Dehancer Desktop is a significant step forward from the plug-in that many of us have been using in Lightroom and Capture One. After spending some time with the desktop version, it’s fair to say it delivers on a lot of things that felt missing before - and for anyone who has been using Dehancer for a while, the upgrade feels natural and long overdue.
Photographs in example video shot on a Leica M262
What’s Different From the Plug-inWhat’s Different From the Plug-in
The original plug-in was great, but it came with some limitations that were hard to ignore. The biggest one was the workflow friction: every time you wanted to edit a photo, Lightroom would generate an extra TIFF file alongside your original. Over time, that adds up and creates clutter in your folder structure that you didn’t ask for.
With Dehancer Desktop, that’s no longer the case. You can now edit directly on top of your DNG file and save your settings there, exporting a JPEG when you’re ready. It’s a cleaner, more self-contained process.
"pictureroom" for 10% off dehancer
File Management and OrganizationFile Management and Organization
One of the more welcome additions is how the desktop version handles your files. You can now browse your folder structure and external hard drives directly within the program, pin folders as favorites for quick access, and create named project directories to keep your work organized. It’s a workflow that will feel familiar to anyone coming from Lightroom, and it makes Dehancer feel much more like a proper standalone application rather than an extension of something else.
Editing Multiple Photos at OnceEditing Multiple Photos at Once
This is where the desktop version really starts to pull ahead. In the plug-in, you were editing one photo at a time. In the desktop version, you can select a group of photos, open them together in the edit module, and work through them as a film strip. Once you’re happy with the edit on your first image, you can copy those settings and paste them across the rest - either from within the film strip view or directly from the project gallery.
One small thing worth noting: when you paste edits across images, the changes don’t always render immediately. Clicking to the next image and back seems to resolve it, so it’s a minor bug rather than anything serious, but it’s worth knowing about.
How I Use It - A Note on RAW Photo ProcessorHow I Use It - A Note on RAW Photo Processor
While Dehancer Desktop does support editing raw DNG files natively, the way I personally prefer to work is a little different. I use a separate program called RAW Photo Processor (RPP) to first convert my DNGs into a flat, log TIFF file before bringing them into Dehancer. The result is a file with more dynamic range to work with, and in my experience the output feels better for it.
This is entirely a personal preference and an extra step that’s not required - but if you’re someone who likes to have as much information in the file as possible before applying any analog-style treatment, it’s worth exploring. I’ll be covering RPP in more depth in a separate video.
The Editing ProcessThe Editing Process
Once your files are in, the editing process in Dehancer is built around an analog philosophy. You’re choosing a film stock, adjusting how it responds to your image, and working with things like paper type, color density, halation, and bloom - all of which interact in ways that feel much closer to the real thing than most digital alternatives.
A few things I’ve found useful: when working with slide films, the profile will typically default to linear, which tends to work well. For color negatives, you’ll want to explore the paper type options, as switching between them can make a more noticeable difference than you might expect. And on the color side, I tend to pull back on saturation and lean into the color density control instead - it tends to produce a result that feels more natural.
Dehancer also has a good library of built-in film presets to explore, and you can save your own. I work from a handful of custom presets I’ve built over time, which makes the batch editing workflow that much faster.
ExportingExporting
Exporting is straightforward. Select your images, choose between JPEG and TIFF, set your quality, and process. That’s about all there is to it.
Final ThoughtsFinal Thoughts
Dehancer Desktop is a genuinely great piece of software for anyone serious about analog-style photo editing. The combination of proper file management, batch editing, excellent grain control, and the ability to work non-destructively on your raw files makes it a much more capable tool than the plug-in ever was. It still has a couple of rough edges, but nothing that gets in the way of the work.
If you’d like to try it out, you can use the code “pictureroom” for 10% percent off. I’ve been using Dehancer for a couple of years now and it remains one of the tools I keep coming back to.
A walk-through video is also available if you’d like to see the full process in action. And for anyone who wants to go deeper on how the program works, the official Dehancer user manual is worth reading - it’s around 80 pages with large text, and it covers all the details that a short video can’t.