A plea for more guidance in the darktable manual

Software darktable
37

I really like your analogy here. I am one of those people that if you give me a set of plans for a shed I can build “that” shed exactly. Lines shapes angles and attention to detail etc…all no problem. As I build it I could adapt and modify it to make it more robust or functional, however, sadly I am not creative. I wish sometimes I could draw or perhaps play an instrument but I just don’t seem wired for it. My weakness certainly gets exposed when developing an image. I understand for the most part all the tools and the impact on the image at the pixel level but as for the big picture I don’t possess that skill and quality that you have demonstrated for example in your recent work on the attempts to recreate stylized photos…(great by the way).

In a recent edit in playraw you suggested rightly so IMO to leave the foreground dark as to better highlight the glow of the sun on the subject of the image (a mountain) but because we have software and all kinds of tools most people felt the need to pull up strongly on the shadows which to me destroyed the overall light and tones of the image with no significant improvement. It is great for sure to have all these tools and everyone has a vision for an image but I can’t help but feel sometimes that many edits have been dictated by the tools and they have no editing to enhance the subject or compositional elements. People go through the tools and apply a bunch and in the end may have an edit with lots of color or shadows and highlights managed etc but often for me the results don’t match the potential of imagery provided by the photo.
To me this really highlights why the marriage of instruments and theory is so important however, I think many people overlook this relationship. They look at software out of the gate as a means to skip or simplify the theory or save time and this is not always the goal. The expectation is to push and pull a few sliders to get tone color and saturation changes to provide a pleasing result. Going forward I will learn to get nice pictures by iteration of this process which of course is part of any learning process but I think only in a more simplified environment. DT is far too complex with sliders that don’t always have a one to one relationship to learn it this way, ie I increase this and boom that is this part of the image corrected. All the modules have potential cross talk and nuances that can only be understood and mastered with understanding the theory so that when you do experiment you have context for the results.
I think the DT manual can and should provide that pixel level information but I think unless someone has the time and passion to write a book on color theory using DT throughout to highlight the marriage of instrument and theory then these questions will just keep coming. Even with a 10/10 manual if users are not willing to invest time outside of DT to gain a good grasp of the theory it will be difficult to go from a module to module description no matter how good it is to a finished edit IMO…
Thanks for sharing your ideas knowledge and techniques with us. I have learned a lot

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38

Forget darktable. Analyze old masters. They spent a lot of time to find out what works. Learn from it and apply it…

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…like Kubrick does, for example:

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The scene looks hopelessly underexposed.

And then you’ve made a big step by learning that it doesn’t always make sense to use exposure compensation and filmic to see every part out of the shadows. Because it’s the darker shadows that frame the action. Reinforce the meaning of the scene.

But this is not part of the darktable manual. This has nothing to do with darktable!

This is just a tool like the paints and brushes for the painter.

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39

Analyze old masters.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Masters of photography, as well as painting. And drawing.

The tool is not relevant to aesthetics. Over the years, I have taken many courses in painting and photography. For me, the foundation is always, “What makes a good picture?”

For that, we need to know how pictures work. What are the elements of pictures, and how do they work together to create an effect, a feeling, an emotion?

We can learn a lot from books (and web sites), but taking a course (or evening class or whatever) is more immersive, with interaction between students and teachers, and we can test our ideas against other people.

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40

Solid advice. I bet if you had posted a photo of the above scene on play raw…not many would have crafted the light on the the subject…I think in the end most edits are to contrasted too sharp and often there is what I call no decision on the light…often you have to “sacrifice” part of the image and make a decision on the subject and the light…at least IMO I don’t see that in too many edits…I can see it at times I just need to learn to craft it…ha ha…great example thank you…

41

A great guide would be one like this with tips and workflow to demonstrate the manipulation of elements like this in the photo…but this is time consuming and really is the work of the user and and not the developer…The 10 Elements of Composition in Photography

42

This is a good link, but all of that has nothing to do with darktable or post processing in general, save the crop tool. The darktable user manual is about using darktable and doesn’t and won’t cover how to be an adequate photographer.

Similarly, we can’t provide you with the skills to visualize your own work in post, we can only provide the tools.

Visualization is hard at first, but you need to break it down into steps. Look at your raw and ask yourself, what adjustment should I make? First one is probably global brightness. Follow by global contrast, etc etc.

Once you can describe what you want to do to your images in plain photographic language, then we can start to map those steps onto dartable’s tools.

43

:grin: :+1:

I bet we would have miles long tread about which method would be the most suitable for the highlight reconstruction of the candlelight, how to make white balance with a second instance of the color calibraiton module without blowing the skin color, eventually to consider other demoseicing method and even make your own color profile for the camera. :laughing:

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44

Now that like Mastercard is “priceless” For sure even something modern…say in point 11 of this site…

can you image how many people would hit this with heavy dehaze and bump contrast or add a bunch of color…don’t get me wrong the great thing about digital age is there are so many possibilities…To be honest its hard not to do these things…I think maybe the #1 point of digital editing though should be restraint and or all things in moderation…:slight_smile:

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45

One of the things I most often miss in the Play Raw section: Context.

Not knowing anything about the scene and having to guess by looking at a RAW, which might or might not have been exposed correctly or have a white balance appropriate for that scene makes things a lot harder.

I am curious though if the “RAW” from the above shot from Barry Lyndon was posted and there would have been mentioned that this was shot with candlelight only and a f/0.7 lens, fully open (50mm depth of field or there about) if they would have come up with the soft orangey look that Kubric achieved. I’m sure that most people have never even seen a scene solely lighted by candles :smile:

Having a (darktable) manual is nice and all and, optimally, there should be a setup as described by @CarVac in post #15, but all that is rather useless if you do not know how to approach your photography and/or can visualize what it is you want/need to do.

46

Likely I wasn’t clear. I was suggesting something like that would be a great resource (ie a book on photography that did reference back to LR) not that this is what the manual should be….In fact as you say the manual is not or cannot be the source of some key parts of the process which are in addition to pushing sliders

47

I think “frequency” relates to the functions on the image after a Fourier transform.

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Mathematically speaking, Define a function by looking at how luminosity changes as your finger traces a line across the image,

Then take the Fourier transform to get a representation of your function as a sum of sine curves. You will find that sharp changes in your function relate to high frequency components of the transform.

Its not easy to state this explicitly without some maths formulae but this should be enough for those who want to understand the origin of the jargon.

49

I would say, the most important criterion is whether the photo appeals to you or not. If it appeals to you, then you look at what is appealing and try to highlight that. Then comes the second question whether you are able to do it. Are you skilled enough to pull it off. What elements play the role and in the end, how do you achieve that with the tools you have at your disposal.

Exactly!

This is a process with steps that always oscillate within this triad: Emotional impact, artistic skills and mastery of the tool.

If the first is missing, the highest you can achieve is average craftsmanship. The results become solid, but boring in the long run.

If the second and third are missing, the tool is suspected of being defective or inadequate. This can lead to the fact that one lets it be.
Or despair of oneself.

But, if there is enough motivation, then you slowly start to learn both. First, without great pretensions to take the time to learn the first steps in the use of tools. At the same time, you make the effort to master the rules of shaping and composition. Both are independent of each other and will merge in your own creative act.

It can be, for example, that you are interested in black and white photography, you have read a lot about it and know what makes a good black and white photo. So, when you learn to use the tool, you focus primarily on mastering only the aspects that are important for black and white photography. Or, conversely, you’ve learned just enough to get black-and-white photos with the tool, so you’re learning about what conditions and composition rules are important for good black-and-white photography.

So you gradually develop your skills and abilities with which you parallel master the tool and also the art of composition.

The most important thing to know here is that you can’t expect the people who make the tools to provide this learning process for you.

It’s like going to a music store, buying a guitar and expecting the manufacturer or salesperson to teach you how to make music with it.

I don’t think anyone will come up with such an idea. Interestingly, as far as darktable is concerned, exactly these expectations we have here. :grin:

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50

True, but oftentimes the salespeople are also musicians and frequently have leads on where their customers can go to improve their skills. I think that’s what some people are trying to get at here on this site.

51

:point_down:

https://photo.aurelienpierre.com/cours-particuliers-de-retouche-sous-darktable/?lang=en

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52

unless someone has the time and passion to write a book on color theory using DT throughout to highlight the marriage of instrument and theory then these questions will just keep coming

In my opinion dtcocs could become this book step by step.

There already are “real” books about darktable, but even with 200-300 pages they don’t go into detail concerning color theory, and the biggest problem of course is the up-to-dateness (having 2 dt releases per year at the moment).

Both is easier to handle in dtdocs, because you can link to external resources going deeper, and it’s much easier to continuously update markup compared to releasing new editions of a book twice a year.

The up-to-dateness is even a problem with videos (see Bruce Willilams’ great! newbie videos he had to redo - which are outdated again by now).

And there already is “great educational content” in dtcocs, but for me it’s often hard to find it.

So perhaps it would be a good start to define a new top-structure, so that it’s easier to see the gaps which should motivate all of us to fill them.

The main split for me is:
a) what does this button do (= “Module Reference”)
b) how can I … (everything else)

a) is the classic manual-style description, b) is the detailed explanation with examples.
Ideally there are links in both directions.

Here is a draft of such a new structure:

  1. get to know darktable
    1.1 what is darktable
    1.2 user interface
    1.3 basic concepts (sidecar files, rightclick on slider, …)
  2. functions
    2.1 import images
    2.2 structure images (culling, rating, tagging, filter, collect)
    2.3 develop raw files (color calibration/white balance, filmic/basecurve, …)
    2.4 correct images (crop & rotate, retouch, perspective correction, sharpen, denoise)
    2.5 export images
    2.6 print
    2.7 tethering
    2.8 map
    2.9 slideshow
  3. advanced techniques
    3.1 masks
    3.2 styles
    3.3 multi-instances
  4. get involved
    4.1 report bugs (errors in the program)
    4.2 test existing features and provide feedback
    4.3 add documentation
    4.4 translate dt to your own language
    4.5 program new features
  5. Module Reference (A-Z)
    5.1 astrophoto denoise
    5.2 base curve
    …
53

I have no interest in writing or maintaining a book about color theory and photography. One of the major problems of the manual was that it wasn’t up to date for the release. While we have gotten wider contributions since converting to markdown, the bulk of the work is still being done by a few people. I don’t think it is wise to expand without having dedicated people to write and maintain.

Further, user manuals are about how to use something. Automotive usrr manuals don’t contain a thesis on the internal combustion engines, and your camera manual doesn’t include Adam’s The Negative.

If you take a look at some other photo software’s user manuals, you’ll see dtdocs is structured very similarly. This was not an accident.

I’d much rather people be explicit and, say “I find x to be deficient.” Then we can talk about how to address the specific thing.

Instead of making us guess by inferring things about your new structure vs the current one, why not just tell us in plain, simple language?

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54

That’s why I posted here before opening an issue/pull request on github.

I am definitely willing to invest more time on dtdocs, and if there are several others I am sure we could expand the scope of the manual.

That’s true, but still I think it would be great to have it. I bought a book ‘the professional manual for Canon EOS 5D II’ (in german) which positions itself as replacement for the manufacturers manual and also includes step-by-step workshops using the camera.

So I really think it would be great to have the fusion of ‘Usage of the instrument and music theory’

I think dtdocs is great if you follow the help-link in darktable or if you know what you are looking for (search for tag and you find a great description even if the path “module-reference/utility-modules/shared/tagging/” is not quite obvious).

But if I buy a new camera or use a new software, I like to read a guide from beginning to end, because I don’t know yet what I have so search for.

That’s why I love the chapter ‘Overview’ which covers the main points you should know before using dt (what are sidecar files, how to import/structure/edit/export, …)

So my specific suggestion is to also move all other chapters except ‘Module Reference’ to the same ‘How to’-style structure
(e.g. lighttable / digital-asset-management / star ratings → functions / structure images / rating)

55

Basic how-tos are covered in Overview > Basic Workflow. We resist really in-depth how tos in the user manual because if we include one workflow, then we get to include them all (and people have wanted to contribute their workflow, even of its weird). We try to stick to what is technically correct in the manual, and keep it minimal to try and cover every single scenario, of which there are infinite.

I’d love to publish user workflows elsewhere, either on the main DT site or on the pixls blog, where I am a maintainer of both. But so far nobody has taken me up on that.

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56

Art before numbers. Thanks !

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