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darktable

DESIGN
Velocity5.0

Open-source photography workflow application and raw developer.

www.darktable.org ↗

darktable built a neural stack into a raw editor — and 5.6.1 is two months of stabilising it.

raw-photo-editingneural-restoreonnx-runtimememory-safetyrelease-cadence
◆Current state
The 5.6 line is where darktable added an optional AI subsystem: an ONNX runtime disabled by default, GPU install scripts that detect the vendor, a SAM2.1 object-mask tool in the mask manager, and a neural restore module covering raw denoise, denoise and upscale. The 5.6.1 bug-fix release that just landed is 150 commits and 100 pull requests, and a large share of them are on that new stack — crashes on sensor-edge raws, a CFA buffer overrun on 4-Bayer sensors, ProRAW previews, sRaw rejection, model downloads that now resume. There are no new features in it at all.
◆Where it's heading
This is what a mature project looks like after it takes on a genuinely new subsystem: the feature release opens the surface, and the next two months close the holes in it. The failure modes being fixed are the telling part — they are format-coverage and memory-safety bugs across the raw pipeline, which is the cost of running inference on sensor data rather than on finished images. The rest of the release is ordinary raw-editor hardening: OpenCL correctness on AMD and rusticl, mask rendering, lighttable navigation.
◆Prediction
Expect the 5.7 development cycle to widen model coverage rather than add a second AI surface, and further 5.6.x releases to keep working through raw-format edge cases in neural restore. The entries do not say whether the AI subsystem will stop being an opt-in build flag.

◆Recent moves

  1. 17d ago

    5.6.1 spends 150 commits hardening the new AI stack

    A bug-fix release with 'The Big Ones' explicitly empty, but substantial underneath: out-of-bounds reads in wavelet decomposition and raster mask caching, a CFA buffer overrun in neural restore on CYGM and RGBE sensors, ProRAW and sRaw handling, and OpenCL correctness on AMD and rusticl. It is the stabilisation pass the 5.6.0 AI subsystem needed.

    View source ↗
  2. 1mo ago

    Nightly development build (rolling tag)

    The rolling nightly tag, republished daily on top of the 5.7 development line. It carries no release content of its own.

    View source ↗
  3. 2mo ago

    5.6.0 adds an optional AI subsystem: object masks, neural denoise and upscale

    ⚡ SPARK

    This is the release the whole 5.6 line turns on, and the origin of the arc 5.6.1 is now stabilising. It introduces the ONNX-backed AI subsystem, the SAM2.1 object-mask tool, and the neural restore module, alongside conventional work like the colorharmonizer module.

    View source ↗
  4. 2mo ago

    5.7 development cycle opens

    A 30-character marker tag opening the next development line, published two days before 5.6.0 shipped. It says nothing about what the cycle contains.

    View source ↗
  5. 7mo ago

    darktable 5.4.1 bug-fix release

    The 5.4 line's point release, with every feature section marked N/A and only export, demosaic and metadata fixes behind it. It is the same slot in the previous cycle that 5.6.1 occupies now, at a fraction of the volume.

    View source ↗
  6. 8mo ago

    5.4.0 adds capture sharpening, an AgX tone mapper and workspaces

    The previous solstice feature release: a capture sharpening section in demosaic, an AgX-based tone mapper alongside Sigmoid and Filmic, and multiple workspaces. Real additions, but all within the editor's existing capability surface — which is what makes 5.6.0 a different kind of release.

    View source ↗