As a teacher I have thought that I could ask my class to use RawTherapee 5 in place of the costly Adobe products that work well but are pricey. For some things, like correcting white balance, RT is great. Unfortunately I have not been able to find any support documents that provide a cogent explanation for many of the numerous controls/options that RT provides. I don’t consider myself a novice with photo editing. I edit using Gimp, Lightroom, Photoshop and I have used earlier versions of RT but in spite of a number of hours spent experimenting with RT tools most of them remain a mystery.
I am saddened by this but I can’t ask my class to use software that I can’t explain.
Just to be clear I have read the RT supplied documentation, I have viewed numerous on line tutorial videos, and I have searched for RT books. Each time I start thinking each would answer my needs, but each time I run into an obstacle where the explanation is not adequate. Adobe support products aren’t perfect but I have always be able to find answers that I need.
If you wanted to describe the type of approach you’d be interested in teaching, there’s a few of us who’d be happy to help elaborate on the tool (or at least make sure to find an answer for you).
There are many different tools, and they each have their use. The problem is that not all of the tools may be needed, while others may be indispensable. (I’m assuming you’ve seen the Getting Started section of Rawpedia).
On the plus side, there’s a community of folks here who are happy to help! Maybe you could outline an approach or lesson plan where we can identify what types of topics need to be addressed, and we can enumerate the possible methods for approaching them effectively (along with more details on the technical aspects of the tool as well, if needed).
It is true that a process-based approach with learning materials is lacking in Free Software, but that’s what this site is hoping to start rectifying. (Bonus points if you release your teaching plan liberally for us to re-use - future educators will thank you. ).
What’s also interesting, and probably not really different for Lightroom etc, is that people will edit their photos using different modules in different ways.
I spent the early part of today watching a few YouTube tutorials and I was surprised at the varying methods people used to edit their images. But there are the basics to start with, exposure, saturation, white balance.
Each of them is fairly straightforward.
However with exposure, there are different ways to achieve a desirable outcome. However as with anything new, starting off with the basics and then exploring a little bit more as you get comfortable with the application will go some way to ease the initial sense of being overwhelmed with all the options.
I’ve been using RT for quite a few years now, and am only just starting to explore the Lab Adjustments and the CIE Color Model 2002…
I appreciate the offers of assistance but I am not sure that the time and effort is worth the advantages of a mode in which I just just teach my class to use RT for basic WB and finish their editing using GIMP. I realize that GIMP seems to currently be limited to 8bit colors but that may be a price that they are willing to accept.
the explanations that I could find for how to use the threshold slider on the attached screen shot for the ‘sharpening’ options isn’t clear. RawPedia Book attempts an explanation but a demo showing the effects of the sliders would have been useful. I spent some time playing with it but the relation to what I did with the sliders and the visual effects of my image is hard to follow. .
I could go on. If I were to try to take students past the basic would certainly ask me to explain the difference between the Unsharp Mask and RL deoonvolution Method but (1) Although I understand the math of ‘convolution’ and 'deconvolution" my class would not understand the math. Again, a demo the shows the effects of the different methods might have been useful.
I could go on about almost all of the options.
To conclude: I appreciate that RT is a powerful tool for editing photos; however, the learning curve to master more than the basic WB, contrast, etc seem to me to be too much.
I would be happy to learn of a future tutorial or book that does more than RawPedia Book or the various videos but for now I am dropping out.
The mathematics behind either tool might not be absolutely necessary when you can use more practical descriptions, for instance, RL deconvolution is an iterative point-spread deconvolver, whereas USM is blah blah blah. It’s like comparing Granny Smith with Red Delicious: Everyone likes apples, but which one do I want.
I think I would be tempted to dish out the tools to the class; their assignment would be to discover the tool for themselves, and then give a presentation to the rest of the class on how to use that tool.
This is something I sent to Ingo relating to use of Pixel Shift option in RT and writing user documentation.
Most people have problems with documentation because they set off writing a thesis not user help. I’d sit down and make a simple diagram of what happens in plain language and then think of a non-technical type artist and explain it to them. You can use technical terms like median but follow it with an analogy they understand like sorting and select the one in the middle. I think if you try that the first draft will fall into place. I’m willing to proofread if you wish. You can always make references for the technical user to get more information if needed but they should see it very quickly.
I’ll help proof if others write the users document.
RONC
This is one of those things I’m trying to lead by example with in Filmulator, ensuring that documentation is complete whenever a feature gets rolled out to the master branch, and making it easily accessible in the program as tooltips.
There will be no “fire and forget” features in Filmulator. If I can’t explain it, why should it even be there? How can I expect users to benefit from it?
I’d also add this: I am extremely greatful to my teachers for teaching me how to look at an image and the mental framework to go about editing. I was never taught knobs and sliders, because that will constrain you to an application.
This conversation is really the same one all of us as users of many open source programs lament about, just wrapped up in a different bow.
I know I’ve been guilty of wishing for a YouTube tutorial or 5 for RT or Digikam or…
There’s a commercial imperative for companies like Adobe to make their software approachable with documentation or video tutorials, and more so, when you look at the number of people out there as youtubers doing their own how to’s and LUT packages.
That’s why in part we see such a disparity, in my opinion, between open source and commercial software.
The only way to improve this is each of us doing our own little bit to change it. Whether or not its our own YouTube tutorial or writing the missing documentation to give back for powerful and free software.
As a follow up to the original post, why not throw the challenge out there to the class, ie discuss the general approach to all raw processing, being contrast, saturation, sharpening and white balance, with a quick run through the main parts of RT that achieve this and let them go from there.
Lightroom is as daunting on first use as any new software. (not having used it myself though)
I think the greatest issue we have these days isn’t so much the software we have at our disposal, but allowing ourselves the time to discover it organically.
In saying that, I do love watching @harry_durgin with his darktable videos. Nothing like watching someone highly competent with in their knowledge of the art and the tools that allow them to bring out the best in the image.
).
