

As we’ve rebuilt the engine that powers every tap, swipe, every zoom, every slider, every mask, and every edit, we now want to know: how does it feel in your hands? What’s faster, what’s smoother, what still needs work? While we’re keeping the full nitty gritty details under wraps for now, we couldn’t resist giving you a quick peek. Here’s a taste of what’s new in Darkroom 7.

Performance & Quality

Most of the work in this release likely won't be noticeable at first glance, as it happened under the hood — and for good reason. Over the past few years, your files have ballooned in size. Apple’s ProRAW, larger sensors, more advanced DSLR’s, and increasingly high-resolution video formats like ProRes and 8K have pushed average file sizes from just a few megabytes to as much as 150MB or much more for video.

We’ve optimized Darkroom 7 to meet this challenge head-on. Opening RAW files is sharper, and more stable. Video loads just as fast, and playback has many new features. For iPhone we've completely rebuilt the transform tool to be be at feature parity with the Mac, and now includes custom aspect ratio support. Zooming, as well as Crop, and Mask overlay controls are super smooth. We’ve introduced smarter caching, optimized our memory footprint, and reworked how tools load so that editing feels responsive right from the first touch or swipe.

Whether you’re working through a massive shoot or fine-tuning a single photo, Darkroom 7 gives you more speed and stability than ever before. Even long editing sessions that used to bog down now glide smoothly from start to finish.

Why We Rebuilt the Engine

To be honest, this wasn’t the plan. We set out to build new features, to push forward creatively. But as Darkroom matured and grew in complexity after introducing Masks, we started to feel the cracks. Performance issues cropped up. Crashes became more frequent than we wanted with large files. And we realized that to keep delivering the quality product we all expect and are proud of — and to build what we wanted next — we had to go back to the foundation.

So we did. Just like in ’19, we paused, rethought, and rebuilt. The new engine in Darkroom 7 is faster, more efficient, and far more resilient. It’s designed not just for today’s needs, but for where photography and video are headed next.

Looking Ahead

This release is a recommitment to one of our oldest principles: Darkroom should never get in your way. When you’re editing, your focus should be on enabling your creativity — not on Darkroom.

That’s why we did this work. To make sure Darkroom fades into the background, while your creativity takes the lead. And in today’s fast-moving, high-resolution, multi-device world, that’s more important than ever.

We can’t wait to hear how it feels in your hands. If you want to stay in the loop of new beta's, and the latest news, please sign up to our newsletter!

The Darkroom Team

Frequently Asked Question

It's that time of year again! We’re excited to offer you 50% discount on your first year of Darkroom+. For just $19.99 (instead of $39.99), you’ll unlock all our premium features that take your creativity to the next level. No need to wait for Black Friday—we’re starting early!

And for the first time, we are even offering a 25% discount on our Darkroom+ Forever membership. For just $74.99 (instead of $99.99)! Redeem your Forever discount now!.

The sale runs from Friday, November 14th, Cyber Monday through Wednesday, December 3rd. Don’t miss this chance to elevate your editing game at half the price.

To redeem your discount, simply download the latest version of Darkroom from the App Store and follow the steps in the app. No promo code needed! You can also tap the button below to go directly to the membership page.

And don’t keep this deal to yourself! Share it with friends, family, and fellow photography aficionados so they can join Darkroom+ at an unbeatable price too.

Glass is on Sale Too!

This Black Friday, we want to give a shoutout to our longtime friends at Glass, who are also running a 50% off sale. We go way back with them—before either of us even started our companies—and have been cheering each other on ever since. It’s the kind of indie photography camaraderie that keeps this community strong. If you haven’t explored Glass yet, their sale is the perfect excuse to jump in and see why we’ve been fans from day one.

Get 50% off your first year of Glass membership!.

Glass is a thoughtfully designed and built photo-sharing community made for photographers who care about quality, simplicity, and a creative-first community. It’s free from ads, algorithms, and all the distractions you usually find in social media—just pure photography in its best form. If you love using Darkroom to craft the perfect edits, you’ll appreciate how Glass gives your images the stage they deserve. For Darkroom customers who are serious about their photography, it’s a great place to showcase your work, get inspired, and connect with fellow creators who share your passion.

Darkroom+

Darkroom+ is our membership that provides access to the growing bundle of already 9 premium features. Whether you want to add a distinct style, make precise adjustments, or manage your photo library efficiently, Darkroom+ has you covered with its collection of premium features.

With Color Grading, AI Powered Masks, Video Processing, Flag & Reject, Curves Tool, Selective Color, Premium Presets, Watermark, and Custom App Icon, you will have toolkit ready to transform your photos on the go without the hassle of complex legacy software.

Don't miss out on this incredible opportunity to elevate your creativity and unlock endless possibilities with Darkroom+!

New to Darkroom?

Whether you're a seasoned shutterbug or just casually dipping your toes into the world of mobile photography, Darkroom offers a comprehensive suite of foundational tools beyond Darkroom+ that cater to all your photo management and editing needs.

1. Manage: Darkroom seamlessly integrates with Apple iCloud Photos, so all your memories are already there, waiting for you. So you can effortlessly import, browse, and organize your growing photo library. Plus, the intuitive interface means you can view, edit, and manage your photos, albums, and folders across iPhone, iPad and Mac with familiar ease.
2. Select: Dive into your photo library and the confidently curate. With Darkroom you can efficiently swipe and edit through your collection. Use the batch feature to speed up the process. Keep what captures your heart, and effortlessly discard what doesn't make the cut.
3. Adjust: Unleash your inner artist with Darkroom's professional, non-destructive adjustment tools and broad file format support. Embrace the power of state of the art tools like Clarity and Highlight & Shadow recovery, and the wealth of Community Presets to make your photos stand out. Even better, share your own unique presets with the world or apply your favorite edits to multiple photos with just a few taps. And for that extra flair, add colorful frames or conveniently export your shots for social media stories.
4. Export: Ready to show off your work? Darkroom makes it a breeze to share your beautifully crafted photos, videos, and even your custom presets with anyone, anywhere and any app. It's not just about editing; it's about sharing your vision and creativity with the world.

Darkroom is more than just a tool; it's a gateway to expressing your creativity and sharing your story with the world. Serious or amateur, every mobile photographer has a home here.

Frequently Asked Question

Two subtle effects rooted in the legacy of lens dynamics and film photography, enhance your digital photos, infusing them with depth, warmth, and a touch of nostalgia. In this post, we’ll walk you through what each tool does, the photographic origins of these effects, and how you can use them to achieve stunning results.

While Bloom and Halation share their origins in the way light diffuses in your lens and film photography, they serve slightly different purposes and complement each other.

Bloom softens the brightest areas of a photo, an outer glow if you will, diffusing light outward and creating a dreamy, soft focus, ethereal glow that enhances the overall atmosphere.

Halation, on the other hand is a more subtle and nuanced effect, a warm inner glow, focusing solely on the hard edges around bright areas, creating a warm orange halo inside high-contrast points, reminiscent of the look of vintage film.

Bloom: Softening and Highlighting the Light

The Bloom slider softens and diffuses light, causing the brightest areas of your photo to "bloom" outward. It creates a gentle, dreamlike glow around light sources and high-contrast edges, enhancing the mood of a photo by making highlights appear softer and more radiant.

Bloom excels at drawing attention to light in your photos. It imparts a soft, glowing look that feels nostalgic and timeless, adding emotional depth. Use it to enhance a photo's mood or evoke a sense of warmth and softness.

Lens Dynamics Origins

Bloom has its origins in the halation effect found in lens dynamics, especially when shooting bright light sources. Photographers at times would also create this glowing, diffused light by using creative techniques such as applying vaseline or stretching stockings over the lens.

By applying a thin layer of vaseline to the edges of the lens or on a clear filter, photographers could soften highlights, creating a glowing effect around bright areas. The vaseline diffused the light, similar to how Bloom works digitally today. Similarly, photographers would also stretch fine mesh stockings over their lenses to achieve a soft-focus effect. This subtle diffusion smoothed out highlights and softened edges, while still preserving sharpness in the central focus area, creating a romantic, dreamlike quality.

These tricks inspired the digital Bloom tool, allowing you to recreate that ethereal, soft light without having to physically manipulate your lens.

When to Use Bloom

• Portraits: Especially those taken during golden hour or under soft lighting. It can add a flattering glow to skin tones and create an overall dreamy effect that makes the subject appear bathed in light.
• Night Photography: In urban night scenes, Bloom can soften harsh highlights from streetlights, neon signs, or car headlights, creating a nostalgic or cinematic mood.
• Cinematic and Fashion Photography: Creating a dramatic, film-like look. Streetlights, headlights, and other bright light sources gain a soft glow, giving photos a romantic or surreal feel. Fashion photographers also use Bloom to evoke glamour and emphasize texture, especially when working with strong lighting setups, as Bloom can help emulate that classic “lens glow” seen in films.
• Wedding and Event Photography: It’s commonly used for romantic and emotional moments, like weddings or other sentimental events. It adds a cinematic, ethereal quality to photos, softening harsh light while accentuating glowing highlights, perfect for capturing intimate moments.
• Landscape Photography: Particularly during sunset and sunrise, Bloom enhances the sun's glowing edges, softening the transition between bright skies and darker foregrounds. It adds atmosphere and depth to landscapes, especially when light interacts with clouds, water, or mist. In these golden hour shots, Bloom helps tame the sun's harshness, creating a smoother blend between luminous skies and shadowy terrain.

Advanced Techniques

For advanced Bloom usage, try combining it with other tools to create unique effects. Use Bloom in conjunction with the Exposure and Highlights sliders to fine-tune the glow effect. For night photography, apply Bloom after adjusting Shadows to create a cinematic look with softened streetlights. In portraits, combine Bloom with Skin Smoothing for a dreamy, ethereal effect. For landscapes, use Bloom subtly with Color Grading to enhance golden hour shots, creating a warm, nostalgic atmosphere.

Halation: Bringing Warmth to the Edges

Halation creates a subtle, red-orange glow around high-contrast edges in your photo, typically in overexposed areas. This effect shines in scenes with significant differences between bright and dark areas, adding vintage warmth and character to your photos by evoking the charming imperfections of old film photography.

It's worth noting that halation's effectiveness depends heavily on specific lighting conditions. In photos lacking overexposed areas or sharp contrast lines, the effect may be subtle or even unnoticeable. For example, evenly lit scenes or images without bright highlights might show little to no change when halation is applied.

Halation excels at infusing photos with a nostalgic feel, making it particularly effective when you want to evoke a sense of bygone days or lend your image a filmic quality. The reddish glow adds depth and richness, especially around light sources, enveloping your photos in a layer of emotional warmth.

Analog Film Roots

In traditional film photography, halation is caused by light reflecting off the film’s base layer, causing a halo-like effect around bright objects. This happens because light scatters and reflects within the film layers, creating a halo around high-contrast areas. While film manufacturers tried to reduce this effect, it became an iconic look in many classic films, and now, photographers intentionally use it to add warmth and texture to their photos.

When to Use Halation

• Backlit Portraits: If you’re shooting a subject with a strong light source behind them (like the sun or a window), Halation can add warmth and depth to the edges, giving the photo a timeless, cinematic feel.
• High-Contrast Scenes: Anytime there’s a sharp contrast between bright highlights and darker shadows, Halation can add a subtle warmth that enhances the natural glow and texture of your photo.
• Urban Night Photography: Halation works beautifully in nighttime cityscape where bright lights contrast against dark backgrounds. It adds a nostalgic touch reminiscent of vintage neon signs glowing against the night.

Advanced Use of Halation

To maximize Halation's impact, you can pair it with high-contrast adjustments. Add more Contrast, then apply Halation to create a vintage look. For urban night scenes, combine Halation with selective Color adjustments to enhance the warmth around neon lights. In backlit portraits, use Halation in tandem with the Shadows slider to add depth and dimension. For a creative twist, try using Halation with Black & White conversion to simulate classic film grain and light leaks.

We’re excited to introduce one of the biggest under-the-hood upgrades in Darkroom’s 10 year history: a fully rebuilt rendering engine that dramatically improves stability, reliability, and performance across every part of your editing experience. This new engine powers a new display system, designed to ensure navigation, zooming, panning, mask editing, and cropping are smooth and reliable. Most importantly, while this update is intended to be backwards compatible with your existing edits, the rendering and display systems we built are designed to be forward looking, to another decade of innovation and growth.

Over the past decade, iPhone photography has evolved significantly; higher resolutions, heavier files, more video types, and huge RAW images. Darkroom 7 is aimed to rise to that challenge with an engine built for today’s demands and tomorrow’s features: smoother interaction, higher frame rates, and rock-solid consistency from first adjustment to final export.

In a Nutshell

We changed… almost everything. And ideally, you mostly won’t notice. That was the challenge. But we’ll share the nerdier details later. Here’s what you will see and feel right away.

• New Bloom and Halation Tools: two nostalgic sliders that bring analog warmth, glow, and atmosphere. Opening up a whole new creative and expressive look to your shots.
• Improved Video & Histogram: video playback controls with scrubbing and 8K real time edits. The live video histogram gives you photo-grade feedback for moving images.
• Enhanced Recovery: the rendering engine is now fully lossless, allowing Shadows and Highlights to pull back even more detail, especially in RAW files.
• Better Viewing: zoom out beyond “fit to view” for a true macro perspective, adjust your canvas background color, and place masks with more freedom and accuracy.
• Smooth Controls: every interaction is noticeably more fluid: sliders, zooming, panning, crop, masks, all rebuilt for precision and effortless response.

And that’s just the start. Keep reading to dive into the details of the improvements below, plus there’s a fresh brand update for 7.0, and, at the end, a look at the new foundation this engine sets for what’s coming next.

New Bloom & Halation - Darkroom+

These powerful new sliders enhance your creative possibilities, allowing you to add glowing atmosphere and nostalgic feels to your pictures.

Bloom, a powerful new tool designed to add a soft, ethereal glow to your images. Bloom simulates the effect of light spreading beyond its natural boundaries, creating a soft, dreamy, luminous quality, creating a nostalgic feel. Use Bloom to soften harsh highlights, add a romantic atmosphere to wedding photos, or give your night city scenes an enchanting glow.

Halation, our second new tool, mimics the classic film photography effect where bright light sources appear to leak around light edges into darker areas. This tool is perfect for adding a subtle vintage touch or creating a cinematic look in your photos. Halation is especially effective when applied to photos with strong light sources and high contrast, such as street lamps in night photography, backlit portraits, or sunset scenes.

To learn more about Bloom & Halation, it's analog history, see more examples, we have a dedicated guide up to teach you all the ins and outs of Bloom and Halation:

Bloom & Halation

Enhance your digital photos with the analog-inspired Bloom and Halation effects, to add depth, warmth, and nostalgia.

Improved Video & Histogram

Back in 2020, we introduced video processing and playback with the goal of making it feel as immediate as working on a photo, and since then video has only grown as one of the most popular ways we tell visual stories. With Darkroom 7, that original promise takes a major leap: the new engine treats video as a true first-class citizen, giving it the speed, precision, and care it deserves.

• Smooth Playback — We've made significant improvements to the video playback experience, including added support for slow motion, ProRes, 8K video across all tools and sliders. It now plays back at native FPS when we can, we load video much faster, and overall performance of making edits while watching video is vastly improved.
• Advanced Playback Controls — You now have more prominent controls, including a scrubber with time codes for precise navigation. On Mac you can even move the controls around to your liking, and we also added a whole array of time code and detailed playback and stepping control options to adjust our playback controls to your liking.
• Responsive Histogram — Our histogram is now fully hardware accelerated, to the point where it now updates in real-time during video playback and editing. This provides immediate feedback regardless of your photo or video size. Not only that, but we've also made sure the histogram now always accurately reflects all your applied crop and transform operations.

Enhanced Recovery

Our state of the art Highlight and Shadow tools are now even more powerful. By shifting our rendering engine to linear color space, we can access the full depth of image data, allowing for more precise and completely nondestructive adjustments. This upgrade is especially noticeable at the extreme ends of highlight and shadow recovery, where more detail is now preserved.

Linear color space ensures greater accuracy, zero data loss, and a more natural tonal balance, particularly for RAW photos. The result? Higher-quality edits, truer to your original image—while also being faster and more responsive.

Better Viewing

Your editing environment matters just as much as your tools. Darkroom 7 brings a set of improvements that make it easier to judge your work accurately, whether you’re checking fine details, evaluating overall balance, or simply finding the right setting to edit in.

• Zoom Out — You can now zoom out beyond “fit to view,” giving you a true macro perspective of your photo or video. It’s great for judging balance and composition from a distance, and it also happens to make placing Linear and Radial Masks outside the frame finally possible.
• Zoom In — We've removed the limit on how far you can zoom in, allowing you to zoom as close as you want, literally to full screen pixel level.
• Canvas Color — The canvas background is now customizable and independent of your interface theme. Adjust it to better match the environment you’re editing for, or use a neutral tone to evaluate color and contrast more accurately.
• Crisp Pixels — Images and thumbnails now render at their highest possible quality at all times. No more soft previews on large RAW files, unsharp thumbnails after cropping, or black squares when zooming way in on a large RAW, everything stays sharp and true.
• Rapid Loading — Photos and videos now open almost instantly, making browsing, culling, and editing noticeably faster. It reduces friction and keeps long editing sessions feeling smooth and uninterrupted.

Smooth Controls

Editing should feel frictionless. With Darkroom 7, we tuned every interaction, from sliders to on-image tools, to feel more responsive, predictable, and in sync with what you see on screen. These improvements make both quick adjustments and pixel-level refinements noticeably more enjoyable.

• Fluid Sliders — The new engine delivers so much speed that we rebuilt our sliders to match it. Tools like Clarity, Highlights, and Shadows, traditionally heavy operations, now respond instantly, even when zoomed in. Subtle tweaks or dramatic changes feel precise, effortless, and always update in real time.
• Smooth On-Image Controls — Crop and Mask controls have been completely rebuilt to stay perfectly synced as you zoom, pan, rotate, or transform. No more jittery handles, delayed feedback, or controls drifting off while the image moves. Everything now behaves smoothly and predictably.
• Crop Tool Parity on iOS – The crop tool on iPhone and iPad now matches the macOS version feature-for-feature. You get a cleaner interface, custom aspect ratios, more grid overlay options, automatic grid hiding when idle, and a dense grid that appears automatically when transforming or straightening.

Brand Update #7

A big release deserves a bold look. True to Darkroom tradition, we’ve pushed our design maximalism even further with richer colors, deeper shading, reflecting the new depth of the app itself. We pulled the hot-pink energy of 5.0 and the fanned gradients of 6.0, then flipped the whole idea inside out. The result: our two mountain peaks, now rendered with Apple’s new Liquid Glass shaders, basking in dimensional color.

We’re also rolling out four new icon variants exclusively for Darkroom+ members. There’s the classic Light version, Liquid Glass peaks over soft, airy swooshes, plus three new designs inspired by the power of our new engine: Laser (red), Wave (green), and Grid (blue). Each one reflects a different facet of image processing. Pick your favorite and let it shine.

A New Foundation for What’s Next

Darkroom 7 represents more than a performance boost, it's a full reset of the foundation the app runs on. Which is why it took us a while to build. With this new engine, Darkroom can finally keep pace with the way people shoot today: massive RAW files, high-frame-rate video, and heavy edits. The result is an experience that feels smoother, more reliable, and far more capable than what our old engine could ever deliver.

In all honesty, we initially tried to avoid this project and focus on building new features instead. However, we decided to rebuild because the limits were becoming increasingly clear. Adding new tools on top of the old stack required workarounds and compromises that slowed us down, introduced edge cases, and made it harder to guarantee the speed and stability we want Darkroom to be known for. If you've ever experienced stutters, crashes, or jitters while editing, you know exactly what we're talking about. Rather than fighting the foundation, we replaced it, so the app can stay fast, predictable, and enjoyable for years to come.

Most importantly, this isn’t just about today’s improvements. The new engine gives us the headroom to build features we’ve wanted for a long time: more use of Machine Learning, deeper video editing tools, even more powerful color and recovery adjustments, smarter workflows, and entirely new editing capabilities we couldn’t support before. It sets the stage for the next generation of Darkroom.

You may notice a few small differences in behavior compared to the previous version, especially when working with pre-existing edits, large files, or older devices. That’s normal with a change this deep. When you do, and it's a problem, please let us know, and we'll be happy to help. We’re continuing to refine performance, polish edge cases, and shape the engine into the long-term platform it was built to be.

Thank you to everyone who spent the last four months testing the beta and sharing thoughtful, precise, and incredibly helpful feedback. This release simply wouldn’t be what it is without you. As always we're especially excited for the newly unlocked creative expression, and we can’t wait to see the imaginative results you’ll produce with them.

If there’s something you’d love to see in the future, drop it on our suggestion board or reach out to us directly by email or on social. And for the full list of fixes, improvements, and refinements included in this update, visit our Updates page.

Thank you, as always, for your continued support and enthusiasm. We have so much more coming, and we can’t wait to share it with you.

The Darkroom Team

Questions

We’re spreading holiday cheer with 30% off your first year of Darkroom+. For just $27.99 (down from $39.99), you can unlock premium features that will take your photo editing to the next level perfect for capturing the magic of the season.

The Holiday Sale runs from Monday, December 22nd to Monday, January 5th 2026. Don’t miss this chance to elevate your editing game during the holidays and new year.

To redeem your discount, simply tap the button below, or download the latest version of Darkroom from the App Store and follow the steps in the app.

And since sharing is part of the season, spread the joy by letting friends, family, and fellow photographers know about this special offer. Everyone deserves to create beautifully!

We wish you a merry Christmas, and a happy new year filled with editing wonderful memories.

The Darkroom Team

Darkroom+

Darkroom+ is our membership that provides access to the growing bundle of already 9 premium features. Whether you want to add a distinct style, make precise adjustments, or manage your photo library efficiently, Darkroom+ has you covered with its collection of premium features.

With Color Grading, Bloom & Halation, AI Powered Masks, Video Processing, Flag & Reject, Curves Tool, Selective Color, Premium Presets, Watermark, and Custom App Icon, you will have toolkit ready to transform your photos on the go without the hassle of complex legacy software.

Don't miss out on this incredible opportunity to elevate your creativity and unlock endless possibilities with Darkroom+!

New to Darkroom?

Whether you're a seasoned shutterbug or just casually dipping your toes into the world of mobile photography, Darkroom offers a comprehensive suite of foundational tools beyond Darkroom+ that cater to all your photo management and editing needs.

1. Manage: Darkroom seamlessly integrates with Apple iCloud Photos, so all your memories are already there, waiting for you. So you can effortlessly import, browse, and organize your growing photo library. Plus, the intuitive interface means you can view, edit, and manage your photos, albums, and folders across iPhone, iPad and Mac with familiar ease.
2. Select: Dive into your photo library and the confidently curate. With Darkroom you can efficiently swipe and edit through your collection. Use the batch feature to speed up the process. Keep what captures your heart, and effortlessly discard what doesn't make the cut.
3. Adjust: Unleash your inner artist with Darkroom's professional, non-destructive adjustment tools and broad file format support. Embrace the power of state of the art tools like Clarity and Highlight & Shadow recovery, and the wealth of Community Presets to make your photos stand out. Even better, share your own unique presets with the world or apply your favorite edits to multiple photos with just a few taps. And for that extra flair, add colorful frames or conveniently export your shots for social media stories.
4. Export: Ready to show off your work? Darkroom makes it a breeze to share your beautifully crafted photos, videos, and even your custom presets with anyone, anywhere and any app. It's not just about editing; it's about sharing your vision and creativity with the world.

Darkroom is more than just a tool; it's a gateway to expressing your creativity and sharing your story with the world. Serious or amateur, every mobile photographer has a home here.

Frequently Asked Question

For the third year in a row you all shared over a 1,000 new presets with the community, making for a total of over 3,300 total presets for everybody to freely discover, install, and not to mention the exports running in the millions! When we launched Presets Sharing in 2022 we had no idea how big it would become. It's a joy to see the community grow and thrive.

In 2025 these top 10 presets stood out for their versatility and results, witnessed by the fact that they were the most exported newly shared presets in 2025:

We did a deep dive into the data to see if we could find some interesting insights. 200 presets account for 90% of all exports, no small feat! Interestingly, Glass Pop is still the leader on the exports front, with over 180,000 exports to it's name. E1 pushed last years GTD_Warm off the second place.

Hidden Gems

This also lead us to discover a set of presets we call hidden gems, presets that have the highest export to install ratio, presets that are exported a lot by photographers that install them. We went ahead and permanently added the Hidden Gems collection to Community Preset discovery as we think they are a valuable tool for finding new presets to try. Below are the top 10 hidden gems of 2025.

We couldn't leave it at that, so we also curated two collections we think you will love if you are looking for some distinct looks for your shots.

Black & White Vibes

Let's start with a set of presets that are great to transform your shots into black and white. Giving your shots a timeless and classic look.

Cinematic Looks

Giving your shots a more dramatic and cinematic feel, perfect for transporting your shots to a different world.

Earlier this year we further enhanced Community Presets with a bunch of smaller improvements and functionality aimed at making using Community Presets easier and smoother; improved search, improved SEO, easier navigation, updates preset page design, directory pages, and improvements in the app. We also spent some time building ways to filter out spam and abusive presets. We’re excited to continue refining and expanding these tools in the coming year.

How can you share a preset?

Perhaps you already created a preset you’d like to share? You can do so by selecting the preset you want to share, tap on it again (•••) to view its options and you’ll find the new “Share” button. From the share sheet, you’ll be able to share a link to anyone, whether they have Darkroom installed or not.

Anyone with your link can preview and install your presets with a tap. That’s pretty much it! There are no files to manage, host, download or import. It couldn’t be simpler or more flexible.

We also have this detailed guide explaining how to create and share a preset!

Create your own custom preset

Learn how to create and develop your own unique preset and share it with the community.

We are thrilled to see how many of you have created and shared your unique presets—it’s truly inspiring! Don’t hesitate to tag us or send your creations via message or email; we love seeing your artistry in action. As we continue to grow this vibrant community of photo editing enthusiasts, we are more excited than ever to support your creative journeys.

Wishing you a joyful and fulfilling end to the year filled with inspiration, beautiful moments, and, of course, stunning photos. Here’s to an even more creative 2026!

The Darkroom Team

Today marks 11 years of Darkroom, and it also marks the closing of a chapter. The past twelve months were largely focused on one thing: getting Darkroom 7 ready and out the door. The first beta went out in August, 6 months ago already, but the work started well before that, reshaping the app from the inside out—modernizing core systems, rethinking architecture, and preparing Darkroom for the next decade. Once the first beta was live, we shifted our focus entirely to getting 7.0 finished, and shipped.

Life after the 7.0 launch

Darkroom 7.0 launched in December. It was a wide-reaching release that touched almost every part of the app, and the weeks immediately after launch were, if we’re honest, a bit bumpier than we had hoped. That said, the underlying work has paid off quickly.

Since the December release, we’ve shipped 24 updates, averaging three releases per week. It's worth just scrolling through the updates list to see the pace. That pace simply wasn’t possible before. The new architecture has made development faster, safer, and more predictable, and it has allowed us to finally address long-standing issues we’d previously struggled to solve.

Our crash rate is now the lowest in the app’s 11-year history. A large part of that improvement comes from better tooling: a new in-app bug reporting flow and expanded telemetry mean issues surface earlier and can now get fixed faster. December and January were intentionally reserved for stabilization, cleanup, and polish, and with that work largely complete, part of the team has started shifting back toward building new things.

New! Curated Collections

We are happy to announce the addition of Curated Community Preset Collections. As Community Presets have become one of the most creative and community-driven parts of Darkroom, discovery was starting to suffer a bit as the catalog grew to well over 3,500 presets. Curated Collections are our way of bringing more clarity and quality back to the surface with handpicked sets that are cohesive, intentional, and easy to explore.

Every collection is designed to be calm and easy to browse, with a clear outcome in mind, whether you’re looking for subtle vintage looks, cinematic color grades, or something more vibrant. This is only the first step, but it already makes finding great presets feel more deliberate and less overwhelming.

Community Presets, refined

Alongside the introduction of curated collections, we spent time refining the fundamentals of the community preset experience itself. They now load significantly faster, especially in larger libraries, and:

• Layout Controls - you can now switch the preview image in the grids, and we added a list layout for browsing on desktop.
• Browse Menu - you can now access the browse menu from the top left, allowing you to jump around community presets with ease.
• Keyboard access - has been improved enabling you navigate, search, and install presets with just your keyboard.
• Misuse and spam filtering - has been tightened to keep everything civilized and high quality.

None of these changes are flashy on their own, but together they make community presets feel more solid, predictable, and professional.

Looking forward

Every anniversary is a moment to reflect, but this one also feels more like a reset.

Darkroom is now faster to iterate on, and more flexible than it has ever been. The work of the past two years weren't about chasing features, it was about making sure the foundation could support what comes next.

To everyone who tested betas, sent bug reports, shared feedback, and stuck with us through a busy release cycle: thank you. Darkroom wouldn’t exist without a community that cares deeply about craft, quality, and creative control.

Here’s to year eleven—and to everything we’re building on top of it.

The Darkroom Team

Today we're introducing Extended Metadata, a major update to the metadata viewer in Darkroom. It's a complete rewrite of the metadata system that makes it faster, more reliable, and far more complete.

Metadata has always been part of Darkroom, but if we’re honest, it wasn’t always great. It could feel slower than it should, sometimes behaved slightly differently depending on how you opened it, and while it covered the essentials, it didn’t always reflect everything your files actually contained. With Darkroom 7.1, that changes.

The Full Picture

Previously, we showed a practical subset of metadata, enough for most situations, but not the complete story. With Extended Metadata, we now display everything we can extract.

We still begin with a clean summary at the top, highlighting the details you’re most likely looking for: camera, lens, exposure settings, ISO, focal length, and resolution. From there, expandable sections reveal the rest. Detailed EXIF fields, extended lens data, color space and profile information, GPS coordinates when available, and any additional technical metadata embedded in the file are all accessible.

If it exists in the asset, you can now inspect it in Darkroom.

For photographers who care about precision, whether you’re comparing lenses between shoots, validating export settings, troubleshooting color workflows, or simply understanding how an image was captured, this makes the tool meaningfully more powerful.

Faster When You Need It

The new Metadata tool now loads in two stages. The moment you open it, you immediately see what’s already available locally on your device or cached from iCloud Photos. That means you get the most important context right away, without waiting.

If additional metadata exists beyond what we already have, Darkroom fetches it quietly in the background and merges it in seamlessly. Instead of blocking the interface with a loading spinner while gathering everything, we prioritize responsiveness first, and depth second. The experience feels lighter and more deliberate, especially when working with large libraries or assets stored in iCloud.

Built for What’s Next

Rebuilding the metadata system wasn’t only about improving performance and reliability. It was about creating a foundation we can build on.

In upcoming releases, we’ll begin introducing metadata editing inside Darkroom. You’ll be able to modify and manage metadata directly within the app, something many of you have asked for. Extended Metadata in 7.1 lays the groundwork to make that possible in a way that’s robust and future-proof.

Mac Workflow Improvements

We have also made two minor overdue improvements to the Mac workflow. First, you can now print your photos directly from the app. On iOS this was easily possible through the system Share Sheet, but on Mac it was not. So now, in the File menu you will find the familiar Print option, which works with single and multiple photos. Second, the "Edit With" Darkroom option, as found in the Apple Photos app, now properly works on Mac. It will open the right photo in Darkroom, and it even works if you have multiple photos selected.

The Darkroom Team