I'm exporting a bunch of photos where just a select few take more than 10 minutes to export while others just get processed quickly. It would be useful to see what it's actually working on to maybe remove that module that takes an eternity to be calculated.

Hi all,

I am very new to Darktable (4.6), but after some tutorials and having played on my pictures, I am starting to getting familiar with the basic commands of the software.
Some users recommend to use the scene-referred (filmic) as default workflow and I have started in that direction. Moreover it seems also the newset type of development. However I have noticed a tendency to shift sunsets and highlights towards red, whereas I find much more fidelity in colours in the legacy approach, which results to be a much better starting point for editing. I am posting an example case, hoping to clarify.

Also when it comes to "normal" photos, in the sense that most of the picture is midtones, I find that filmic is removing vibrance to the image and it is less ready.

Ideally I want to create some styles that I can apply with consistency without modifying lots of parameters individually for each photo, and so far the legacy approach has given me better results. On the other hand, I don't want to miss some "high-end" features, but I cannot find an easy way out.

Is it "wrong" in 2024 insisting in the legacy workflow?

Moreover, being new to Darktable, are there some parameters that are tuned automatically based on the photo? This is something personally would not like, since there are still some parameters (i.e. exposure, contrast) I prefer to do individually in case the photo is "difficult" (i.e. wrong exposure, hard shadows/highlights recoveries).

Pictures are in the following order:

1. Nikon NX Studio - Default camera settings
2. Nikon NX Studio - Edited (I am not very familiar with NX and result is far from expectation)
3. Darktable - Image imported with scene-referred (filmic) and no further adjustments
4. Darktable - Image imported with display-referred (legacy) and no further adjustments
5. Darktable - Image imported with display-referred (legacy) and edited

https://preview.redd.it/9ofqz1ggtrmc1.jpg?width=1800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=97d03daf35fac206c71d72955aae6ec978c2a48f

https://preview.redd.it/ebx1a4ggtrmc1.jpg?width=2700&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=abc2b2254ee1504ce9eb18d82fde85a3575a521a

https://preview.redd.it/p0eik2ggtrmc1.jpg?width=1800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fbc4781141a248a467a02875b66f32a789a7a5f3

https://preview.redd.it/uibhn4ggtrmc1.jpg?width=1800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ad4ee3d64321658c6fe665d377ca97e8ea9d2cbb

https://preview.redd.it/ytuc03ggtrmc1.jpg?width=1800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8f3708ebe7573dae77196d72dc210c0fe8bd0f34

I'm a bit stuck with the collections module in the lighttable section - I'm hoping somebody can explain to me what I'm doing wrong here. Version is 4.6.0 on Linux.

I went out on a shoot yesterday and today I wanted to process the photos. I did as I normally do. My workflow is:

• create a folder in another program (Dolphin) inside my photos folder and move the photos from the camera into it.
• In Darktable collections, click on add to library... and select the folder with the photos.

Normally it would add them and the folder to the collection. I can double click on the folder in the collections module and everything is there ready to start editing.

Today is different! I did this and the folder did not appear in the collections module - it did pop up and say it had imported some photos - where to I have no idea...

So, being desperate to get to my new shots, I restart. Still nothing. I try importing a few times - and still no photos to be seen. This is when I start playing with the settings and decide to search for the photos in the collection (right click search filmroll...). Oh big mistake. Selected one of the photos in the dialogue and all the folders had strikes through them. Still no photos and lots of other things had disappeared. I couldn't find out how to undo this to get back to where I was before. Desperation sinks in - remove entire collection and reimport, figuring all should be good.

Now I have a single folder with no subfolders and no photos. They're all still on the disk so nothing has been removed, I just can't view them in collections. I feel like I'm following a logical path to view the photos but for whatever reason they're not visible in Darktable. I can add single sub folders to the collection but it doesn't seem to add them automatically.

If anyone has any ideas to help I would really appreciate it!

Hello all,

I opened my pictures in lighttable and off late, I observed that under image information module, it is not showing the white balance info and flash (on/off/used) info from the EXIF data.

Is there a way to enable these metadata info under image information in lighttable utility?

TIA.

This doesn't happen for all of my photos but when I try to edit a vast majority of them look like this? They look fine in the preview and when I open the files on my desktop. I am new to digital photography and am just wrapping my head around it but have had a friend look over it and he wasn't able to figure out what was wrong either. Would really appreciate any help as I haven't been able to find any answers online!

https://preview.redd.it/c29om8se6imc1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=5a27a114fa0fd33eceda88ce1e5378fa24d08f92

https://preview.redd.it/oqwwc8se6imc1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=0bac91e2f96b80a8747b33de39bd2f4842632869

​

https://preview.redd.it/9spef86a8gmc1.png?width=874&format=png&auto=webp&s=7aaa7deb32713a9ca6063b2864ef1c27a582fc35

https://preview.redd.it/h2hn2grwlmmc1.png?width=332&format=png&auto=webp&s=2b4d202917433900544bdae359c11a3b0dc496fe

I use a Panasonic G7, RW2 files. At fist windows explorer showed the same darktable icon but I installed the Raw image extension and that fixed it there.

But on Darktable if I go to show/hide thumbnails they do not generate at all, anyone could help me out?

IV been working on the 3.4version for the past couple of years and it's been working great but I wonder Wich version is the best following that one as I have seen alot of bad criticisms for the most recent versions.

Any idea whats going on?

I'm on 6.4.1. On TuxedoOS.

​

https://preview.redd.it/4hsimrt9v5mc1.png?width=3833&format=png&auto=webp&s=76ec9ca2cecdc3a4484f7862b06a68597229e609

Darktable 4.6.0 on Kubuntu 23.10
When I'm shooting film and digitizing it through whatever process (sometimes a lab scanner, sometimes DSLR scanning), I want to EXIF data to somewhat match the photo. Specifically I want to be able to set the ISO correctly (as I likely don't remember the aperture or shutter speed). Is there a way to do this in Darktable, or does it require a separate EXIF editor?

I have been using snapseed mobile for years, and one particular slider I use a lot is the "ambience" one. I started using Darktable recently and was wondering how I could do a similar effect within that?

Edit: here are a couple photos with only the ambience set to lowest and highest:

I am picking up photography again after some time. When going again through my old images in Darktable, I noticed that the RAW images look differently than they used to. I recall RAW images having the color off, but now colors look better although the over saturated areas are way more noticeable. I think it is because Darktable is applying by default a bunch of modules (from 6 to 12) than I don't recall it applied in the past (1 year ago).

Is it possible that some update in Darktable has triggered the addition of more default modules? Have I accidentally messed something up in the configuration ? Am I just imagining it?

It doesn't look like anything has changed in those RAW images that I had edited manually.

https://preview.redd.it/ix78dhaitxkc1.png?width=1934&format=png&auto=webp&s=91cf1fab9a56d6918c5929a1f0b7384c07975893

I would like to have the photos automatically placed in the correct folder from a selection of photos.

'../darktable_exported/places/France/$(FILE.NAME)
../darktable_exported/places/Spain/$(FILE.NAME)
../darktable_exported/places/Germany/$(FILE.NAME)

For this, I use $(CATEGORY).

But what's the advantage of using $(CATEGORY) numbers if I have to adjust the numbering for each folder every time?
$(CATEGORY0(places))
$(CATEGORY1(places))
$(CATEGORY2(places))

I might as well use the name of the country instead.
../ places/France/… instead of ../darktable_exported/places/$(CATEGORY0(places))/$(FILE.NAME)

Is it possible for Darktable to automatically detect which folders are under $(CATEGORY[](places))?

I used the monochrome module to create a black and white version of an image. It looks black and white in the darkroom and lighttable views. When I export it, the JPEG is color. How do I export to black and white image? I'm using version 4.6.1.

Edit: solved. For some reason, the monochrome module disabled itself in darkroom, but the lighttable view showed the black and white image. I turned the module back on and it exported correctly.

I recently started shooting raw instead of jpg but my processing could use work. What edits do you apply and it what order to try to get the most from your raw images.

Hello, I was wondering if it was possible to add another layer/ image on top of another one? Couldn't find anything related to it.

I've used Darktable since 2.x and would have even considered myself a power user in the beginning. Yes, compared to Adobe a bit more work is involved to start out, but I really clicked with the workflow. So I had no problem investing the time for custom color profiles of my cameras to get accurate results. Especially something like the equalizer made perfect sense and is a great tool.

However, I now lost my work with Darktable multiple times. When the filmic module came out, users who disliked the fact that all previous work was useless, including custom profiling and who knows how many hours of work on their edits, were just belittled. Yes, you can edit pictures so they look good with filmic, but that comment misses the point completely. It's not about one picture looking good, but accuracy or even a style that should be consistent. Pre filmic this was possible.

But OK, filmic is here, let's try to adapt, right? I never manged to be completely happy with filmic, but I got okayish results eventually. Maybe with time I will become proficient again. Or so I thought. Today I opened some picture I've already edited post filmic, yet they look completely off. The xmp file shows the last edit was just a year ago.

With this inconsistency, it just feels like a waste of time using and (re)learning this tool. Who knows If you can use your edits still tomorrow. Just wanted to get this out. If there are other users like me, I would like to know where you switched to, native linux tools would be preferable.

​

Hello,

Could someone please tell me what the differences are between the two macOS installer packages listed below? The second one seems to be a bit larger in size, and the website only mentions that these bundles support macOS versions starting with 12.5 (Monterey), with no clarification on what the differences are between the two files below. I am currently on Sonoma 14.2, on an ARM machine, so I won't be mentioning the x86_64 build.
1 - darktable-4.6.1-arm64.dmg - 65.6 MB

2 - darktable-4.6.1-arm64-macOS-12.5.dmg - 81.8 MB

Thanks for your time and help!

A bunch of bugfixes and enhancements. No camera-related changes this time. See the announcement at: https://www.darktable.org/2024/02/darktable-4.6.1-released/

OS: macOS Sonoma (Version 14.3.1 (23D60))
darktable ver: 4.6.0
OpenCL disabled
Running on apple silicon

Hey there,

Started using darktable a bit ago and I've run into a couple quirks that seem like likely bugs.

• Immediately when I open darktable, I can scroll in the filemanager layout in lighttable mode using my scroll wheel no problem and it just acts as if I was using the scroll bar. After a few seconds of this, though, the scroll wheel function stops working and the only way to scroll up and down becomes clicking and dragging the scroll bar. Not a huge bug, but just a little odd.

• Frequently, when I open several RAFs from lighttable mode in darkroom mode (say, 20 photos), a few consecutive photos will randomly be rendered as completely black despite having totally normal JPG thumbnails and showing up fine in other RAF viewers. The other photos are fine and can be viewed and edited normally but the ones that show up as completely black continue to show up as completely black even after deleting their XMPs, restarting darktable, and trying to view them one-by-one. This one is more annoying unfortunately.

But yeah, lmk if any of you have ever encountered something like this before! Searched this subreddit and couldn't find anything like it.

Thanks!

As part of my FOSS journey, I'm trying to get Darktable up and running. I have a 2tb cloud Hetzner storage box that is mounted via CIFS and was thinking that it could be a cool way to have darktable always have access to my photos without having to carry around or keep track of large external HDs.

I have several questions:

1. It seems like to do this, I just start it with a custom library path parameter pointing to the mounted drive like --library /mnt/Hetzner/media/photos/darktable/library.db Will this work?

2. The Hetzner drive connection isn't super fast, but I imagine there is some local caching etc. with darktable which -- maybe with some time for initially loading any given photo -- wouldn't make darktable run too slow. Is there something I'm not understanding about how CIFS works that would make this a nightmare?

3. I see that Darktable keeps a local cache of image thumbnails. Is this ridiculously large or could I keep it locally to speed up performance?

4. are there any other flags that I could run to prevent this from being an absolute nightmare?

I use darktable as an alternative to lightroom and was wondering if anyone has any places where I can get presets. I'm still learning photo editing but they all end up looking like they would end up on r/shittyHDR. I don't have anything specific in mind just was looking for a wide variation of presets so I can find out what type of edits I like and what my photos have the potential to look like

... I tell darktable to import all my photos in /Pictures (and subfolders)

... it shows a list of all my photos I want to import

... it tells me it imported 3827 fotographs

... but it shows me NONE

:O

Not that I was not able to import pictures in former releases. I feel dull. Stupid. Dissed.

​

Recently started using DT and every time I edit an image and export it, critical data like original date taken, and GPS info goes missing from the exported image. I see all of the original data is there in the app. The manual mentions ability to save these attributes by editing a pop up window, however, I can't find in on my screen. Have watched several YouTube tutorials.

What am I missing? Thanks

I'm looking to get a nice camera and get into photography and was wondering if there was any online course to teach me how to edit.

I’m a new Darktable user and shot some basketball photos using continuous mode. I open them up in darktable and edit one photo and save it as a style to apply to the rest. The moment I did this in the lighttable, every photo shot in continuous mode (except the first of the bunch) wouldn’t open anymore (thumbnail of a skull). Any idea why this happens?

Hi, I'm still new to this software.

I'm trying to use darktable on my Macbook Pro 16inch, intel i9, radeon 5500, 16GB RAM.

My first impression is that the software is very nice, I can use it to edit my RAW Files. however, the performance is so sluggish. it's so slow compared to using lightroom. Any suggestion on settings?