Questions, comments and possible bug from a noob

Software ART
1

Hi there,

I’ve had ART loaded on various boxes (Windows and Linux) for some time.

Typically my processing tool of choice has been Capture One, but with all the commercial foolishness going on in with them, it’s clear that I need a back up plan.

Spelunking around, ART seems to speak to me. I looked at DT and RT and for a plethora of reasons, we don’t see eye to eye.

I’m definitely not a highly technical photo editor/processor. I started out, years ago, with LightRoom and while I could get what I wanted out of LR, it wasn’t fast or pretty. I’ve never been a PhotoShop person, although I get along quite nicely with GIMP, mostly because it was available on my work computer.

So, I’m working on wrapping my head around ART.

Some things are similar enough to C1 that I can niggle out, some things not.

Questions (relating to a Windows box) :

If I highlight an image in the browser and then go to the left hand column and switch to the editor, it does not open the image selected. This seems illogical to me. I’ve got the filmstrip turned off in the editor.

If I double click on an image in the browser it opens the image in the editor albeit very slowly. Admittedly the laptop I’m working on is fairly low spec (i7 with 8 gb of memory) it takes 15-20 seconds to open an image. And then 5-10 seconds to “refocus” if I zoom in or pan the image once zoomed in. Is this normal?

Comments

One of the more useful features in C1 is if you hover the cursor over a slider and then use the scroll wheel, it adjusts the slider. Is this possible in ART?

BUG?

My screen is 1080p (1920 x 1080) and I run with the taskbar at the top in autohide mode.

If I toggle to full screen mode in ART, do some work, when I toggle the full screen mode off, the ART window slides up the monitor about the distance of the taskbar and then cannot be moved/resized/etc. Thus I can’t get to the menubar. The only was to close ART at this point it via Task Manager.

The good thing about C1 is David Groner presents a wonderful series of videos on the ins and outs of C1. I found the YouTube presentations for ART, but alas they are in French. And while I’m from southern Louisiana, I speak no French other than enough to order a cup of coffee.

I’ve tried to use the translator in YouTube but having to read the text, rather than listening is not particularly useful. Also, I have to slow the video way down as the narrator speaks very rapidly.

I’m working through this video: https://discuss.pixls.us/t/an-absolute-beginners-guide-to-rawtherapee/42398/5 and it’s helping, but it’s definitely RT vs ART.

If anyone has suggestions about more tutorials, I’d love to hear them. I’ve been through the stuff in the ART wiki.

Thanks in advance.

chris

2

To me it sounds way too slow. Even in a shady VM ART worked much faster for me. If you not accidentally created a default profile with some really heavy module usage, I think this is not normal. I would try to deactivate all modules on a photo and see if it opens faster. Then activate one after another to find out if a specific module slows down the processing.

Yes, by holding Shift. But it’s only possible in a single specific speed, meaning that there is no additional key you can press to decrease or increase the step size the scroll wheel will adjust the slider.

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3

Hello, illogical or not, that’s the way it works. Doubleclicking a miniature (or select, then Enter) opens the photo in the Photo Editor.

No, should be in the order of one or two seconds, on Linux at least. I suppose you’re not working with gigabyte images…

No(t as far as I know).

Edit: @apostel338 is right.

4

Not a final solution, but if this happens, try Win-Key + :arrow_up:. This should toggle the maximize command for the active window.

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5

Thanks that’s helpful.

'nuther question…

On my main desktop machine (both the Linux and Windows boxes) I have two monitors. Is there a way to utilize this ala LR or C1?

For instance:

Capture One1
Capture One13840×1080 266 KB

Thanks

6

Okay,

Another silly question.

In C1 there are sliders labelled clarity and structure. Lower left hand corner in the image below:

clarity_structure
clarity_structure1919×1079 234 KB

I find they are useful for “tightening” up an image for lack of a better term.

Is there an equivalent in ART?

thanks

chris

7

Hi @doobs,

Selecting an image in the browser means that you want to perform some operations on it. Opening it in the editor is only one of the available operations. Others include e.g. copying, moving, renaming, adding to the output queue, applying some profiles, etc. In fact, you can select multiple images for most of such operations. This is the logic behind the behaviour you see.

As others have said, this doesn’t sound normal. What kind of images are you working on? It takes a fraction of that time on my 8-year-old laptop…

Looks like a glitch, yes, but something that has to do with the interaction between the GUI library used by ART (i.e. GTK+) and Windows; in other words, not something that can be solved by ART I’m afraid.

This is a known weakness (of many) of ART I’m afraid.

Preferences->General->Layout->Editor Layout->Multiple editor tabs in own window mode

and then restart

You can use “texture boost / sharpening” and/or “local contrast” to emulate both. I don’t remember what clarity and structure do exactly in C1, but IIRC they act on different frequencies. For clarity, you can try “texture boost” with 0.2 strength and 0.5 detail and tweak from there. For structure, maybe raising the local contrast curve in the middle? (again sorry but I don’t remember what structure actually does)

HTH

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8

Thank you,

As usual, very responsive.

Kudos

9

I forgot:

Besides what others wrote, many of the sliders have a global shortcut assigned to them: if you move the mouse wheel while a specific key is pressed, you can change the value of the slider even without moving the pointer over it. For example, hold ‘e’ and use the scroll wheel to change exposure. You can see the full list of such global shortcuts by pressing f1 in the editor, and you get this:

Screenshot from 2024-03-07 20-37-13
Screenshot from 2024-03-07 20-37-131922×1022 354 KB

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10

Thanks.

Ok more silly questions:

Can the shortcuts be changed?

If I edit (process) an image in ART and then close ART/image, the next time I open ART/image the history is gone. Is there a way of retaining the history?

Greatly appreciate everyone’s patience

11

I’m in central Louisiana and despite my mother’s side of family being from south Louisiana (Elton area) I couldn’t order coffee in French – or at least what passes for (‘proper’) French in Acadiana – if I had to. Good thing I don’t have to!! I’m apparently 'murcan-ized – I use a massive big-gulp coffee mug instead of those little tiny demitasse cups my Cajun relatives used. And I don’t like chicory (which is more of a NOLA thing anyway).

On my very middle-of-the-road / average Acer laptop (Ryzen 7 5700 CPU, 16 GB RAM and a cheesy little embedded GPU) a 24mp Canon CR3 raw typically loads and cleans up in about four seconds.

IME I’ve found the biggest ‘culprits’ for impacting processing times are sharpening, noise reduction and especially the Texture Boost / Sharpening (local edits) tool. No problem with how they work, it’s just what they do can be inherently resource-intensive (particularly TB/S with higher slider values). I usually find the right values for the image in question and then turn them off until I’m ready to export.

12

Nope.

Nope. Use Snapshots for that. That saves the current state of your editing into a snapshot. You can make as many as you like. Next time you open that photo, all your snapshots are there because they are written to the sidecar file (arp). But history, no.

13

No, sorry.

You can’t retain the full history, but you can save snapshots and those will be kept. Not quite the same thing, but maybe still useful?

14

Thanks.

I’m getting there.

For the time being I’ll prolly process in both C1 and ART until I’m more comfortable.

Honestly, ART is definitely less intuitive to me, but that’s me. ART is definitely more fiddly than C1.

But ART is not going anywhere, and I can’t in good faith assume C1 isn’t going to evaporate.

Greatly appreciate all the support.

15

Hello @doobs,

You have certainly chosen the open source raw converter that is the most intuitive to use. Perhaps you still need a little time to get used to ART.

No one can guarantee that ART will last longer than we will.

But there are completely different qualities here:
Look, you ask important questions here and some experts answer you quickly and knowledgeably. And, although you claim to be a beginner, even the creator of ART is making an effort to help you get to grips with the program. Personally, I think that’s more than great.
You can be sure that nobody here wants anything from you, especially not your money. Everyone here is trying to make sure that you enjoy ART, and a lot of people do!

I think Alberto’s support is worth more than anything else - provided the software works and you can achieve good results with it. Countless users can confirm that this is the case.

If you have any doubts, upload a raw file with the results you achieved with C1 as a Jpeg. Then some people will try to show you what you can achieve with ART. But please write what is important to you: tonal values, contrast, subtleties, sharpness or colors. So that it doesn’t degenerate into a competition of personal taste. You will then be offered .arp that you can apply to yourself to further develop the results.

Keep at it, it’s worth it, both in terms of photography and morale. You will soon realize that ART can make you very happy. That’s my personal experience.

micha

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16

Most of the time, when you’re used to software and you try a new one, you have to forget the muscle memory you built while using the first program, and this takes a lot of time. Similar tools/filters will not be at the same place and you’ll find that their are not placed in the correct place in the new software. But if you really dedicate enough time to become accustomed to the new program, you’ll be fine. And if you go back to first one a long time later, you’ll find it less user friendly.

I used RT for a fairly long time in the past. When I tried DT, Lightroom, C1, or any other program, I just couldn’t get around and found that RT was the most intuitive of the bunch. Then I switched to ART since its beginnings, and now if I launch RT I feel lost.

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17

As for me, it is even worse…
Whenever I use the same software, to apply some very medium advanced feature, getting back to it, after a long time, quite often, I don’t remember how to perform this same task even though, in the past, I was able to do so.
Currently, I record these steps on my computer (OBS studio, as software) in order to watch them later on. Yeah, it is a bit nuts :slight_smile:

My rule of thumb is: whenever you are an advanced user, stick with this software, because you are very likely to spend a lot of time in case you want to change it…

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18

ART is my main toolbox as well, but I always kept an eye on the develpment of RT (I used that since v2.4). But since a year or so I noticed that many photos opened in RT look kind of splendid by default. By default I mean just hitting the auto-exposure button.

Two examples.
This one is ART by default.

ART_default
ART_default702×462 27.8 KB

This is RT by default.

RT_default
RT_default705×463 40.4 KB

Another one, ART on the left.

compare
compare730×548 103 KB

19

It’s probably just me, but I think the RT examples look oversaturated. Somewhere around a third of the way from the ART images to the RT images is probably the sweet spot.

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20

If you like the more saturated and contrasty look, you can very easily create such a profile in ART and have it become the default profile for new images.