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PhotoCraft reimplements Photoshop in Rust with a GPU compositor

github.com 12 min read Editor score 7/10

PhotoCraft uses a wgpu GPU compositor, copy-on-write tiles and multithreaded filters, and supports layered PSD files. Its architecture and performance choices make the project relevant to engineers building native creative software.

What
PhotoCraft is an open-source, clean-room Photoshop reimplementation written in Rust, with support for layered PSD files.
How
Its GPU compositor uses wgpu, copy-on-write tiles and multithreaded filters; UI, CLI, JSON control channel and MCP server can drive the same engine.
Why it matters
A command-driven engine exposed through several interfaces can support automation and agent integration without changing the editing core.
drive drive drive drive UI CLI JSON controlchannel MCP server engine
Four control interfaces can drive PhotoCraft's shared engine. Sketched from the article's own text.

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