Yes, that is indeed interesting. I will say in part both play a role here.
For example, regarding the first one - the problem of basic knowledge about image processing - most participants already know what color spaces are, e.g. the sRGB color space is familiar to them, but what is the difference between a linear and perceptual color space is not clear, because this is not addressed at user level in other software.
Knowing this distinction is essential for the scene-reffered workflow.
This means, on the other hand, that you first have to acquire additional knowledge here without being able to immediately see the benefits of it in practical use. So, lot of reading first.
And we are not dealing with enthusiasts who are curious to find out what is behind this method, but the primary interest lies in the refinement of their photos.
So, that’s the first threshold. The second is the design of the modules themselves.
So with the RGB color balance, for example, some wondered why you would need 13 sliders for saturation?
And why are they named in such a way that no one can imagine what they mean. That means, you have to read again what is behind these names to understand how to use them. Just by trying them out, you don’t get much further here.
This does not mean that this is complicated, but that a change of familiar terms for them is necessary, and new terms are added whose usefulness must first be developed in intensive practical work.
The documentation is only conditionally helpful here. For example, in the question of when to use which saturation mode is written:
“In practice, you should use the chroma setting if you want to preserve the scene-linearity of the light emission and/or keep the luminance unchanged. However, these changes might affect some hues more heavily than others, due to the fact that the color space is not fully perceptually-scaled.”
Now I have to look up again what is meant by “scene-linearity of the light emission” and how do I apply this knowledge to my flower?
But if you have a good example with the corresponding demonstration, it will become obvious very quickly.
My luck here was that I could catch everyone in the typical problem that everyone has with over-saturation of flowers especially with the tulips roses or poppies that then just turn to colored mud if you only have one saturation control.
I then used this photo to demonstrate how you can have very precise and superior control over saturation especially with these different ways of influencing the color intensity:
Such example and explanations on concrete cases understandably can not be provided by the documentation. Even if you had enough people to work on it, it would quickly become overloaded.
There must be something that can accompany the documentation.
I am still thinking about how to approach the problem in the most elegant way.
I do not know. I will ask the next times more exactly how they proceeded to inform themselves about the Darktable. That is a good question!