Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
Darktable is a fantastic alternative to Lightroom. It has more tools, and those tools have more advanced features to help you achieve your creative vision.
Today I want to show you how to get started with Darktable. This is part 1 of three in this series. At the bottom of this tutorial, you’ll find a link to the next article for getting started with Darktable.
Ready to cut the Adobe cord? Awesome! Let’s get started…
Darktable has just released its 3.4.0 version. As always, it’s completely free and available for Windows, iOS, and Linux. The open-source alternative to Lightroom has been more and more popular among photographers, and the new version brings a bunch of improvements. Some of them are improved tethering and live histogram, as well as color calibration. So let’s dive in and see what you get when you install Darktable 3.4.0.
Most of us probably never leave the realm of editing our images in a regular RGB colour space. But many applications also allow you the option to edit your images using Lab colour. What is Lab colour? How do we use it? and how does it benefit us?
Aurélien Pierre, developer of filmic module for the open-source editing software Darktable, recently put together a massive article (English version) covering everything you need to know about working in Lab colour. And while some of the steps might be specific to Darktable, the principles can be applied to many different editing applications.
Darktable is an open-source alternative to Lightroom, and it seems to be growing in popularity, especially since it became available for Windows. The new version is now available for Windows, iOS, and Linux, and just like the previous ones, it’s completely free.
Lightroom is still considered to be the leading software out there for digital asset management and raw processing. But it’s not the only one. There’s Capture One, Luminar, Exposure X4, and a host of others. But there’s one that seems to always be improving in popularity and functionality, and that’s Darktable.
Darktable is available for Windows, Mac and Linux, and it’s completely free. This video from Rico Richardson, coming via Anthony Morganti, is an overview of the basics of this pretty powerful RAW processor, and how to go about getting started with it for processing your images.
To use their own words, “Hell froze over”. Yes, that’s right, the open source raw processor Darktable has finally been ported over to Windows. And they intend to support it fully in the future. There are still a few features missing, like lack of printing support, and you need special drivers for tethering, but it’s here and it’s usable.
I am a huge proponent of the open source platform. Sure, there are two sides to the open source vs. proprietary argument, but it’s still too early in the week to be arguing something that heavy.
There are numerous reasons to use open source software for photo editing. Perhaps you prefer the Linux operating system, maybe you’re on a tight (or nonexistent) budget, or maybe you just wanna “stick it to The Man.” Whatever your reason, there are an increasing number of solutions available to you.
This is where Pixls.us comes in. Founder Pat David started the website as a resource for those looking to use open source editing software. There are treasure troves of information and quality tutorials for applications like Photoshop and Lightroom yet very little (in comparison) for programs like Gimp and Darktable. David aimed to change that.
You can find out more about John on his website and follow his adventures on YouTube.
His videos have over a hundred million views, have been extensively published by news outlets, and has even received recognition from a few film festivals, such as International Ocean Festival
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