Darktable 2.4.0 released(darktable.org)
darktable.org
Darktable 2.4.0 released
https://www.darktable.org/2017/12/darktable-240-released/
77 comments
Love the Affinity products, just wish they'd support linux.
Does it support Mac Os for current version? the display on my Linux box is not as good as on Imac.
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Is the home page supposed to contain placeholder like phrases? Such as:
>Mention that having (photographer) developers as part of the target audience is good for understanding the real world problems, challenges, and workflows.
>Something about capability - highlight about some big important features! Maybe mention flexibility here (ease of writing new modules).
>Something about community, mailing list, maybe discuss forum, and the Flickr page? Number of contributors (indicate health of the project and users). Some other metric of vitality of the community (possibly how to get involved)?
>Mention that having (photographer) developers as part of the target audience is good for understanding the real world problems, challenges, and workflows.
>Something about capability - highlight about some big important features! Maybe mention flexibility here (ease of writing new modules).
>Something about community, mailing list, maybe discuss forum, and the Flickr page? Number of contributors (indicate health of the project and users). Some other metric of vitality of the community (possibly how to get involved)?
Can't say, but it actually seems pretty forced, like a joke. All of those placeholders actually link to the resources they'd want. I'd guess it's a poke at regular start-up style "We are awesome because X" statements on their home page.
It is a joke :)
I actually appreciate it, it seemed a little too curated for placeholders :p
I just assumed it was a work in progress... the rest of the pages seems finished, maybe they didn't put the final version of the index page online :)
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The big news with this release is that it's the first to support Windows. I've been using this on linux for a year as a hobbyist Photographer and it's exceedingly glorious. Have not tried out the Windows build but apparently you can do that now [1].
Also if you want to learn a lot about "developing" digital photographs (it really is a digital darkroom), I learned a lot from this youtube list of 42 Darktable tutorial edit sessions [2]. Very powerful and fun stuff.
[1] https://www.darktable.org/2017/08/darktable-for-windows/
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nUVNDxXhIA&list=PLsks-zRRM1...
Also if you want to learn a lot about "developing" digital photographs (it really is a digital darkroom), I learned a lot from this youtube list of 42 Darktable tutorial edit sessions [2]. Very powerful and fun stuff.
[1] https://www.darktable.org/2017/08/darktable-for-windows/
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nUVNDxXhIA&list=PLsks-zRRM1...
What kind of camera are you using? I've been trying _hard_ to switch from Lightroom to Darktable and so far I have been failing to even match the output of in-camera JPEG engine of my Canon 5D Mk4... The skin tone is just not there... like it knows what highlights are and what shadows are but loses something in the middle. Well-lit RAW are fine, but when the light is challenging I always get better results in Lightroom or Canon's RAW converter (or even in-camera JPEGs) although that's actually when RAW is supposed to help the most.
I'm using a Canon Rebel T5i with Magic Lantern. It gets tones really well for me. Sorry it's not performing for you well.
I tried installing ML on my T5, but then it was stolen by roommates. How long have they supported T5i? It seemed to be a very convoluted process, and I had no luck, but also mine was T5, not T5i.
Not sure how long it's been supported. At least 2 years! For me it was surprisingly easy actually. I just copied the files over to the SD card, inserted it, and ran Firmware Upgrade from the camera menu. It worked great and I love the intervalometer and other neat features.
http://builds.magiclantern.fm/700D-115.html
http://builds.magiclantern.fm/700D-115.html
You may have to experiment with different base curves or even make your own one. I don't know much about the underlying theory but I lamented how I couldn't push the shadows in Fujifilm files (halos like hell) and people suggested that I should make my own basecurve and that would help a lot. My new camera has an excellent base curve that hasn't needed any adjusting.
It's a shame open source projects with great features still have astoundingly bad copywriting.
No one cares about it having a database behind the scenes or the upgrade/downgrade process, tell me what it can do and how it compares to the real alternative, Adobe Lightroom.
No one cares about it having a database behind the scenes or the upgrade/downgrade process, tell me what it can do and how it compares to the real alternative, Adobe Lightroom.
Well, you've come with a great idea and you seem to be upset by the fact the DT team did not put enough efforts to reach your idea. The good news is that the team is always searching for help. There is a page[1] which describe how to contribute.
You can also contact the team to propose your help[2]. Maybe it is time for you to give back to an open source project with great features by offering your copywriting skills.
[1] https://www.darktable.org/development/
[2] https://www.darktable.org/contact/
You can also contact the team to propose your help[2]. Maybe it is time for you to give back to an open source project with great features by offering your copywriting skills.
[1] https://www.darktable.org/development/
[2] https://www.darktable.org/contact/
HN links to the news article so I was confused as to what Darktable was, I clicked on a few of the links in the menu and couldn't figure out quickly what it was, I then googled to find out it was an alternative to lightroom, so I googled darktable and clicked on the link to find out there's a homepage with the information I was looking for initially... But there's no menu item to get to the homepage?
There's a link to the homepage in every single page of the website, it's the image of the logo.
While I agree that it's not obvious, that's a common practice (Hacker News does the same) so you should probably keep that in mind.
While I agree that it's not obvious, that's a common practice (Hacker News does the same) so you should probably keep that in mind.
Hah, didn't even think of clicking the logo.
It can be tough or misleading in this case because truthfully Darktable pretty much exceeds LR in features. But the way you achieve some of the things is not always there... so more powerful, somewhat less usable.
Adobe Lightroom is not free so its the not at the same level. Nobody compares Blender on the same level as Maya either.
I'd disagree with the Blender example. I think GIMP and Inkscape are a notch or two behind their counterparts, but Blender can do almost all the things Maya or Max can, with the primary downsides being ui/workflow shortcomings and industry adoption.
I agree here. Blender is professional grade - it can be replace its commercial counterparts if the industry decides so. On the other hand you can't pretend this is the same situation with Gimp.
3DMax, Maya, SketchUp, FreeCAD, SolidEdge, SolidWorks, CREO, CATIA, etc all have a traditional Win95 style UI with menu bar, toolbar and/or ribbonbar.
Only Blender is the ugly swan, that still has this inhouse-style homegrown UI from the early 1990s UNIX where Blender originated. Nothing in a Blender works as expected, the mouse buttons are opposite to everyone else, the toolbars go all over the place and spam the workspace, no tabs, weird floating windows, keyboard shortcuts from hell, camera controls like coded by 5 year old kid, and so on. Even GIMP has a more sane UI, it's actually not that bad at all. But don't get me started on Blender. Blender needs a complete new UI, otherwise it would be such a shame, the program is good but it's very user hostile and the interface has a step learning curve for no reason at all, and the devs see no reason at all to get over their pride and will never change Blender's UI, which is unfortunate. So maybe someone forks Blender and scraps the old UI and adds a sane UI comparable to industry alternatives - it would help adoption of Blender a lot. Sometimes it looks like they get paid to keep Blender lower key, so that Maya and co still can be sold.
Only Blender is the ugly swan, that still has this inhouse-style homegrown UI from the early 1990s UNIX where Blender originated. Nothing in a Blender works as expected, the mouse buttons are opposite to everyone else, the toolbars go all over the place and spam the workspace, no tabs, weird floating windows, keyboard shortcuts from hell, camera controls like coded by 5 year old kid, and so on. Even GIMP has a more sane UI, it's actually not that bad at all. But don't get me started on Blender. Blender needs a complete new UI, otherwise it would be such a shame, the program is good but it's very user hostile and the interface has a step learning curve for no reason at all, and the devs see no reason at all to get over their pride and will never change Blender's UI, which is unfortunate. So maybe someone forks Blender and scraps the old UI and adds a sane UI comparable to industry alternatives - it would help adoption of Blender a lot. Sometimes it looks like they get paid to keep Blender lower key, so that Maya and co still can be sold.
As a long time GIMP user, coming to Darktable has been a revelation. I'm super impressed with how powerful and polished Darktable is, and overall I really love it.
On the other hand, Darktable has some serious issues that make it less than ideal for me.
First, on my old laptop Darktable is super, super slow... especially when the image I'm editing has lots of operations performed on it. In that case, performing a simple operation on top of the existing ones or just zooming in or out could take a full minute, and exporting a single image could take 30 minutes or more (compared to GIMP, which takes less than a minute). Just going from lighttable to darkroom or back could take multiple minutes.
Second, some operations are just much easier and more intuitive to do in GIMP. For example, making perspective changes in GIMP using the perspective tool -- you just drag the corners of the image where you want them. In Darktable you're limited to moving sliders around, which is far more annoying.
Finally, Darktable is mostly geared towards improving photograph quality, while GIMP is more of an all-around image editor and drawing/painting program which can improve the quality of photographs but is not limited to that but can do much more.
On the other hand, Darktable has some serious issues that make it less than ideal for me.
First, on my old laptop Darktable is super, super slow... especially when the image I'm editing has lots of operations performed on it. In that case, performing a simple operation on top of the existing ones or just zooming in or out could take a full minute, and exporting a single image could take 30 minutes or more (compared to GIMP, which takes less than a minute). Just going from lighttable to darkroom or back could take multiple minutes.
Second, some operations are just much easier and more intuitive to do in GIMP. For example, making perspective changes in GIMP using the perspective tool -- you just drag the corners of the image where you want them. In Darktable you're limited to moving sliders around, which is far more annoying.
Finally, Darktable is mostly geared towards improving photograph quality, while GIMP is more of an all-around image editor and drawing/painting program which can improve the quality of photographs but is not limited to that but can do much more.
Gimp and Darktable are very different beasts. Darktable is tailored to work on RAW pictures coming directly, unprocessed from your camera. Gimp cannot do that and only works on compresseda and/or rasterized images (thinkg JPG or PNG).
Another big difference is that Darktable does non-destructive changes: you have a history of operations that you applied and you can rollback to any step. None of the steps directly modifies the pixels of the image, instead the program computes the changes made by all of the effects in the history for every pixel in the image, then shows you a preview (or exports it).
Handling a big RAW file and all the modifications that you've done is an intensive process, and that's why it requires a beefier computer than Gimp for instance. There is also OpenCL support, to leverage the power of your GPU.
Another big difference is that Darktable does non-destructive changes: you have a history of operations that you applied and you can rollback to any step. None of the steps directly modifies the pixels of the image, instead the program computes the changes made by all of the effects in the history for every pixel in the image, then shows you a preview (or exports it).
Handling a big RAW file and all the modifications that you've done is an intensive process, and that's why it requires a beefier computer than Gimp for instance. There is also OpenCL support, to leverage the power of your GPU.
> Darktable is mostly geared towards improving photograph quality, while GIMP [...]
I'd hesitate to call that an issue. It's more a different focus - if you've only got one or two images to deal with, then sure, GIMP (or Photoshop) is more capable, but when you've got a couple hundred or more raws from a full day's shooting - many of which were taken under the same lighting conditions and thus need similar processing - you really start to want something that's designed specifically around dealing with such large collections. That's where applications like Darktable and Lightroom, with their collection management and workflow capabilities, really come into their own.
(Super excited for the Windows release!)
I'd hesitate to call that an issue. It's more a different focus - if you've only got one or two images to deal with, then sure, GIMP (or Photoshop) is more capable, but when you've got a couple hundred or more raws from a full day's shooting - many of which were taken under the same lighting conditions and thus need similar processing - you really start to want something that's designed specifically around dealing with such large collections. That's where applications like Darktable and Lightroom, with their collection management and workflow capabilities, really come into their own.
(Super excited for the Windows release!)
Yes, sliders are really a pain. However from my experience it's much more convenient to move sliders with keyboard arrows (hover a mouse over slider and use the arrows). it still sucks, but sucks less :)
In addition, darktable has a newer perspective correction module which does a nice job of automatic fitting. See the write-up at https://www.darktable.org/2016/03/a-new-module-for-automatic....
I can't speak too much to the question of speed, except to say that my nice laptop from 2012 is sluggish with darktable. My decent desktop from 2017 is fairly fluid. Neither has a graphics card, but a decent graphics card with OpenCL support makes things much more fluid. Waiting a minute for a simple operation is not something I've experienced, and suggests, as they say, that something, somewhere, is wrong.
As another commenter writes, the problem is that darktable must do a crazy lot of math to display the image -- every step of the image editing process. There is a good bit of caching along the way, but at some point, the math must be done.
I can't speak too much to the question of speed, except to say that my nice laptop from 2012 is sluggish with darktable. My decent desktop from 2017 is fairly fluid. Neither has a graphics card, but a decent graphics card with OpenCL support makes things much more fluid. Waiting a minute for a simple operation is not something I've experienced, and suggests, as they say, that something, somewhere, is wrong.
As another commenter writes, the problem is that darktable must do a crazy lot of math to display the image -- every step of the image editing process. There is a good bit of caching along the way, but at some point, the math must be done.
Did you try the middle mouse button click on the Darktable sliders? That's a great feature which gives you much more control over the sliders.
Ah. wow. At the time I had a mouse it didn't work that way. Nowadays I use trackpoint only and even have no physical mouse at all. But that's good to know there's a progress. Thx.
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Sorry. You cannot come to a software release and complain that your old laptop handles a modern software, even a brand new version, with shitty performance. Media processing be it images or video isn't made for old laptops.
"Sorry. You cannot come to a software release and complain that your old laptop handles a modern software with a shitty performance."
Well, GIMP has new software releases all the time, and works quickly on my old laptop.
You can't blame the fact that Darktable is slow on it being new.
Well, GIMP has new software releases all the time, and works quickly on my old laptop.
You can't blame the fact that Darktable is slow on it being new.
I think he/she can and did.
I used Adobe Photoshop on a 60 MHz Power Macintosh in 1996 and was quite productive with it.
The word "software" is a mass or uncountable noun. It has no plural form. Thus "a modern software" is grammatically incorrect.
I used Adobe Photoshop on a 60 MHz Power Macintosh in 1996 and was quite productive with it.
The word "software" is a mass or uncountable noun. It has no plural form. Thus "a modern software" is grammatically incorrect.
A brand new laptop is maybe 20% faster than a laptop from 4 years ago so there is really no complaint to be made about old hardware. intel CPU almost stopped improving.
For those that (like me) have never heard of it before (since the info isn’t on the linked page):
darktable is an open source photography workflow application and raw developer. A virtual lighttable and darkroom for photographers. It manages your digital negatives in a database, lets you view them through a zoomable lighttable and enables you to develop raw images and enhance them.
darktable is an open source photography workflow application and raw developer. A virtual lighttable and darkroom for photographers. It manages your digital negatives in a database, lets you view them through a zoomable lighttable and enables you to develop raw images and enhance them.
I wish they support photo management, at least import photos into organized folders by date
Serious question: Is there any good photo management software? I’m not even a hobbiest photographer but I’ve got 300GB of photos over 15 years, and it’s a pain in the ass to manage these.
I tried Lightroom, but that was excruciatingly slow to import the photos, and on top of that it had very counter intuitive controls. It was also not cheap at all, and subscription based.
I tried Google Photos (my current setup), but while cloud storage is nice, it’s UI sucks (it is Google after all), but most annoyingly you can’t actually name people in photos. Instead you have to wait for the face to get processed, then peruse 1000 faces of strangers just to find the face (hopefully) and then assign a name for it. Seriously, I can’t name my daughter in any picture taken in the last 2 years because of this.
Apple Photos seems like the product I most want, but it insists that all the photos get stored locally, which is a nonstarter. Its cloud storage doesn’t make any sense because it seems like sync, which never what I want. Finally, it barfs if you try to import too many pictures at once.
I’ve been using python scripts to manages my photos, but I’d really like good graphical manager that supports geo and face tagging, maybe some of the event stuff like Google Photos. Does anyone else have this problem? I can’t believe I’m the only one with these problems, but at the same time it’s hard for me to see a niche market for this. Any thought?
I tried Lightroom, but that was excruciatingly slow to import the photos, and on top of that it had very counter intuitive controls. It was also not cheap at all, and subscription based.
I tried Google Photos (my current setup), but while cloud storage is nice, it’s UI sucks (it is Google after all), but most annoyingly you can’t actually name people in photos. Instead you have to wait for the face to get processed, then peruse 1000 faces of strangers just to find the face (hopefully) and then assign a name for it. Seriously, I can’t name my daughter in any picture taken in the last 2 years because of this.
Apple Photos seems like the product I most want, but it insists that all the photos get stored locally, which is a nonstarter. Its cloud storage doesn’t make any sense because it seems like sync, which never what I want. Finally, it barfs if you try to import too many pictures at once.
I’ve been using python scripts to manages my photos, but I’d really like good graphical manager that supports geo and face tagging, maybe some of the event stuff like Google Photos. Does anyone else have this problem? I can’t believe I’m the only one with these problems, but at the same time it’s hard for me to see a niche market for this. Any thought?
I forgot to mention that DT support lua scripting[1] which might help you to further automate some steps of your photo management process.The Lua API is fairly complete.
You can also grap some existing lua plugin like the one who can export/import to GIMP.
[1] https://www.darktable.org/lua-api/ and https://github.com/darktable-org/lua-scripts
You can also grap some existing lua plugin like the one who can export/import to GIMP.
[1] https://www.darktable.org/lua-api/ and https://github.com/darktable-org/lua-scripts
No.
They're all poor in some way. Lightroom is closest, especially with the latest uodate to improve speed in the Classic CC version.
Other than that there are exceptional importers like Photomechnic ($$$) or Rapid Photo Downloader (free) but photo managers are all poor.
Its unbelievable too. All it needs is a free version of lightrooms librart module that works on the embedded raw jpegs (like Photomechnic and Rapid Photo Downloader) and it would win photo management.
Im learning to code with part of the motivation being I'm going to make my own that actually works because its so easy to see whats needed. By next christmas i hooe to have a rough first working attempt.
They're all poor in some way. Lightroom is closest, especially with the latest uodate to improve speed in the Classic CC version.
Other than that there are exceptional importers like Photomechnic ($$$) or Rapid Photo Downloader (free) but photo managers are all poor.
Its unbelievable too. All it needs is a free version of lightrooms librart module that works on the embedded raw jpegs (like Photomechnic and Rapid Photo Downloader) and it would win photo management.
Im learning to code with part of the motivation being I'm going to make my own that actually works because its so easy to see whats needed. By next christmas i hooe to have a rough first working attempt.
I'm using a mix DT and Flickr for photo management. The import feature of DT is pretty decent and you can choose the folders structure you want. Once imported, I'm using tags extensively to categorize my photos. You can even automatically apply tags to imported photos.
Later, I export all my processed photos to Flickr[1] (1TB of space for free) and use their albums, tags, geolocation features to categorize them further. By processed photos, I mean photo I have reworked with DT (so not all my pictures, but the ones that really matter).
[1] https://www.flickr.com
Later, I export all my processed photos to Flickr[1] (1TB of space for free) and use their albums, tags, geolocation features to categorize them further. By processed photos, I mean photo I have reworked with DT (so not all my pictures, but the ones that really matter).
[1] https://www.flickr.com
I'm the reverse - I want to manage the location and organization of my images 100% manually. I have a good work-flow of copying RAW files to
~/Images/$year/$location/$event/raw
I believe it's much more convenient to have a tree like ~/photos/$year/$month.$day-$event/[raw|jpg]/$YYYY.MM.DD-hh.mm.ss.[raw|jpg]
Especially handy when you need to mix your photos with someone else's (I add -$author to photo name). I wrote a simple script to rename photos to this pattern based on EXIF info. Works pretty well (just ensure the time is set correct).
Especially handy when you need to mix your photos with someone else's (I add -$author to photo name). I wrote a simple script to rename photos to this pattern based on EXIF info. Works pretty well (just ensure the time is set correct).
I simplified a little. My full hierarchy looks like:
~/Images/$year/$month/$day-title/{ RAW JPG Public }
This is fine and all, but Darktable offers no 'ease of use' when actually operating on those nicely organised images.
You can do exactly what you just said with PhotoMechanic, or Rapid Photo Downloader, and still open lightroom and navigate the file structure.
Trying that with Darktable is a pain. It wants you to import and the file sytem browser is poor.
Plus, are you going to edit all the photos you've downloaded? Are you not going to rate, discard, reorganise the keepers, tags and sort etc etc? Darktable is leagues behind lightroom in this capability, not to mention noise handling, camera specific tone curves and speed of use.
It is a powerful editor, but its setup for hobbyists and tinkerers who go from file to file and repeat every single step manually. The batch processing is convoluted and at my last try pretty inflexible.for example.
I want to love it and use it. But its limited.
You can do exactly what you just said with PhotoMechanic, or Rapid Photo Downloader, and still open lightroom and navigate the file structure.
Trying that with Darktable is a pain. It wants you to import and the file sytem browser is poor.
Plus, are you going to edit all the photos you've downloaded? Are you not going to rate, discard, reorganise the keepers, tags and sort etc etc? Darktable is leagues behind lightroom in this capability, not to mention noise handling, camera specific tone curves and speed of use.
It is a powerful editor, but its setup for hobbyists and tinkerers who go from file to file and repeat every single step manually. The batch processing is convoluted and at my last try pretty inflexible.for example.
I want to love it and use it. But its limited.
Yeah as I mentioned in my original comment I use "rawtherapee" instead. Which doesn't try to take ownership of any directories, import, etc. It just lets you work with the existing structure.
I don't necessarily edit every picture, but I want to look at white-balance, and similar things, for every shot in a specific session. (Most of the time I can replicate settings from one image to the next - when I'm using studio-strobes the lighting doesn't change.)
The only images I outright delete are those where a model blinks mid-shot, or a strobe fails to fire. In an hour-session I might have 750 images, and I'll likely rank/rate all of them, but only export 20% to JPG, and then those will be pruned as I decide which are the good ones.
I don't necessarily edit every picture, but I want to look at white-balance, and similar things, for every shot in a specific session. (Most of the time I can replicate settings from one image to the next - when I'm using studio-strobes the lighting doesn't change.)
The only images I outright delete are those where a model blinks mid-shot, or a strobe fails to fire. In an hour-session I might have 750 images, and I'll likely rank/rate all of them, but only export 20% to JPG, and then those will be pruned as I decide which are the good ones.
I was excitedly looking for how they manage this, but alas, it looks like not well :(
Is there any tools nowadays that:
(a) Lets the user keep Favorited/marked images in a local storage location
(b) 'ages-out' other files to secondary storage pools (removable disks, cloud storage)
(c) Keeps Low-res thumbnails of all images in the collection?
I keep trying to find something that would help keep tabs on a growing collection of images, with growing file sizes from newer cameras, but it all seems like doing it manually is the only way to go :(
Is there any tools nowadays that:
(a) Lets the user keep Favorited/marked images in a local storage location
(b) 'ages-out' other files to secondary storage pools (removable disks, cloud storage)
(c) Keeps Low-res thumbnails of all images in the collection?
I keep trying to find something that would help keep tabs on a growing collection of images, with growing file sizes from newer cameras, but it all seems like doing it manually is the only way to go :(
For my workflow, I copy from the camera SD card to an external HDD, then import to Darktable from there. It stores its thumbnails and database under my home directory, and I can ensure it has thumbnails and medium-resolution previews of all photos with `darktable-generate-cache`. On any photo, I can click "copy locally" [1], and it syncs it to my internal SSD so I can edit without the HDD plugged in.
[1] http://www.darktable.org/usermanual/en/local_copies.html
[1] http://www.darktable.org/usermanual/en/local_copies.html
Yep, and they steadfastly refuse to do so. Its myopic. Photo editing requires photo management to do efficiently.
Even the built in filesystem access is poor.
Nothing on Linux is acceptable though, so they're not alone, it's just sad that something so promising is so hobbled.
Even the built in filesystem access is poor.
Nothing on Linux is acceptable though, so they're not alone, it's just sad that something so promising is so hobbled.
Agreed. part of the process is managing the 1000 photos imported from the camera.
So, it's not a Picasa replacement then?
So, it's not a Picasa replacement then?
In no way is Darktable a photo manager. At all. In any way.
Its a raw editor only and the docs are clear about this. To edit some files you have to import them, but importing them is for the sole ourpose of performing raw edits. There's some rudimentary tagging/rating abilities but the sorting capabilities are poor and you cant actually reorganise files on disk.
Theres no way you'd import say 20,000 photos (or in my case about 100,000) and keep a catelogue. You'd have to split it into individual shoots/days to get any kind of performance (thats if importing that many wouldnt crash it, it did previously).
They only grudgingly include a file system browser which is also hobbled.
If Darktable actually included photo management as a first class citizen (by that i simply mean even just a simple file browser like lightroom has) it would probably win this particular software space. But the devs choose to actively work against that functionality so its just another minor free app.
Its a raw editor only and the docs are clear about this. To edit some files you have to import them, but importing them is for the sole ourpose of performing raw edits. There's some rudimentary tagging/rating abilities but the sorting capabilities are poor and you cant actually reorganise files on disk.
Theres no way you'd import say 20,000 photos (or in my case about 100,000) and keep a catelogue. You'd have to split it into individual shoots/days to get any kind of performance (thats if importing that many wouldnt crash it, it did previously).
They only grudgingly include a file system browser which is also hobbled.
If Darktable actually included photo management as a first class citizen (by that i simply mean even just a simple file browser like lightroom has) it would probably win this particular software space. But the devs choose to actively work against that functionality so its just another minor free app.
Assuming I already wrote a shell script that does this, what else about Darktable's file management is going to annoy me when I try it on the three hundred or five hundred or a thousand images I'll bring home after a busy day of shooting?
Yeah, this is where Lightroom really does well at. For a good photo workflow you not only need something that can process raws but also let you deal with 500+ images in a manner where you don't spend hours culling/sorting.
For that you can use Rapid Photo Downloader.
Or if you want something more integrated, my editor Filmulator has that, though it's far from being feature complete...
Or if you want something more integrated, my editor Filmulator has that, though it's far from being feature complete...
I only started using darktable recently. It’s been great with the exception of speed and the MacOS UI having tiny controls. I have a reasonably powerful MacBook Pro and would have expected it to handle things like changing exposure levels pretty quickly.
But honestly I can’t complain because this thing allows me to make decent photos fantastic.
But honestly I can’t complain because this thing allows me to make decent photos fantastic.
Since you recently climbed the learning curve and might have this fresh in your mind, how do you understand the history function? Sometimes do something and then want to undo it. This isn't easy for me in darktable -- it seems control-z does nothing, there are no standard menus, and every time I've touched the history section on the left side of the application, I end up destroying much more work than I intended.
In case that is an X-Y question, how do I undo in darktable?
In case that is an X-Y question, how do I undo in darktable?
> it seems control-z does nothing
Normally v2.4.0 improves this. As stated in their release notes: “Add undo support for masks and more intelligent grouping of undo steps”.
Basically, in v2.2, even low-level operations that didn't have a visible impact were in the undo list, so when you pressed Ctrl+Z it would undo something, but you wouldn't see any change. You would actually have to press Ctrl+Z several times to finally see something on the screen.
This was changed and should be more human-friendly :)
> how do you understand the history function?
This is indeed a little bit more complicated that just a list of things to undo. You can read a bit more about it in the user manual: https://www.darktable.org/usermanual/en/darkroom_concepts.ht...
Normally v2.4.0 improves this. As stated in their release notes: “Add undo support for masks and more intelligent grouping of undo steps”.
Basically, in v2.2, even low-level operations that didn't have a visible impact were in the undo list, so when you pressed Ctrl+Z it would undo something, but you wouldn't see any change. You would actually have to press Ctrl+Z several times to finally see something on the screen.
This was changed and should be more human-friendly :)
> how do you understand the history function?
This is indeed a little bit more complicated that just a list of things to undo. You can read a bit more about it in the user manual: https://www.darktable.org/usermanual/en/darkroom_concepts.ht...
I somehow confused this with 'Lighttable' and was really confused about why printing was such an important issue.
So, is this a good replacement for Picasa on windows?
In my case, mainly for viewing and editing Canon raw format photos?
In my case, mainly for viewing and editing Canon raw format photos?
It's nowhere near as good as Picasa or Lightroom for bulk editing, sharing, and general photo library management. But it absolutely destroys Picasa for the actual editing of raw files. I'd say if post processing is your focus, it's without a doubt worth the switch. If you're more of a "shoot lots and manage in bulk", then no.
I personally find the file/library management aspect of Darktable so lacking that it's personally useless to me. I absolutely despise Adobe and would pay double what I give them for a decent Lightroom alternative, but it just doesn't exist yet and won't anytime soon.
I personally find the file/library management aspect of Darktable so lacking that it's personally useless to me. I absolutely despise Adobe and would pay double what I give them for a decent Lightroom alternative, but it just doesn't exist yet and won't anytime soon.
I'm in the same boat as you. I tried Darktable, Capture One, On1, AfterShot Pro, etc. None of them were close to Lightroom. Then, with low expectations I tried Exposure X3 (https://www.alienskin.com/exposure/) and now I've completely replaced Lightroom with it. It might not work for you, but I was pleasantly surprised.
I succeeded in installing the discontinued "Windows Live Photo Gallery" on Win7, despite M$ efforts to burn down all old pre-Win10 tents.
On Win both Picasa (also discontinued), Lightroom (non-cloud also discontinued), and various open source alternatives are less polished and slower than Photo Gallery. I will try out Darktables 2.4.
The cool thing of Windows Live Photo Gallery is that everything is saved back to the file. If you tag a photo (even hierarchy tags like Places/City/NewYorkCity) the tag is stored also in the photo file, so when you copy somewhere else, all metadata (EXIF, XMP, IPC) is still there. And all photos are NOT-imported to a central database. So you can organize the photos like you want and Photo Gallery just indexes the folders and stores thumbnails and metadata in a central database file for fast viewing and searching. Most a alternatives to a Photo Gallery want to import all photos to a special directory or even to a central database (see Picasa, and Lightroom) which is like iTunes where all your metadata like the 5 star rating sits then in a central database - that is soooo wrong!! - instead of storing the changes back to the photo files.
On Win both Picasa (also discontinued), Lightroom (non-cloud also discontinued), and various open source alternatives are less polished and slower than Photo Gallery. I will try out Darktables 2.4.
The cool thing of Windows Live Photo Gallery is that everything is saved back to the file. If you tag a photo (even hierarchy tags like Places/City/NewYorkCity) the tag is stored also in the photo file, so when you copy somewhere else, all metadata (EXIF, XMP, IPC) is still there. And all photos are NOT-imported to a central database. So you can organize the photos like you want and Photo Gallery just indexes the folders and stores thumbnails and metadata in a central database file for fast viewing and searching. Most a alternatives to a Photo Gallery want to import all photos to a special directory or even to a central database (see Picasa, and Lightroom) which is like iTunes where all your metadata like the 5 star rating sits then in a central database - that is soooo wrong!! - instead of storing the changes back to the photo files.
As Adobe has released the very last non-cloud Lightroom, I guess it's time to move to its "negative" - Darktable.
Thats not true. There are two versions of Lightroom, the cloud one and Lightroom Classic. The Classic is the continuation of the regular desktop version and from what I understand its not going anywhere. Adobe cannot afford to take the desktop version away from photographers cause unlike photoshop there is good (or even better) competitors (e.g. Capture One is chewing up Lightroom's market share being faster and according to a lot of photographers gives better results).
The new Classic is what was formerly known as Lightroom Creative Cloud. So yes, it's a true desktop software but you need subscription.
I guess you are going to weep:
https://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/2017/12/6-14-now-av...
https://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/2017/12/6-14-now-av...
I'm fine thanks. That's lightroom 6. Lightroom 7 (lightroom CC Classic) will be continuing just fine as a non-cloud product.
It's subscription, rent-seeking based now. I won't call that non-cloud. Cloud is useless anyway as it doesn't allow to upload RAWs and they obviously slapped it on Lr to justify switch to their individual user hostile model.
First Time User on Windows, its a bit slow during import compared to lightroom (you can't see thumbnails unless you highlight the image file name - maybe I am doing this wrong so I am not sure).
a couple of UI/UX issues I found:
= When I open a tool panel from the "more modules" the panel is added to the tools but its collapsed instead of expanded.
= some filters should be toned down (the sliders have very extreme results with minor movements, this makes it hard to fine tune)
its a much more polished effort than gimp though. I'll keep an eye on darktable!
a couple of UI/UX issues I found:
= When I open a tool panel from the "more modules" the panel is added to the tools but its collapsed instead of expanded.
= some filters should be toned down (the sliders have very extreme results with minor movements, this makes it hard to fine tune)
its a much more polished effort than gimp though. I'll keep an eye on darktable!
I slowly warmed up to Darktable as I began to shoot raw in the summer. During the holidays I had access to a Winblows machine and tried the hyped Capture One... doesn't seem to hold candle for DT!
This is great news. I’ve been using 2.2.5 for the past year on Mac and Linux, and it Is a great RAW editing tool. It does take some getting used to UI-wise (hopefully this release lets me use the trackpad more intuitively), but the non-destructive editing and effect masking are awesome.
One thing I really want DarkTable to allow is deletion of images. They say that any kind of file manager features will not be implemented, but IMHO it's a great preview tool and the ability to just delete poor shots would make it much better for triaging a new batch of photos.
Darktable does deletion. If you press "delete" instead of "remove", files are deleted from the file system as well as the library.
Until I figure something out, I'm waiting for Luminar or whatever Lightroom competitor that Affinity Software is going to come out with later in 2018.