Library
- Just open any folder, no catalog
- Stars, color labels, tags and filters
- AI tagging and search
- Similar photos grouped for you
Works like Lightroom
Moves like Lightning
BlitzRaw is the complete package: library, culling, editing, masks, presets and export all work the way you'd expect. The big difference? It's GPU-powered, so it never keeps you waiting.
- GPU-powered
- No catalog
- No subscription
- Windows 10 & 11
BlitzRaw itself is free and open source. The $20 gets you the ready-made installer, plus BlitzSync. Here's how that works.
Made by William, a working photographerHero: the edit view, with one of your best landscapes open
The whole workflow. Nothing missing.
If you use it in Lightroom every day, it's here: your library, culling, every editing panel, AI masks, presets and export. It all works the way you'd expect, and without a bloated catalog.
Culling
- Side-by-side compare, zoom synced
- Bursts and brackets auto-stacking
- Stars and labels using the keyboard
- Before and after at a keypress
Editing
- White balance, exposure and curves
- Color mixer and color grading
- Clarity, dehaze, sharpening, denoise
- Lens, perspective and crop
Masks and AI
- AI masks for subjects, sky or depth
- Brush, linear, radial and pen masks
- AI noise reduction
- Object removal
Presets and sync
- Edit one photo, sync the whole shoot
- Presets and LUTs
- Copy and paste any settings
- A full edit history for every photo
Export
- Batch export with presets
- Resizing and watermarks
- HDR and panorama merges
- JPEG, TIFF, PNG and more
Fast, because it runs on your GPU.
Lightroom makes me wait every step of the way: 3 seconds to open a photo in Develop, 5 seconds to create a mask or crop, 3 more to get back to the grid, all while looking at gray panels struggling to load. On a 1,000-photo event, that's hours of waiting. The frustration builds up and just makes me want to get it over with rather than take my time to do a good job.
BlitzRaw does the heavy work on your GPU, keeps full-size previews ready on disk, and loads tools instantly, so you're never stuck waiting for things to appear.
Job by job, against Lightroom
Estimated, to be measured-
10 to 20×
Opening a new shoot
No import step. Previews are built so fast you can start culling almost straight away.
-
10 to 20×
Exporting
A whole shoot of 200 full-size JPEGs, done before your coffee is.
-
3 to 5×
Moving between photos
The next photo preview is already in memory, ready.
-
2 to 4×
Culling and editing
Every change lands straight away, on the preview first and then on your RAW when ready.
Against Lightroom Classic on the same PC, with the same files.
Your numbers will depend on your hardware and your camera.
Nudge, don't drag.
Put exposure, white balance, or any slider you want on keys. Each press moves one exact step (which you can define) and the photo updates instantly. Fly through a whole shoot without touching your mouse.
- −+ Add any slider you like
- ←→ Previous and next photo
- ↑↓ Zoom in & out
- Ctrl+↑↓ Exposure
- Ctrl+←→ White Balance
- ⇧ Shift+←→ Horizon Leveling
- 12345 Stars
- ⇧ Shift+1…5 Color labels
- B Before and after
100%
100%
The culling view: two portraits side by side
A whole shoot, start to finish.
This is how I edit 1,000 photos. The only real waits are opening the folder, building previews and exporting, a few minutes in total.
-
Open & start culling
No import, no catalog. BlitzRaw simply opens your folder and starts building thumbnails.
About 30 seconds for 1,000 photos -
Edit one photo
Get the look right once, with every tool you know.
-
Sync it to the whole shoot
A couple of clicks to copy the edit to every photo.
Near-instant
Or save it as a preset for next time. -
Build the previews
BlitzRaw renders a full-size preview of every photo, so nothing loads while you work.
About 10 seconds per 100 photos -
Fine-tune, photo by photo
Go through each photo at full size and nudge exposure, white balance and the horizon without ever touching your mouse.
No wait between photos -
Export
Send the whole set out with your export preset.
Times from my own shoots of 45 megapixel RAW files on a recent PC. Yours will depend on your GPU.
★★★
★★★★
★★
★★★★★
★★★
★★★★
★★
★★★
And the details pros ask for.
Brackets, sorted
Auto-stack your HDR brackets in one go, based on exposure, then merge one or all of them into lightweight HDR DNGs.
Your camera's real color
Color comes from the calibration inside your RAW files, not a generic profile.
A second screen
Float the histogram, waveform, scopes and metadata onto your other monitor.
Nothing to babysit
Previews and edits live beside your photos. Move a shoot to another drive and it still opens instantly.
Every step remembered
Each photo keeps its own edit history, even after a restart.
Originals untouched
Edits live in small sidecar files. Anything you delete goes to the Recycle Bin.
How it compares.
Lightroom and Capture One do more than BlitzRaw, and they cost a lot more too. BlitzRaw focuses on the work you do every day, and it's built for speed. Here's where the three stand today.
| Feature | BlitzRaw | Lightroom Classic | Capture One |
|---|---|---|---|
| Speed and workflow | |||
| Start without an import | Yes: Open any folder | No: Import into a catalog first | Partly: In a Session; a Catalog imports |
| Previews kept with the photos | Yes: On disk, beside the files | Partly: Inside the catalog | Yes: Yes, in a Session |
| Nudge sliders from the keyboard | Yes: Any slider on its own key, one step per press | Partly: Basic sliders only, picked one at a time, slow to respond | Yes: Speed Edit: hold a key, then the arrows |
| Brackets found and stacked for you | Yes: By exposure or time | Partly: By time or similarity | No: No, it has no stacks |
| HDR merge | Yes: A whole shoot of brackets in one run, as DNG | Yes: A whole shoot in one run, as DNG | Yes: One at a time, as DNG |
| Scopes and panels on a second screen | Yes: Advanced color scopes, metadata, navigator | Partly: A second view of the photos | Yes: Floating tools and a second viewer |
| Editing | |||
| Color from your camera's own calibration | Yes: Read from the RAW file | Yes: Adobe's own profiles | Yes: Capture One's own profiles |
| AI masks | Yes: Subject, sky, people, depth | Yes: Subject, sky, people, objects and more | Partly: Subject, background, people, but no sky |
| AI noise reduction | Yes: Yes, on the GPU | Yes: Yes | Yes: Yes |
| Object removal | Yes: Yes, on your PC | Yes: Generative Remove, online | Partly: Heal and clone brushes |
| Perspective correction | Yes: Yes | Yes: Yes | Yes: Yes, Keystone |
| Beyond the desk | |||
| Tethered shooting | No: No | Yes: Yes | Yes: Yes |
| Print, books and web galleries | No: No | Yes: Yes | Partly: Print only |
| Phone and tablet | No: No | Yes: Yes, with sync | Partly: iPad and iPhone app, no two-way sync |
| Plugins | No: No | Yes: A huge library | Partly: A few |
| Money and freedom | |||
| Price | Yes: Free, or $20 once for the installer and BlitzSync | No: From US$11.99 a month, for as long as you edit | Partly: US$216 a year, or US$349 once without later versions |
| Keeps working if you stop paying | Yes: Keeps working | No: Develop and Map lock | Partly: The subscription stops; a one-off license keeps working |
| Works without an account | Yes: No account | No: Adobe account, checked every 30 days | No: Capture One account, online activation |
| Source you can read | Yes: Open, AGPL-3.0 | No: Closed | No: Closed |
| Runs on | Partly: Windows | Yes: Windows and macOS | Yes: Windows, macOS, iPad and iPhone |
- Yes
- Partly, or with a catch
- No
BlitzSync Only in the bundle
A memory card is not a backup.
BlitzSync is the quiet half of the bundle. It takes every shoot from the card to your working drive, backs it up every night, and only frees up space once both backups have it. It also keeps both apps up to date, so you never have to download a new version yourself.
-
Memory card
Left exactly as it was
BlitzSync only ever reads from it.
-
Working drive
Everything you're editing
Each shoot gets its own dated folder.
-
First backup drive
A full copy, every night
Fed from your working drive.
-
Second backup drive
A lighter copy
Exports whole, JPEGs shrunk, starred RAWs only.
Files only flow down the chain. Nothing is ever deleted from a backup unless you do it yourself.
Card in, shoot named
Plug in a card and BlitzSync asks what the shoot is called, with the date already filled in: the day you shot it, not the day you imported it.
Backups while you sleep
Once a day it copies new work down the chain, from your working drive to both backups. It adds and updates. It never deletes.
A lighter copy at the end
Your last backup can keep only the RAWs you starred, in BlitzRaw, in Lightroom or on the camera. A shoot you haven't culled yet is copied whole.
Free up space safely
When a shoot is done, BlitzSync checks file by file that both backups have it, then offers to clear your working drive.
Wide photo band: one of your landscapes, very wide
Get your evenings back.
$20. Once.
Lightroom costs you $12 every month, forever.
BlitzRaw and BlitzSync together cost $20, once.
And updates are free for as long as I make them.
$20 once
- BlitzSync. Worth the $20 by itself.
- BlitzRaw, ready to install. No C++ compiler, no command line, no waiting.
- One installer for both.
- Free updates for both apps for as long as I make them. BlitzSync brings them in.
- Install it on all your own PCs.
- 30 days to change your mind.
Full refund, no questions asked. - Windows 10 and 11, 64-bit.
Pay more if it saves you a lot of time. Every extra dollar goes into the next version.
The shop opens soon.
Already bought? Get your key again.
Adobe's Lightroom plan, the cheapest way to get Lightroom Classic $719
BlitzRaw + BlitzSync $20
Adobe's Lightroom plan (1 TB) at US$11.99 a month on the yearly plan, for 60 months, as listed on adobe.com on September 25, 2026. Prices vary by country.
Questions people ask
Does it run on Mac or Linux?
Not yet. BlitzRaw and BlitzSync are Windows only for now.
Will it open my RAW files?
Very likely. BlitzRaw reads the RAW files of most cameras from the big makers, plus DNG. For the few formats it can't read yet, such as Nikon's High Efficiency RAW, it can convert the file to DNG with Adobe's free DNG Converter first. The easy way to be sure: buy the bundle, try your own files, and if it doesn't work for you, I'll refund you.
What kind of PC do I need?
Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit, with 16 GB of memory or more. BlitzRaw does its heavy lifting on the GPU, so that's the part that matters most. A dedicated GPU is best: anything from about 2015 on works, like an NVIDIA GTX 1060 or an AMD Radeon RX 480 and newer. Recent built-in laptop graphics work too, just slower. A slower GPU doesn't lose any features, it just takes longer, especially AI masks and AI noise reduction.
Can I keep using Lightroom?
Yes. BlitzRaw doesn't need a catalog and never writes to your original files, so it can open the same folders Lightroom uses without getting in its way. It won't read your Lightroom edits, though. Those stay in Lightroom.
Can I try it first?
Yes, for 14 days, with everything in it. Get the download here. The 14 days start the first time BlitzSync opens. After that, BlitzSync needs a license key. BlitzRaw keeps working either way: it's free and open source, and yours to keep.
Do I need an account?
No. There's no account and no password. You buy once, and you get a license key by email. Type it into BlitzSync once and that's it. It works on up to 5 of your PCs at once.
What will my card statement say?
LINK.COM. Link is Stripe's shop, which sells the bundle for me and handles the tax. Your receipt comes from them too.
What if you stop working on it one day?
The apps keep working. They don't need an account, a subscription or a server of mine to run. And BlitzRaw's source is public, so nobody can take it away from you, me included.
Can I get a refund?
Yes. Within 30 days, for any reason. Email me at [email protected].
Built on RapidRAW.
BlitzRaw began as a fork of RapidRAW by CyberTimon: a fast, GPU-powered RAW editor, free and open to everyone. Most of the code in BlitzRaw is still theirs, and I'm grateful every time I open it. If you like BlitzRaw, go and give RapidRAW a star.
What BlitzRaw adds for paid work
- Keyboard nudges for any slider
- Full-size previews kept on disk
- Brackets and bursts stacked automatically
- Batch HDR merges to DNG
- Color from your camera's own calibration
- Panels on a second screen
- An edit history for every photo
RapidRAW in turn builds on rawler, lensfun, darktable, LaMa, SAM 2, U2-Net, Depth Anything and NIND, all credited in full inside the app. BlitzRaw adds SCUNet for its AI noise reduction.