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Darktable 2.2.0 released

darktable.org

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Re: Darktable 2.2.0 released

#71

Post by fbleagh »

cookiecaper wrote: post #41
geppetto wrote: post #2

IMHO it's the best FOSS photo application out there. It's cross platform, fast, stable and manages the whole photo workflow (RAW developing, photo management, non destructive editing). Thanks darktable folks!

I regret that I haven't really had the opportunity to explore Darktable very thoroughly. Every time I would try to point it at my library folder it would choke to death. Perhaps I should re-organize around Darktable, but right now I have other components of my workflow that are hard to imagine replacing, primarily DxO -- this was the main driver that got me to switch to a Windows host running a Linux VM and doing all…

http://www.fastrawviewer.com/ or On1 Browse are good fast raw viewers on windows. I use them to 'manage' my library as I use a mix of raw processors and don't want to be tied to them for my workflow.

Re: Darktable 2.2.0 released

#72

Post by digler999 »

s917 wrote: post #63
digler999 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont believe in being rude to people, but sometimes you have to make things clear. In their comment chain they asked the dev to rename the application so it didn't give the reputation a bad name. I can understand that, especially since Darktable apparently is a really good app. Open source means you can take the code and build/modify/play with it, it doesn't mean you can take the name and reputation of a product an…

So the guy forks darktable for windows, calls it something else. Then when the project reaches a level of maturity the original devs approve of, they take his work back into darktable, produce their own windows port under their 'brand' and his project potentially dies because it doesn't carry the same weight? I got the vibe from some of the comments that "one guy working on a windows port isn't enough, we don't want…

I dont see anything wrong with what you just described.

    * Yes it's ok for the *owners* of the project to reject buggy code.
    * Yes it's ok for the owners of the project to accept working code.
    * Yes it's ok for the owners to "take" someones work when said person volunteered to it. 
    Thats what "contributing to open source" means.
    * Yes it's ok for the owners to use a working contribution to better their project for each and 
    every one of the users.
    * Yes its ok for someones fork to die.  Thats the fork maintainer's problem. 
    Is there anything preventing him from checking out the latest version of the code (serious question, 
    I dont know), the one that the owners incorporated and improved ?
Also, it's not "his" (the windows dev's) project. It's his contribution, which is to port the original owners' project to windows.

I dont see anything wrong here, other than the owners weren't exactly welcoming, encouraging, or perhaps helpful. That sucks, sounds like they were rude (or perhaps they turned rude when the original "dont call this fork Darktable, please" didn't get heeded ?).

What a shame, I've heard similar stories about people who try to contribute to open source and get treated badly. But again, other than being crass, I dont see any problem. It's great that windows dev contributed so much and improved. He deserves a big Thank You from everyone, especially the owners (and maybe they did ?). But the bottom line is he volunteered. He isn't owed anything.

Re: Darktable 2.2.0 released

#73

Post by dispose13432 »

vvanders wrote: post #43
digler999 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've only read that quote, but to me that doesn't seem like a rude thing to say. I interpret it as "This windows branch is awful, it might be better for you to abandon that effort and work on something with more potential". I hear it as criticizing the code, not the person. Edit: I read a little more, looks like the devs were upset because windows isn't a free platform, and they didn't want darktable's reputation mar…

It was in the context of building trust, basically "go away and work on another project so we know who you are before you can touch our holy code". That guy came in with a great attitude and approach, he pretty much got told to pack it.

It's an unfortunate situation, but the way _they_ put it (two sides to every fight) is that they don't know if he'll drop out in a week and all those who downloaded it will come screaming "Were's our updates!!"

Re: Darktable 2.2.0 released

#74

Post by mnutt »

I'm looking into moving up from Photos.app to Darktable. One of the nice features of Photos.app is that through iCloud I can run Photos.app on my MBP which doesn't have space for my whole library and it will automatically pull down and cache the parts of my library I'm using at the moment. Are there any sort of storage hooks in Darktable that would allow for building something like that with a homegrown photos server?

Re: Darktable 2.2.0 released

#75

Post by wtallis »

acjohnson55 wrote: post #69

I'm not too familiar with Darktable, but one of my biggest Lightroom complaints is that it's not readily usable with generic cloud storage providers. Does Darktable have a good answer for this? I'd very much like to be liberated from buying ever larger hard disks.

As far as I can tell, file management is mostly beyond the scope of Darktable. You point it at a folder of photos, it stores the metadata in that same folder, and you export the edited photos somewhere else (another folder, or upload to services like flickr). Darktable doesn't do anything to take ownership of the original photos: no renaming or relocating.

Re: Darktable 2.2.0 released

#76

Post by slantyyz »

cookiecaper wrote: post #70
Veratyr wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a pity most compare it to Lightroom I don't think I can agree that it's a pity. Lightroom is the standard for photographers right now for pretty much everything but fashion photography (Capture One) and perhaps architecture photography (DXO Optics Pro). Everything, including the competitors you mentioned, is compared to Lightroom. I think these applications (including DarkTable) need to be compared to Lightroo…

It's a shame that most software can't seem to keep a focus. Lightroom became a RAW development platform as well as a photo manager, etc. I'd really like just a fast, inobtrusive, and performant photo manager to help index my photos. I haven't found anything worthwhile yet. I use DxO for all of my photography. Because Lightroom slows to a crawl on my imports, I haven't really tried it for RAW development. I guess I sh…

Let me chime in with another vote for DxO. The entry cost is reasonable for the base version (discounted every year around Xmas) and it's not a subscription model like Adobe.

The lens/sensor RAW optimizations are fantastic (provided your camera has a bayer type sensor -- sorry, Fuji X users) and it can definitely make your photos punch above their weight. Depending on what you do, it might be worth spending more on the Elite edition -- most people don't need it, IMO. There are paid upgrades yearly, but if you don't need the new features, you can choose to skip a version (or two).

There are a couple of sister products, DxO Viewpoint for perspective fixes and DxO Filmpack (filters). IMO, Filmpack isn't worth paying for, but if you do a lot of architectural/wide angle work, Viewpoint is pretty good.

Also worth looking at is Affinity Photo - it's half the price of DxO. I bought it as a cheap alternative to PS for PSD editing, but it does RAW processing too.

Re: Darktable 2.2.0 released

#77

Post by brudgers »

pkaye wrote: post #45
uniclaude wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely agree! I make a substantial part of my income (just enough to pay rent) selling photography, and I recently dropped ps and lightroom in favor of Darktable. The change didn't happen in a day, but Darktable is so good I don't think I'll ever need to come back to Adobe. Notable plus, I can now spend most of my time on Linux, no more need to use my Macbook for photo work. The interface is not really good for s…

Any experience using RawTherapee also? Just an hobbyist myself and moving away from the Mac platform so figuring out the best alternatives.

I am also a hobbyist and I use Darktable. I've experimented with RawTherapee. I like RawTherapee's editing controls and love that its sidecar files are somewhat human readable (Darktable's are not).

What Rawtherapee lacks is the 'light table' feature for handling bulk photographs. I'll often shoot several hundred images in a day (even a blind squirrel finds a nut sometimes). Darktable lets me triage those photos and filter them for processing without managing a file system... well now that my workflow uses RapidPhotoDownloader on the front end. It reads off the memory card and renames files and directories to a standard format.

A few months ago, I brought many years worth of sorted directories of images into Darktable and went to bed and when I woke up it had added everything to the database and I could sort by name and remove duplicates and look at thumbnails and remove junk that had been saved alongside stuff I wanted during bulk operations.

Anyway, since Darktable runs on Mac, there's not a drop dead reason not to give it a spin alongside whatever you're currently using.

Re: Darktable 2.2.0 released

#78

Post by brudgers »

mnutt wrote: post #74

I'm looking into moving up from Photos.app to Darktable. One of the nice features of Photos.app is that through iCloud I can run Photos.app on my MBP which doesn't have space for my whole library and it will automatically pull down and cache the parts of my library I'm using at the moment. Are there any sort of storage hooks in Darktable that would allow for building something like that with a homegrown photos server…

If the storage is recognized at the operating system level then Darktable should be fine with it. Because it maintains a database, Darktable doesn't need a constant connection. On the other hand, it won't mount a network drive all on its own since it doesn't expect to be running as root.

Or to put it another way, if there's a photo server on your network and the machine running Darktable knows about it, then it shouldn't be a problem.

Re: Darktable 2.2.0 released

#79

Post by Veratyr »

slantyyz wrote: post #76
cookiecaper wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a shame that most software can't seem to keep a focus. Lightroom became a RAW development platform as well as a photo manager, etc. I'd really like just a fast, inobtrusive, and performant photo manager to help index my photos. I haven't found anything worthwhile yet. I use DxO for all of my photography. Because Lightroom slows to a crawl on my imports, I haven't really tried it for RAW development. I guess I sh…

Let me chime in with another vote for DxO. The entry cost is reasonable for the base version (discounted every year around Xmas) and it's not a subscription model like Adobe. The lens/sensor RAW optimizations are fantastic (provided your camera has a bayer type sensor -- sorry, Fuji X users) and it can definitely make your photos punch above their weight. Depending on what you do, it might be worth spending more on t…

I find that while most alternatives produce better quality output than Lightroom, none come close to it when it comes to organising and managing your photos.

I also find that when I process with Capture One Pro, I nearly always get better results than when I use DXO, RawTherapee or Darktable. Maybe it's just me but it is consistent.

Re: Darktable 2.2.0 released

#80

Post by rodelrod »

alfanick wrote: post #16

Can someone compare it to Adobe Lightroom? Is it truly usable, is it quick enough? I am stuck on classic dilemma "apple fucked up, what should I do", so I am planning moving back to Linux, but Lightroom is the only application keeping me back (however, I thought of OSX in VM on Linux for running just LR).

If you go the VM route consider a Win7 guest instead. Much smoother experience than OSX.
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