Winter Update

Today marks 11 years of Darkroom, and it also marks the closing of a chapter. The past twelve months were largely focused on one thing: getting Darkroom 7 ready and out the door. The first beta went out in August, 6 months ago already, but the work started well before that, reshaping the app from the inside out—modernizing core systems, rethinking architecture, and preparing Darkroom for the next decade. Once the first beta was live, we shifted our focus entirely to getting 7.0 finished, and shipped.

Life after the 7.0 launch

Darkroom 7.0 launched in December. It was a wide-reaching release that touched almost every part of the app, and the weeks immediately after launch were, if we’re honest, a bit bumpier than we had hoped. That said, the underlying work has paid off quickly.

Since the December release, we’ve shipped 24 updates, averaging three releases per week. It's worth just scrolling through the updates list to see the pace. That pace simply wasn’t possible before. The new architecture has made development faster, safer, and more predictable, and it has allowed us to finally address long-standing issues we’d previously struggled to solve.

Our crash rate is now the lowest in the app’s 11-year history. A large part of that improvement comes from better tooling: a new in-app bug reporting flow and expanded telemetry mean issues surface earlier and can now get fixed faster. December and January were intentionally reserved for stabilization, cleanup, and polish, and with that work largely complete, part of the team has started shifting back toward building new things.

New! Curated Collections

We are happy to announce the addition of Curated Community Preset Collections. As Community Presets have become one of the most creative and community-driven parts of Darkroom, discovery was starting to suffer a bit as the catalog grew to well over 3,500 presets. Curated Collections are our way of bringing more clarity and quality back to the surface with handpicked sets that are cohesive, intentional, and easy to explore.

Every collection is designed to be calm and easy to browse, with a clear outcome in mind, whether you’re looking for subtle vintage looks, cinematic color grades, or something more vibrant. This is only the first step, but it already makes finding great presets feel more deliberate and less overwhelming.

Community Presets, refined

Alongside the introduction of curated collections, we spent time refining the fundamentals of the community preset experience itself. They now load significantly faster, especially in larger libraries, and:

• Layout Controls - you can now switch the preview image in the grids, and we added a list layout for browsing on desktop.
• Browse Menu - you can now access the browse menu from the top left, allowing you to jump around community presets with ease.
• Keyboard access - has been improved enabling you navigate, search, and install presets with just your keyboard.
• Misuse and spam filtering - has been tightened to keep everything civilized and high quality.

None of these changes are flashy on their own, but together they make community presets feel more solid, predictable, and professional.

Looking forward

Every anniversary is a moment to reflect, but this one also feels more like a reset.

Darkroom is now faster to iterate on, and more flexible than it has ever been. The work of the past two years weren't about chasing features, it was about making sure the foundation could support what comes next.

To everyone who tested betas, sent bug reports, shared feedback, and stuck with us through a busy release cycle: thank you. Darkroom wouldn’t exist without a community that cares deeply about craft, quality, and creative control.

Here’s to year eleven—and to everything we’re building on top of it.

The Darkroom Team