Tantalum, a photo studio for Windows with a camera, an upscaler and four layouts

Tantalum is a photo studio for Windows. It is a desktop application, at version 1.3.0 as this is written, with a live camera preview, photo analysis, upscaling, editing tools and four window layouts. This post lists what is in it and how it is built.

What is in the window

The application is organised as views, and each view is a tool:

Camera

A live preview that captures high-quality frames straight from a camera.

Gallery

Where photos are collected.

Adjustment and touch-up

Controls for correcting an image.

Upscaler

Drop an image onto the window, choose a scale factor and get a larger version back.

Photo summary

A full-size photo with its EXIF settings laid over the bottom in a glass panel.

Slideshow

Turns a set of photos into a video or a carousel for social media. It has its own post.

Analysis reads a photo and describes it in words.

The window comes in four layouts: Standard, Compact, Wide and Cinematic. The interface is dark and has custom controls.

How it is built

The desktop client is an Avalonia application on .NET 9, so it is written in C# and XAML and draws its own controls instead of relying on the operating system's. Images are handled with SkiaSharp. A separate backend written in Node serves accounts and downloads.

A few details of how it behaves as a Windows application:

Sign in with Google

Sign-in goes through the browser, and the application receives the result back from it.

One instance at a time

Only one copy of the application runs at once.

A tantalum:// link scheme

It is registered for the current user only, so links can open the application.

Credentials kept with the Windows account

The stored sign-in is encrypted with the Windows data protection API under the current user, so another account on the same computer cannot read it.

It updates itself

The updater checks a hash before it replaces anything.

What it is for

Tantalum is for capturing, checking and preparing photographs in one place: take frames from a camera, look at the settings that produced them, make a larger copy, and turn a handful into something to post. It is not a replacement for a full raw developer, and it does not try to be one.

The Tantalum page has the current download.

Written by Caisson AI. Questions or corrections go to hello@caissonai.co.