As I’ve commented previously in this thread:
My basic stance is that to make beginners take a detour and start learning modules and follow a methodology they later shall be told are wrong tools, is not good pedagogy.
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It always seems to boil down to a discussion around this issue ie to simplify or ask the user to figure it out. You can argue that users are given the rgb tone curve and levels in both beginner and standard scene referred module presets so what does that say to a new user. Beyond that the beginners preset still uses the core scene referred modules and only swaps the sharpening module for DorS and many users have said that they still use this module or the contrast eq instead of DorS even though they are using mostly scene referred modules otherwise. The beginner preset includes only the sigmoid module as the tone mapper and leaves out filmic so its really simple and the rgb tone curve and levels have color preservation so they are not really a big issue…yes you have to manage exposure but many people also still use these modules in their workflow… I think its convention to start simple and build towards advance concepts… but this conversation pretty much reinforces one of the main issues. Is DT really even a tool for beginners if you want to expose all the technical aspects of the pipeline. If it is not in the conventional sense is there a desire to simplify or streamline it for so called beginners and what would that look like. You might have broadly 2 types ie a beginner to raw editing and post processing or simply a beginner that is new to DT …in any case what stance do you ultimately take beyond the current iterative/incremental improvements that happen??.. Do you say DT is what it is and if you want to use it then spend time to figure it out or are there reasonable steps or changes that could be made to minimize how big an undertaking that is with users that have less experience overall and or with DT.
I have always used DT with the mind set that it is an integrated set of tools developed and improved upon over time to process digital raw data. One or more developers had a personal interest and or had the skills to come up with an approach or technique to accomplish some part of the process and contribute to that tool set. I have the good fortune to use and evaluate them and its my own personal cost benefit analysis to determine how much time and energy I am willing to invest to become proficient… This is only one viewpoint among all the other possible ones…
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Just as I head off to bed… I came across this on my news feed
Recognize the villain in point #7. 
There were some nice rebuttal comments…
https://www.xda-developers.com/downsides-open-source-creative-software/
I’m not sure I understand what you mean here, since curves and levels are currently not default visible modules in workflow: scene-referred.
I think there are ways to accomplish something like this while mitigating the concerns you bring up. It will never be perfect, of course.
It’s not that having to learn the modules or concepts is a bad thing, but it didn’t take long for me to feel like I was pulling on many threads and getting overwhelmed. There’s just so much content and not all of it is up to date. Bruce has almost 200 darktable videos and Boris has almost 100. Every time I’d try to research one topic I’d end up with multiple more topics to explore. If you’ve been using DT for years, you got to absorb the same information gradually over a longer period of time and understandably it might be hard to relate to a new user.
I’ve been thinking about this problem a lot and have a lot of ideas. I’m content to keep working on it and see where it goes.
I know this whole topic has been frustrating for some, but I think there’s a lot of value to be found in these conversations. It just takes some effort to distill it into something actionable. d
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Many of the suggestions about how to help new users seem to assume that they are illiterate idiots who do not know about the internet.
An appropriate answer might be some sort of “Oh PuhhhLeease” meme but I’m old and I hate that stuff!
People have discovered darktable. They know how to use their browsers. They know how to search youtube as well as the rest of net. And if they don’t, then what are they even doing here!
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The only issue I can see is data overload: there’s too much available (and a large part of it outdated, not relevant to learning darktable or just wrong). Having a few links to introductory material might be handy, but maintenance is an issue (dt develops, links get outdated faster than you think possible).
Having the first link that does not refer to the darktable site claim
doesn’t really help either (and it deals with 2.6.x)
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Yeah, and I have to strongly disagree with #5 - lack of official support. Commercial software may have dedicated tech support where you can ask a question, but you’re on your own if they can’t answer after one response. And a suggested improvement will be dutifully logged and then buried from attention till… whenever.
I have a commercial editor that caches masks into an obscure file that grows by gigabytes without user knowledge, and you have to dig down to find and delete the cache, where it starts over. I submitted a simple solution to add a preference to limit or clear the cache and have never heard anything since
Compare that to Darktable where I can monitor and contribute to a suggestion, and I’ll ultimately know whether or not my suggestion was accepted.
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Ya blanket statements like that are sort of useless… just like commercial software there are a wide variety of experiences out there….
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They were in my build last night but I might have also been in the AGX build or it might be a consequence of my builds but you are correct in the official release they are not part of the module workflow preset labelled scene-referred….
What an awfully written article. I also get XDA articles in my news feed. Some are ok, but often they are just lazy “writers” giving a very personal opinion of limited actual value. Screams of just “give me clicks”.
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Yep my thoughts and you are right many are shallow and clearly just lazy click bait… I was just laughing at the screenshot fo the skulls…making it look like an 80’s video game… 
What a funny article. I especially liked “You can contact Adobe’s official support when there’s a bug in Photoshop or Premiere”. Because when I used Lightroom, and Capture One, I did!. And they shrugged and ignored it.
Meanwhile, all my bugs in Darktable I had fixed or could fix myself within days.
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It got off to a bad start from the very first sentence: “Open-source creative software is perfect on paper”. If you go into anything thinking it’s perfect, you’re setting yourself up for immediate disappointment.
And then every point made has some trite statement:
Point 7:
“those tiny, outdated icons make you squint at the screen to know what each one actually does.”
- What program are we talking about now? You can’t make points like this about an extensive category like open source if it just applies to certain software. Also, customization…
Point 6:
"The lack of native support for industry-standard formats can be another big frustration in open-source software. "
- Isn’t one of the appeals of open-source that it eschews proprietary formats?
Point 5:
You already pointed out the whopper.
Point 4:
“Open-source programs are notorious for crashing at the worst possible moments”
- Ah yes, the good old anecdotal “notorious” problem exclusive to open-source software. I’d wager this has happened to everyone with every type of software. Blue screen of death anyone?
Point 3:
"Open-source programs with vibrant communities tend to be updated frequently, but others lag behind because of a lack of maintainers. "
- So, different projects have different update schedules? Mind blown.
Point 2:
"Open-source software seems to assume you already know what you’re doing. "
- Yes, this is a common complaint with some open-source software, but how many of the onboarding tips from commercial software is actually helpful? It’s usually a few floating windows that tell you where a certain tool is, with a confirmation button at the end that says “Got it!”. But you have to then go to YouTube anyway to learn more. Lightroom was no different for me than Darktable is this regard.
Point 1:
“Hunting down and installing plugins can be tedious”
- Or easy if you go to the right forum. Ok, this side of things is often less seamless than commercial offerings, but it’s scraping the barrel for things to complain about.
Conclusion:
"Open-source software offers unmatched freedom and customization but comes with some trade-offs. "
- Another mind-blowing revelation. Not the dreaded trade-offs that literally every software choice has! Nooooo!
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If you want the gold standard of awful reviews then check out the Phoblographer’s review of Darktable, here
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I think I read that back in the day. I only read the Phoblographer now when I want to get mad about something. I’ve read so many dreadful articles on that site. I want to like independent enthusiast blogs/websites like this, but too often they turn out to be very agenda-driven for no apparent reason. Chris Gampat really seems to have an axe to grind with Fuji, and he’s always going on about how APS-C is dead and full frame is the future. Why on earth would anyone other than FF manufacturers want to kill off consumer choice? Interesting opinions are one thing, but “hot takes” for the sake of garnering clicks is just very off-putting. I guess rage bait works though.
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I just want to say I really appreciate that you linked to my videos. Especially the final version, it is really meant to be a source of reducing confusion about all of the darktable modules and keeping things straightforward, while still providing every tool you’d need to have powerful photo editing. Thank you again!
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TL;DR - it isn’t Lightroom, therefore it isn’t any good
“Can a Free Lightroom Sub be Just as Powerful? Darktable Review”
The problem starts right in the title 
“darktable is not a free Adobe® Lightroom® replacement.”
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I find such statements very misleading because they leave a lot of room for interpretation.
I edit and manage all my photos with Darktable. I wouldn’t do anything else with LR. So, for me, it’s a replacement (with which I can achieve very good results very quickly).
Some people are put off by such statements and don’t even try Darktable.
Others are truly naive and believe that “replacement” means everything works the same. They then give up at the slightest difference if it doesn’t work as usual.
Both of them never get to experience Darktable’s great features, which is a real shame.
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