FerrumPix

FerrumPix is a desktop photo management and editing application for Linux and Windows, built with Avalonia UI and VB.NET. Project Website FerrumPix.app

Status: Active development (current base version: 0.9.0), but already feature-rich in the core areas gallery, viewer, editor, settings, and Immich integration. The current focus is less on basic functionality and more on stabilization, UX refinement, performance, and structural cleanup as the application grows.

Features

Gallery

• Folder-tree navigation (multiple drives on Windows), grid/list view, sorting, thumbnail caching; the folder tree auto-scrolls the selected entry into view, centered when possible
• Ratings (stars), favorites, tags, saved searches shown as a navigable tree (filters: favorite, rating, file type incl. RAW/non-RAW, subfolders)
• Extended search: combine text terms with AND/OR (e.g. urlaub OR strand, quoted phrases for multi-word terms), plus structured conditions on image data and EXIF (width/height, camera, ISO, aperture, focal length, date taken), combinable with a single AND/OR switch; EXIF/dimensions are read and cached on first use if not yet known
• File operations: copy/cut/paste, drag&drop with external file managers, rename/batch rename, duplicate, create folder, delete to the OS trash by default (with confirmation), batch selection, reveal in file manager, copy path; conflict dialogs include overwrite/skip choices for the whole batch
• Batch rename: pattern-based with counters (#, ###), and placeholders for the original name/extension, file date, EXIF date taken, image width/height, camera, ISO, aperture, and focal length; the last-used pattern is remembered between sessions
• Batch format conversion: convert selected images to JPG/PNG/WEBP (with quality setting) into a selectable target folder, with the last target folder remembered and auto-numbering on name collisions
• Batch filtering: apply a built-in filter preset, a Lightroom preset (.xmp), or a LUT (.cube) to the whole selection — either overwriting the originals or writing new files (target folder or Immich, format and quality, with the preset name appended to the file name, e.g. photo.jpg → photo_Vintage.jpg)
• Further batch operations on the selection: resize (target size or scale percentage, with lock-aspect and interpolation choice), apply a saved watermark preset, and strip all metadata from local files
• A menu button in the footer opens the same menu as a right-click on a photo, so the batch operations are reachable without a right-click
• Collage creation: Grid, Hero (one large image + the others framing it — top/bottom/left/right/center, position pickable via the same anchor-grid as the editor's canvas tool, or by clicking the desired image in the live preview), and Random (jittered size/rotation per photo) layouts; adjustable width/columns/margin, a per-image border, background color/format/quality, a zoomable/pannable preview with a fit button, and a reshuffle button that randomizes image order (and, in Random mode, size/rotation) across all three layouts
• Camera RAW support (CR2, CR3, NEF, ARW, DNG, PEF, RW2) alongside standard raster formats, plus SVG and ICO previews
• SQLite-backed library (metadata, ratings, tags, cached EXIF/dimensions for search)
• EXIF display (via MetadataExtractor); gallery tiles show small badges for present EXIF, IPTC, XMP, and embedded ICC-profile metadata. Hovering a badge shows a curated summary rather than the first tags the reader happens to return: the EXIF overlay lists exactly the fields the library indexes and that search, filters, and sorting work on (camera, lens, focal length — 35 mm equivalent where the camera reports one — aperture, exposure time, ISO, date taken, dimensions, GPS), IPTC and XMP follow a priority list, and the ICC badge names the colour profile itself
• Video files (MP4, MOV, MKV, AVI, WebM, M4V) show a poster-frame thumbnail with a play badge

Viewer

• Fullscreen view (including F11 toggle) with fast switching between images, zoom/pan, and an on-screen rotation (Ctrl+L / Ctrl+R — a view rotation, not written back to the file); flipping and permanent rotation live in the editor
• Slideshow with configurable interval, filmstrip navigation
• Inline video playback (play/pause, seek, mute) in both windowed and fullscreen mode
• Rate, favorite, tag, and delete images directly from the viewer; jump straight into the editor
• Info sidebar with General/EXIF/IPTC/XMP/ICC tabs and a live histogram

Editor

• Crop (with presets), image resize, rotate/straighten (with auto canvas expand), flip, and canvas resize with anchor picker
• Optional rulers, draggable guides, and a configurable pixel grid for precision work
• Adjust: exposure, brightness, contrast, highlights/shadows, whites/blacks, tone curve (RGB, luminance, and the individual red/green/blue channels). Exposure, brightness, and contrast run through a tone curve with a soft toe and shoulder: they stay linear through the mid-tones and bend smoothly towards black and white, so pushing them far keeps drawing in the highlights and shadows instead of clipping them flat
• Film negative: turn a scanned negative into a positive. Each channel is normalized in density (logarithmically) between the measured film base — the brightest point of the scan, i.e. the unexposed carrier — and the densest point, and inverted there; because every channel is normalized against its own base, the orange mask of color negative film cancels out instead of remaining as a blue cast. The base is measured from the image automatically or picked with the eyedropper from the unexposed film edge; a black-and-white mode keeps the result neutral, and a gradation slider sets the steepness of the density curve. Exposure, white balance, and the tone curve then work on the finished positive
• Color: white balance, temperature/tint, vibrance/saturation, split toning, and an 8-band HSL color mixer — pick a color band on a color wheel, then dial in its hue, saturation, and luminance with a shared set of sliders
• Filters: built-in filter presets with a strength slider, plus .cube LUT support and Lightroom XMP preset import — including white balance (the relative shift Lightroom stores for presets, not the absolute Kelvin value), the 8-band HSL panel with luminance, split toning, the point curve, and Lightroom's parametric curve, which is folded into the point curve
• Details: clarity, sharpening, softening/noise reduction (Gaussian/median), structure, haze, glow, grain/noise, and dust/scratch style effects
• Effects/Frame: vignette (size, transition, roundness, feather, freely placeable center) and border/frame controls with six edge styles (solid, dashed, jagged, double, dotted, wavy), color picker, and rounded-corner support
• Paint tool: brush, eraser, blur, and clone stamp, each with its own remembered size/hardness/opacity; the stamp takes its source from an Alt+click and keeps the offset for the whole stroke, with a dashed ring marking the sampling point
• Selection tool with four modes (rectangle, ellipse, freehand lasso, magic wand): draw or click a selection on the image, then copy it into a new movable object (also via Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V, repeatable paste) or fill it — the rectangle supports a solid color or linear/radial gradient (direction/invert), irregular shapes are filled with a solid color; the magic wand selects a contiguous color area with an adjustable tolerance
• An active selection also scopes the adjustment tools: with a selection in place, switching to Color, Filters, or Effects and moving a slider (e.g. hue) changes only the selected area. The selection survives tool switches and stays visible as an outline in those tools; applying a geometry operation (crop/resize/rotate) clears it
• Insert objects: text, watermark, shapes (rectangle, ellipse, square, triangle, cone, pyramid, trapezoid, diamond, spiral, droplet, speech bubble, line, arrow), searchable symbols/SVGs, images, and QR codes
• Per-object properties: fill (solid or gradient), stroke color/width, opacity, rotation, position/size, anchor handling, plus separate shadow and glow controls (color, offset, blur, strength, corner radius where applicable) — edited live directly on the canvas or via the sliders
• Watermarks can be stored as named presets (text or image, with anchor, offset, size, rotation, opacity, font, and color) and reapplied later, including as a batch operation from the gallery
• Side panel with three tabs: the active tool, the object list (reorder front/back, duplicate, show/hide, delete; drag-handles for move/resize/rotate on canvas), and a running history of the applied steps
• Color mixer at the top of the insert panel: a color wheel with saturation/brightness field, overlapping fill and background swatches with a swap gesture, the stroke color beside them, plus opacity, hex input, shared recent colors, and an eyedropper that samples straight from the image into whichever swatch is active
• Info sidebar with the same General/EXIF/IPTC/XMP/ICC tabs and live histogram as the viewer
• Before/after comparison slider
• How saving works — the editor is not a non-destructive one. While the editor is open, every adjustment and every object stays live and reversible (undo/redo, edit history, before/after). Saving, however, renders the result into pixels: Save writes them back into the source file, Save as writes a new file and leaves the original untouched. No edit recipe is stored alongside the image, so reopening a saved file does not bring the sliders and objects back. If you want to keep the original intact, use Save as.

Settings

• Theme (light/dark/darkgrey/lightgrey) and accent color
• Language: auto-detect, German, English, Spanish, French, Italian
• Thumbnail size/quality, JPEG export quality, filmstrip visibility, editor rulers/grid, and other per-view preferences
• Preserve original EXIF/XMP metadata when using "save as", export, and format conversion (on by default); the last target folder for save/convert workflows is remembered separately, defaulting to the last gallery folder
• UI scale and font scale (whole steps, applied without a restart), video hardware acceleration toggle, transparency background (checkerboard or solid color), startup folder/image behavior, hidden folders, trash/confirmation behavior for deletes
• Thumbnail cache management: size limit, per-folder or full cache cleanup, database cleanup
• Optional diagnostic log for preview/playback errors, written to %LocalAppData%/FerrumPix/logs/diagnostics.log
• Window position/size and last-used folder are remembered between sessions

Immich integration

• Connect a self-hosted Immich server (server URL + API key, with a connection test in Settings → Integration); a dedicated Immich section appears in the gallery's navigation panel with an All photos entry and one node per album
• Browse albums (or the whole timeline) with thumbnails served from Immich and cached locally, loaded in pages so photos appear as they arrive; open photos fullscreen with the whole album in the filmstrip (originals downloaded on demand, videos play inline)
• Ratings, favorites, and keywords sync both ways — set them in the gallery or viewer and they're written back to Immich; favorites use Immich's native flag, while ratings and keywords can optionally be stored in the photo description for servers where native rating/tag metadata is not surfaced reliably
• Search lists can target Immich (source switch in the search dialog, shown when Immich is configured): semantic (CLIP) search when Smart Search is enabled, with automatic metadata/client-side fallback when it is not; filename, description, tags, favorite, rating, and year-style queries are supported
• Create and rename Immich albums, and upload local images/videos to Immich (or straight into an album), from the Immich section's context menu
• Move photos between local folders and Immich in both directions via copy/paste and drag&drop: drop/paste local files onto an Immich node (or onto an open album view) to upload, drag/copy Immich photos onto a local folder to download the originals — including dragging Immich photos out to an external file manager (e.g. Dolphin), where the originals are downloaded to temp files on drop
• Edit Immich photos in the editor in save-as-only mode — the original is never overwritten; save the result as a new local file in a selectable folder, or (via the save-as destination switch) upload it back to Immich as a new asset, into the source album when applicable
• Batch convert, resize, and watermark operations on Immich photos create new Immich assets instead of overwriting the original; when started from an album, the new assets are assigned back to that album, and FerrumPix waits briefly for Immich thumbnails before refreshing
• Local caching keeps large libraries responsive: thumbnails on disk, asset metadata in a dedicated SQLite index (invalidated by Immich's updatedAt), streamed into the grid in pages with viewport-first metadata loading; a Clear cache button in Settings empties both
• Current Immich limits: the editor still initializes its rating/favorite/tag fields from the local temp/catalog view when opening an Immich photo, but changes are written back to Immich; native delete/rename operations for individual Immich assets are not implemented yet
• Direct Immich integration (no third-party dependency), verified against Immich v3

Technology Stack

• Avalonia UI 12.1 (Fluent theme) — cross-platform UI framework
• VB.NET on .NET 10
• ReactiveUI for MVVM
• SkiaSharp for image processing/rendering
• Svg.Skia for rendering SVG icons and SVG objects
• Microsoft.Data.Sqlite for the library
• MetadataExtractor for EXIF data
• QRCoder for QR code objects
• LibVLCSharp for video thumbnail extraction and playback
• Tabler Icons as a curated set of 4219 free MIT-licensed SVG symbols

Installation

Release packaging currently targets Linux and Windows:

• Linux AppImage
• Portable Linux ZIP (linux-x64)
• Portable Windows ZIP (win-x64)

All runtime packages are self-contained — they bundle the .NET runtime, so no separate .NET installation is required to run them.

Video playback on Linux: requires VLC (or at least libvlc) to be installed system-wide, e.g. sudo apt install vlc or sudo pacman -S vlc — it cannot be bundled into the AppImage/Flatpak the same way the Windows build bundles it. Without it, FerrumPix still runs normally; video files just won't show a thumbnail or play.

Building from Source

Compiling the project (as opposed to just running a pre-built package) requires the .NET SDK 10 or newer.

dotnet build FerrumPix.sln
dotnet run --project FerrumPix.vbproj

License

GPL-3.0