I believe this GUI cluttering is something that puts many newcomers off. if they get that far. The question “scene-referred” or “display-referred” is already rather abstract. You can’t just install and start darktable. And darktable is free, so a new user will not hesitate long with the uninstall.
Some GUI unification would be a good thing, for newcomers. The rest is already used to that anti-intuitive system.
I never tried LR, I believe it’s really good from I saw from videos. But darktables ultimate strongpoint is the cost, at least to me.
I also think in terms of functions darktable does fine (specially since we got the “module search” box, so you can actually find functions!).
I also use Affinity Photo for stuff that darktable does very poorly (HDR) or not at all (panorama, focus stack, object removal by merging) - and of course “Gimp” like stuff. However, for normal edit I prefer darktable - I mean, parametric masks just work - compare to macro driven luminosity masks, which I never managed to work out.
One think I wonder, does it really matter how many people use darktable?
When I first got into raw processing, I knew Lr existed, but I thought “if Adobe produces such a bloated, bug-ridden PDF reader, how likely is their raw processor app to be any good?” I know that logic is not necessarily solid, but once Adobe went to their subscription model I felt like my decision allowed me to dodge a bullet. I found darktable and RawTherapee, and have been mostly happy with both.
I used LR and PS (“perpetual” licenses) up until I bought my current Fuji system about 18 months ago. Definitely not wanting to go down the SAAS subscription route, I started to check out the FOSS alternatives. I’ve been keeping an eye on these for a long time having used GIMP for small graphics tasks since pre-1.0 days and playing with earlier versions of Darktable. Until recently I found them all wanting by comparison to the Adobe offering, but they’ve come on in leaps and bounds over the past few years.
I tried to get my head around Darktable for about 6 months or so, and while I was able to get ok results with it, it took a lot of time per image, and could never get it anywhere near what the in camera Fuji processing produced. I’ve since settled on ART which I find first rate
So as to the original question, LRs pros over the free alternatives are (note I was using a fairly antiquated v5.5 so I’m not mentioning features that appeared in 6 or CC):
an excellent integrated DAM - I use Digikam which while very good falls short on a few fronts; only shows original thumbnail so any external edits can’t be seen, tagging is a bit more fiddly (though not excessively so), and LR has more comprehensive filtering on metadata (lens, camera model etc)
Can get decent results fairly quickly, though I’d point out that I reckon ART is just as fast in terms of workflow when you know where things are
Highlight reconstruction and shadow control works well
Cons are pretty much what others have said:
Subscription model
Adobe’s ever greater pushing of the cloud to increase the grip they have on you
Being at their mercy in terms of them just dropping support for products
FOSS tools are in many ways more powerful in terms of their capabilities - masking and Filmic in DT etc. These are of course dependent on enthusiastic individuals being willing to step up and maintain things, but by and large there seems to be a committed community if the evidence in these forums is anything to go by
Windows/Mac only - I can now avoid the requirement of having a dual boot Windows PC, or worse, VM and do everything on Linux (though I’m having a nightmare with colour management)
So while I was happy with LR for well over a decade, with the exception of the DAM I don’t miss it a bit in terms of results
Honestly I think that lightroom is still unbeatable compared to open source raw editors for problematic raws, noise reduction should be included in the list.
Paradoxically opensource raw editors are better most of the time for normal raw
Somewhat on the contrary, I recently had a case where Capture One tended to shift a very bright blue jacket into cyan in a way that was hard to get rid of. Lightroom faired better, but instead desaturated the blue. Filmic RGB in Darktable had at least one normalization option that actually kept the jacket blue (and five that turned it radiant white). The SOOC jpeg was correctly blue as well.
I find difficult files such as this one somewhat regularly, especially with brightly colored highlights that shift towards secondaries (cyan, magenta). I often find these hard to deal with in C1/LR, but usually fairly straight forward in Darktable.
A recurring theme there is that C1/LR miss fine-grained masking control for their HDR controls (blacks, shadows, highlights, whites), which is rather trivial in DT in a number of ways. Same for the (to me) too-coarse Clarity in C1, and too-fine Structure, where the Contrast EQ is just so much easier and more versatile to control. (E.g. increase contrast on flower stems but not petals)
But on the other hand, I find easy files with little masking quicker to process in C1/LR. And simple drawn raster masks. I miss simple drawn masks on Darktable. (Draw with low flow, like you draw with color)
Having never used LR I really don’t have an opinion on the program, although I know lots of people who use it and come away with great results.
Professionals may feel they can be more productive with LR, but I do this as a serious hobby, so quality is what matters to me. I don’t think that I’ve ever seen a serious review that said that LR will produce better results than darktable or Rawtherapee and I believe there’s reason to believe the FOSS programs can do as well or better.
What does bother me is the condescending attitude by some LR fan boys, particularly certain internet celebrities who I wouldn’t trust to recommend a decent monopod. I’m not exaggerating.
That and the subscription model. I hate subscription models.
Editing with Lightroom is utterly frustrating when you know what you are doing and you know what you want. I haven’t used it a lot, but it’s basically like using a cellphone flight simulator when you are used to the commercial airliner dashboard. Even my wife, who barely knows what she is doing (but surely knows what she wants), prefers darktable over Lightroom for the precise color control she can get in it. Lightroom is nice for people afraid of their computer, who want a use path drawn for them. Plus the color science is dated and puts ease of use before accuracy.
I think this is exactly why Lightroom is so popular. Most users don’t know what they are doing and don’t know what they want
Although I’m being somewhat facetious, there is some truth to it. Lightroom is very good for getting decent results when you’re starting out and just want to adjust some sliders, but not think too much about the ins and outs of raw processing. I was that person once. I just wanted my photos to “pop” and other vague ideas like that. darktable, ART and RT have taught me a lot, and especially that I still only know the tip of the iceberg. But that can only be a good thing.
I’m not denying that, but this fashion of calibrating everything for the lowest common denominator/clueless beginner is really getting in the way of getting stuff done properly and it’s annoying. Sure, the bulk of the market is the clueless beginner and people are willing to pay to avoid the burden of learning, so market dictates business. But companies always looking through you if you belong to the 2-10% of statistical outliers is kind of depressing. Everyone deserves their needs to be covered, no matter if they are a profitable market or not.
I fully agree, and that’s why we should all be very thankful for darktable and open source software. I can see why a publicly traded company would target the mass market, but it’s sad that the pursuit of profit always seems to win out and dictate trends / people’s expectations. But this is obviously not just an issue with digital photography…
Yet it doesn’t seem to be such an issue with digital painting or 3D rendering, which are fields not-so-far-away (still images, still creative, still sitting between art and technics). So there is something about photography that sets people’s expectations, and I’m guessing 120 years of Kodak marketing (“you press the button, we do the rest”) has something to do with that.
Lightroom is not the only raw editor, thankfully. There are plenty of choices that go a bit “deeper” than Lightroom.
ON1 and Silkypix come to mind, with a greater diversity of tools. Although I find their basic tools worse than Lightroom’s, some of the advanced filters in ON1, or the fancier options in Silkypix are rather neat. Silkypix is rather impressive anyway, and feels similar to Darktable in spirit somehow. They even have more-than-skin-deep documentation.
The other direction exists, too, of course, chiefly with Luminar and Photo Ninja, which seem to aim at an even less technical audience than Lightroom.
Capture One feels very similar to Lightroom. ACDSee, too. Zoner Photo and DxO and Iridient exist as well, but I have no experience with them. So, plenty of commercial options.
I think this will happen with any subscription you use - you subscribe with a monthly fee that is based on a agreed time frame. If you get out that means the remaining “rent” needs to be recalculated. So it sounds very normal to me.
I try to avoid software subscriptions though. Have only one annual one for a Wordpress theme. But not paying means no support, I can still use it though.
