I’m not sure how many do it but I know some have in the past shared that they do…instead of relying on a custom list they use a set of modules with autopresets tweaked to their preferred settings. All the modules are applied but many in the inactive state so they don’t initially impact the image but they are there and can be enabled on an image by image basis… So you have your core toolbox applied to every image and then just enable and adjust the modules that are applied only for certain images…its just another way to set things up and its not for everyone…
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I’ve read the request of having a “overview” at what has been done. Frankly I don’t even know what to do there… Every RAW software has slider controls based on numbers. So what can we do?
I don’t expect Darktable to be able to propose an overview of the form:
“In this picture you have added some exposure and compensated this in the shadows to have them retain there dense tones. After that the colors have been warm up a bit…”
??
So yes the history stack is what we have. It gives the activated modules and the changes done for each of them.
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I will repeat myself, but the list of active modules offers an excellent summary, especially if combined with meaningful per-module labels.
It’s almost for free, and using meaningful labels for modules is the best way to make an edit easy to understand when you open it again later on, so you get two birds with one stone.
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Right, I forgot to mention that too.
I tried the latest build of Ansel, after watching the latest video by Aurelien Pierre https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1R7gdfJVH9Q
Apart from the tone and the way he expresses his view, I find myself agreeing with his UI choices.
I’ve been using Darktable for a couple of years but the workflow in Ansel is much clearer and the interface is also more intuitive. I’m talking about the placement of UI elements, commands, the presence of a menu, the absence of the hovering paradigm.
I love the new trackpad gestures in DT 5.6 though.
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My take is that Ansel is very opinionated about how things should be. With that comes polish, but also limitations to freedom. I agree with many of the choices they made there, but not with all, and a very opinionated platform does not have the flexibility to adapt to my needs.
In a way, it may be the worst of both worlds: the limitedness of a proprietary software and the (comparatively) lack of polish of a non-proprietary one.
EDIT: don’t get me wrong, I like most of what they are doing there, and there is a lot of quality work. But I think that darktable’s “inclusive” philosophy is better aligned with my idea of what free (as in speech) software should be like. I am very happy to trade a bit of polish in exchange for more of that.
What I am really getting at is that the interface with a big stack of modules each one of which has a pile of sliders with a range of obscurities tends to impede a holistic editing process in which the photographer goes back and forth between different adjustments, dabbing here, fiddling there, which relies on visibility of the different possible edits, since normal mortals cannot effectively hold them all in their heads.
Probably this still is too obscure …
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Yes, it’s essentially one person’s view of what the UI should be like, and very little ability for individual preferences to be catered for (as far as I know).
It’s an almost impossible task to have a very refined UI yet flexible enough for people to customize. Even a “skin” system has to have some very strict rules over element placement.
Over the years, I’ve seen so many threads like this one, but they rarely amount to much because it’s hard to reach consensus but mainly because very few developers really want to touch it. I can’t blame them. It would be a very stressful project!
Honestly, I’ve grown so used to the UI that I don’t even notice it anymore. It does what I need it to do, and you quickly learn to live with its idiosyncrasies.
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But why do you need to? When you apply an edit you are trying to change the current state. It does not really matter where that state comes from. If your photo needs more exposure it does not matter why it is underexposed, it only matters that it is.
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How many modules are you using in an edit though? And I mean the ones you’d need to fiddle extensively (not so much lens correction, denoise, etc)? I think the more seasoned users have a handful of modules that they use, and that’s it. So there isn’t much to hold in your head?
To get to my “base” edit, I only adjust exposure and sometimes filmic’s white relative exposure. The rest is applied via a preset. From there its local editing, where I’m using masks and descriptive names in the modules.
But really, the following modules are most used:
- filmic
- exposure
- color balance rgb
- tone equalizer
Usually more than one instance of color balance and tone eq.
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Opinionated is a quite negative term, for what in my perception is simply a clear direction, enforced more or less by a single person, AP.
I also looked into Ansel these days and would agree to @lilygthb‘s judgement - I find it much more cleaned up (visually less distracting) and module-wise more focused than darktable. In a commercial product one might call this the result of product management.
Of course this comes with limitations. I personally don’t mind, I prefer a clear, orthogonal set of tools over a multitude of tools with overlapping functions any time - simply because this supports me in achieving a consistent workflow with predictable results. But YMMV.
(Still, I will continue to work with darktable for now, as Ansel still exhibits lots of annoying bugs in its UI - strange as AP was emphasizing the UI aspect so strongly. Probably a result of the smaller user base and even smaller dev team, if one can even call it a team).
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“Opinionated” is often used when discussing software to mean something like “clear direction”, I don’t think it was meant as any sort of pejorative.
You could describe something like Arch Linux as un-opinionated (basically no decisions are made for you), where CachyOS, an Arch-derivative, would be very opinionated (there are many decisions made for you to fit the CachyOS focus of performance and gaming).
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Opinionated is a loaded term. Clear direction is much better.
If I had to choose, vkdt would align with how I organize my post-processing thoughts. However, I do not have any problems with dt itself except the part where it organizes things for me; personally I do it all manually, but I do not take thousands of photos… Anyway, I digress. My take of dt’s current UX is that it too has a clear design philosophy. Sure, finding things could improve, but I think the design is acceptable for general use.
It is okay to reinterpret or re-imagine. I know we are passionate people, so carry on. 
I don’t know either. I don’t even know of another software that if you hover shows you the applied changes from default or starting conditions…
Personally I don’t edit by numbers at all…with the exception of adjustments …so if .1 is not enough I will sometimes use an offset or multiplier to try another proportional strength of setting.
You have the history to show you the order of what you tried and the active modules to show you what is the left from that journey and is applied… taking the time to label the modules is what many do I believe, ie lighten the eyes, add colour to the sky…etc etc
I’m not very creative…maybe there is an improvement beyond that floating around but I will never come up with it for sure…
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So it’s not just me. If I had a dollar for every time I have accidentally thrown half of an edit in the garbage this way, I’d be a rich man. I’ve always just said “stupid me” and moved on, but I’ve never thought it was ideal.
Here’s a thought:
- click and hold a history entry temporarily shows the edit in read-only mode at that point in the history stack, and the edit reverts to the current history level upon mouse release;
- double click the history entry shows the edit in writable state at that point in the history stack, and later history stack entries are discarded if any changes are made.
This would be analogous to how the duplicates manager works and put some guardrails around poking in the history stack. The “penalty” would be that it would be necessary to double-click the history stack entry to go a different way with the edit.
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I have also done it by accident a few times but ctrl z will bring it back I’m pretty sure…
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Tested, confirmed. Thanks, Todd!
[I’ll show myself out now 
]
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No way please stay …its so easy to forget this one and I think sometimes I may have experienced situations where I thought I could undo something and I couldn’t and the reverse…
I’m late to this discussion and am (slowly) going through the 100+ (!) posts thread regarding the UI. I’m also a relatively new darktable user, not a developer, and a mediocre photographer.
@dfcsd I suggest you re-read all your messages before you post them, then tone them down to be more considerate. In your above messages you refer to things being “awful” and say they are “deeply frustrating”. When you do so, you are directly or indirectly commenting on work that someone did, for free, out of their own interest, passion, and goodness of their heart. It is simply unproductive to use such terms, and people who appear to have done a lot are impressively NON-defensive when accepting your unfortunately worded comments. I have little standing to tell you this, but I hope you find it helpful.
For what it’s worth, my own opinion as someone who has only been using and learning darktable over the past few months: the UI and UX are truly reflective of how the software works, which for me makes perfect sense. Yes, I too am confused by just how many “color ***” modules there are, but once I understood which ones I like to use for my own process and reworked the module tabs to include them, the process is very smooth. Darktable tells you upfront it’s not a Lightroom replacement and it requires a lot of learning of substance of the modules to then decide how someone wants to use it, and I think unless it is decided that darktable SHOULD become a free Lightroom, it should remain as powerfully flexible (and in consequence - complex) as it is. My kudos and thanks to the devs who made the UI as good as it is.
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In a separate message for ease of discussion:
The one point where I thought either a dakrtable improvement could be made OR I could learn how to do things better (if there’s a way, someone point me to a tutorial please?) is masking. It seems more intuitive for me to pick an area of a photo (say the main subject) and then apply a bunch of modules to it. Then pick another area, and apply a different bunch. Darktable paradigm is each module has its own mask, which for me is a reverse logic.
I know I can reuse a mask from module earlier in the pipeline by applying it to w module later in the pipeline (using raster masks I think it’s called, the last mask tab on the right), but this:
A) means that I have to apply the same mask to multiple modules multiple times - and know which mask I’m suppose to pick from the drop-down
B) presents problems if I want to get rid of the module holding the master mask
C) means my edits of different areas are fragmented between many module instances that are then sorted in the modules panel by module type and not are they are affecting
If it is just a me problem, I can live with the current behaviour. If there’s a workaround, I’d love to learn it. If people agree with me this is not ideal, I’m happy to talk through or attempt to propose an alternative.