I totally agree. I have introduced several newcomers to RT and have found that once they have a sample workflow that covers the basics of processing run-of-the-mill images they cope well with the interface as it is. @paperdigits suggestion is a good one but the difficulty may be in deciding which tools need to go in there to start with. Another idea that has been mentioned previously in another thread would be to have a ‘legacy’ mode in the preferences menu so that older redundant tools can be hidden at start-up.
Hi’ @heckflosse
Thank you for an interesting input.
The minimum settings you mention should be turned on in the low iso auto-matched processing profile (the default profile). The current status is:
- CA correction is turned on - ok
- Capture sharpening is not available in the “production version” of RT (5.7).
- Auto-matched profile is default - ok
- Dual demosaic is not turned on
Do you have an example showing the benefit of applying the “minimum” settings?
How do I determine whether it is negligible to use dual demosaic (AMaZE+VNG4) when demosaicing my Nikon D7100 raw files?
Quote @paperdigits
It might be nice to put all the “beginner” tools in the favorites tab to start.
Yes, I think you are on to something!
And if we rename that Tab from favorites into, say, quick flow or something similar, most hopefully would get the picture [pun presumably intended].
I believe that would be better than naming the Tab Beginner, or Noob, or something similarly counterproductive…
Have fun!
Claes in Lund, Sweden
3 Likes
Something that I think would be helpful for new users is adding a tooltip for each tool giving a description of that tool. For example, if the user hovers the mouse pointer over Vibrance, a tooltip would appear saying something like, “Vibrance is an intelligent saturation adjustment tuned to correlate with the color sensitivity of human vision.” (copied from RawPedia)
Based on user feedback, I decided that RawTherapee 6.0 will include an intelligent and adaptive user interface. It will have 10 levels of complexity, where the first and easiest level only has the exposure correction and white balance temperature sliders visible, and the 10th level has all tools visible and expanded. The program will monitor the user and, using GPU-powered neural networks in the cloud, it will dynamically reveal elements of the interface as the user’s skill level progresses. Additionally, elements of the user interface will be fluid, arranging themselves based on how often they are used. Least-used elements will be moved to the front to prevent widget discrimination. There will be a speech synthesizer built into the program which will automatically read the relevant section of the documentation by monitoring which part of the interface the user’s eyes are currently looking at by using the webcam, else it will revert to the area under the mouse cursor should a webcam not be available. If the program notices erratic behavior, it will increase the speech synthesizer volume by 5% until success is achieved. This solves the problem that Windows users don’t want to read, macOS users don’t know how to read, and Linux users find the documentation too short. This will of course require maintaining 10 versions of the user interface and rewriting the documentation into tooltip form in 16 languages, but that is not a problem since the joy of satisfying all users justifies all.
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I can’t wait to get my hands on that version. 
If you add in some blockchain functionity, I can guarantee you at least $100,000,000 in VC funding.
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Feature request for RT6.0: add the possibility to use Amazon Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant along the speech synthesizer.
Of course, you’d have to rename the Eek! page to “Eek! Big Brother is watching you!”
More levels than The Inferno - excellent!
@Morgan_Hardwood While I appreciate your ridicule here 
my feeling is that it also deters any constructive criticism and discussion on what could, potentially, actually be improved in RT’s GUI. I don’t think that should happen.
Edit: I may sound a little sour, I’m not, just cautious 
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I sort of agree, but there isn’t much actionable criticism here. “Make it easier for beginners” or “hide some advanced tools” is vague.
Look at hugin, it has this type of UI. I don’t find it yo be great, in fact, I think it makes things more confusing.
Target Audience: https://github.com/Beep6581/RawTherapee/blob/dev/README.md#target-audience
If that remains the target audience for RawTherapee, does anything even need to be done?
It seems to me that the target user is the sort of person whose reaction upon opening RawTherapee for the first time is excitement not intimidation.
2 Likes
So what happens when a user reaches Level 10?
There is a saying in French that “a question is difficult only if you do not know the answer”.
We can say something identical for the use of software as Rawtherapee.
Moreover our brain forgets quickly as soon as we no longer practice.
For example regardless of Rawtherapee examine your behavior when you reuse after 1 year without using your favorite word processing software …
Looking! How do you do that? we get excited!
Jens Rasmussen succeeded, in the years 1980-1990, to model behaviors in the face of a problem. He created the SRK model (Skill, Rules, Knowledge).
The problem raised here is not easy to solve, and indeed we can think in the near future, and I’m ready to work on the guidelines proposed by @Morgan_Hardwood
At the GUI level there is a developer job to do at the level of the “expanders”, but I feel unable to do it.
Currently the backup of all configurations of the expanders is carried out in the file “options” and is applicable to the set of files of a user.
Nevertheless we have already separated the 3 tools that “seem” the most complex (not for me) in a tab apart (Ciecam, Wavelet, Retinex)
Currently Pierre Cabrera @Pandagrapher works for the branch “newlocallab” to this problem, and the first results are promising : you choose the modules you want from a drop-down menu, according to your usage and the image.
jacques
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Nice idea !
Or 3 levels buttons : 1. All closed for Beginners, 2. Most important opened for Intermediates and 3. All opened for Experts.
Kind regards,
Frederic
pffft…soon we’ll ask for a single button that makes a picture like “it’s trendy on FB”!
I don’t support this idea because people will only stay in their minimum without exploring what bothers them, on the other hand, it is in my opinion a misuse of this type of software that necessarily requires a minimum of personal work and time for that.
There are many other simple software programs; you have to choose and not ask other to do for you the work you don’t do!
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Hello everyone,
There are many other simple software programs; you have to choose and not ask other to do for you the work you don’t do!
I fully agree…
Lately, I was thinking about the suggestions to have several modes (workspaces) from beginners to advanced. Basically, it looks like people is asking for something similar to what you get with Photoshop elements where you can indeed select the interface (GUIs) that best fits your needs.
As regards the open source graphical softwares I am not aware of any program (Gimp, Darktable, Krita, Digikam, Inkscape etc) which allows an user to get the same choice right now (please, do correct me if I am wrong…).
Given the lack of developers working on Rawtherapee (for free on their very limited spare time) I suppose it is going to be really difficult to get this option developed in the long run…
Having more workspaces (beginners, intermediate, advanced) means having to fix bugs in all these different GUIs, writing more documentations, tooltips etc. In short, a nightmare IMHO (unless you are Adobe and thus you have hundreds of paid software developers working full time for you…)
Hugin has such options. But it is a little clunky.