I thought I’d start a thread oriented to new users of darktable and people’s ideas for a learning path. There were a couple of threads related to this earlier, but they quickly focused on the more advanced advice of watching deeply technical videos or (what initially appear to be) complex new modules.
I started looking for a Lightroom alternative in mid 2019, and darktable looked like an excellent choice. Since then I’ve become more and more comfortable and efficient using darktable. But getting there was a challenge given how powerful and complex the program feels at first (yet how straight-forward and efficient it becomes as you learn how to use it). It seems more and more new users are trying out darktable and I’ve noticed many more novice questions appearing in these forums. That’s not a bad thing, and people here are very generous with their time to answer, but I do think there is a fair bit of foundational learning that a new user should work through that will help them get a good start.
Here is my 10-step process, in order, that I would recommend to a brand new user. Its based on the references I’ve used from a variety of sources. Keep in mind some steps reference resources using darktable 2.4/2.6 while others are for darktable 3.0. darktable 3.0 was a major overhaul but many of the basic steps have stayed the same so some of the earlier resources are still valuable.
In Youtube, search for “Bruce Williams Photography” and watch episodes 1-16. This first set of videos demonstrates the basics of the user interface, importing, managing collections, and getting ready to edit. I found these videos extremely valuable to visually understand how the program basically works. The early versions use 2.4, then 2.6 and we now have 3.0 but these fundamentals generally stay the same. Note: episode 12 is on base curves. I know most now prefer using Filmic RGB, so you might think to skip it, but I think it helps later to understand why Filmic RGB is a better approach.
Read the corresponding sections of the manual. Many might suggest reading the manual as a first step, but I tried that, and it wasn’t entirely clear. Once I had seen the videos above, the sections of the manual on the same topics made much more sense to me.
Watch key develop modules: Again, I turn to Bruce Williams’ videos. You can do them in order or move around. Just keep in mind some are no longer recommended in the new 3.0 workflow. E.g. Shadows and Highlights…but I still recommend understanding these modules as I think it helps a person understand why certain modules are shifting towards better approaches.
Back to the manual to read the module sections for the videos watched in step 3. Again, the manual makes more sense once you’ve seen the module in action.
In Youtube watch other’s darktable channels for inspiration or ideas. Check out Boris Hajdukovic, Rico Richardson etc. These are good once you know how the modules they use generally work.
At this point you’ll have learned a lot of fundamentals including some things you’ll start to see are being dropped or not recommended in favour of new approaches. So why include them? darktable is in a big transition away from Lab to linear RGB but that will take time to complete, and to understand why this shift is important, I think it helps when you read things like “Shadows and Highlights work in Lab and can easily result in halos”, then understanding better why controlling shadows and highlights in Filmic RGB and Tone Equalizer makes more sense.
Read the recent article from Aurélien Pierre referenced in this post. It’s being translated from French to English but contains some basic information on why Lab is not so good and RGB much better, and then he shows which modules he uses and which he suggests to avoid.
Watch Aurélien’s videos on Youtube from September 2019 to present where he explains where darktable is going, why, and starts to explain in detail the modules he has developed including Filmic RGB and an upcoming video on Tone Equilizer.
Go back and browse through threads in this forum – a gold mine of great ideas, knowledge and advice! They will make much more sense with a solid background in understanding darktable.
Send donations to developers and instructors who have helped you – these people all do this in their spare time and some do it full time and rely on user generosity to allow them to develop the program or teach how to use it better.
Would be interesting to hear other’s perspectives – some may agree with this, some may have a completely different approach, and some other resources may be recommended.
Thanks this is always helpful.
I add that each software has its philosophy, which many do not seek to understand, but want to have an immediate result, as for photography some basis is needed to better understand.
At least a week! But on the other hand, getting proficient using a complex tool does take investment of time, but well worth it. Back when I first started Lightroom, I just started figuring it out on my own, thought my initial edits looked fine, then when I finally learned the program well, I realized my first few months of edits were crap and had to redo them which also took a lot of time
The other thing I ask new users - what are they hoping to do? Usually it ranges from editing daily snapshots to post to Instagram, Facebook etc all the way to edit and print fine art. 95% want the former and less than 50% want the latter. Most want to post online and occasionally print up to 8x10. For those who want instant results to use right away but are also new, I suggest they shoot and import both raw and jpg, and then they can quickly add a bit of contrast or sharpness and colour boost to the jpg files and use those for posting until they become better at processing a raw file.
I’d put the “A minimal workflow for a beginner” section from @anon41087856’s article (that you mention in point 7) up top, perhaps somewhere around step 3. That article is also supported by the two ‘darktable 3.0 for dummies’ posts, which work through the process in more detail, as well as @anon41087856’s videos . People understandably want to get editing quickly and target their learning as much as possible. Master the modules (also using the manual and Bruce Williams’ videos) in the order given in that section first and you can get good output pretty quickly.
The science in the article is worth understanding but it’s fine to skip straight to the recommendations.
Whenever I say “do this” or “avoid that”, I try to provide an explanation as to why “this” is actually safe or unsafe for your workflow. I was hoping that people would focus on that “why” part and, based on these reasons, figure out for themselves what they actually should do or avoid for their own workflow. This backfired on my face, since people primarily focus on the rule (what to (not) do), and not on its spirit (why is it safe on unsafe). So they keep asking me “in that situation, should I be doing this or that ?” while, in my mind, I tried to do everything to make them independent from me and gave them the keys to think by themselves.
I’m not interested in becoming a darktable/editing guru, that’s too time consuming. I want people to understand what they do, because that’s the only way they will be able to adapt their tools to their actual workflow without sending me emails everyday to confirm they do it right, so please spend some time understanding the “why” (which is mostly theory, sorry not sorry), and free yourselves from gurus. Sometimes I get emails by people 3 times my age that make me feel like I’m their daddy. Take responsibility guys, do your tests, get a grasp at what you are doing, and adapt my advice to what you want to do.
I mean, skipping the explanations and getting straight to the rule is probably fine temporarily if you have 250 pictures to edit for yesterday, but on the long term you might want to understand your tools to figure out when they will blow up in your face before they do, because I won’t be forever behind you back to tell you what to (not) do, and things always blow up at the worst possible time.
The science in there is actually secondary school level for the most part. Don’t get impressed by the maths, it’s just additions and multiplications. I’m sure filing your taxes is worse. We are just doing accounting on photons, that’s all.
I really agree with this point. When I think about learning a program like darktable I view the approach as needing to be similar to how a photograph is captured. When a person takes up photography, I will often tell them to think about three main things:
decide what you want to photograph (e.g. landscapes, portraits, your dog, travel…whatever is of interest).
think about why you are capturing that image (what story are you wanting to tell, what mood do you want to portray, what memory do you want to keep).
know how you will take the photo - especially knowing your camera inside out on how it works and how best to use it (even buttons and functions you may think you’ll never use) and how you will frame and expose the shot to achieve #1 and #2 above.
Processing is not that much different. Once you open the raw file you need to think/know:
what do you want to turn that flat/dull raw image into (what kinds of effects, tuning etc. do you think it needs).
knowing why you will choose the modules and effects you want, and what you don’t want, in order to achieve the overall reason you took the photo in the first place.
how you will get to that final finished edit you want - which means knowing and understanding the software you are using just the same way you need to know your camera.
What is interesting to me, is by knowing my camera thouroughly I can compose and take a shot very quickly. I know just what I need for that situation. Similarly, I feel knowing the software thouroughly helps me achieve my edit very quickly - I know which module/slider/input I need and why I reached for it.
Its taken me many months of total time to really get comfortable with my camera, no reason not to invest the same to get comfortable with good software rather than just know shortcuts.
BTW, I watched a video on Youtube yesterday that someone posted on Filmic RGB - for a bunch of the sliders, they simply said “so for this slider just grab that badboy and move it this way or that” No explaining what it did or why its there
I agree with all the points made: Understanding the ‘how’ and the ‘why’ has significantly enriched my experience with darktable and has improved my output. It’s very important if you want to be able to use the tool well.
We do have to understand, though, that although this is all just secondary-school-level stuff to most of us, there are users who are put off by even this level of science and who will read all these explanations and decide that darktable isn’t for them. All the more if this is seen as a prerequisite to even starting to edit their photos. If this is what we’re saying then fine, let’s just be clear about that and point them in the direction of Adobe.
I’d hope, though, that by starting people with the basics and letting them see how quickly they can get good results, that might provide the motivation to try and understand it better, and perhaps make this subsequent learning curve seem less steep.
Edit: Perhaps I should have said something more like “While you’re starting out it’s ok to skip the science but once you’re comfortable with the basic (4 module) workflow it is important to understand the how and why in order to get the most out of the application”? The principle being learn a bit, do a bit, learn a bit, do a bit… so people can feel the progress they are making as they learn and that the learning curve is both less steep and more rewarding.
It’s perfectly normal. This is how knowledge transfer works.
You are introducing a whole new approach, which requires knowledge that was not necessary before and at the same time requires to give up old habits and develop new ones.
In the driving school no teacher would ever say: “Now that you have understood the technical aspects, sit down and see for yourself how you can drive best”. Even if he has demonstrated to his student several times how to drive, he still sits next to him when he takes his first steps.
Why? Because technical understanding and practical application are two different aspects of knowledge acquisition. For those who are interested in the technical side and the practical implementation, it will not be as difficult as for those who are only interested in the practical side.
They will get frustrated much faster because they are permanently resistant to the “dry technical” aspects and therefore always look for someone to offer them a solution if it does not work as they imagine. They learn rather on the principle of imitation. This does not mean that they are not able to acquire the necessary technical knowledge. It only means that this will happen successively, later (assuming that the frustration is not so high that they give up in between).
That’s the actual problem you’re struggling with right now. And actually, you’ve done everything right so far! You have explained theory and demonstrated how to drive. Now you sit in the co-driver’s seat and see how people drive.
Now is also the time where the community should slowly take over the role of co-driver.
Here I miss the commitment of the community very much. Many blog entries, social media entries or YouTube videos focus too much on the explanations and less on the beautiful demonstrations of how to get excellent results. When people see what can be done, they are also quickly motivated to acquire the necessary knowledge.
@anon41087856 has given us, the more technically-minded community members, the means by which we can better assist the less technically-minded in starting to use the tool or transitioning to the new methods. Now we need to take up that challenge in providing user support so others can get back to improving the software.
Comparing darktable learning vs. learning how to drive, there is still a large difference that comes to my mind : in darktable, you can test everything with no risk of killing somebody. And I think people don’t take advantage of that opportunity enough. Just test, try, exercise and see.
7 years ago, I learned darktable watching Lightroom tutorials, because that’s all we got back then. That is possible, although not mandatory nowadays since ressources about darktable are ubiquitous. The point is, doing your tests will make you understand the theory, even though you are not teached with the same tool. Image processing is still image processing, no matter the software.
Bruce’s videos videos are a great resource, but watching 16 30-minute videos as a “getting started” is a big ask! And not really necessary: DT has its quirks, but once you get just a few things, it’s really not that complex.
I learned DT roughly a year ago (a bit before the 2.6 release) and I really enjoyed at the time Riley Brandt’s first 3 videos as an introduction. They are 5-8 minutes, so not too bad:
After that, I really enjoyed and learned a lot watching Aurelien’s latest videos and his french blog post on filmic, the linear workflow and recommended “modern” modules. Once again however, “you need to watch 2h of video and read this really long technical post” is a big ask for a beginner who wants to pick up DT to make a few quick edits. I think it’s probably possible to distill the essential info to a single blog post, or perhaps article on pixls.us, or manual page.
Many people must first learn that, when they try darktable alone, it does not kill anyone (or their time or that they won’t break anything).
I quite agree here.
I also learned GIMP that way. I have watched countless Photoshop tutorials and tried out with GIMP. Meanwhile I realize that the people around me, who use Photoshop professionally, have incredible gaps in their knowledge about the basics of image editing.
Except they’re not 30 min, the first 16 are about 10 min on average for each main component of getting started with the program, including topics like migrating from LR, working with collections etc. A 10 minute video on each aspect seems like a reasonable time investment to me.
That’s where the fallacy lies. For just a few edits, maybe darktable is not what you are looking for. Just like Blender is probably not the easiest solution to draw a simple logo. If you don’t have the motivation to learn something new, don’t try it and use your iPhone. Otherwise, commit and bite the bullet.
Thanks for the advice. I’m a hobbyist photographer, been using lightroom for many years. Recently I tried out Darktable. So far I’ve managed to muddle through using base curve, tone curve, color zones, color correction etc and got acceptable results. (My lightroom skills are also just basic).
Now I’m reading up on this linear-rbg workflow and practicing using the Filmic RGB module. Haven’t yet managed to wrap my head around it. Will need a lot more practice for sure
some basis is needed to better understand.
This made my day…thanks!
