Darktable available for Windows users

[richtbw]

"The Microsoft Windows roll out comes as part of Darktable’s 2.4.0 update and arrives largely in part thanks to longtime Darktable community member Peter Budai."

The 64 bit Windows version can be downloaded from their site:

https://www.darktable.org

Is this a viable opensource alternative to LR?

[Jorge Arguello]

I never heard about darktable before, but page looks nice.

[MarkChap]

As with everything - Buyer Beware
This is from their website about teh Windows Port, all I have to say is always make sure you know what you are installing

To cut a long story short, we are extremely pleased – albeit wary – to announce a very first official pre-alpha development snapshot for 64 bit Windows. We know it’s still buggy, but as a sign of goodwill and request for help in testing it we would like to ask you to give it a try. Please report useful bugs in our bug tracker.

[mikew09]

Can't say I have ever heard of it.
May be a good alternative for LR if that is all you need. Basic Adobe subscription is LR CC and PS CC but if not an Adobe subscriber would be worth considering once it has matured some. My old man always said, never buy a series one model, always wait for series two - ;-)

[richtbw]

Dark Table was released in 2009. Untill end of 2017, it was only available for Linux and Mac operating systems. Their latest version is also available for Windows, so yes there may be some bugs present. I have installed the Win version. Playing around with it and so far have not experienced any problems. Must say that understanding the way the controls operate requiqes a bit of work. Bit tied up with maintenance tasks around the house, so darktable will have to wait.

[Dazz1]

Is anyone using Darktable regularly? I am finding it simply amazing - but admit I have never used Adobe's LR. I am using the linux version and it is very stable.

[arthurking83]

I gave is a quick try out the other day, after the FSV thread.
Couldn't get it to do anything other than turn my perfectly acceptably exposed raw files(NEF) into pure white, approximately +5Ev over exposed mush.
Added as much -ve Ev compensation only to reveal cloudy purple mush rendered over a white background!



Have no idea what's going on.
Tried on D800E, D300 D5500 and D70s files.

Worked ok on jpgs tho.

[Dazz1]

I gave is a quick try out the other day, after the FSV thread.
Couldn't get it to do anything other than turn my perfectly acceptably exposed raw files(NEF) into pure white, approximately +5Ev over exposed mush.
Added as much -ve Ev compensation only to reveal cloudy purple mush rendered over a white background!



Have no idea what's going on.
Tried on D800E, D300 D5500 and D70s files.

Worked ok on jpgs tho.

Obviously some bugs there. I have been trying the linux version on my Canon RAW files and getting good results.

[arthurking83]

Obviously some bugs there.....

Turned this image:
D800E_DSD_2240.jpg

.. into this:
D800E_DSD_2240.jpg

No idea why.
Have installed again today. First install was v2.4.1, but today downloaded and installed v2.4.2

Have had a quick look through more directories, and strangely some D800 files worked fine, some D5500 files worked fine too. Now I can't recall which D5500 files it opened in a similar way.
The problem files(at least for the D800E that I can currently locate) are newer/later files .. ie. shot at a later date.

In the lighttable module, the preview file displays fine unless I open that raw file and make any adjustment.
Obviously, before any adjustment is made, it relies on the embedded jpg file(s) within the raw file to display the previews.
But once the raw file has had any tweak added, even if removed, it then creates it's own preview jpg file .. and once that's done, it then displays the preview file as you see the whitewashed image above.

Mucking about a bit for the past half hour or so, I can open most(if not all) D800E images

I'll poke about a bit more to see if I can figure out why it's doing the above whitewashed rendering on some files, and not on earlier files.

[Dazz1]

No idea why.
Have installed again today. First install was v2.4.1, but today downloaded and installed v2.4.2

Have had a quick look through more directories, and strangely some D800 files worked fine, some D5500 files worked fine too. Now I can't recall which D5500 files it opened in a similar way.
The problem files(at least for the D800E that I can currently locate) are newer/later files .. ie. shot at a later date.

In the lighttable module, the preview file displays fine unless I open that raw file and make any adjustment.
Obviously, before any adjustment is made, it relies on the embedded jpg file(s) within the raw file to display the previews.

There is a setting you can change to make it use the RAW, but of course it will be slower.

But once the raw file has had any tweak added, even if removed, it then creates it's own preview jpg file .. and once that's done, it then displays the preview file as you see the whitewashed image above.

Mucking about a bit for the past half hour or so, I can open most(if not all) D800E images

I'll poke about a bit more to see if I can figure out why it's doing the above whitewashed rendering on some files, and not on earlier files.

I was figuring they had a fault in the D800E profile until you said older ones are working fine.

I could try one of the weird ones under linux if you like (and can put it somewhere I can download).

- - - Updated - - -

An idea, when you load a whitewashed one, check which modules have been auto-applied (click on the left hand "Show only active modules" icon - looks like a power button) in the darkroom) and see if one of them has a silly setting.


oh, and did you see the silly April 1st easter egg this morning when you started Darktable? Mine pops up a Space invaders game as the first screen

[arthurking83]

Yes! .. wondering WTH!!(this is a family friendly website .. the actual reaction had an 'F' in there when I saw the space invaders screen!)

Anyhow, in the end it was easy to work out what the issue is, and why I saw it on some files(D5500, D300, D800E and D70s) .. but then not on others.

Originally I viewed/opened raw files I've already edited.
Like I said in my last post, the initial thumbnails are displayed as per the embedded jpg preview files in the raw.
When I edit with Nikon software, the edited raw file will get the embedded jpg preview files re rendered to reflect the edit made.

Unedited files just look like the original images straight from camera .. usually flat and colourless, or incorrect WB .. or whatever.

So the problem in DT turns out to be, that if the NEF file is edited by Nikon's (older) software, it has trouble reading the NEF file, as Nikon's older software does update the internal XML type data in the NEF file directly .. and update the embedded thumbnail images.

So I can see the thumbnails fine in DT, just when I load those edited images I see those weird white images.
The more accurate description of what DT is doing is not over exposure, it's just a convolution of the raw data. When exposure compensation is applied, or a massively under exposed image is loaded in DT, the image goes all funky looking.. weird purple/magenta squiggly lines and patterns and stuff like that .. and the massive white-space.

So I tried a test:
Selected a random image in ViewNX2, edited (just WB), saved and then reset the image back to it's original style again.
(the WB edit was a wild, totally goofy value .. used a WB setting of TN-A1 which has a Kelvin value of approx 2400K, then tweaked that value down to 2100K. moved the tint slider down to -12(Magenta), and it rendered the sunset image a deep purple!)

Opened the edited raw file and as expected, DT(via it's lighttable module) displayed the thumbnail with the same purple hue. Opened in DT and as expected the image had the weird rendering.

Closed DT, back in ViewNX2, reset the image back to original WB.
DT then took a bit of time to create a re rendering of that 'purple' version of the raw file, I guess a database syncing issue, and after a while displayed that raw file with the correct WB setting. Tried to open the rest raw file but DT rendered the same weirdy rendering with the white-space and purple crazing again.
Not only does it incorrectly display the raw file in terms of its raw data, but it also assumes that it's a landscape orientation, when it's in fact a portrait orientated image.
So once some of the raw file has been manipulated, it has trouble reading that data for some reason.
So far haven't seen any issue if that raw data manipulation is restricted to keywording/ITPC or ratings/labelling data.

*note that I prefer my raw data(original or edited) to be contained within the raw file .. ie. ala Nikon's (old) software style. Nikon's new software uses the more common method of reading external XML data files for each image, which I don't like.

[Dazz1]

Yes! .. wondering WTH!!(this is a family friendly website .. the actual reaction had an 'F' in there when I saw the space invaders screen!)

Anyhow, in the end it was easy to work out what the issue is, and why I saw it on some files(D5500, D300, D800E and D70s) .. but then not on others.

Originally I viewed/opened raw files I've already edited.
Like I said in my last post, the initial thumbnails are displayed as per the embedded jpg preview files in the raw.
When I edit with Nikon software, the edited raw file will get the embedded jpg preview files re rendered to reflect the edit made.

Unedited files just look like the original images straight from camera .. usually flat and colourless, or incorrect WB .. or whatever.

So the problem in DT turns out to be, that if the NEF file is edited by Nikon's (older) software, it has trouble reading the NEF file, as Nikon's older software does update the internal XML type data in the NEF file directly .. and update the embedded thumbnail images.

So I can see the thumbnails fine in DT, just when I load those edited images I see those weird white images.
The more accurate description of what DT is doing is not over exposure, it's just a convolution of the raw data. When exposure compensation is applied, or a massively under exposed image is loaded in DT, the image goes all funky looking.. weird purple/magenta squiggly lines and patterns and stuff like that .. and the massive white-space.

So I tried a test:
Selected a random image in ViewNX2, edited (just WB), saved and then reset the image back to it's original style again.
(the WB edit was a wild, totally goofy value .. used a WB setting of TN-A1 which has a Kelvin value of approx 2400K, then tweaked that value down to 2100K. moved the tint slider down to -12(Magenta), and it rendered the sunset image a deep purple!)

Opened the edited raw file and as expected, DT(via it's lighttable module) displayed the thumbnail with the same purple hue. Opened in DT and as expected the image had the weird rendering.

Closed DT, back in ViewNX2, reset the image back to original WB.
DT then took a bit of time to create a re rendering of that 'purple' version of the raw file, I guess a database syncing issue, and after a while displayed that raw file with the correct WB setting. Tried to open the rest raw file but DT rendered the same weirdy rendering with the white-space and purple crazing again.
Not only does it incorrectly display the raw file in terms of its raw data, but it also assumes that it's a landscape orientation, when it's in fact a portrait orientated image.
So once some of the raw file has been manipulated, it has trouble reading that data for some reason.
So far haven't seen any issue if that raw data manipulation is restricted to keywording/ITPC or ratings/labelling data.

*note that I prefer my raw data(original or edited) to be contained within the raw file .. ie. ala Nikon's (old) software style. Nikon's new software uses the more common method of reading external XML data files for each image, which I don't like.

I actually prefer the software to leave original file well alone. Continually rewriting large files to change small settings seems wrong to me. Same issue with audio files and meta tags.

DT doesn't change the preview jpg even. It stores all thumbnails in a database (initially extracted from the RAW file), and just updates the database with the jpg generated after any edits are done. This means the original RAW file is left alone and it's embedded jpg correctly represents it's RAW data as processed by the camera.

So the problem you are having is because of Nikon's old way of doing things, and it seems they have seen the error of their ways and now uses xml files. I bet the developers of DT have only taken the newer Nikon editing into account.

[richtbw]

Have been playing around with Darktable Win. Must say it is taking a bit of effort to get the hang of things. The way in which the various controls are set out is a bit foreign still.

[Dazz1]

Have been playing around with Darktable Win. Must say it is taking a bit of effort to get the hang of things. The way in which the various controls are set out is a bit foreign still.

Happens every time I switch. Happily I have settled in nicely with it. I found the first thing to do is make sure you put all the usual controls in the favourite list, then tweak the defaults on the things that you do every time, and make as many automatic as you can.

[richtbw]

Happens every time I switch. Happily I have settled in nicely with it. I found the first thing to do is make sure you put all the usual controls in the favourite list, then tweak the defaults on the things that you do every time, and make as many automatic as you can.

Thanks. Things a bit hectic right now. Will keep your suggestions in mind. What other software were/are you using?