You just need to read the manual, watch videos, and ask the really helpful community for help. Still, I’d never say that Darktable doesn’t work well. In my opinion, a quick and easy way to adjust the exposure is more important than the flexibility which Darktable offers. It didn’t happen to any other image, but unfortunately, it was the first picture I tried. Color Adjustments couldn’t help to fix it and so I needed to leave that photograph unedited. When I tried to edit a severely overexposed sky, whatever I tried in Darktable turned the blown highlights purple. I find it quite exciting and deliberating, at least.Īfter playing around with the modules, I only faced one major and unsolvable problem. Every editing workflow results in a different outcome. complicated) than Lightroom, but once you have an idea what you’re doing, it’s also amazingly flexible. There is also a Basic Adjustments module for Darktable, but I won’t recommend it.ĭarktable is definitely more complex (i.e. Probably there is a way around it, too, but I couldn’t find it quick enough.Īt least the Tone Curve of Darktable is quite straight forward, but as you might know, a tone curve can never replace the Basic Adjustments. I found myself using Exposure, Filmic RGB, Base Curve, and Shadows and Highlights to get a proper exposure in every area of my photograph.įour modules for what can be achieved in the Local Adjustments alone? Not too handy, especially as scrolling between the modules requires pointing at the scroll bar. In the end, you will have to open more than one module to achieve what the Basic Adjustment panel in Lightroom does. However, different modules bring you to the same result.
The topic is quite complex and there is a lot of development at the moment. While some of the modules still work in the LAB space, others work in RGB. There is a default option for the order of the modules and you should really not change them if you’re not an expert.Īlso, there is some issue with the color space. Here, you will come across the huge difference between the two programs. While cropping an image is done in one module alone, setting the exposure is not that easy in Darktable. Round Two: Shadows, Highlights, and Overall Exposure Round one clearly goes to Lightroom, although the ideas of Darktable seemed great. The operation was slow and buggy, often resulting in strange angles that I didn’t plan.Ī unique way to shift values with your mouse isn't enough: It needs to run smoothly.
Instead of taking ten seconds to adjust the size and angle, it took me minutes. Again, I guess there will be a solution, somehow. The Crop module seemed quite impressive – until I used it. In Lightroom, I can’t use the slider for the smallest adjustments, but need to type a number instead. Moreover, when you right-click on a dial, a smart map appears and offers you more control about small or bigger changes. Besides the angle and aspect, I can also adjust the grid in more detail. The Crop module in Darktable offers me some more options and gives me a little more information about the changes. I am used to a quick and easy two-click solution in Lightroom. The first step in editing my photographs has always been resizing a photograph and – god forgive me, but after all those years I still suffer from slightly skew horizons – level the photograph. Yet, usability is one of the most important features for any modern software. Whenever I did not achieve to reach my goals with Darktable, I bet there is a solution. Lightroom on the other side is quite linear when it comes to its workflow. In Darktable, there are a lot of different methods (I’d say infinite) to reach your editing goals with only slight differences. A thin but stable foundation for comparison.ĭisclaimer: I tested Darktable a lot during the last few weeks, listened to the last article’s recommendations, and took a bit of information from everywhere. Both programs are made to make photographs look good, both programs work non-destructive and both of them offer different modules. Darktable is much more complex and works like a mixture of adjustment layers from Photoshop on a Lightroom-like surface.Īpples and oranges can both be eaten.
Lightroom and Darktable operate very differently which is actually why this topic is so interesting to me. In the case of the editing process, it’s a little more like comparing apples with oranges. Although some of the comments of the article emphasized the unexpected depth behind Darktable’s Lighttable, both programs worked quite similar. Can We Compare Two Such Different Programs?Ĭomparing Darktable and Lightroom in its capabilities as a photography library wasn’t all that hard.
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