Hello Bruce, I just want to say thank you. I really, really enjoy the focused and unagitated style of your tutorials that makes it much easier for me to take in the information than the frankly manic style that a lot of TH-camrs nowadays employ. :)
Hi Bruce: Thanks for so patiently explaining the import and the layout. Looking forward to going through the next in the series. I'm coming from Adobe Bridge through ACR to PS if required. I used Lightroom for sometime, but when they re-introduced the import option, I decided to go back to exporting from Bridge. I have been toying with the idea of letting go of my adobe subscription and switching over. Will play with both for sometime, and will take a call. Regards from India.
That was how I transitioned, too. I set up darktable alongside Lightroom, and just kept playing around, and learning more annoy what it could do. Until eventually I felt comfortable in letting Lightroom go. Now, I'd never go back!
I am trying to get into photography and a friend suggested using dark table as a potential photo editor.. I have no idea what I am doing but found your video is extremely helpful.. cheers!
Cheers Bruce, I've been very hesitant about moving away from Adobe Lightroom just because of it being like a pair of old slippers and I'm not very good at learning quickly because of my medication for my special needs (epilepsy) which makes it worse 😂. After watching your videos and getting into Darktable more I managed to get the confidence to have moved away from Adobe's subscriptions and into a great piece of software to edit my photos, so just wanted to pass on my gratitude and thank you for your excellent detailed and to the point videos. 👍
Cheers, mate! You are amazing for going through all these features all over again to take into account the latest variations. You must be hoping the Darktable developers stop tweaking the bloody UI! LOL
Thanks Bruce another brilliant video on Darktable. I’m making the transition from Lightroom (for the usual reasons) and find your series invaluable in understanding how good and how powerful this software is. Keep up the good work. Ps I’m in old South Wales 😀
Moral of the story is look for the latest version that Bruce is guiding on as I was struggling using one of his excellent earlier videos and there have been changes between version 3.2 and 3.4 in terms of layout and so on .
Bruce, thanks for your great videos, which I have just discovered. I'm new to shooting raw (+jpg) and am trying to decide whether to use darktable or digikam for photo management, especially rating and culling. Comments welcome... esp. whether XMP files are compatible across tools. (You've convinced me to get over my fear of sidecar clutter :) Also: in dt, is there a way I can rate / cull JPGs and have the same rating applied to the corresponding raw file?
Terry, I'm not sure about compatability between apps. Some use ..xmp, and some just use .xmp. Maybe just do a test between dt and dk and see if the .xmp files are generated using the same naming convention. If so, then you should be able to swap seamlessly between the two. However, you should expect that darktable (and probably dk as well) will throw a message to the tune of "this file/the files have been modified by another application. Do you want to replace or merge the changes?". As for applying ratings from jpegs to adjacent RAW files... not sure on that one.
Hi Bruce, thank for this video. I have a simple question: let say that I have a ARW picture and I like the way that Lighttable display it: how can I export the picture in order to get a jpeg exactly as showed by Lighttable? The point is that sometime I am not good to edit pictures so I would export as displayed by Lighttable. Thanks
Sadly, you can't. The initial preview that you get when you import your RAWs into darktable, is the camera-created jpeg. But the minute you go to the develop page in darktable, dt discards the camera jpeg and gives you the RAW data. If you want to keep the in-camera jpeg look, you'll need to set your camera to shoot RAW+jpeg.
Bruce, nice work as always. When you move a group of images off your working platform to archive, how do you keep track of them so you can find something later? Thanks
Thank you for providing information about DarkTable I shoot medium format images in film scanning my images can be an issue but handleing using DarkTable I hope could be far better than using other software.
Someone recently mentioned Darktable to me and I need to know if this is something I should consider using. I shoot mostly headshots and events. I use Adobe Bridge, Photoshop and a couple of software applications that I also sometimes use as a Photoshop filter/plugin. Of what use is Darktable?
darktable will be a replacement for Lightroom. It's not going to offer you what you can do in Photoshop. Nor does it have plug-in support. It's a RAW development environment, and a library manager.
Pretty much been using Darktable for years and yet I learn new stuff every time I watch one of your videos. Culling mode. Never even saw that feature :-) Two bits of advice for new users regarding importing: 1) Don't recursively collect all your photos in one go. It's probably not what you want and takes a long time. If you have your photos organized by folder, just go by folder and import photos when you are actually going to work on them. 2) Don't move your photos after you import them or you will have to deal with Darktable having a lot of broken links to photos. Basically, it has a DB that stores your collections and keeping it in sync with what is on your disk is annoying. If you need to move, do it from within darktable. There are also ways to clean up missing photo locations from your collections db but that's not a beginner's topic. All your edits and tags are not affected by this BTW, those live in little side car files next to your images. I have one friend that got surprised by that happening to his entire image collection (see #1). If you are used to Lightroom, this works different than that. In Darktable the database does not store your image or your edits, just meta information about your collections or recent imports. I've used it for years without bothering to even create collections; entirely optional. Sidecar files are awesome BTW. You can copy them along with the photo to another computer and have all your edits available there; also great if you want to share your edits via e.g. pixl.us or some other social media site.
It's not darktable that's the issue. It's a dependency known as exiv2 and to the best of my knowledge, no, they still don't have permission from canon to work with .CR3 files.
I have followed the developing of cr3-support, like a fly is following the light :). Darktable is using Exiv2 which needs to support cr3. They have an issue with the license and the law. But it seems they have fixed that now and are working on a new version(0.27.4) with support for cr3. If everything goes well, the new version will be released this spring with support for cr3. As you I really looking forward to have support for cr3. Until then I am using Adobe Dng converter. It works really great. If you are a Linux-user it works perfectly with wine. For more information: github.com/Exiv2/exiv2/issues/1229#
I'm sorry, but this just looks like a list of new features for people who already know the program instead of an introduction for people who are not familiar with the program. First you tell people to "import images to the program" but never ever tell people what that actually does. All you do is tell people that it doesn't copy files from their original location. Newbies, especially newbies who are photography people and are not computer people, will have absolutely no idea what you mean by "import" or "in the program." You need to tell people that the program uses a database to store information about the images. That the database stores the location of the images, and a thumbnail of the images, as well as metadata extracted from the images. You probably even need to give a quick explanation of what metadata is. After all you are addressing "newbies." Next you start right in on talking about manipulating and copying parts of a history with only a side-mention that you're talking about the history of the processing of an image. Most people who have not used image editing software will have no idea what you mean. You have to at least explain to people why they would be using dark table in the first place. And that is to make changes to how the image looks. You don't have to get too technical for a newbies introductory video. But you can tell them that you make those changes in steps, and those steps are stored in order, and we call that a history. It is the history of all the steps we have taken to modify the image. Then you tell them that that history of steps is also stored in the database. And THEN you can tell them about copying a part of a history from one image to another. But not before. You have utterly forgotten the first rule of communication: Know your audience. You already named your audience. You have specified that your audience is newbies. And then you start right in assuming they already know half of what the program does and how it does it.
@@audio2u I'm new to darktable. I'm not new to computers. Your video is spot on for someone who is new to darktable. It's not your job to tell someone what importing a file means. That's computer 101. Of course, nothing prevents the author of the post from making his own better video to correct your alleged shortcommings. ;-) Cheers from Canada.
Absolutely concur. I don't claim exclusive ownership of the right to produce darktable videos. If someone believes they can do a better job, go for it! 😃
This video makes more sense to me as I have the 3.4 version. Still very new to me. With your help I'm slowly getting there. Thank you.
Great to hear, Bob! 😃
Hello Bruce,
I just want to say thank you. I really, really enjoy the focused and unagitated style of your tutorials that makes it much easier for me to take in the information than the frankly manic style that a lot of TH-camrs nowadays employ. :)
Glad you like them!
Hi Bruce: Thanks for so patiently explaining the import and the layout. Looking forward to going through the next in the series. I'm coming from Adobe Bridge through ACR to PS if required. I used Lightroom for sometime, but when they re-introduced the import option, I decided to go back to exporting from Bridge. I have been toying with the idea of letting go of my adobe subscription and switching over. Will play with both for sometime, and will take a call. Regards from India.
That was how I transitioned, too. I set up darktable alongside Lightroom, and just kept playing around, and learning more annoy what it could do. Until eventually I felt comfortable in letting Lightroom go. Now, I'd never go back!
I am trying to get into photography and a friend suggested using dark table as a potential photo editor.. I have no idea what I am doing but found your video is extremely helpful.. cheers!
Thanks Darian!
Cheers Bruce, I've been very hesitant about moving away from Adobe Lightroom just because of it being like a pair of old slippers and I'm not very good at learning quickly because of my medication for my special needs (epilepsy) which makes it worse 😂. After watching your videos and getting into Darktable more I managed to get the confidence to have moved away from Adobe's subscriptions and into a great piece of software to edit my photos, so just wanted to pass on my gratitude and thank you for your excellent detailed and to the point videos. 👍
Thanks Will! Glad you have found my videos helpful.
Cheers, mate! You are amazing for going through all these features all over again to take into account the latest variations. You must be hoping the Darktable developers stop tweaking the bloody UI! LOL
Haha. Well, at least it gives me fodder for more videos! :)
Thanks Bruce another brilliant video on Darktable. I’m making the transition from Lightroom (for the usual reasons) and find your series invaluable in understanding how good and how powerful this software is. Keep up the good work. Ps I’m in old South Wales 😀
Don't know a Brian. But thanks.
Sorry Bruce predictive text strikes again 🤪
Great tutorial (as always). Good job. I'm waiting for the next one. Best regards.
Cheers!
Thanks Bruce much appreciated, looking forward to the next episodes.
Cheers!
Very helpful Bruce
Cheers!
Moral of the story is look for the latest version that Bruce is guiding on as I was struggling using one of his excellent earlier videos and there have been changes between version 3.2 and 3.4 in terms of layout and so on .
Yeah, that's why I now mention at the start of my videos which version of darktable I'm using.
Bruce, thanks for your great videos, which I have just discovered. I'm new to shooting raw (+jpg) and am trying to decide whether to use darktable or digikam for photo management, especially rating and culling. Comments welcome... esp. whether XMP files are compatible across tools. (You've convinced me to get over my fear of sidecar clutter :) Also: in dt, is there a way I can rate / cull JPGs and have the same rating applied to the corresponding raw file?
Terry, I'm not sure about compatability between apps. Some use ..xmp, and some just use .xmp.
Maybe just do a test between dt and dk and see if the .xmp files are generated using the same naming convention. If so, then you should be able to swap seamlessly between the two. However, you should expect that darktable (and probably dk as well) will throw a message to the tune of "this file/the files have been modified by another application. Do you want to replace or merge the changes?".
As for applying ratings from jpegs to adjacent RAW files... not sure on that one.
@@audio2u Thanks Bruce!
just what i needed
Cheers!
Hi Bruce, thank for this video. I have a simple question: let say that I have a ARW picture and I like the way that Lighttable display it: how can I export the picture in order to get a jpeg exactly as showed by Lighttable? The point is that sometime I am not good to edit pictures so I would export as displayed by Lighttable. Thanks
Sadly, you can't. The initial preview that you get when you import your RAWs into darktable, is the camera-created jpeg. But the minute you go to the develop page in darktable, dt discards the camera jpeg and gives you the RAW data. If you want to keep the in-camera jpeg look, you'll need to set your camera to shoot RAW+jpeg.
Clear. Thanks!
Bruce, nice work as always. When you move a group of images off your working platform to archive, how do you keep track of them so you can find something later? Thanks
I have Lucky Backup (Linux) set to just copy my entire photos folder to an external (removable) HDD. So that copies the xmp files as well.
Thank you for providing information about DarkTable I shoot medium format images in film scanning my images can be an issue but handleing using DarkTable I hope could be far better than using other software.
Cheers.
hi Bruce, just installed Rapid Photo Down loader and i like it thank you
Cheers! 😃
Someone recently mentioned Darktable to me and I need to know if this is something I should consider using. I shoot mostly headshots and events. I use Adobe Bridge, Photoshop and a couple of software applications that I also sometimes use as a Photoshop filter/plugin. Of what use is Darktable?
darktable will be a replacement for Lightroom. It's not going to offer you what you can do in Photoshop. Nor does it have plug-in support.
It's a RAW development environment, and a library manager.
@@audio2u Thanks Bruce.
Really great tutorial as always :).
But version 3.4 is sooo old ;). You can now download 3.4.1! :)
Yes!
Callback to ep. 69, nice
A lot of stuff changed, so, I felt it was time.
Pretty much been using Darktable for years and yet I learn new stuff every time I watch one of your videos. Culling mode. Never even saw that feature :-)
Two bits of advice for new users regarding importing:
1) Don't recursively collect all your photos in one go. It's probably not what you want and takes a long time. If you have your photos organized by folder, just go by folder and import photos when you are actually going to work on them.
2) Don't move your photos after you import them or you will have to deal with Darktable having a lot of broken links to photos. Basically, it has a DB that stores your collections and keeping it in sync with what is on your disk is annoying. If you need to move, do it from within darktable. There are also ways to clean up missing photo locations from your collections db but that's not a beginner's topic.
All your edits and tags are not affected by this BTW, those live in little side car files next to your images. I have one friend that got surprised by that happening to his entire image collection (see #1). If you are used to Lightroom, this works different than that. In Darktable the database does not store your image or your edits, just meta information about your collections or recent imports. I've used it for years without bothering to even create collections; entirely optional.
Sidecar files are awesome BTW. You can copy them along with the photo to another computer and have all your edits available there; also great if you want to share your edits via e.g. pixl.us or some other social media site.
Really sorry I never saw this comment until 5 months after you posted it! Sorry about that.
Great points, all.
Hi Bruce.... Has darktable been updated to accept CR3 files?
It's not darktable that's the issue. It's a dependency known as exiv2 and to the best of my knowledge, no, they still don't have permission from canon to work with .CR3 files.
I have followed the developing of cr3-support, like a fly is following the light :).
Darktable is using Exiv2 which needs to support cr3. They have an issue with the license and the law. But it seems they have fixed that now and are working on a new version(0.27.4) with support for cr3.
If everything goes well, the new version will be released this spring with support for cr3.
As you I really looking forward to have support for cr3. Until then I am using Adobe Dng converter. It works really great. If you are a Linux-user it works perfectly with wine.
For more information:
github.com/Exiv2/exiv2/issues/1229#
I'm sorry, but this just looks like a list of new features for people who already know the program instead of an introduction for people who are not familiar with the program. First you tell people to "import images to the program" but never ever tell people what that actually does. All you do is tell people that it doesn't copy files from their original location. Newbies, especially newbies who are photography people and are not computer people, will have absolutely no idea what you mean by "import" or "in the program." You need to tell people that the program uses a database to store information about the images. That the database stores the location of the images, and a thumbnail of the images, as well as metadata extracted from the images. You probably even need to give a quick explanation of what metadata is. After all you are addressing "newbies."
Next you start right in on talking about manipulating and copying parts of a history with only a side-mention that you're talking about the history of the processing of an image. Most people who have not used image editing software will have no idea what you mean. You have to at least explain to people why they would be using dark table in the first place. And that is to make changes to how the image looks. You don't have to get too technical for a newbies introductory video. But you can tell them that you make those changes in steps, and those steps are stored in order, and we call that a history. It is the history of all the steps we have taken to modify the image. Then you tell them that that history of steps is also stored in the database. And THEN you can tell them about copying a part of a history from one image to another. But not before.
You have utterly forgotten the first rule of communication: Know your audience. You already named your audience. You have specified that your audience is newbies. And then you start right in assuming they already know half of what the program does and how it does it.
Thanks for the input.
@@audio2u Should maybe name this video series "recap of my 80 other free videos that are awesome" :)
@@audio2u I'm new to darktable. I'm not new to computers. Your video is spot on for someone who is new to darktable. It's not your job to tell someone what importing a file means. That's computer 101. Of course, nothing prevents the author of the post from making his own better video to correct your alleged shortcommings. ;-) Cheers from Canada.
Absolutely concur. I don't claim exclusive ownership of the right to produce darktable videos. If someone believes they can do a better job, go for it! 😃