This is my first post on this forum! I have recently started with Dark table, and I am greatly inspired by a lot of BH’s before/after and some others in reddit as well. I would like to be at that expertise, where I would need one look at the photo to revive it gracefully.
This is what I came up with, I’m really curious to see how all would process this photo. I’m open to all advice. I hope to contribute to this section and share some photos of mine to learn
Hey, thanks, yes, I shot this on GH5s. The background in this looks much cleaner and sharper. Do you use DT as well? If yes, why RT then? How’s your experience with it, and how do you decide which is for what?
Hey, thanks! The light seems more appropriate and artistic in this than the rest. How’s your experience with ART in comparison to DT, and how do you decide which is for what?
Hey Thomas! A little too cropped to my taste, but I can see two instances of diffuse or sharpen, one is a preset. Did you use a mask by any chance? If not, why two instances? Unable to see anything but the history stack due to version difference.
I spent a lot of time and efforts trying to learn DT starting with version 2 if I recall correctly. DT is very powerful and has a lot of great tools, but requires too many steps (at least for me) to get good results. Creating styles with your favorite workflow baked in helps a lot.
By comparison ART is easier - it has AutoMatched curve, DCP profiles, support for 2 spectral film simulations programs and access to a bunch of CTL scripts with different tone mappers. With all these tools it is simple to have good starting points. Results from spektrafilm are especially spectacular most of the time. For my eyes ART usually gives better colors and tonal range with minimum efforts. This is especially evident when editing something colorful like sunsets or flowers.
I’m not a professional and I don’t like to tinker with editing too much. It is fascinating to watch a true DT master like @s7habo transform simple images to pieces of art using numerous tools with multiple instances and masking. I’m not at that level and probably will never be so I resort to something giving good enough results faster.
For now my default edits are usually done first in ART and then I may try to repeat in DT to match or surpass. Usually I like ART results better, but sometimes I prefer DT, especially for more nuanced photos like portraits. Plus the vast majority of edits in PlayRaw are done with DT, I think it is nice to balance them with other tools to compare.
I only use Rawtherapee… Last year I set a winter time goal of learning some new software, and went for RT. I did try DT, in fact I still have it on my laptop… I like to edit my vacation and local interest shots, from my old Panasonic GF2 with various lenses, and RT does a great job. I also like the dev version with a few new tools… But I’m still learning and each play raw helps just a little bit more; thanks again for the opportunity.
Perhaps another winter I’ll learn DT… But for now I’ll stick to RT; the powerful pre tone mapping tools (global spot with Shadows/highlight and tone equaliser set to either Michaelis Menten or Generalised Hyperbolic Stretch) do a fantastic job of setting everything up with a solid basis for making subsequent changes to exposure, lightness, chroma and contrast with ease, not forgetting the latest colour systems CIECAM CAM16 where you can play with red green blue saturation and hue etc…
Of course darktable does all things things… but I can’t speak with any knowledge of the pros (or cons if there are any). It’s just I have learnt the basics of RT and am still improving (I hope).
