I am looking for an expert using Darktable! If it is inappropriate to offer money here for a service I will donate to the cause overall. Either way is fine for me. Darktable has uncovered in part an NEF Fraud. We cannot seem to get comfortable with the app because there are no menus, no undo and our work seems to be getting overwritten . destroyed. We cannot figure out how to save anything!
If there is someone US based or Canada (we are in Vancouver, BC. interested in assisting me I will offer a gratuity to the person or the org. Thank you!
Not sure I fully understand your postā¦DT is non destructiveā¦You save a file by exporting a version of your edited file as a JPG Tiff or other supported file formatā¦not sure about the fraud componentā¦
Q1: darktable doesnāt have menus or undo. We donāt understand the user interface.
Answer: darktable isnāt an image editor like Gimp or Photoshop. With darktable, you donāt edit the image. Instead, you edit operations that you want to apply to the image.
(That answer is far too short. Other people know dt far better than me.)
Q2: āDarktable has uncovered in part an NEF Fraud.ā
Answer: I donāt understand this question at all. Perhaps you want to investigate whether a NEF file really was created by a Nikon camera, or if it has been edited or created by some other method.
darktable is a piece of software and will not discover anything by itself. Fraud usually has a financial component, please explain. I use ARW (Sony), they never ask me for any money.
This is a very strange postā¦someone that might from the email design websites or a team of people should certainly be able to figure out how to export an image in DTā¦to me at this point this is a suspicious attempt to make contactā¦
You are absolutely correct! the original image was shot with a Nikon D200 and after it produced the 2 sets of files (jpegs and NEFās) the jpg was edited and then reshot probably using a light table with camera mounted above to reproduce the Nef file againā¦ and then presented as the original. I am not asking āIfā the fraud took place but rather how to effectively use āDarktableā to reproduce the effect that we have found. I am finding it very difficult to maneuver the app and therefore asking for some help.
There is nothing suspicious about this thread, itās real and there are people in need of help! Also, because I donāt want to breach any laws on the forum ā¦ I am offering to pay someone to tutor me through the process of understanding the components of DarkTable. If this forum does not allow this request then I would be happy to make a donation to the ORG. Whichever can mutually benefit us all.
If some can assist here I would be very grateful. Thank You.
My name is Davidā¦ lambwebdesign@gmail.com
I am not asking for moneyā¦ I am asking for someone to assist me in understanding the components of Darktable. I am looking to pay someone to do help as I have mentioned in the other post, if it is not allowed to ask to hire a person who understands DT then I would be equally happy to contribute to the ORG as I do often when I need help.
I do not understand your comment ā¦ (to me at this point this is a suspicious attempt to make contactā¦). I am asking for some help understanding what I found in the image while using DT. Also,
I believe that this is what forums are for, to ask for assistance which is what Iām doing on this forum. I am not accustomed to working with an app that doesnāt have menus and such. How else does one search for an expert if not by contacting the App Forum?
My D800 camera embeds the out-of-camera (OOC) JPEG in the NEF file, even when I save both NEF and JPEG. If your D200 also does this, you can extract the OOC JPEG and compare it to the other. (I would extract it with exiftool. Perhaps that can also be done by darktable.)
What do you suspect? What are you trying to prove or disprove? If you think they are two photos taken at different times, and the camera was moved between photos, a slight geometric mismatch is probably easy to prove. If nothing moved but light levels changed, that is probably also obvious.
Or perhaps you think there was only one camera exposure, but the JPEG was edited in Gimp or Photoshop or whatever. If there is no OOC JPEG, that would be hard to prove or disprove because the camera does some āeditingā by itself, so a subtle manual edit in a computer could be hard to detect.
Specific advice is difficult without seeing the files.
Using darktable I was able to see something called āStructureā in the Perspective Settings in the right menu. The various lines it displayed coincide with the fraudulent edits of my nef files. In response to your comment (slight edits) this issue is much bigger than that. A roof has be erased (9ā high), trees have been added and displaced and much more. I tell you this so you can get a clear understanding of the edits. (Slight Edits) do not apply here. Edits include complete scene makeovers.
Dave
From what I get, he/she is in a case where someone needs to proof they took the picture. To proof this, that person must supply the raw file of the picture.
Now there are suspicions that the supplier raw file is actually a careful shot of the jpg image shot through a light table or a good monitor or something.
He/she (the topic starter ) believes that darktable might help in proving the supplied raw file is somehow fake .
You do not ask question. You ask for help ,but you do not clarify with what.
I think no one is going to explain all of darktable to you in a private conversation (and I would remove your email address from a public forum ā¦). You will probably just get links to a tutorial or āhow to get started guideā , which you can Google for yourself too.
So, explain what you are trying to do, what operation do you not get. Ask a more specific question, one by one . This way you might actually get an answer. And do not say āall of itā because that is too broad.
Also , darktable is not magic . There are loads or other programs for working with photo raw files, if you do not get your head around working with darktable , use another tool ?
Let me explain,
I am not looking to find someone to 'explain darktable! I am looking to hire a person for (2) hours or more to explain what it is I am seeing when I apply a component, Example: I am working with negadoctor with clearly shows the irregularities in the photos. I would like to hire someone to answer my questions in regards to the results. āSpecificallyā meaning of the results after applying a component.
I would be happy to upload pictures if it is allowed on the forumā¦ but that would take away the opportunity for a raw expert to be hired for (2) hours or more. In any event I will keep trying.
This is what Iām working onā¦ Itās a fire scene which has been fraudulently recreated: I am not looking for someone to confirm the fraud but rather help me explain the meaning of the results after applying filters etc I hope this approach is helpful!
Why are you using negadoctor? That module is specific for processing scanned slide negatives.
What is your original file? Please upload a file if possible and explain what you are trying to achieveā¦
Are you hoping to better see proof of fire / firedamage / use of specific products by applying darktable modules? As in a scientific proof that fraud has been commited?
Disclaimer: not a lawyer, so perhaps overly cautions. However, to anybody who wants to help @ELA, I would say, be very careful. When there is fraud, or allegations of fraud, and this would spiral into a civil lawsuit, youāll get dragged into this as well if you help out now without legal advice.
Slightly similar to a situation when I was in university and a person wanted help doing a chemical analysis of an unknown sample. Turns out he wanted to sue people for not delivering something expected. I quickly turned down any help.
I fail to see you find it necessary to make negative comments regarding my request for assistance.
there is no agenda here and no person willing to assist are in any kind of threat being involved in a criminal matter. I would ask kindly that if you are not willing to assist then please refrain from making negative comments.
It are no negative comments @ELA . It are people advising to be cautious, something that sounds very reasonable. And this way you are not making a good case for yourself by staying vague and asking other people not to join the talk.
And I have yet to see a specific question being posted to help you with.
If you want en explanation of what is happening, explain what you did and post the results and what you find āintriguingā. Then we can help.
Posting the source file will also get you waaaay more help Iām guessing, but I understand that might not be something you want.
So, what Iād be looking for are things that would be unique to a JPEG render. When one takes a picture of a JPEG image, Iād expect to find JPEG compression artifacts in the NEF. To see what youād be looking for, take a single image and export it to JPEG at quality=100. This āqualityā is a JPEG setting, not a percent. Then, export other renders at, say, 95, 90, 85, 80, etc. and inspect them for the increasing blockiness that textures take on at the lower quality numbers. Oh, and export an uncompressed TIFF as a comparison control. It may be hard to find as the fraudster probably used quality=100, but even then some DCT compression takes place, so be diligentā¦
What you need to do this is a raw processor that will let you set the JPEG quality parameter for exports. Iām not a darktable user, but someone here should be able to point you to the menu/dialog.
Oh, and your first post was rather vague in describing your specific need, thatās why folk are scratching their heads about this.
