Meet the new AI tools in darktable 5.6

Software darktable
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darktable 5.6 ships its first AI features: an AI object mask that turns a single click into a vector mask around any subject, and a neural restore module for ML-based denoise and upscale. Our focus was on building the foundation that loads and runs open computer-vision models locally on your CPU or GPU – so darktable can host AI tasks suitable for photography as the open model landscape evolves. This post is the hands-on tour: what each tool does, how to use it, and where it falls short.

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.darktable.org/2026/06/meet-darktable-5.6-ai-tools/
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Well done !

Thanks a lot, I tried out raw denoise with some nightly shot at Stromboli using standard conditions. Worked right away. Happy to share a sample pair of raw file (arw) and the raw-denoised file (dng).
2026-04-29_042347.ARW (19.6 MB)
2026-04-29_042347_raw-denoise.dng (38.8 MB)

Looks very promising for pictures taken under challenging conditions.

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It’s certainly taken out the noise; but the vibrancy of the image has also gone (vibrancy in the general meaning of the word)

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Some people say that the masking capabilities are the greatest feature of darktable. I am not worth a damn at masking, so I’m sure the new AI features will be a boon for me.

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What computer resources would be required to use these on Win 11 without waiting and waiting for the module to complete the task? Has someone made an assessment?

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This post slipped under my radar and I don’t know why. It looks a real excellent way to introduce new features that are added to DT. I will have to explore the post more fully.

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Any reasonable dedicated GPU with at least 4 GB VRAM.

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I suppose it will be fair to assume that these AI modules will not work on my laptop, which has Iris Graphics of Intel and shares the main memory as GPU RAM . Would that be a correct assessment?

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these AI modules will not work on my laptop, which has Iris Graphics of Intel and shares the main memory as GPU RAM .

At least at this time all darktable AI stuff works on CPU, too. Don’t expect high speed, though.

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Integrated GPU can still be faster than CPU. For Intel cards, I’d recommend installing ONNX Runtime OpenVINO for better performance and hardware support.

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Kudos on version 5.6! The new RAW AI denoise tool does an amazing job.
However, on my astrophotography shots, the generated DNG file contains many hot pixels, and it is currently impossible to use the “Hot pixels” module on this file to fix them.
Would it be possible to allow this module to be applied to the generated DNGs, or to include hot pixel removal before the AI processing?

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Which camera do you use?

Neural raw denoise writes two DNG variants:

    • Bayer CFA path (standard Bayer sensors): DNG carries CFA data. Hot Pixels module should work - it fires before demosaic in the raw pipeline.
    • Linear DNG path (X-Trans, and pre-demosaicked raws that Bayer round-trip can’t handle): DNG carries demosaicked 3-channel linear RGB. Hot Pixels module can’t apply here by design - no CFA to look at.
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I am still unable to run any of the AI modules. The models are failing to download. I am getting this message on my system which is a win11 with Intel IRIS Graphics GPU. This is the screenshot of the error message Please help

image
image1121×477 28.9 KB

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You can download and install models manually in case you have connectivity issues

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Besides, I don’t think the denoising times of other commercial apps are that much faster.