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Case study

PhotoCraft: editor workflow reconstruction and PSD round-trip boundaries

The authors describe this Rust image editor as a clean-room reimplementation of Photoshop-style workflows. Its document engine, UI and automation interfaces share editing commands, while the source distinguishes PSD editor round trips from byte preservation in the standalone file codec.

Requirements and limitations

  • The pinned workspace identifies version 0.9.0 and declares Rust 1.95+ for source builds with Cargo. Native and WebAssembly paths have platform-specific dependencies; optional font inputs and reference documents are separate. No build or installer was run here.
  • This is an implemented document/compositing engine and editing interface, not merely a screenshot mockup. It does not establish recovery of Adobe’s source code or Photoshop cloud services; the author’s clean-room characterization was not independently audited.
  • The editor-level corpus tests compare rendering before and after export/reimport. Separate PSD codec tests compare bytes for parseable files, with a named malformed-file exception. Editor saves are explicitly not byte-identical to their inputs; these finite test definitions are not results independently reproduced by this catalog.
  • The project remains alpha and distinguishes menu-command coverage from behavioral fidelity. Its dated parity assessment retains gaps in PSD exchange, typography, professional workflows, performance and plug-in compatibility; no complete Photoshop-equivalence percentage is asserted here.
  • Project code is MIT OR Apache-2.0, subject to NOTICE; fonts, artwork and other assets retain separate terms. ArtCraft branding is excluded; published modified versions must remove it, apart from contribution-only forks. REA use is not established, and no application assets or corpus files were downloaded for this review.

About this entry

Type
Case study
Category
Independent reconstruction cases
Relationship
Independent reconstruction project
Targets
App

Sources reviewed

The description was reviewed against primary sources. This does not establish runtime testing, security auditing or verified compatibility.

Primary sources

  1. https://github.com/storytold/photocraft/blob/5f65579ecb44047c2a619036c18ff273202e1389/README.md
  2. https://github.com/storytold/photocraft/blob/5f65579ecb44047c2a619036c18ff273202e1389/Cargo.toml
  3. https://github.com/storytold/photocraft/blob/5f65579ecb44047c2a619036c18ff273202e1389/docs/target-app-parity.md
  4. https://github.com/storytold/photocraft/blob/5f65579ecb44047c2a619036c18ff273202e1389/crates/io/tests/corpus.rs
  5. https://github.com/storytold/photocraft/blob/5f65579ecb44047c2a619036c18ff273202e1389/crates/psd/tests/corpus.rs
  6. https://github.com/storytold/photocraft/blob/5f65579ecb44047c2a619036c18ff273202e1389/LICENSE-MIT
  7. https://github.com/storytold/photocraft/blob/5f65579ecb44047c2a619036c18ff273202e1389/LICENSE-APACHE
  8. https://github.com/storytold/photocraft/blob/5f65579ecb44047c2a619036c18ff273202e1389/NOTICE
  9. https://github.com/storytold/photocraft/blob/5f65579ecb44047c2a619036c18ff273202e1389/docs/brand/LICENSE-brand.txt