Edit landscape photos with RawTherapee 5.9
When developing landscape photos, the problem often arises that individual areas of the image, especially very bright or overly dark areas, have a color cast or colors that look too intense or too pale. Changing contrast or saturation is more likely to intensify the phenomenon. Good masking and selection functions are must-haves for landscape photographers.
Both free and commercial RAW developers now offer extensive tools for selective image processing. But of all the open source programs, only darktable has offered these features thus far. Although darktable is basically an excellent piece of software, there are drawbacks for some users. It takes a bit of getting used to, and you have to thoroughly understand what is going on to achieve good results. In addition, darktable only runs really smoothly if you have a fast graphics card.
The release of RawTherapee 5.9 [1] in November 2022 after several years of development added the ability to modify specific areas of an image in an intuitive and effective way [2]. Developer Jacques Desmis was inspired by the ingenious selection technology of the popular Nik plugins when programming the function. The good thing is: The program is a RAW developer with similar performance to darktable [3], but avoids the above-mentioned drawbacks [4].
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.

News
-
Akamai Will Host kernel.org
The organization dedicated to cloud-based solutions has agreed to host kernel.org to deliver long-term stability for the development team.
-
Linux Kernel 6.14 Released
The latest Linux kernel has arrived with extra Rust support and more.
-
EndeavorOS Mercury Neo Available
A new release from the EndeavorOS team ships with Plasma 6.3 and other goodies.
-
Fedora 42 Beta Has Arrived
The Fedora Project has announced the availability of the first beta release for version 42 of the open-source distribution.
-
Dash to Panel Maintainer Quits
Charles Gagnon has stepped away as maintainer of the popular Dash to Panel Gnome extension.
-
CIQ Releases Security-Hardened Version of Rocky Linux
If you're looking for an enterprise-grade Linux distribution that is hardened for business use, there's a new version of Rocky Linux that's sure to make you and your company happy.
-
Gnome’s Dash to Panel Extension Gets a Massive Update
If you're a fan of the Gnome Dash to Panel extension, you'll be thrilled to hear that a new version has been released with a dock mode.
-
Blender App Makes it to the Big Screen
The animated film "Flow" won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature at the 97th Academy Awards held on March 2, 2025 and Blender was a part of it.
-
Linux Mint Retools the Cinnamon App Launcher
The developers of Linux Mint are working on an improved Cinnamon App Launcher with a better, more accessible UI.
-
New Linux Tool for Security Issues
Seal Security is launching a new solution to automate fixing Linux vulnerabilities.