Hacker News: thesnarkitecht

New comment by thesnarkitecht in "Show HN: Free open source Adobe Lightroom alternative, completely local with AI"

thesnarkitecht — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 23:34:03 +0000

Most everyday Lightroom editing and library work is there. Missing: print, book, map and web modules, face recognition and tethering. There’s a full list in the README under “How it compares”.

New comment by thesnarkitecht in "Show HN: Free open source Adobe Lightroom alternative, completely local with AI"

thesnarkitecht — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 23:33:43 +0000

Fair. Your originals are never modified and edits are standard XMP sidecars that Lightroom and darktable can read, so if this project ever stops, nothing is locked in.

New comment by thesnarkitecht in "Show HN: Free open source Adobe Lightroom alternative, completely local with AI"

thesnarkitecht — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 22:01:16 +0000

Fair question. The scene-referred design is modelled on darktable’s, and darktable deserves the credit for it. My very first prototype ported some of darktable’s algorithms, and I replaced that with an independent implementation before releasing. Both projects are GPL-3.0, and the README now credits darktable directly.

I built Rembrandt because darktable’s learning curve kept me from using it, not because it’s worse; it has far more control. The goal here is approachability: fewer, broader controls, on-device AI for masks and denoise, and Lightroom catalog import.

Stack: the engine is JavaScript with WebGL/WebGPU shaders, in a small Rust (Tauri) desktop shell. LibRaw (C++) decodes RAW files.

Edit: corrected my earlier reply. I wrongly said it was written in C++, and I overstated the darktable answer.

New comment by thesnarkitecht in "Show HN: Free open source Adobe Lightroom alternative, completely local with AI"

thesnarkitecht — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 21:47:52 +0000

I will admit that all in all darktable has a more comprehensive set of controls over editing. However, it is harder software to use.

New comment by thesnarkitecht in "Why isn't the industry freaking out about DeepSeek 4.1 Flash?"

thesnarkitecht — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 21:33:35 +0000

Have y'all tried an Ollama Cloud subscription? Their off-hours pricing for V4.1 Flash is extremely competitive.

New comment by thesnarkitecht in "Show HN: Free open source Adobe Lightroom alternative, completely local with AI"

thesnarkitecht — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 21:30:11 +0000

Apple silicon as well.

Show HN: Free open source Adobe Lightroom alternative, completely local with AI

thesnarkitecht — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 21:00:55 +0000

Article URL: https://github.com/thesnarkitecht/rembrandt

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50012199

Points: 42

# Comments: 48