darktable windows insider program 1/16

Here’s the link to the latest weekly snapshot of darktable 3.9, https://drive.google.com/file/d/19923nSBW54d5EDzP8ldds2yDBLT-XQJ1/view?usp=sharing. The list of this weeks changes is at https://github.com/darktable-org/darktable/pulse

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Thanks for the latest build Bill. The glib en_GB (and other) translations are still missing.

Thanks for letting me know (again). I’ve got time to chase it now, so I’ll see what I can figure out.

Bill, I’ve been using the latest build and I see this msg in the log file. It doesnt seem to affect anything other than making reading the log more challenging. I’ve deleted my log multiple times, so I’m not sure when it started but it is still there in this build. Could it be as simple as I need to install the assertion font to windows?

(darktable:264): Pango-CRITICAL **: 22:07:31.389: pango_font_describe: assertion ‘font != NULL’ failed

May we get a look at the new features that 3.9 will implement?

I have yet to master what 3.8 has brought to us.

The diffuse/focus module seems a beast, something you can use for many things and crazy effects.

But it is just for image processing geeks. You adjust the filter setting directly (well at least there are some presets).

Is it being made more accessible for common photographer user?

you can see this in https://github.com/darktable-org/darktable/pulse
and maybe have a look at current pull requests - whatever is merged until code freeze will be in the next release :wink:

BTW. if you have an idea how to make something ‘more accessible’ feel free to file an feature request - but keep in mind that "i want it more accesible for common photographer user’ doesn’t give any hints about your expectation :wink:

Thanks that was in some way what I was looking for.

But there in github it is too technical, you have to have a more indepth of programming and darktable to interpret what developers are doing.

In other projects there is a route plan or something like that that explains what is expected to be in the next release and what developers are working on in a more descriptive way (of course sometimes it is not implemented in next release).

But pulse will give me an idea if there is no more descriptive place, thanks a lot.

Well let me explain it a bit more.
I am not a developer, just a user, and tent to see things from the user perspective.

difusse and sharpen seem to be a marvellous and very powerful tool.

It seem the swiss knife of the image processing.
By descriptions in the presets (and testing in images) you realize that it can be use to denoise an image, sharpen (or contrary, defocus) and lots of things.

But to take advantage of it you have to tweak the weights of the derivatives and other low level parameter a common user (even an advance user) has no idea how it works.
There are too many parameters doing many things at the same time.

It is impossible for a now geek, a person that does not know the mathematics used in depth, to use it to his advantage and get the effect he looks.

Luckly there are presets than can give you some good results, but you feel you are not in control of what you are doing.

It is great to have such a tool in the background, and great for people who know what it does.

But the common user would need a “layer on top of it”.
I mean a module for sharpening for example that just gives you a few sliders related to sharpening and in the background it adjusts apporpiate parameters in the base tool.

Another tool would be for denoise for example, letting you decide if you want more chromatic denoise or less, and more or less luminance noise, detail preservation, etc. and then it cooks the appropiate parameters to the base algos.

The evolution of darktable seems to be use a module that makes too many things and it is getting difficult for users (photographers, non mathematical people) to control what they are doing and understand how the tool works.

It has allways given me better result to concentrate just in one aspect of the photo and make small adjusments that do not influence other aspects of the image.

Making too many things at the same time does not work well for me.

I cannot propose a moder of how “ontop” sharpening tool should be implemented in detail, as to do that I would need indepth knowing of what that parameters in the tool do.

Removing options for an user isn’t in darktables dna.

you don’t need to tell how something has to be implemented, but what exactly you expect. If you want to have a set of sliders you need to give precise hints what should happen if someone is moving these sliders…

but this thread is not the best place to discuss this :wink:

The nature of how diffuse will give you a really good blur or sharpening requires you to analyse your image and its power comes from tweaking those weighting settings to push and pull and determine in what direction the adjustments are applied. Each image will benefit from fine tuning those. For sure it is complicated and I am not at the stage where I can predictably control those sliders but using the presets I can manipulate the module using the scale sliders and the edge sliders to made it do a nice job.

It would be hard to just have a sharpen slider and have it predict the optimal settings in the model used here and have it give you an optimized result. Its the trade off of increased complexity to reveal and provide full control.

Although it is only recommended in general to tweak the sharpness when blurring…for simple sharpness just use the sharpness slider. I find it actually adds a nice little sharpen to most images and so I treat it as a general sharpness tool…I am sure I am breaking some rule but if I have an image that needs some simple sharpening it looks good to me.

I have played with the presets enough now and there are enough that I just use them as a starting point and tweak …

I guess the issue is DT is a technical tool designed by technical people that do photography. I don’t think its being designed with black box sliders for photographers to edit images…

I guess there are a host of “AI” commercial products out there for that

Lets get this thread back on track. This thread is around the Windows insider program. Think of it as a alpha or beta release of darktable. The code for darktable is constantly updating in GitHub. The code is available for you to use in your system. Bill started to upload a weekly windows installer of the latest code. It is a great way to test out the install, some of the new feature and provide feedback. But there are risk and Bill suggest not to install as your main program. If you dont want to be a tester, then use the official release version.

Second, in regards to your requests, I’m reading between the lines this: It is a great with new features, but the features are too complex or not something I want to understand/learn. Therefore can you make it simple?

I think the answer to that is no. The direction that darktable takes is to make image processing from raw better and more robust. For example, the diffuse module is basically analyzing the way light behaves as it travels thru air using differential equations (to the 4th order). These are not simple concepts and it is hard to expect them to just be simple with just a single slide.

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Yes, you are right, in seek of perfection and if you have the technical knowledge to understand what does each of those sliders, it is great to have all in one place and be able to play them at your wish.

But it is not the case of most people, even very advanced photographers and experienced photo editors.

I have an automatic car now. It uses a satellite transmission to adjust gears instead of the traditional one.
It internally changes a couple of wheels to get engaged and change gear.

But if I put the car in manual mode you need just a stick to change, like in the traditional car or two levers like in formula 1 (as is the case) one for up on for down.
They do not put three stick to engage the wheels manually at user will.
That would let you to be in completly control of the transmission, but would be quite difficult to use for most people.

You are right, I was asking for where to see future improvements and that has been answered.

Sorry, I tried to clarify what I meant and it is going to guide us out of topic.

i think you aren’t aware, why the developers are doing the stuff - they don’t do it just to have a free alternative to something, it’s all about a tool that meets their demands because no other software provides that grade of control. It’s not alpha or beta …

if it’s too complex for some users it’s a problem of those - no one is forcing them to use a tool not designed to meet mass market demands

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