The new version of RT is a big step forward, everyone did a great job. Simplification is good I think.
As for the user interface, IMHO there are just too many options, many of which have negligible effect on the final picture and some like Retinex have disastrous effects when applied with default settings (much like the previous releases Neutral profile). Maybe intelligent default settings for complex operations would be a good thing.
Pardon my language, but Photo Shop allows the user to customize what the see on the screen, maybe future version of RT can have this option.
I cannot comment on the Retinex tool, but default values should be reasonable indeed.
However, I don’t agree to the currently popular dogma that all tools have to be minimalistic. There is a place for specialist tools and, being a tool which concentrates on raw file development from a more algorithmic point of view, RawTherapee offers a reasonable amount of user control. As long I am not forced to use all available sliders at once, I am fine with that.
On the other hand, RawTherapee offers quite good options to develop raw files very efficiently with a minimum of effort. The new default presets are just great in that regard. We all know that the out-of-camera JPEGs of many photographs are already quite fine and need only some tweaking. This is what these new presets are so great for!
Personally, I highly appreciate that RawTherapee offers both very neutral and nearly finished (that is, similar to out-of-camera JPEGs) starting points. Depending on the photograph I want to develop, I chose whatever starting point seems to fit best.
@dellaaa I think you see things too much from a closed-source developer’s point of view. Open Source projects evolve in a completely different way. There is more democracy, there are more ideas which are coming form all kinds of directions. In a way, there is more “chaos” and less “leadership”. Everything has advantages and disadvantages.
I see your point, I happen to have a Master’s Degree in Computer Science, so I have some background in software design. I am not saying RT isn’t the finest raw development tool available today, because I think it is, my apologies if I offended but it’s learning curve is steep and after a year or two of using it there are many controls that I either have never used or if I have used them I haven’t been able to either see a difference or get them to work to my satisfaction.
The new additions are going in the right directions IMHO.Things like auto match tone curve and adjusting the raw file to match the associated JPG are IMHO wonderful additions Again, I love the software, I would pay for the software, it’s just a little overwhelming to make use of ALL the features.
@dellaaa I know what you mean and I think in most things I totally agree with you. There are very many tools in RT. From what I understand, that is exactly the developer’s philosophy, freedom of choice. However, it might be a bit too much of the good. I have nothing to do with computer science but see things from a photographer’s and artist’s point of view. In the end developing photos has or should have more to do with art than mathematics. And I also think that that is the reason why so many people choose LR, but I kind of never liked LR.
I think it is difficult to design an image editing program which is both advanced and not too difficult to use.
Actually I always thought that RT was interesting, but up until a few weeks ago I thought that it was too difficult to use for me. I tried to work with it several times but I just couldn’t. I don’t know what happened now, maybe I suddenly became smarter?
Do you use ALL the features in GIMP, Blender, or even LibreOffice? And why on earth would you? Read Getting Started, adjust what needs adjusting, and move on.