RoadmapRoadmap
Photo Forge first: how the Forge suite will be sequenced
The suite will be built one application at a time. Photo Forge comes first, Light Forge second, and the rest of the lineup follows only after real milestones.
All applications
01 / 11
Raster image editing
Photo Forge
Professional image editing, being built from the ground up.
Active DevelopmentDevelopment builds only · no public download yet
Overview
A professional image-editing application with layers, drawing tools, typography, masks, and editing workflows.
Photo Forge is the first Forge application and the current engineering priority. It is a working development build, not a public release: the interface is written in Python with Qt (PySide6), and performance-critical pixel work is moving into a native Rust engine. Layers, typography, masks, transforms, and native document saving already work in development builds, while tools such as the eraser and selection-aware painting are being reworked. There is no public download yet.
- Category
- Raster image editing
- Status
- Active development
- Availability
- Not publicly available
- Platform goal
- Linux first; Windows and macOS planned
- Planned pricing
- Included in the planned $10/month suite
Capabilities in development
What Photo Forge is being built to do
Some of these already work in development builds and some are still in progress. The development page separates verified work from work in progress.
- Layer-based editing with pixel, text, and vector layersIn development
- Brush, eraser, selection, crop, and transform toolsIn development
- Point and area typography that stays editableIn development
- Layer masks and layer effects, beginning with Drop ShadowIn development
- Non-destructive workflows where the document model supports themIn development
- Native .pforge documents that save every layer, mask, and effectIn development
- A native Rust engine for performance-critical pixel operationsIn development
Progress
Roadmap and development updates
- In Progress
Brush strokes inside selections
Fixes painting inside an active selection so strokes reach every canvas tile. Implemented and in review.
- In Progress
Eraser that clears to transparency
Rebuilds the Eraser on the brush stroke pipeline so it removes pixels instead of painting white, with stroke performance work. In review.
- In Progress
Layer locks that are enforced and saved
Locked layers refuse painting, and lock state survives save and reopen for every layer kind.
- In Progress
Crop that keeps text editable and vectors aligned
Crop should keep text as editable text and keep vector layers aligned with the new canvas origin.
- In Progress
Lower-memory History
Copy-on-write tile sharing between History snapshots, followed by a configurable memory and depth budget.
- In Progress
Native blur in the Forge Engine
A separable blur kernel in Rust with parity tests against a Python reference, then integration into Photo Forge.
- In Progress
Benchmark harness and performance budgets
Repeatable measurements of real editing scenarios, so performance work is measured before and after every change.
- Completed
Native .pforge documents
Photo Forge saves and reopens its own document format with atomic writes and recovery, and keeps layers, text, vectors, masks, and effects editable across save and reopen.
Completed June 23, 2026
Development updates
Photo ForgeIn review
Brush, eraser, and layer-lock fixes move into review
Three correctness fixes from the October audit are implemented on development branches: painting inside selections, an eraser that truly erases, and enforced layer locks.
EngineeringAudit
Where Photo Forge stands after EFFECTS1: an honest audit
A full repository audit classified every Photo Forge capability as verified, partial, placeholder, or missing. Here is the short version.
Follow Photo Forge as it takes shape.
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