Hello, after 7 years of converting raw with commercial software, I’ve started 3 years ago using RT. Great software that I’ve used intensive and learned me a lot about rawconversion. Last year I’ve switched from windows to mac. Last update of RT is slow on mac and there are some other issues that need to be fixed. I’m under the impression that RT-builds for mac aren’t updated as fast as those for the other os’s.
So I’ve started looking at DT. Been playing with the program last week and I must say I’m overly satisfied with the features and the way it handles my Nef’s. Like the colors more then RT’s. Could be my skills of course
What I don’t like about DT is it’s library. Wish there was an option to work directly from my own folderstructure without first having to import them.
What if I have to reinstall my computer ? Is there anyone who takes a backup of the DT-library-file ? If anybody uses an alternative way to alter his/her images I would like to hear.
If there’s anyone who has used RT and DT longtime I would like to hear there experiences. Thanks in advance.
If any dev of DT is reading : thanks for such a great piece of software. Keep up the good work.
Some wishes
Ad an option to work with my own folderstructure without the need to import.
Make the scrollbar on the rightside in Develop wider.
A shortcut to toggle on/off the leftpanel in Develop.
Thanks for taking in consideration.
I use both RT and DT. In DT, I don’t import every image, rather I view my files in geeqie or digikam and the open the file in DT (which does the import automatically). Import doesn’t actually move the raw file, rather it just makes a notation of where the file is so it can write out a sidecar file.
I do make a backup of my database (or rather its on a ZFS partition that takes snapshots). I’d suggest you make backups of the library file regularly and ensure that sidecar files are being written along side the raw file.
As for your feature requests, you’ll need to enter them in the DT bug tracker for them to be considered.
About the folder structure, as @paperdigits mentioned darktable only keeps a reference to the original files in its database, the images are not copied around. So while it’s true that you have to import them there is nothing stopping you from keeping your folders as you are used to. And the import step can also be done by opening a folder or image in darktable from your file manager (no idea how that works in OSX) or by drag&drop to darktable.
Now about the library file (actually there are two these days, library.db and data.db). If you don’t use presets or styles then almost everything you have should also be in the XMP sidecars darktable writes, so nuking the library and reimporting the images again should bring you back to where you were. You will miss presets, styles, grouping, time offsets and tags that were not assigned to an image though.
The scrollbars can probably made wider in the CSS file, however, the regions outside the scrollbars (the triangle to collapse the side panel) reacts to the scroll wheel of your mouse, too. so bumping the mouse to the window border and scrolling should be fast and just work. Similarly with the single side panels. There is no shortcut, but the region to click is the very window edge, so moving the mouse all over to the left and clicking will show/hide it. Of course those are most useful when you are working fullscreen (F11).
Hi, thanks everyone for the good advice.
I was aware of the library only referencing to the original files. Good to know there are some workarounds.
At this point I choose for ‘folders’ under ‘collected images’. This way I keep my own folderstructure. Great.
My worries about back-up were only concerning the DT-library-file, so I don’t have to import all my files again on a next re-install of my computer for example. I’ll take a back-up of the file.
Concerning the scrollbar. thanks for the tip : in fullscreenmode, indeed hovering to the very right side works great. Anyhow : this doesn’t work for hiding the left panel. Here you have to click on the triangle. Not a big thing for me since I’m working with a 21inch screen, but for people with smaller screens, a shortcut toggling the leftpanel and thus creating a bigger image for editing, would be welcome, I can imagine.
Oh, and another great thing : I use iSmartphoto for culling and rating my files. Darktable nicely displays my ratings after import. Super !
Can I just say, putting the cursor on the left edge and tapping the touch-pad, does hide the left hand panel on my laptop
darktable 2.2.4 Unstable ppa.
Correction : it does to on the Mac-version somewhere near the leftside of the screen (not the extreme side).
Somehow a shortcut would be more convenient.
Auto-hide isn’t a good idea imho.
I’ve been using RT for a long time with Nikon D300 and now D610. But a couple of years ago I mostly switched to DT. I found that it is easier to get good colors (especially skin ones) with DT than RT. Once I learned DT interface I found it is more productive for me than RT. In RT there are numerous and powerful tools, not that easy to master. DT somehow gives me good results with (much) less efforts than RT. Except for profiled denoise - I always get unnatural plasticky effect from it. So I alternate between the other 2 methods depending on the image.
Thanks for your input, Tankist02. Appreciate it.
After a few days of testing I came to a similar conclusion : nicer colors in a faster way. But : DT seems a bit slower on my machine then RT.
About the Profiled denoise : lowering the strenght-slider seems to help to avoid that ‘plasticky’ effect you describe. I will try the other denoise-tools to.
I’m stuck in a bind using both Darktable and Rawtherapee. Shooting a lot of architecture I need highlight recovery, bring out detail, occasional noise reduction, perspective correction, GPS mapping and pixelshift.
For me Darktable wins on good sharpening/detail recovery ,GPS mapping, and noise reduction. Also colour but this is tricky.
Rawtherapee wins on speed (GUI and export, and I really prefer fast software) highlight recovery and of course pixelshift.
I use two profile denoise in Darktable. One wavelet on colour blending. And when required one non-local means blended for lightness and at 50% opacity. This is based on a tutorial from somewhere.
I’d prefer to use Rawtherapee due to speed but I’m currently flipping between the doftware
I also see that RT is faster than DT, especially during export. Maybe DT tries to produce good results too hard OTOH I don’t have CL enabled for DT which is supposed to speed up operations.
As for highlights sometimes DT looses them because of too aggressive basecurve. Switching to the neutral one or even turning it off and using contrast and/or tone curve instead may help.
RT is indeed much faster (4.2.1025). Highlight-recovery is better imo. RT has the advantage one can directly export to an external editor. (I know you can use LUA in DT but that’s beyond my skills)
Has anyone tried to mimic DT’s base-curve (for Nikon d5500 or similar) in RT => as a RT-processing profile that is a good starting profile ? I keep struggling with a good startingpoint in RT to speed up my workflow. This is an advantage of DT imho.
