The blog has had some issues for a while and I finally addressed them today. Comments were broken for a long time and the posts themselves were squeezed into the middle of the page. I also fixed some issues with the forum and the support header looks better too.
Author: Nik Bhatt
Nitro 2026.07 and more
There are new updates to Nitro and RAW Power available now. Make sure you get 2026.07, rather than version 2026.06, which had a bad bug.
The big news for Nitro is a completely rebuilt masking interface. The old one was powerful but hard to use. Now, it’s more powerful and much easier to use. Here are a few highlights:
- New masking list with enable checkbox, and mask reordering.
- Directly create luminance and color range masks.
- Feather any mask, including AI Subject masks and luminance masks
- Add or subtract an AI mask from a linear or radial gradient mask
- Control the threshold when using the edge-following brush.
- Bracket keys ( ‘]’ and ‘[‘ ) to change brush parameters.
- More on-screen controls for gradients, including shift-key to constrain.
- Brushes now have Flow as well as Strength, and improved algorithms for combining brush strokes.
Please watch the Masking Tutorial Video to learn more about it.
In addition, there are many bug fixes and usability improvements, including better undo in Edit, improved support for smaller screens, and a smarter straighten tool.
Since I last posted on the blog, I made many other improvements to the app:
- Significantly faster initial display of images and metadata
- Right-click (Mac) or tap and hold (iOS) to change font size in Info and ExifTool
- iPhone: Greatly improved Curves interface
- Faster keyword filtering
- Brand new, super-sophisticated Perspective tool, integrated with Crop and Straighten
- Duplicate Image command
- Multiple Watermark support
- AI Eraser to remove objects
The road ahead:
The next significant update to Nitro is focused on the “27” versions of macOS, iOS and iPadOS that are coming in the fall. The current OS 27 betas are buggy with Nitro. For example, many adjustments don’t work properly, including Levels, Curves, and the AI Eraser. Performance in some areas is bad. Beware!
For Nitro, the feature headliner is RAW v9, the first improvement in RAW decoding for Apple in several years. Not all cameras are supported yet, so there will be a transition (and it requires OS 27). RAW Power will probably not get RAW v9, but I will revisit that decision after I add it to Nitro. I’m also looking into Liquid Glass for Nitro – Apple is making it increasingly difficult not to adopt that appearance and it’s a considerable effort to adopt Liquid Glass.
Nitro 2025.10 (Mac Only)
I released a new update to Nitro (2025.10) just for macOS.
- Fixes the annoying horizontal line that shows up on macOS Sequoia (it’s a macOS bug)
- Enables tagging on macOS Tahoe (it was working then it broke, and now it’s working again)
- Addresses an issue with Tahoe again when editing images and then quitting right away
I’m working hard on the new Retouch system, but I decided to get these fixes to people right away.
RawBridge has shipped and what’s next
RP 3.5 and Nitro 2025.7 have shipped with RawBridge, which greatly improves RAW decoding and lens correction for compressed Fujifilm and Nikon HE cameras. RawBridge also enables even faster new camera support.
I’m about to ship updates to both apps soon – mostly bug fixes, but Nitro for Mac adds a feature that lets you zoom into images with a scrolling mouse. These should go out the week of September 15th. These updates also fix problems using Finder Tags on macOS Tahoe.
You may be wondering about Liquid Glass and RP / Nitro. I started working on it when it was first made available to developers in June. However, the OS 26 builds have been very buggy. Even the shipping version of the OS has serious bugs that affect Nitro when Liquid Glass is used.
I filed plenty of bugs. Then, rather than spend the rest of my summer constantly fighting with beta OS builds, I focused on RawBridge and other features. I will resume my Liquid Glass efforts later this year. I don’t expect major changes to the way the interface works, but there will probably be some. The tricky part is making those changes while maintaining compatibility with older OS versions. I will say that I dislike Liquid Glass from a legibility and general usability standpoint, but some adoption of the look is necessary.
Exciting Camera Support Improvements Coming
As you know RAW Power and Nitro have exceptional camera support. Far better than other apps that use Apple’s RAW, including (and especially) Apple Photos.
It’s about to get even better.
The main downside of the additional camera support is the lack of automatic lens correction, which requires you to use the apps’ manual lens corrector (though the apps learn from your corrections).
In the near future, both RAW Power and Nitro will gain automatic, profiled lens correction for compressed Fujifilm and compressed Nikon HE/HE* images. I’m still working on the details, and also on how to deal with existing images from these cameras that have manual correction.
Do you use compressed Fujifilm or Nikon and have manual lens corrections? If so, I would like to hear from you so that I can get the migration just right. Email beta@gentlemencoders.com
Nitro Localized Keywords Update
The new Nitro keywords feature provides over 1000 localized keywords in six languages. Now that people have the app in their hands, they have found some incorrect translations (some >very< incorrect :-). Some customers have volunteered to correct the keywords and those changes will go into the next update. If you are reasonably fluent in Japanese, I would appreciate your help with that language. Please email support@gentlemencoders.com. Thanks.
Nitro 2025.4 Has Been Released (+ RAW Power Updates)
I just released version 2025.4 of Nitro along with matching updates for RAW Power on macOS and iOS.
You can get the updates on the App Store along with the release notes.
Nitro has a bunch of new stuff, including the hierarchical keyword feature.
Hierarchical Keywords Are Coming to Nitro
I am putting the finishing touches on a hierarchical keyword feature for Nitro. I am also going to make a video since it’s a pretty deep feature.
After that, I am going to fix some bugs and send out a beta.
Nitro and RAW Power Updates Have Been Released
Download them on the App Store (go to the Updates area on the Store). Both apps add support for Fujifilm X-M5, Nikon Z50 II, OM Digital OM-3, Panasonic DC-GX880 and Panasonic DC-S5D. Nitro adds a bunch of features including borders, more zoom options, and better performance.
What’s coming in 2025.3
I released 2025.2 with some important fixes and am now on 2025.3. That is in beta testing right now. I have started working on keywords, but that is a larger effort, and there is so much in this release already that it makes sense to get it to you sooner rather than later.
Features:
- Borders – set up through Export. You can create multiple borders and choose the one you want in the Export UI.
- Export to shorter edge.
- Filter by Keyword when using the File System.
- Support for Fujifilm X-M5, Nikon Z50 II, OM Digital OM-3, Panasonic DC-GX880 and DC-S5D.
Usability:
- Add Zoom to 200, 300, 400%
- Preference for snapping sliders near zero.
- Preference for tighter zoom levels (10%) below 100%
- Info now has a segmented control to make map and metadata fit better on smaller screens + will give space for keyword editing.
- macOS: when deleting a file that is stored on a server, provide a delete confirmation dialog instead of an error.
Miscellaneous:
- Better performance with JPEGs when on iOS 18.
- File System Keywords now update in the UI when the XMP file changes.
- Improve Appearance of Linear and Radial gradients.
- Fix bug where brush strokes are offset if you straighten an image but do not also apply a crop to it.
- Fix for blurry images that have been cropped.
- Improve quality of fringe reduction in Chromatic Aberration.