Users new to darktable who have experience with other raw developers
may have trouble figuring out how to do various tasks as a result of
different names or workflows in darktable compared to their previous
software. The following entries are a quick reference to help you
accomplish what you want to do.
Have a tip not covered here? Share it in the comments!
How do I…
run darktable in ‘simple’ or ‘beginner’ mode
The large number of processing modules and many different ways of
accomplishing the same goal often leaves first-time users feeling
overwhelmed. You can manage this feeling by not trying to use every
single option right from the beginning, but focusing on a few key
controls and slowly learning the rest as you discover that you need
them.
I think the manual should remain a description of what the modules do instead of a how to guide. I think we could use this section of the manual for point to other content (FAQ, how to guides).
If the manual were in great health with many contributors and there was no problem keeping it up to date, then yeah, let’s add content to it. As of now, we are over a year behind on the manual. With each piece of content is the burden of keeping it up to date, and as of now, it doesn’t make sense to increase that burden, given we can’t meet the current burden.
I feel the current format of the manual is what it should be, but maybe under the resources tab on the DT website we could include some written how to guides similar to how there are videos linked. I actually give my students a guide I wrote to complement the user guide and not replace it. Guides like this can be helpful to new users who can feel overwhelmed with the choices found in DT. We also have to realize that ever DT user has their own valid approach and consensus on a single how to use DT is unlikely to happen.
Here is the index for my section on exposure adjustments.
No problem publishing it on darktable.org, that’s what we did with this post. We out it in the blog so there is some expectation set as for the length of time this is up to date.
If the author or others want to keep it up to date for future versions, that is also great.
As for the manual, we can’t keep up what we already have, so adding more doesn’t make any sense.
Hopefully I can eventually master the format to try and contribute to the updates for the DT manual. It doesn’t look to difficult but it is still a little foreign to me.
Another possibility is to edit one image and then (in the lighttable view) select the image you just edited, copy the history stack, then select the other images in the batch and paste the history stack.
This avoids creating “single-use” styles.
(difference between batch editing and scripting an edit for repeated use)
As a beginner I would have thought one of the most obvious things to do with an image would be to tweak the white balance, but this isn’t mentioned at all. Why so?
