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Darktable 2.4.0 released

darktable.org

51–60 of 78 posts

Re: Darktable 2.4.0 released

#51
post #6

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.

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.

Re: Darktable 2.4.0 released

#52
post #29

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 acco…

The new Classic is what was formerly known as Lightroom Creative Cloud. So yes, it's a true desktop software but you need subscription.

Re: Darktable 2.4.0 released

#53
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.

Re: Darktable 2.4.0 released

#54
post #11

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?

Re: Darktable 2.4.0 released

#55
post #6

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.

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/

Re: Darktable 2.4.0 released

#56
post #11

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…

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

Re: Darktable 2.4.0 released

#57
post #11

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…

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

Re: Darktable 2.4.0 released

#58
post #29

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 acco…

I guess you are going to weep:

https://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/2017/12/6-14-now-av...

Re: Darktable 2.4.0 released

#59
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/$event/raw Exported JPGs go to "$event/jpg" and it makes it easy to find. I've never used darktable, instead I use rawtherapee which allows me to work with images in my own preferred locations without wanting to "import" or "copy" to some internal databa…

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).

I simplified a little. My full hierarchy looks like:

   ~/Images/$year/$month/$day-title/{ RAW JPG Public }
RAW contains all the RAWs, JPG for processed results, and Public for any images that are shared publicly, as opposed to given to paid clients or kept for my own use/reference.

Re: Darktable 2.4.0 released

#60
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

I simplified a little. My full hierarchy looks like: ~/Images/$year/$month/$day-title/{ RAW JPG Public } RAW contains all the RAWs, JPG for processed results, and Public for any images that are shared publicly, as opposed to given to paid clients or kept for my own use/reference.

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.

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