A similar thread I started here — Darktable Tricks
I’m a fan of ultimately learning the why as it did help my workflow. It was non-obvious from the GUI as to which modules are Lab, which are RGB, which are linear/non-linear and why they interact poorly. Well, it’s more obvious now in 3.0 but before it wasn’t the greatest way to figure it out. Personally I think redoing some of the grouping of the modules in the GUI may help lessen future confusion. Sometimes you need to point people down the right path with interface elements. But this is a problem not unique to Darktable as many free/libre open source programs struggle with UI. I am thankful for all the work put in here lately as I’ve been Darktable user since 2015 or so and there’s always been a mashup of modules that don’t necessarily work well together. Now thanks to all the work I know more as to why and we have some different ways of doing things.
My only concern is that initial difficulty will leave a bad taste in people’s mouth and turn others off from the hobby, profession, or worse drive them to Adobe products. Same way those very complicated goto telescopes turn people off astronomy. They’re not a good first time out device because they assume you already know a fair amount and you have to dig around in those hand controllers (or a poorly designed phone app these days) to use the thing. Really most people should start off with a Dobsonian, learn the night sky, coordinate systems, etc and then upgrade to a goto mount if they so choose. Meanwhile they can have fun with the Dobsonian, get decent views planets and nebulae and get “hooked” on the hobby as it were instead of feeling frustrated and trying to offload the goto scope on Craigslist a few years later. Photo editing is kind of the same thing. Darktable is extremely powerful but can smack someone down and make them lose interest in the same manner. At least that’s the complaints I’ve heard about it around the 'net. I can help with that by making videos and documentation.
When someone is just learning histograms, exposure triangle, and WTF dynamic range even is complicated software can be a challenge. Especially if you’re also overcoming the inertia from the ACR way of doing things. IMO there’s nothing wrong with learning as you go and starting off asking simple questions, most people get started in editing by just thinking that maybe an image needs a little more contrast, needs to be brighter, want that spot/blemish/dust particle removed, etc. They still have fun, produce an image they’re proud of (at least for the moment, we all know how that goes) and kind of ease in to the why.
Maybe there’s an audience there for Darktable tutorials on things like “adding contrast to your images”, “warming up your image sanely”, “correcting color casts”, etc instead of “how to use module X.” Then you can back them into RGB vs Lab, pixel pipelines, linear data, dynamic range, and why you do it one way instead of another while explaining how to fix they problem they’re facing. I’ve been a physics and astronomy teacher in the past and some folks just learn better from hands on, real world stuff instead of reading theory. Others it’s vice-versa. I may start back making some videos along those lines as I’ve got a student doing photography now who’s been asking me questions. Apparently the art department here doesn’t really cover the basics so she’s a bit overwhelmed, seems like a good excuse and if I can save someone from Adobe all the better. I really just hate proprietary software and monopolists but I digress. I did some Darktable videos years ago but they are woefully out-of-date and incorrect now.
Maybe I’m a bit strange but I tend to try to poke around the software and figure it out by trial and error instead of reaching for YouTube, a forum or documentation. Maybe people these days prefer the latter approach? With the latest versions of Darktable I find my usual style of “learning” doesn’t really work and I have to read, watch and ask more than I’m used to. Not really a complaint, just an observation on my process here. I’m just an introvert on the internet so I tend to not reach out as much as others.
Again, just some thoughts! I appreciate all the work done in the last few years on the project. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful or like I’m complaining!
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Bingo.
From all that I have posted recently, that paragraph sums up quite well my own way of working and learning too (and of course much of the rest of your article - I particularly agree about the Dobsonian, I had one a few years ago, and now have a Eq mount (not a GoTo though), but wished I stuck with the Dob).
Many years ago, I did learn how too use software by picking up the good old fashioned printed manuals, and learning how stuff worked. However, rather than teach how machine code was written, they just detailed how to do the stuff you wanted to do.
As the UI developed on various systems over the years, I became proficient enough that I could generally open up almost any software, and reasonably quickly work out what functions had what effect. It seemed to me to be a logical principle for a modern computer based environment for workplace or home.
Despite all that’s bandied about regarding darktable, or any software come to that, in the current times I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect some level of basic workflow that anyone could pick up in minutes, using well established standard terminology.
At a basic level, surely it’s OK to be able to simply adjust an image using the pretty much standard tools of exposure, contrast, shadows, highlights, back/white points, saturation sharpening and NR.
Most people are familiar with that lot in just about any photo editing software out there. As much as I like darktable, it does sometimes feel like someone has tried to reinvent the wheel, and I’m always battling with terminology that is often not obvious what it does, and even finding something in a manual isn’t straight forward either (the online manual is still for v2.6, so covers none of the new stuff). I’m happy to read the manual to be fair, but that doesn’t seem so readily available if I’m using MacOS. Or at least it seems ironic that I may have to read another manual, just so I can get hold of the dt manual!
I do think that to appeal to a wider base of users, dt needs to have an easier starting point (and yes, I started a thread on that question). You really shouldn’t have to watch hours of videos just to get started. I’m happy to start on those when I’ve got the basics sorted and I want to do more complex edits.
Anyway, likewise, this isn’t meant as outright criticism, or complaining, it is my own thoughts on my experience of trying to get working with dt, and just food for thought intended in a. constructive way.
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IMO this comes down to the organization of the UI in develop mode. Really the basics of filmic aren’t all that complicated. You’re just moving the 18% gray point and shifting the highlights/shadows to get a good looking image as opposed to smashing the highlights down or lifting the shadows up in Adobe terms. Fimlic RGB just isn’t an obvious jumping off point from the way the modules are visually presented by default. The doubling up of some things like shadows/highlights, basic adjustments, contrast/saturation/brightness and exposure kind of adds to the confusion too. Really they should have kicked those to the curb and made tone equalizer/exposure the ones clearly available for the task.
Linear RGB workflow in darktable is fairly new and with plethora of modules present in darktable + long history darktable has it can be a bit overwhelming.
I guess many people learn from videos and docs and so the vast amount of easy-to-consume lightroom tutorials + rather easy UI make it easy to learn it, while with darktable it’s not so easy - little amount of materials + huuuuge changes 
If anybody’s willing - I guess there’s a huge market for easy-to-consume “let’s edit” style of videos, but the creator MUST make sure to follow best possible path and explain approach. That way many people will learn better. And many (like me) won’t have to unlearn bad habits created because one nice youtuber recommended wrong module in some nice-looking edit
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@johnny-bit wrote
won’t have to unlearn bad habits created because one nice youtuber recommended wrong module in some nice-looking edit
But if the edit was nice-looking, what makes the youtuber’s module recommendation wrong?
Have fun!
Claes in Lund, Sweden
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Yes, I agree it’s not all that complicated, but for someone coming from other software, or has used darktable before filmic, it’s not entirely obvious what you need to do to adjust an image. There are only a couple of videos so far on this (one very complicated, and one more simple to follow to a point), and to me, it still not really clear why I need to move what slider, and what effect do I expect to see, and what effect do I expect when using other modules and why.
Plenty of people have, in fairness, chimed in with lots of advice, but it’s resulted only in a jumble of varying bits of advice, with no particular consistency to any of it.
I have actually now got exposure, tone equaliser and filmic as prominent modules in my favourites, but only after a lot of discussion, accidental web hunting, and head scratching. It is a good start, but I’m still no where near able to edit to a standard that makes me feel confident in making dt my primary photo solution.
Cheers
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I suspect that most of the developers and maintainers of darktable are using it (as I am) because they want to move away from the overly-simplified ‘new-user-oriented’ tools like Adobe. These are people who understand the theory and they want to have as much control over the final image as possible (rather than hiding the detail behind as few a number of sliders as possible). They are primarily writing software for themselves and others who are prepared to sacrifice a bit of time to learn in exchange for the reward of a highly flexible and robust piece of software.
I think this is a general theme with open source software and is one of its strengths. It’s not that there’s an intention to make it scary for new users but that user-friendlyness is a secondary consideration. This is not commercial software, where the primary concern is getting new users and retaining them, and where the surest way to get someone to cancel a subscription is by telling them they have to study for ages to use the software well.
I offer the comparison between Linux and Window$. I moved on to Linux because I disliked the simplicity of Windows and I wanted to be able to fully understand how my system worked and have full control over it (for it to be my system). Yes I needed to learn a lot more and put in the time but that time was paid back ten-fold. I want the same from darktable.
The best thing we can do, as I think has been a general theme for a while, is make that learning curve as pain-free and rewarding as possible. But I think darktable will always be a tool for ‘power users’ (for want of a better term) and it will, and should, always require an investment of time and effort. It will pay you back ten-fold in the end, and for free! What more could you ask?
Recommendations for First Time Users are ok, however: devs often talk about technique but I think they often actually mean style. And there one should be very careful. There is no clear line between style and technique. Certain styles can only be the result of certain techniques but a certain technique does not automatically lead to a certain style. Everybody should be able have their own style, it’s about freedom. Pushing the users to a certain style is what closed source photography software does (without most users noticing). Although discussions about “good” and “bad” styes are not entirely pointless either.
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Shhh 
don’t tell anyone but I still use the old school basecurve workflow on some images I think it looks fine. 
Sometimes I even mix it with tone equalizer. Also, I still really like the monochrome module. Clearly I’m an awful person who should really be drug out in the street and shot!
/me looks around suspiciously
But that’s my mode of thought on a lot of this. If it looks good, prints well and is consistent across different displays I’m fine. I’ve run into edge cases where things go weird in the past and now I know why and how to address that which is very good! But anyone presenting something as a workflow or tutorial in a video or similar should be very up front about the potential breakage of mixing and matching modules from different workflows like that. To me Darktable is like a baking a cake, there are different approaches that are varying degrees of incorrect but still work most of the time. Sometimes you can mix two strange ingredients together and it’s fine and other times you end up with an inedible brick. I don’t think the devs are going to show up to your how and beat you down for using the non-blessed path if you’re happy with the results.
Same with me and in reality once you play with the modules in the right order like that it’s like “duh that’s how that works.” This could be solved in most cases with a better default UI presentation leading a novice user down a rudimentary order of operations I think. Maybe I can come up with some ideas on that front.
Perhaps, although at this time, it’s not exactly clear why I need to use any particular adjustment, especially in combination between the modules.
Of course Aurelien has covered the science behind it all, but that doesn’t really help an average Joe decide which to use and when unless they really start to understand that science.
I’m almost feeling like it’s Sheldon looking down on us mere mortals kind of thing
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I’ve got two degrees in Physics and am working on learning my third language (Japanese) so I’m not a complete dummy but even I have a hard time following him occasionally. It’s OK! He’s really quite smart and I don’t think he realizes just how naturally it comes to him sometimes compared to other people. It happens a lot when you’re neck deep in some code or a project that others are using. I’m thankful he’s there to work on Darktable! I don’t have the time or frankly the expertise.
Also, I can’t stand that TV show. 
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That is probably because, while on its face the show appears to be about nerdy people, the point of view is always from Penny, who is not an uber science nerd. Instead of humanizing characters like Sheldon, it just shows how they belittle each other in different ways.
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The recommendation wasn’t wrong but was limited… In 6% of cases it works 100% of the time. Meaning it doesn’t work for 94% of cases and leaves me wondering “am I doing something wrong? Is this a bug in darktable? was the recommendation wrong?”
That’s what I meant - you’ve gotta know WHY to use module and not “this is generic way to do this”. I mean - I’ve seen a cake made using red beans and bananas that tasted good, but you don’t teach “here’s how to make cake” with red beans. You use flour, eggs etc… And if something’s not standard, you say so
Not necessary - All I’m saying is a plea to creators of resources: teach people to bake cakes with flour and eggs. And if you’re doing some crazy gluten-free cake using red beans, tomatoes, bananas and what not, you have to explain why and why it won’t work most of the time.
Also regarding advice on edits in darktable (or any raw processor): there’s also case of image itself - so rcommendation MIGHT work for one image doesn’t need to work for another if you’re using “wrong” module. And all the vibe I’m getting from Aurelien’s explainations regarding modules is “linear modules don’t degrade easily, non-linear degrade easily. I’d rather if you use best one possible” 
I think we should take it easy on our YouTubers, making content is difficult. We have that problem on our own blog.
We should also have some sympathy for one another and realize that our realities are not all the same, and if they were, everything would be boring as shit. Red bean pasty is common other places in the world. Gluten-free is an every day reality for a lot of people.
Sometimes forums have a lack of coherancy in the information presented, this is the nature of the beast. However, I’ve found many of the best things via just reading forum posts different places, information that I couldn’t find anywhere else.
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I agree entirely. @anon41087856 posted above that new users of DT should expect to “commit and bite the bullet”. That’s OK, but I think we (the community) should at least lay down a clear path recommended to beginners who are interested in spending some time to learn it.
Suggestion: what about a “long tutorial” type thing on the resources page on the DT site? You can download a RAW, then it walks you through a basic edit using recommended/modern modules (filmic, tone equalizer, local contrast, color balance, maybe an intro to masking) and is sprinkled with some basic theory on raw images, RGB, human perception and dynamic range compression. Something that would take a new user an hour or so to read and follow along, and takes them from 0 to “basic edit” along the way.
I think that would be entirely feasible, is there really a need to make the early part of the learning curve steeper?
Sounds great, let me know if you want help proofreading (by someone with just a bit of experience)
I found the new manual here - https://github.com/jade-nl/dt.miscellaneous/tree/master/Usermanuals (courtesy reddit)
Is this the real thing?
After my latest tests, we need to redo it. The ‘auto tune levels’ button in filmic rgb works just perfectly fine for daylight photos.