I am gradually evolving my photo skills. From point-and-shoot cameras & Picasa to mirrorless camera & digiKam to raw shooting and darktable. Next upcoming project for the coming dark covid months is digitizing our old photos. I have already learned to store photo scans as TIFF. Now, I am looking for the most efficient workflow to produce quality restored photos. What is the best way to restore and edit the scanned photos in TIFF format: the built-in digiKam editor or darktable as well?
Latest version of darktable got a new module (negadoctor) specifically desgined to handle negatives, so I would start there.
I am scanning photos, not negatives. Can the negadoctor module also be used on photos?
No, you won’t need it on scanned photos, if the photos are positives or prints or inverted by the scan software.
Depending on what you may want to do with the images you may be looking at multiple software.
GIMP is likely to give you many tools you may need if you want to do spot touch-ups or general modifications (assuming the scans are in good shape themselves it may be all you need). Other cases might be better suited to RT/dt.