Alternative to Lightroom called 'darktable'

[shadowfox]

I am not at all opposed to Adobe's recent adoption of the subscription-only model. As a business owner, I understand the need to focus on your majority of *paying* customers (which in Adobe's case are the professional graphics artists, studios, and corporate marketing departments).

But I also hope that this encourages Adobe's competitors and competitors-wannabes to step up.

One such player in the Linux OS is called simply: darktable (www.darktable.org). Why Linux? because more people choose it on their main computers. As for me, I practically operate my business from one.

This software has been mentioned here in other threads, but I just installed the latest version (1.2) so I thought, while I'm messing with it, why not snap a screenshot so people can see at least what it looks like:

Sorry for the extra wide image, otherwise you won't be able to read my comments (the orange blurbs in a gaudy font).

As you can see, darktable looks like Lightroom. However, it does not "handle" (to use a camera terminology) like Lightroom, because it's not a clone.

The tweak-able parameters behave differently, here they are called 'modules', there are lots of them. They produce different results and some of them are quite innovative like zone-based grey adjustments, shadows and highlights which if used when you're drunk, will yield HDR images... yeesh...

A big kudos to the developer: Pascal de Bruijn for keeping on making changes that makes this software easier and easier to use, and at the same time producing the innovative features.

Did I mention that this program is free (as in "free beer") ?
Now go check it out.

 

[furbs]

Haven't used Lightroom, but I've been using darktable on Linux (gentoo distribution) for the past few months. I like the versatility of its B&W converter and ability to tweak levels, etc easily yet powerfully. And good for the price! 😉

 

[bwcolor]

Thanks for the review.

I have started to collect components to replace my aging Mac Pro/Aperture/Final Cut Pro x/Compressor/PS3. I was thinking of switching to Windows and Adobe products, but the cloud business model doesn't work for me. I used an old (one year ago) version of Darktable, but returned to Aperture. I'll have to take another look.

How does Darktable handle batch processing and does it utilize all processors on the system?

Questions for Linux Users:
One of the nice things about Aperture is that it plays nicely with third party add-ons. I use Noise Ninja and Efex Pro. Are there similar programs available in the Linux world? That would be a more sophisticated noise reduction program and a more powerful program to control color, B&W conversion.. etc.? I also would need a good PS replacement. Gimp is great but limited to 8 bit. I don't think that anything in Linux approaches Final Cut Pro X/Compressor for video. At least, I haven't found such a replacement.

 

[user237428934]

What a nerdy software. Excerpt of the feature description from their website 😀

all darktable core functions operate on 4x32-bit floating point pixel buffers, enabling SSE instructions for speedups. It offers GPU acceleration via OpenCL (runtime detection and enabling) and has built-in ICC profile support: sRGB, Adobe RGB, XYZ and linear RGB.

All Exif data is read and written using libexiv2.

 

[bensyverson]

One of the nice things about Aperture is that it plays nicely with third party add-ons. I use Noise Ninja and Efex Pro. Are there similar programs available in the Linux world? That would be a more sophisticated noise reduction program and a more powerful program to control color, B&W conversion.. etc.? I also would need a good PS replacement. Gimp is great but limited to 8 bit. I don't think that anything in Linux approaches Final Cut Pro X/Compressor for video. At least, I haven't found such a replacement.

It's hard for free software to compete with commercial software and plugins... Since you already own the Mac software, you might be better off just buying a new Mac. A MacBook Air is fast enough for anything photo-related these days...

 

[bwcolor]

It's hard for free software to compete with commercial software and plugins... Since you already own the Mac software, you might be better off just buying a new Mac. A MacBook Air is fast enough for anything photo-related these days...

They haven't updated the Mac Pro and rumor has it that it won't be updated. I want my next iteration to be much more powerful than MacBook series. I don't need the power for photo manipulation, but for video.

 

[bwcolor]

What a nerdy software. Excerpt of the feature description from their website 😀

This is Linux and this is what the Linux user is exposed to throughout their range of software. Many users operate using terminal. I think that few Mac users use terminal, even though the operating system is just another version of Linux.

 

[user237428934]

This is Linux and this is what the Linux user is exposed to throughout their range of software. Many users operate using terminal. I think that few Mac users use terminal, even though the operating system is just another version of Linux.

You are right. A nerdy software for a nerdy operating system. Darktable is available for OSX too but 99% of the users never use a shell oder have any clue about the internals. So this detailed information is a good start to distract the OSX users.

 

[user237428934]

What raw conversion engine did these guys use? Something self developed, or is there a Linux standard they use? At least this is the most important part of such a software.

My concerns about a free software are longterm maintenance. I use Lightroom since 2007, longer now than any of the cameras I use. On one side people complain that they might be dependent on Adobes politics but using that software, you have a dependency to a bunch of programmers who do this project in their spare time.

 

[jslabovitz]

It appears (from searching the Darktable source) that they are using Libraw, which is based on dcraw. That's pretty well respected in the open-source community; several existing raw developers use the same code as their processing engine.

--John

 

[Pioneer]

Depending on programmers is a reality of the digital world. You make your choices and take your chances. Unless you are able to program yourself.

But the same is true in the analogue world for most of us. Films, developers, paper, etc. All these are dependent on some company's decisions for production, distribution, pricing, etc. The only way out is to make your own films and papers, and mix your own developers. But, a bit like programming, most of us don't take that particular route.

 

[Peter_wrote:]

it's a fantastic and powerful piece of of software. i don't use it for raw-conversion, but for processing the 16bit tiff files, i get from scanning.

never have recognized any bugs or problems.

it has some innovative, neat and handy features. (i like e.g. how u can straighten a picture by drawing a line, which should be horizontal or vertical then)

 

[shadowfox]

What a nerdy software. Excerpt of the feature description from their website 😀

I know, some of us just don't know what to do with our extra brain power
😎

 

[shadowfox]

What raw conversion engine did these guys use? Something self developed, or is there a Linux standard they use? At least this is the most important part of such a software.

Don't know, don't care.
It's good enough for me.

My concerns about a free software are longterm maintenance. I use Lightroom since 2007, longer now than any of the cameras I use. On one side people complain that they might be dependent on Adobes politics but using that software, you have a dependency to a bunch of programmers who do this project in their spare time.

You know what, in my business I depend a lot on these tools that depend on "a bunch of programmers doing projects in their spare time" and just to give you an example out of many cases, I used the tools to help my clients figured out what's wrong with their numbers and as the result, they are able to meet their commitments to their big investors.

As I mentioned above, these programmers have brain power to spare. It's okay to depend on them, and if that fails, just download the source code and fix it yourself.

 

[shadowfox]

You are right. A nerdy software for a nerdy operating system. Darktable is available for OSX too but 99% of the users never use a shell oder have any clue about the internals. So this detailed information is a good start to distract the OSX users.

Not picking on you, Tom 🙂

But most of my peers now use Linux whether they work for others or running their own business. Some of them use Mac Pro *because* they know it's UNIX underneath. So they get all the bells and whistles that Apple excels at, but can still go under the hood to tap more power from the "engine."

 

[user237428934]

I know, some of us just don't know what to do with our extra brain power
😎

Lucky you. I think, when I leave office, some parts of my brain stay there too 🙄 So no extra brain power for that at home.

 

[user237428934]

As I mentioned above, these programmers have brain power to spare. It's okay to depend on them, and if that fails, just download the source code and fix it yourself.

I have a software related job but my developing days are over for 10 years now. This is no option for me.

 

[ruby.monkey]

It's a good tool as long as one runs it on a 64-bit operating system; on a 32-bit OS it's liable to suffer memory errors and crash without warning.

 

[colyn]

What raw conversion engine did these guys use?

Libraw... One of the best...

My concerns about a free software are longterm maintenance.

Open source is here to stay. There are plenty of developers who are willing to help..

you have a dependency to a bunch of programmers who do this project in their spare time.

Not quiet true.... Most developers are full time on the project, especially if it is popular software.

The same was said back in the early days of Linux as well as Gimp. Look where they both are today..

 

[furbs]

The same was said back in the early days of Linux as well as Gimp. Look where they both are today..

I was one of the naysayers when I tried to install Redhat in 1999, but now I've used Linux and gimp exclusively for image editing for the past 5 years - at least until darktable came along, and now I use gimp only for resizing and unsharp mask. Over the past 5 years I've been happy to see the support and sophistication of these free software distributions increase. I frankly prefer gimp to Photoshop, and I really have no reason to use an Adobe product. Besides, I'd rather spend my money on film or photo gear (or a vacation!) than software.