Just to be clear we will never ever remove a module. A module can get deprecated which means you don’t see it directly from the UI but it is still present to be able to render old edits having used it.
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Hello @Terry
My luck - I have hardly ever needed masks.
I would like to point out that there is something in RT that stands out above all others: the capture sharpening is second to none!
And I hear from you that you get good results with both RT and dt.
Thank you for your detailed descriptions. There seems to be a lot of uncertainty, like everything else in the world right now, in the world of raw developers, because apparently no one knows exactly where things are going.
@micha I could not work without masks and that was the deciding factor between RT and DT for me. My background is hand processing film and localised adjustments are critical to my work. I have been known to say I would like to see a marriage of both programs called Darktherapee but I am sure that won’t ever happen. How hard would it be to adapt RT tools to Dt and vice a versa? Does anyone know? There are such great ideas in both programs and even ART.
BTW, there is a new preset in DT’s Diffuse or Sharpen module called sharpen demosaicing which I use all the time as my initial capture sharpening. I have not made any comparison to RT’s capture sharpening, but it is an essential part of my processing in DT. Also ART which is a fork of RT has a tone equalizer module that looks worth incorporating into the main RT program. As I have already said, use the best tool for the job. I really appreciate the effort that all the developers have put into RT, DT and ART. I have not looked at r&DT fork of DT yet.
Have I misunderstood AP. I thought he wanted to delete modules because he saw them as adding bloat and unnecessary maintenance and coding issues. Again, I hope I have not misrepresented AP with my comments here. I know for my part I want to be able to use Shadow and Highlights and do not see DT’s tone equalizer as a replacement. They work different and produce a different look. I also find defringe can be useful on some images when purple fringing is not controlled by the color aberration modules. I appreciate that old modules may one day have to be dropped if no one can maintain them or there becomes an issue with coding incompatibility. Again thanks for your feedback and reassurance that modules are not disappearing.
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Maybe AP will remove modules from his own fork, but this is not darktable and it will not be done ever in darktable.
Great to hear. Will some of AP’s great work make its way to DT? I appreciate he seems to have a very specific viewpoint of what is good and what is bad. I feel photography is about the look and if the module give the desire finished look then that is all I care about regardless of if the modules are scene referred or display referred. Is the lost of AP a big blow to DT? Feel free not to comment as I don’t want to start a controversial discussion.
Thank you all for the detailed info.
It was not my intention to ask you which is better: RT or dt. This discussion has been held too many times, with always the same result: both are very good.
Years ago I suggested if dt could not merge with RT - this was vehemently rejected.
The real reason for my question is the future of RT and dt.
My Panasonic G9 is well supported by both. But what about new cameras? My little Sony ZV-1 is not supported by either, nor is its lens. And when the new Canon EOS R6 II comes out, who is more likely to support it?
But I see it’s good not to let both RT and dt out of sight and stay familiar with both, then nothing can happen to me.
What of AP’s work hasn’t made it?
This is a generous reading of the situation. The problem is not his opinions, but the way he communicated them.
I don’t speak for anyone but myself. Nothing has been lost. AP either makes a PR on dt when things are ready or Pascal pulls his changes into dt.
OK I lied, the only thing lost was him inflicting his insufferable communication on others.
I gathered he could have an interesting communication style, but I really appreciated his efforts at developing DT. He had strong views about certain modules and options that others had worked hard to develop such as the shadow and highlights module. I didn’t feel the need to always agree with him and that is why I still use old fashion white balance rather than his color calibration scene refer default for most of my images. Although the color calibration module is my default for underwater photos as it does an excellent job in that tricky environment.
He certainly could have had a more diplomatic way of expressing his viewpoint as could some others. I remember when I suggested that I would like a method of setting white balance in his color calibration module for skin tone, similar to a feature I had used in Photoshop Elements (not available in Photoshop however). My god, that start an unexpected ‘discussion’ based on racism from many people and which color skin should be the target. I then reworded my request to being able to match the color from one image to another image and removed the reference to skin tone. That went down better and AP improved both the color calibration module and the exposure module by respectively adding spot color mapping and spot exposure mapping. AP vison for resolving my request exceeded what I could image. These modules are so good to work with now. AP is a talented contributor, but DT is not a one man show. I am glad Pascal is still pulling APs work into DT. I have such great respect to all the people working on FOSS projects. I hope DT continues to improve its DAM capabilities as this is an area where I am finding more and more use for the program. Initially I only cared about editing but now I see so much more capability in DT.
Thanks for your post and have a good weekend.
Tutorial GIMP:
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These are very good links. Now I have enough material to learn.
Thank you.