I was checking some photographs taken a while ago, and quickly tried to reprocess them using the new workflow (dt 5.6.0). I was really impressed by the way without any major effort I could squeeze some incredible details in these photos! This is very evident whenever I was looking at landscapes with rock formations and details, its like super-resolution.
Here are the two jpegs, both exported 3000px wide and 95 quality: forget about the different color renditions – the new one is warmer because I wanted it so (actually I went back a few weeks ago in the same spot and adjusted the colors on the basis of what I saw that day):
this is a snapshot view with left=old and right=new:
(as you can see, there’s really no “old” modules there, I mean the photo was taken in 2019 with a Fuji XT2 and 35mm f/2, it’s sigmoid and color balance rgb etc… I didnt go into a full scientific comparison but I wonder if it’s the new demoisacing sharpening?)
I believe so, it’s amazing. I use it with the auto radius on every picture and it works great. I have stopped using D&S almost completely. Sometimes I add the lens deblur preset to rescue a picture, but usually I just run the demosaic capture sharpening.
Yes I’ve used for both the default demoisacing algorithm (Markesteijn 1-pass) but the newer processing uses capture sharpening (defaults).
The photo is taken from around rifugio (=mountain hut) Torre di Pisa in the Latemar group in the Dolomites, looking eastward to Pala Santa (the big flattish green mountain with the trail zizagging upwards), this is the approximate location:
while this is from my hike at the end of July, this time using the Ricoh GR IIIx (different weather, still very interesting cloud patterns), showing the trail that from the rifugio goes deep into the Val Sorda valley:
I feel the driving factor in the improvements noticed between 2019 and 2026 is that Darktable has improved constantly but so has the user. I always like to keep the raw files when I finish editing a shoot because I know in future years both the software and myself will become better.
. Are you using capture sharpening?
