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01 / Santre Light

Santre Light

Your photo library and raw files.

Import a shoot, cull it, develop the keepers with sliders and masks and export them for clients, all without touching the original files. Santre Light keeps the library, its previews and every edit on your own disk.

Alternative toAdobe Lightroom

See what it doesAll apps

Harbour lamp studio shoot library

Sample content

Santre Light with fictional sample content. The window follows the layout of the established application it is built on.

02 / Capabilities

What is inside.

  • A library for every shoot

    Albums in folders, smart albums, stacks, virtual copies, star ratings, pick and reject flags and colour labels. Field search finds photos by rating, flag, ISO, camera, date or keyword.

  • Fast culling

    Compare view zooms two frames together and Survey view lays out a whole burst. Previews come from the JPEG inside each raw file, so the next frame appears at once.

  • Develop panels

    Light, Color and Effects panels cover exposure, highlights, shadows, white balance, Vibrance, Texture, Clarity and Dehaze. The Tone Curve, Color Mixer, Color Grading wheels and a black-and-white mix shape the look.

  • Masks for local edits

    Paint with the Brush, drag Linear and Radial gradients, or select by luminance range, colour range, Sky, Subject or Background. Masks add, subtract and intersect, and each carries its own adjustments.

  • HDR and panorama merge

    Photo Merge aligns and de-ghosts bracketed frames into HDR, and stitches panoramas in spherical, cylindrical or perspective projection. Both can combine into an HDR panorama saved as DNG.

  • Lens, geometry and retouch

    Correct distortion, vignetting and chromatic aberration, then straighten with Upright. Remove, heal and clone spots with an automatic source, and fix red eye or pet eye.

  • Your library stays local

    Photos, previews and edits live on your own disk, and the app needs no account to run.

  • Edits other software can read

    Settings are written to XMP sidecars beside each file, and originals are never changed.

  • Modern delivery formats

    HDR gain-map JPEG, AVIF in PQ or HLG, JPEG XL and float TIFF sit beside JPEG and DNG.

03 / Workflows

In practice.

  1. Deliver a wedding gallery

    Import the cards with rename templates and duplicate detection, flag picks in Survey and Compare, and develop one hero frame. Sync those settings across the selection, then export JPEGs with naming templates and a text watermark.

  2. Make a landscape panorama

    Stack the bracketed frames, run Photo Merge for an HDR panorama with boundary warp and auto crop, and open the DNG in Develop. Lift the sky with a Sky mask and a Linear gradient, then export AVIF or JPEG XL with the HDR kept.

  3. Print proofs for a studio client

    Collect the selects in an album and open the Print module. Lay them out as a Contact Sheet or Picture Package on the chosen paper size with an ICC profile, and export a colour-managed PDF for the lab.

Made for

  • Wedding and event photographers

    Cull thousands of frames quickly, develop a consistent look and deliver watermarked galleries.

  • Landscape photographers

    Merge brackets and panoramas, then deliver HDR files to modern screens.

  • Portrait and school studios

    Print contact sheets and picture packages as colour-managed PDFs.

  • Archivists and agencies

    Manage large libraries with ratings, keywords, GPS tags and XMP sidecars that other software can read.

04 / Files and workspace

Opens and saves.

Opens
.dng.cr2.cr3.arw.nef.raf.rw2.rwl.pef.orf.srw.jpg.png.tif.webp.psd.jxl.gif.bmp.xmp.gpx
Saves
.jpg.png.tif.psd.webp.avif.jxl.dng.pdf.mp4.webm.xmp

Colour for most camera models is estimated rather than measured, and some compressed raw variants open from their embedded preview only.

At the desk.

  • One window, with a filmstrip

    Library and Edit share a single window, and the filmstrip keeps the rest of the shoot in reach.

  • Before and after

    Backslash toggles the original, Y shows both side by side and Shift+Y splits the frame.

  • Rate from the keyboard

    Number keys set stars, P, X and U set flags, and 6 to 9 apply colour labels.

  • Presets with an Amount slider

    Apply a preset at any strength, save your own, and copy, paste or sync settings across photos.

  • Versions and history

    Every edit is kept in history, and versions save alternative looks of the same photo.

  • Info panel

    File details, title, caption, copyright and camera data sit beside the photo.

05 / Questions

Good to know.

Which raw formats does Santre Light open?
DNG, Canon CR2 and CR3, Sony ARW, Nikon NEF, Fujifilm RAF, Panasonic RW2, Leica RWL, Pentax PEF, and uncompressed Olympus ORF and Samsung SRW. Some compressed variants open from the embedded preview only.
Does Santre Light change my original photos?
No. Edits are stored in the library and in XMP sidecar files, and the original raw or JPEG file is left as it was.
Can Santre Light print?
The Print module lays out single images, contact sheets and picture packages with ICC profiles and exports them as a colour-managed PDF. Printing straight to a printer is on the roadmap.

06 / The family

Explore the Stack.

Every app in the Stack is designed around one sign-in, one profile and one place for files, so work moves between them.

All apps ↗
Santre PhotoFinish a retouch with layers and masksSantre LayoutPlace the selects in a printed brochure