r/DarkTable

I recently got a camera and started using darktable about a month ago. Recently, a friend had me edit on their computer using Lightroom, and I found it way easier to use. I know the Lightroom comparison is a point of annoyance for this community, but I have to ask, does it get easier/better using darktable?

I keep seeing described as "much more powerful", but I'm confused on the specifics of that claim. Will I ever reach a point where darktable truly is the superior option, or is the primary merit of darktable its open-source nature? I don't mean to sound overly critical, but learning this software can be overwhelming at times. Are there any tips for learning this software more effectively?

Hello! I have been using Darktable for about five months now and I have really been enjoying it.

One thing I still find quite cumbersome is organising and culling photos. My current workflow is to:

• go through all the photos and rank them,
• group similar-looking shots,
• then keep only the ones I like most.

As you can imagine, this can take quite a long time.

I was wondering:

• does anyone have a better workflow for this in Darktable?
• or is this perhaps an area where a new feature/plugin could help?

I have been considering contributing something myself, but I wanted to hear how more experienced users handle this first.

Hey guys, I'm a Darktable user and I've always used it to manage my photos. However, realizing the advantages of DigiKam for this task, I've decided to invest some time into learning it, but I don't know where to find good materials or where to start.

Could you help me out?

Especially on how to make it communicate well with Darktable, as I intend to use both together.

Thank you all.

I have a client who wants a certain vibe. They have some LR presets.

One striking thing is that the sky is turned blue when it's grey, and when it's already blue it becomes this deep tropical azure.

I don't care if people like it, my client has this style for years and it is what they want - and frankly, I want to learn how to do it in Darktable.

Currently I am using a LUT with a Teal&Orange, but it feels like cheating, and I have little control over what happens.
Is there a module that can do this?

In LR they are changing the highlights so I think that's a place to start.
I was looking at color balance, but the effect is not very strong.
I also looked at the color lookup table but I find it difficult to control the target color - it is done in green-magenta balance and not really 'a color'.

I’m having an issue creating a style that automatically applies AgX with the “auto tune levels” picker selected. When I select the auto tune levels option for a specific image, then save as a style, it saves the relative exposures that were applied to that image (which makes sense). I’m wondering if there is a way to create a style where the AgX module applies the auto tune levels setting to each individual photo.

I tried to search for it on google, and tried writing a lua script, but I'm probably making some basic errors. The documentation is helpful, but I didn't find an auto advance feature. It might be hidden, I'm missing it, or it's not possible.

Is there a way of accomplishing this?

What I want is: I hit "r" to reject a photo and it moves on to the next photo. Right now it just stays on the photo I rejected.

I've noticed that if I export edited raws from my camera using jpg 90-95% quality, sRGB, and assign width to about 1080, it just seems so underwhelming when I download and view on my phone compared to my camera LCD or my monitor.

I've viewed other peoples amazing photos on my phone screen, which were taken with similar equipment as mine, so it seems I'm missing something.

For a lot of scenes, my phone native camera viewed on its own screen just seems so difficult to beat even with a good camera.

So I think it's a skill issue. Any tips?

I've tried sigmoid or filmic rgb and different sharpness tactics. Maybe it's the entire flow I'm just not good at yet to maximize performance on phone screen.

Are there any tutorials specific to Black and White post processing. From using negadoctor to post processing.