--- title: "Download the film negative converter for Mac and Windows" description: "Download Open Negative Initiative free for Mac (Apple Silicon and Intel) or Windows 10 and 11: no account, no trial limit, nothing to install on Windows." url: "https://open-negative-initiative.com/download" --- # Download Open Negative Initiative **Open Negative Initiative converts your scanned film on a Mac or a Windows PC.** Colour negatives, slides and black and white. Free, no account, no trial limit. [Download for Mac](https://github.com/5e1y/open-negative-initiative-releases/releases/latest/download/OpenNegative.dmg) · [Download for Windows](https://github.com/5e1y/open-negative-initiative-releases/releases/latest/download/ONI-windows.zip) - **Version**: 1.5.4, 2 November 2026 - **Mac**: macOS 13 or later on Apple Silicon or Intel - **Windows**: Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit) Source GPL-3.0, with [the source of each version](https://github.com/5e1y/open-negative-initiative-releases/releases/latest) [Stopped the first time you open it?](https://open-negative-initiative.com/download#verify) ## Install it in a minute. **A disk image on the Mac, a folder on Windows.** Nothing else to install, and no account to create. - **On a Mac.** Open **OpenNegative.dmg**, drag the app onto the Applications folder beside it, eject the disk image and open the app from Applications. - **On Windows.** Unzip **ONI-windows.zip** anywhere, Documents or the Desktop, and open **ONI.exe** inside the folder. There is no installer. ## What your system says the first time. **One answer, once on each computer.** If your system stops the app the first time you open it, this lets it through, and it opens normally from then on. - **On a Mac.** If macOS says it cannot verify the app, open **System Settings**, then **Privacy & Security**, scroll to the bottom and click **Open Anyway**. - **On Windows.** If SmartScreen says it protected your PC, because the build is not signed, click **More info**, then **Run anyway**. ### Why your system asks at all Because the app is software from someone you have not met, and your system is doing its job. Clicking past it is a real decision, so here is what you can check without taking anyone's word for it. ### One file, from one place The download comes from the project's own [release page](https://github.com/5e1y/open-negative-initiative-releases/releases), where every version ever published is still listed, each with its note. ### The source of what you run The complete source of each version is attached to it, if you read Rust: [where it is, and what the licence gives you](https://open-negative-initiative.com/open). ### Signed updates, originals kept The app keeps an update only if it carries the project's own signature, so what reaches you is what the project published. Your original scans stay as they were: each photo's settings live in a small file beside it. ### What it sends over the network On its own, two things: it looks for a newer version twice a day, through this site on a Mac and on the project's GitHub Pages on Windows, and on the first launch of each version it says which version it is and which one it replaced, so installs can be counted. Those version numbers and the country the request came from are all the project keeps. Two more happen when you ask: **FEEDBACKS** sends your message and the app's version as a public issue, with an encrypted console log unless you switch it off, and **Get Paper Profiles…** fetches a paper maker's profiles from that maker's own page. ### On a Mac, System Settings is the way Recent macOS lets an app through from System Settings, as above, whatever a tutorial written a few years ago says about right-clicking it and choosing Open. It is asked once, and the app opens normally from then on. ## How it stays up to date. **It looks for you, and asks before anything changes.** On the Mac and on Windows, no new version is downloaded or installed without your yes. - **It looks for you.** Twice a day the app checks for a newer version. When there is one, its key takes the place of Export in the bar, and export stays on `⌘E`. - **You say yes.** Press it, or **Check for Updates…** in the Help menu, then **DOWNLOAD**. Until then nothing is fetched. - **Only a signed version goes in.** The download is kept only if the project's signature holds. The app then closes and reopens on the new version. ### And on Windows? The same, from version 1.5.3 on: the app finds the next versions and installs them when you ask. If your copy is older, download the current version from this page once, unzip it as you did the first time, and the app takes it from there. ### What changes from one version to the next? Open Negative Initiative 1.0.0 came out on 4 October 2026; the latest version is 1.5.4, from 2 November 2026, and every release note is on the changelog. [The changelog](https://open-negative-initiative.com/changelog) also has a feed. ## Before your first roll. **Scan it well, then open the folder.** A few habits at the scanner make your conversion easier, and the app reads your files where they are. ### What goes in Your scans as camera RAW, DNG (including the linear DNGs scanner software writes), TIFF, JPEG or PNG, from a camera on a copy stand or from a film or flatbed scanner. [Everything the app does](https://open-negative-initiative.com/features) to them is one page per feature. Coming from Lightroom and a plugin? [Negative Lab Pro alternatives, compared](https://open-negative-initiative.com/negative-lab-pro-alternative). Open the folder that holds them: **Open Folder…** in the File menu (`⌘O`, or `Ctrl+O` on Windows), or **ADD FOLDER…** in the gallery's bar. Your files stay where they are, as they are, and each photo's settings live in a small file beside it, which travels with the folder. ### In what colour space A camera RAW is decoded at one fixed white, the same for every camera. A file that names its colour profile is read in it; one that names none, like a scanner's raw TIFF, is read as sRGB, Linear or Display P3, as you pick under **Read as** in the Roll tab. ### Save the negative as a negative The conversion starts from what the film holds. Let your scanner software save the scan as it is, a negative, in RAW, DNG or a 16-bit TIFF, with its own inversion and colour corrections off: your photo then keeps every tone the film recorded for the conversion to work with. ### One roll, one folder Prepare the Roll reads the frames of a roll together, and what it finds acts on every photo measured with that roll. Scan each roll into a folder of its own. If a folder holds two, **Move into a New Roll…** moves the photos you select into a new roll folder, after asking, and `⌘Z` puts them back; **Move to ONI Trash** sets a photo aside and leaves its file in place. ### Shoot the empty light panel Scanning with a camera? Take one frame of the light panel with nothing on it, at the settings of the roll. A light is rarely even to its edges, and uneven light darkens or tints the corners of every frame: in Prepare the Roll, click that shot, then **USE THIS FRAME AS FLAT-FIELD**. A scanner skips this step. ### Leave some bare film in the scan The unexposed border of the strip, or the gap between two frames, is the bare film base: on a colour negative, its orange. Prepare the Roll asks you to click it, and that click sets every channel's black for the whole roll, so scan at least one frame with a sliver of border around it. ### If something goes wrong Press **FEEDBACKS** in the app's bar, or **Report a Bug / Give Feedback…** in the Help menu: your message and the app's version become a public issue, with no account needed. A question about your own setup, like whether your scanner's files will open, goes there too. For a colour or decoding problem, the **RAW file** is what reproduces it: [read what has already been reported](https://github.com/5e1y/open-negative-initiative-releases/issues), then [open an issue](https://github.com/5e1y/open-negative-initiative-releases/issues/new) with the file attached, which needs a free GitHub account. A frame of a roll that was never measured opens Prepare the Roll first. If a photo still opens flat, milky or nearly white once its roll is measured, it is a bug worth reporting, even though nothing crashed. ## What comes out of it. **A file that keeps its colours, and your facts.** Your export carries its colour space and the photo's own line, ready for a screen, a lab or a print. ### Formats and colour spaces A 16-bit TIFF or a JPEG, in the space your photo is edited in, declared in the file: sRGB, Display P3 (where the app starts), Adobe RGB, ProPhoto (16-bit TIFF only) or a paper's profile. A TIFF is compressed with ZIP, lossless, on at first. ### What the colour space keeps The space declared in the file tells the next app, the lab or the printer how to read its numbers, so your colours arrive as you saw them. sRGB suits the web and a file whose destination you have not chosen yet; Display P3 and Adobe RGB hold more saturated colour for the screens and print workflows built on them; a paper's profile prepares the file for that paper. ### Why your scan's EXIF names the wrong camera The EXIF of a scan describes the digitising: the camera or scanner that photographed your negative, its lens, its ISO, the day of the scan. Beside each preview, the photo's own line, Name, Camera, Lens, Film, ISO, Date, Artist and Copyright, opens on those facts so you can write the film camera, its lens, the stock, its box speed and the day you took the picture. That line is what the file carries. ### Brighter on HDR screens A JPEG can carry a flat gain map, **Brighter on HDR screens**: an HDR screen shows your picture up to two stops above the page's white, no pixel changes, and every other reader sees the same picture. ### If somebody is paying for the result Open Negative Initiative 1.0.0 came out on 4 October 2026; the latest version is 1.5.4, from 2 November 2026, and every release note is on the changelog. A later version may still render an adjusted photo differently, so here is where you stand. - **The exported file is the master.** Export the finished TIFF at delivery: no future version can change it. - **Every version stays downloadable.** [All releases](https://github.com/5e1y/open-negative-initiative-releases/releases) stay published, so a job can be finished on the version it started on. On macOS 13, nothing before 1.0.1 runs. - **Nothing updates behind your back.** A new version waits for your yes, and you can decline it. - **Your settings file carries a format version, not a render version.** One written by a newer version opens read-only instead of being rewritten, but nothing warns you that a newer app renders a six-month-old job differently. If a client may come back, keep the exported file. ## What to do first. **Open your folder, prepare the roll, export.** The guide walks it with you; the manual and the features answer the rest. - [The quick guide From a folder of scans to an exported photo, step by step.](https://open-negative-initiative.com/guide) - [The manual Every control of the app, in the order of your work.](https://open-negative-initiative.com/manual) - [The features What the app does to your negative, one page per feature.](https://open-negative-initiative.com/features)