At 6:20 I say "adjust the temperature to our taste". That is slightly misleading, I didn't realise that this might be understood as "you're free to make it sepia". It is very important to get the colour temperature as close to neutral as possible, as the rest of the colour modifications will use that as a reference point. "To our taste" was supposed to mean that you can "eyeball" the neutral colours yourself, within reasonable error, as there's no "ground truth" in this photo in particular.
It's a part of the pipeline, so you cannot really skip it. There are alternative modules like Sigmoid, but I don't recommend using them. My advice would be to invest the time to understand filmic, this will help achieve the best results in the long run.
Very well demonstrated and explained. You have filled in some gaps in my dt knowledge. Excellently produced first dt video. I look forward to more. Thank you.
Found this as first hit on "darktable 3.8". I started to use it a few days ago, got my camera 4 years ago but for a long time no other than Lightroom supported CR3 files (and I didn't want to go the DNG route). Had seen another guide somewhere that helped with migrating things out of Lightroom. Then I developed a few photos just by gut feeling looking around the modules. Nice to learn a bit of what to use, e.g. I had not touched any setting in "filmic rgb" module.
There's a bit of a gap between Lightroom and Darktable. Lightroom is fast, capable and user-friendly software that produces good results without exposing the user with technicalities. However in Darktable, you have the complete control of what is happening, so if you master Darktable and Scene-referred workflow, it will objectively produce better results than Lightroom. It's worth your time!
Thank you for this this video. It is so well done! I was really looking for an accessible introduction to the filmic workflow in Darktable to share with my friends, and this is it. Looking forward to more videos on this!
I'm glad to be useful! Currently working on some more content regarding 'filmic rgb', but I really need to slow down and not flood the viewer with misinformation. Hopefully it's going to be worth the wait! Thanks for the kind words!
@@StudioPetrikas I'm sure it will be, and for sure such approach is the best. It is always hard to strike a balance between being accessible and avoiding mystifying simplification. At the same time, there is really a lot of need for such content, as the omnipresence of "rat piss yellow" demonstrates!
Ok. I've been using darktable WRONG for so long. I followed your instructions and explanations and everything made sense. That clipping highlights with the sun and strong lights had me crazy. I looked all over for a solution. Even watched a 30 min video by Aurélien and I thought that was so confusing and unnecessarily long. Just by chance I stumbled upon your video and so much makes sense now. THANK YOU!
Great video, fast moving, technical but not to technical. One point...Aurelien Pierre says the color calibration/white balance is not a creative tool, he says you need to get it as accurate as possible then do your color adjustments using Color Balance RGB.
Perhaps as a technical WB tool but remember it also had channel mixer tabs and brightness and colorfulness tab and so is for sure a creative tool....also it is very common to tweak WB to your eye.... your color may no longer be "accurate" but that is not always the goal and color accurate edits can even be boring for some scenes...... as long as you know the outcome there are no rules...AP also often says use your eyes.... in fact many times he says this when people get rigid about modules and editing rules...
Hi, thanks! He's right, Color Calibration is not a 'creative tool'. We always need to nail down the 'white balance' (Illuminant + Temp) first, then build everything on top. That being said, I didn't have a gray card in the shot; meaning that I cannot accurately 'measure' it from the photo itself. I could use, for instance, the black rucksack as reference, but I am not certain it is perfectly achromatic (neutral). So this time, I just eyeballed it. I'd say it's really important to set the illuminant right, the temperature is a tiny bit more flexible. [EDIT: The "CAT" Tab of the Color Calibration module is not a creative tool. However the Color Calibration module itself CAN be used as creative tool (with the help of module duplication and masking, as well as simulating certain effects by changing the input R G and B values].
@@StudioPetrikas You need to qualify that . Perhaps correct as it pertains to WB . But the module or tool is also the channel mixer and has color and brightness tabs so use as a second or multiple instance for sure it is a creative tool
@@emrg777 since we're still commenting under the video that's called introduction, it's best not to mix in advanced techniques into the pool. The module itself is capable of doing creative adjustments, however it's main purpose is nailing the neutrals first.
@@StudioPetrikas For sure and I agree, but saying definitively by using the words not creative could be misleading was my main point...your reply to me is still simple and more accurate I think...its splitting hairs for sure but using absolutes like "not" implies not and clearly the module is far more capable and not limited to WB .. Its not really that important...
Thank you: Very herlpful for this newbie to Darktable. The single most frustrating aspect of this software I have encountered is the GUI's color palette. What were the dewigners thinking, placing light grey text and icons on a dark grey background? The other audio / video processing packages I use offer either base colors with strong contrast differentials, or allow the user to select his/her own from a menu. For someone with 70+ year old eyes, grey on grey is beyond challenging, even on a 27" 4K monitor.
Well, it's a difficult place to be for the designers. Higher contrast UI interferes with perception and might impede your ability to grade your images without bias; it is crucial that the UI is as close to neutral gray as possible. I do understand it's painful for many users, I myself had to do some minor adjustments to make it comfortable for me as well.
Can you give me more details about what you mean by saying "handle"? Exporting is way slower than Lightroom, but other than that, Darktable should cause no problems dealing with larger quantities of photos.
I am forced to gloss over many things, just beacause this is a beginner's guide, and I don't want to overload the viewer with information that is not absolutely crucial. In short, it hands over the "White Balance" control from the "White Balance" module to the Colour Calibration module. Darktable has an incredibly detail and useful documentation, that expands on this setting: docs.darktable.org/usermanual/3.8/en/preferences-settings/processing/
Really nice tutorial, I am just starting on my photography journey and am completely lost when it comes to editing. You showed me that I am totally overthinking having to adjust all these different settings to get a nice picture. Made this a simple and clean process and got clean quick results. My only real question is what exactly is the xmp file? And does dark table copy the picture into its program or does dark table NOT have non destructive editing ?
The xmp file holds all your edits in a "more or less" text format (xml). Darktable does not modify the original file that came from the camera, and writes all the changes to the xmp file (also called "sidecar"). It is fully non-destructive. You also have a history stack on your left panel when in the "darkroom" tab of Darktable. You can rollback to any point in your editing process.
@@StudioPetrikas very cool to know! So I’m alittle dense when it comes to this. Most of the time the way I import my pictures is I have a usb to sd card adapter. I would plug this device in and drag all the files from the sd car onto my hard drive. Now when I load them into dark table. What happens? Is the image directly copied from my hard drive into dark table and then when I export my edited image it’ll be saved totally different from my original image?
@@thebutcher1412 after copying, when you load your files into Darktable, Darkable writes a . xmp file with the same filename as the original image. All the edits will be saved in that xmp file, and the original file will remain unchanged. However, the xmp file needs the original file, as the xmp file is just your edits, but not the picture itself. After you use Darktable to export, you get a brand new file in your chosen format. The original remains unchanged. In the end, you will have: 1. The original file that came from your camera 2. A sidecar (xmp) file that needs to go with your original file, that keeps all the edits you made in Dakrtable 3. The exported/output file, that is a formed picture, with all the edits "baked in". Usually in JPG format. I hope this makes sense. Feel free to ask for more specifics
@@StudioPetrikas perfect that really did clear it up for me l. Now it all makes sense I appreciate this and will be finishing your dark table for beginners. Do you still use darktable exclusively in place of Lightroom and Gimp in place of photoshop ?
Hi.. thanks for this video.. I am new to dark table and this is a good lesson for me.. I have a question though.. the bar at the bottom where the lightbulb is not showing for me.. not sure what setting I messed around with.. how can I get it back?
There's a little arrow *below* the timeline, at the centre of the screen (very bottom). Click it multiple times to cycle between toolbar display modes.
I saw that the photo you exported was only 2.15 MB. While in programs like GIMP, I could export to 10 MB or more. Doesn't small file size also lower the quality of the image? Or is it just my misconception?
File size depends on many factors, such as image size, compression, bit-depth, etc. File size shouldn't be used as an indication for quality, however, bigger file = more data. In the video, I resized the image to fit into 3000x3000 pixels, meaning the file size will be smaller. JPEG quality is also set to 95 for balance between quality and file size.
@@StudioPetrikas I figured something today. When I export my file as 4x5 the size is small (2 Mb) but when I exported for print of size 8x10 then it is big (12 Mb). I think the small file size is appropriate for social media where the quality does not matter a whole lot?
It's really annoying when you don't edit any settings or hotkeys and both my UI and hotkeys are completely different. Makes following this guide, or pretty much any of the guides, really difficult.
I think if your UI is completely different, you've got the wrong software open. This is default Darktable with darker colours. If you have a custom UI setup, it's on you to know where you've put your stuff.
@@StudioPetrikas I have Darktable 4.8.0 open. I have not customed the UI. I have not altered the hotkeys from default. So yeah... I appreciate the prompt response but it's not really that helpful.
Teaching beginners use hotkeys is just bad practice. You have to understand what you're doing before optimising your workflow. What are you missing? Can you give me an example? Have you set auto-apply pixel workflow defaults to filmic? (in the settings, beginning of the video)
The photo you chose first has to be one of worst examples of photography I've ever seen -- I'd toss the photo out and move on. But you kept saying: "Now let's resolve that huge glaring 'sun' spot and the overblown water". Then more talking; and once in a great while you actually move a slider. I cannot see any difference. Then, the 'bell-shaped-curve' adjustment actually does something I can see. Not much, but something. Then you proclaim this to be the greatest set of adjustments ever made -- so you make it into a Preset. So, for the next photo, you just use the preset; and the viewer cannot tell what has happened. Now Darktable is confusing enough, but your 'photo' makes it even more so. I LOL'd when you said: "Now our Darkroom interface changes allow it to look just like Lightroom."! I _cannot_ even imaging anyone processing Wedding Images using these methods -- before the B&G are old & gray.
Yikes, if I had such an uninformed opinion, I'd keep it to myself, and save the embarrassment. Here's an advice, I suggest you use it: "Better to Remain Silent and Be Thought a Fool than to Speak and Remove All Doubt" Especially regarding "Things you can't see", or Darktable being "confusing". You haven't provided a single argument 'why' something is incorrect; your comment is just a waste of space. Why do you think I care about your taste in photography, random person off the Internet? It seems that you are intimidated by the tools you don't understand, and instead of educating yourself, you and took it personally and decided to be a troll. This is your 1/2 warnings before you're blocked.
Thank you so much for making this video!!!!!!!!! I can not believe that you are the ONLY ONE who figured out that it takes more than the average common sense to know how to download these pictures into darkroom. Every other tutorial video assumes that the pictures have already been downloaded and ready to start editing. Extremely helpful, and must have video!!! Thank you a million times over!!!!!
@@StudioPetrikas yeah I just found about this a few days ago and at first it put me off cause I've used Darktable some time ago and now I thought they ruined it. But now I'm realizing this new workflow style is the future. Nice pics by the way
13:36 *IMPORTANT: Before exporting images, enable "high quality resampling" in the export menu.* I couldn't figure out why my exported images didn't look as crisp as they did in the darktable - I alt-tabbed and compared pixel by pixel the exported images and the darktable previews, and the difference was stark. That, until I enabled the said setting. Then the difference was gone.
What an informative video! Thank you for breaking down those modules, I was avoiding them because of how complex they are. Turns out that they accomplish what I need!
Excellent introduction to a real life workflow. I will be coming back to this when I develop my next batch of photos. I found your video to be extremely well thought out and well-paced. Certainly too fast to take in in one viewing but in RUclips it is easy to pause or skip back a bit, so your tempo is great: I can get the gist of what you are doing and "zoom in" on the details later.
Thank you! You nailed it - any slower and this would stretch out to hours. So I had to pick up the pace with the thought that people can pause and rewind. I'm already preparing a new video that will 'zoom in' on 'Filmic rgb', so we'll dissect this workflow bit by bit.
This was actually the most usefull tutorial for me. As a beginner I did waaaay to much to my photos. Played an hour with white balance, brightness and exposure, just to destroy it with my color corrections and start all over again.
Excellent tutorial - just the right detail and pace. I've just installed Darktable after finally giving up with Luminar 4 (which I paid £100 for). I'm sick of it freezing, slowing and crashing. I'm hoping to get into Darktable which has already shown itself to be faster and so far glitch free.
Filmic rgb looks rad. Just a question: does it replace the use of base curves and tone curves? I'm not sure I get what it does exactly, apart from applying some sort of HDR tech.
Yes, it effectively replaces both. To put it bluntly (and likely incorrectly) filmic takes all the information your camera captured and forms an image that your monitor is able to show, in a graceful way.
Thanks for this. My other half uses Capture One but I have been persisting with DarkTable as I prefer the end result. I find some of my clumsy mis-clicks can create frustrating results with the interface, lol, I seem to need an even more basic tutorial than this, but this is a fantastic clip to get one started.
Well, technically, the Sigmoid workflow is supposed to be even easier and more intuitive. I've recently released a video with the full workflow: ruclips.net/video/OBmMoTZJu8M/видео.html Hopefully that helps!
Thanks for the video, very informative and easy to follow. Particularly liked the section on Filmic, a module I don't fully understand. More content involving deeper dives into Filmic would be greatly appreciated!
Nearly done making a video on Filmic rgb! I'm taking it easy during the Easter break. Plus I really need to be accurate with the information, as there's plenty of misinformation about the subject already. So if you have the patience, stay tuned!
The Filmic rgb module is great for sure, but in a number of instructional videos, this and from other capable instructors, I have observed a tendency to accept the primary magenta rendering of the empty area to some marginal degree. In this case I think! I can see a residual magenta tint in the rescued area, and that would not be my preference for a glowing sun. Am I imagining magenta ghosts?
There might be. I pushed it to a point where it was no longer an issue for me. There are many things I would improve with this development, but since this is a 'first run' guide, I didn't want to get into the nitty-gritty. It is trivial to get rid of the 'pink highlights', as shown in my other video, where I talk about what the pink highlights are and how to get rid of them.
Thank you for showing the process. I guess the grossly overexposed sun is on purpose, but there's no wow effect to the picture here. Perhaps show salvaging / enhancing details from clouds, getting from a blah grey sky to approaching dramatic effect, or getting details out of the darks, without noise.
Nice video....I think you use Filmic as AP would intend...many people try to get contrasted finished images with it which is better achieved with local edits.... thanks for your contribution..
Thank you, that's very kind. I think once people see the broken colours, they can't unsee them and try to avoid them as much as possible. Filmic is excellent at that job!
Just a heads up for anyone trying it the first link was built machine specific for my 12 gen intel. THe second link is generic and so has no CPU specific tweaks and is likely the best choice to try it out....
Thanks for this tutorial, really helped to get me started!! I notice that I don't see the temperature and illuminant and all that stuff when I'm on Color Calibration... does anyone know why this might be?
Hi I hope you can share your workflow and tips on the new darktable 4.x. There's a dearth of tutorials on it despite being a great program comparable with LR and CO but better without the AI at least in my biased opinion. All the best.😊
My pleasure! I'll make a more in-depth video regarding Filmic RGB, but for now - baby steps. Just in case - Darktable has a very in-depth user manual that I always refer to when I'm lost: docs.darktable.org/usermanual/3.8/en/module-reference/processing-modules/filmic-rgb/
@@StudioPetrikas yes, I’ve begun reading it after relying a bit too much on RUclips videos. Ha! But really, I found your video useful and really like the scene referred workflow idea
If you have not seen them Nicolas WInspeare has a nice selection of DT videos and he strikes a nice balance between the highly techinal approach of Aurelien and the slider description type videos of others.... he has covered filmic... it looks like @studio petrikas will be making similar contributions to this area.....
@@emrg777 Yep, I’ve watched Nicolas’s vids. And I like Aurelien’s scientific depth and slightly FU, in a good way, attitude. Thanks. I’m going through the manual finally but it’s good to see things put into practice. The use of reconstruction here was very useful for me.
@@tonybarrett7557 Yes I have not had time to play with new HLR added recently that he has been working on....I will have to see how that works...I suspect it might be part of a video coupled with a demonstration of Filmic v6
I just downloaded this app to my Mac and am testing it out. As a heavy user of Lightroom and Photoshop combo for many years, I find this ... ehm, very powerful but really slow to use. It could however be that I am just osed to the LR workflow, especially with the shortcuts and dynamic link for opening images in PS. Often I have hundreds, sometimes thousands of images to cull through, develop in LR and retouch in PS... Do you feel Darktable might be a decent option for someone with such heavy throughput? (Not to mention presets upon which I often rely heavily, as well as my Fuji camera profiles/film recipes which are available post shooting). Many thanks for your time and effort to make this great tutorial!
Well... tough call. But I'm leaning towards 'No'. For people who shoot Sports, Weddings, etc. and require to do a large amount of photos, with lots of modifications - Lightroom is difficult to beat. That being said, I think I'm now able to match the speed of Lightroom with Darktable, but not Lightroom + Photoshop tandem. Some additional info: You can also Cull (mark as rejected, flag, rate) photos in Darktable. You do also have Styles (Presets in Lightroom) in Darktable. In addition, each module and each function is able to store presets of it's own. So even after you apply a style, you can have many stored presets of each 'tool' or 'function'. The real slowdown happens during the processing stage. The actual adjustments take a lot of time to process, as it takes a rather long time to export the images. My recommendation would be to keep using Lightroom, but make yourself comfortable in Darktable - it will pay off later on! Hope this helps, good luck!
This video is obviously meant for experienced professional photographers. I have been taking amateur photos for many years and I didn’t have a clue what you were talking about. I stuck to the end hoping something would click with me but no, nothing.
I wouldn't say that it's for professional photographers, and the experience level required is really just understanding the basics of digital photography as a whole (Exposure, Temperature, ISO, etc.) It's perfectly fine to not be interested in such things, and there's definitely nothing wrong in enjoying "point-and-shoot" amateur photography. It's just that Darktable is meant for people who are a bit more invested and prefer to have more control of their image development process. If there's something that you would like me to clarify, don't hesitate to reply.
I have a new installation of Darktable 3.8.1. I'm trying to import pictures for the first time. I clicked the + button and I'm navigating to many folders which I know contain both Jpgs and Raws. In every folder, I see the message "No items match your search." If I try to import pictures by clicking Camera Roll or Saved Pictures, nothing happens. I can't find any help for this problem online. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, please help. Thank you.
The folders will look empty, just because you're selecting a folder specifically. It's just the way folder selection works for now. Add a folder you know you put your photos in (with the + sign), then, in the Import dialog, select the recently added folder in the window below.
I don't see the point of 'straightening' the horizon (starting at about 10:35). When you drag a straight reference line across the image it clearly shows that the horizon is not curved or distorted in some way - either before or after this right click and drag. It does change the horizon to become - well - horizontal (the clue is in the name), however you make no mention of this. It's a bit confusing. And it happens in almost every other youtube video on software which provide this corrective function - all mention straightening a horizon which doesn't require straightening, but make no mention of correcting the tilt of the horizon, which often is required.
The module is called "Rotate and perspective". It does not include any curvature adjustments. I might have used the wrong word to describe the action, as English is not my first language. By "Straightening" I meant "make horizontal; level". Noted for further videos, thanks.
Great video and understandable. Thank you. Question: I have a PIxii camera which has color profile files, mmmmmmmm.dcp. How can I import the DCP files into Darktable? Thank you.
I had my eye on a Pixii camera, looked very interesting. How are you liking it? Darktable doesn't support .dcp files, only .icc. I've heard you can convert them using "dcp2icc" application.
i've tried to set DT for "modern daptations" and scene-referenced stuff and the whole image got brutal yellow tint. with color calibration turned off it jumped to blue :( at the moment i'm using DT 4.1.0, but that should not matter that much (i hope)
First time hearing about this problem, sounds link there might be something wrong with your setup. Is "White Balance" module set to "Camera reference" (Lightbulb)? What are the settings of the "Colour calibration" module?
@@StudioPetrikas looks like the blue tint was caused by "CAT16" adaptation in "colour calibration" module. when switched to "none", the image goes orange.. Yes, white balance is set to bulb/camera reference. setting white ballance to "camera" instead of bulb fixes the issue altogether
so AdobeRGB is a colour space. We pick the colour space we want to the image to be at the end of the video, around 11:50. This time, we picked sRGB. I recommend using sRGB until the web, Mircrosoft and Linux are ready for other colour spaces.
Hi, I've realised when I edit a photo in Darktable, it creates a CR2 file in my folder of RAW photos for each photo. This CR2 file has an a pallet and brush and is not accessible. I am worried each photo I edit is just going to keep making these CR2 files and might use up a fair bit of space, is there any way to stop Darktable from making them? Thanks
Darktable should not be creating CR2 files. The CR2 file is a proprietary Canon file, that comes from your camera. Do you copy your files from your SD card first, before you edit them?
@@StudioPetrikas Thank you for the response, usually I just move my photos straight from my camera into a folder, and simply edit photos from that folder. Should I not be doing that? 😅
@@lm06uk You should! So the CR2 files *are* the photos you capture. Darktable creates a "sidecar" XMP file with the same name, which is basically a text file with all the changes you made to the photo. It is recommended that you keep both CR2 files and XMP files together safe. This will allow you to make changes in the future.
So your personal settings, collections, styles etc are stored (on Windows) here: C:\Users\[USER]\AppData\Local\darktable If you rename the "darktable" folder to "darktable_" you will get a fresh start at launch.
@@StudioPetrikas Thank you for responding. I was meaning for a mac. I eventually found it and cleaned it all out. I really am going to try to learn DT on my windows machine.
![[Darktable] Basics: Developing a photo from start to finish with Sigmoid](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/OBmMoTZJu8M/mqdefault.jpg)
![[Darktable] Basics: Developing a photo from start to finish with Sigmoid](/img/tr.png)
At 6:20 I say "adjust the temperature to our taste". That is slightly misleading, I didn't realise that this might be understood as "you're free to make it sepia".
It is very important to get the colour temperature as close to neutral as possible, as the rest of the colour modifications will use that as a reference point.
"To our taste" was supposed to mean that you can "eyeball" the neutral colours yourself, within reasonable error, as there's no "ground truth" in this photo in particular.
Can i skip using filmic module because i am begginer and it is too complicated for me?
It's a part of the pipeline, so you cannot really skip it.
There are alternative modules like Sigmoid, but I don't recommend using them.
My advice would be to invest the time to understand filmic, this will help achieve the best results in the long run.
@@StudioPetrikas Ok Thanks!
Very well demonstrated and explained. You have filled in some gaps in my dt knowledge. Excellently produced first dt video. I look forward to more. Thank you.
That is so nice to hear, thank you very much!
Gives me confidence to make more videos.
Found this as first hit on "darktable 3.8".
I started to use it a few days ago, got my camera 4 years ago but for a long time no other than Lightroom supported CR3 files (and I didn't want to go the DNG route). Had seen another guide somewhere that helped with migrating things out of Lightroom. Then I developed a few photos just by gut feeling looking around the modules. Nice to learn a bit of what to use, e.g. I had not touched any setting in "filmic rgb" module.
There's a bit of a gap between Lightroom and Darktable. Lightroom is fast, capable and user-friendly software that produces good results without exposing the user with technicalities. However in Darktable, you have the complete control of what is happening, so if you master Darktable and Scene-referred workflow, it will objectively produce better results than Lightroom. It's worth your time!
great tutorial, love your rythm! Thanks
Very helpful tutorial, thank you so much.
Thank you for this this video. It is so well done! I was really looking for an accessible introduction to the filmic workflow in Darktable to share with my friends, and this is it. Looking forward to more videos on this!
I'm glad to be useful! Currently working on some more content regarding 'filmic rgb', but I really need to slow down and not flood the viewer with misinformation. Hopefully it's going to be worth the wait! Thanks for the kind words!
@@StudioPetrikas I'm sure it will be, and for sure such approach is the best. It is always hard to strike a balance between being accessible and avoiding mystifying simplification. At the same time, there is really a lot of need for such content, as the omnipresence of "rat piss yellow" demonstrates!
Thanks for an excellent and easy-to-follow tutorial! ~Rm😀
Ok. I've been using darktable WRONG for so long. I followed your instructions and explanations and everything made sense. That clipping highlights with the sun and strong lights had me crazy. I looked all over for a solution. Even watched a 30 min video by Aurélien and I thought that was so confusing and unnecessarily long. Just by chance I stumbled upon your video and so much makes sense now. THANK YOU!
Thanks i edited my first pictures, ever, along your video :)
Happy with the results?
Darktable is really not intimidating when you learn the flow!
@@StudioPetrikas yes it all looks very criptic aha
Great video, fast moving, technical but not to technical. One point...Aurelien Pierre says the color calibration/white balance is not a creative tool, he says you need to get it as accurate as possible then do your color adjustments using Color Balance RGB.
Perhaps as a technical WB tool but remember it also had channel mixer tabs and brightness and colorfulness tab and so is for sure a creative tool....also it is very common to tweak WB to your eye.... your color may no longer be "accurate" but that is not always the goal and color accurate edits can even be boring for some scenes...... as long as you know the outcome there are no rules...AP also often says use your eyes.... in fact many times he says this when people get rigid about modules and editing rules...
Hi, thanks!
He's right, Color Calibration is not a 'creative tool'. We always need to nail down the 'white balance' (Illuminant + Temp) first, then build everything on top.
That being said, I didn't have a gray card in the shot; meaning that I cannot accurately 'measure' it from the photo itself. I could use, for instance, the black rucksack as reference, but I am not certain it is perfectly achromatic (neutral). So this time, I just eyeballed it.
I'd say it's really important to set the illuminant right, the temperature is a tiny bit more flexible.
[EDIT: The "CAT" Tab of the Color Calibration module is not a creative tool. However the Color Calibration module itself CAN be used as creative tool (with the help of module duplication and masking, as well as simulating certain effects by changing the input R G and B values].
@@StudioPetrikas You need to qualify that . Perhaps correct as it pertains to WB . But the module or tool is also the channel mixer and has color and brightness tabs so use as a second or multiple instance for sure it is a creative tool
@@emrg777 since we're still commenting under the video that's called introduction, it's best not to mix in advanced techniques into the pool.
The module itself is capable of doing creative adjustments, however it's main purpose is nailing the neutrals first.
@@StudioPetrikas For sure and I agree, but saying definitively by using the words not creative could be misleading was my main point...your reply to me is still simple and more accurate I think...its splitting hairs for sure but using absolutes like "not" implies not and clearly the module is far more capable and not limited to WB .. Its not really that important...
Thank you: Very herlpful for this newbie to Darktable. The single most frustrating aspect of this software I have encountered is the GUI's color palette. What were the dewigners thinking, placing light grey text and icons on a dark grey background? The other audio / video processing packages I use offer either base colors with strong contrast differentials, or allow the user to select his/her own from a menu. For someone with 70+ year old eyes, grey on grey is beyond challenging, even on a 27" 4K monitor.
Well, it's a difficult place to be for the designers. Higher contrast UI interferes with perception and might impede your ability to grade your images without bias; it is crucial that the UI is as close to neutral gray as possible.
I do understand it's painful for many users, I myself had to do some minor adjustments to make it comfortable for me as well.
thank you very helpful
Cinque Terre one love...
Thanks
Hi, love the video. Have a question on: How does Darktable handle bulk photos, more than 500 images at a time? Thx!
Can you give me more details about what you mean by saying "handle"?
Exporting is way slower than Lightroom, but other than that, Darktable should cause no problems dealing with larger quantities of photos.
0:35 It would be useful to know the reason for changing those settings.
I am forced to gloss over many things, just beacause this is a beginner's guide, and I don't want to overload the viewer with information that is not absolutely crucial.
In short, it hands over the "White Balance" control from the "White Balance" module to the Colour Calibration module.
Darktable has an incredibly detail and useful documentation, that expands on this setting:
docs.darktable.org/usermanual/3.8/en/preferences-settings/processing/
@@StudioPetrikas Thanks.
Really nice tutorial, I am just starting on my photography journey and am completely lost when it comes to editing. You showed me that I am totally overthinking having to adjust all these different settings to get a nice picture. Made this a simple and clean process and got clean quick results. My only real question is what exactly is the xmp file? And does dark table copy the picture into its program or does dark table NOT have non destructive editing ?
The xmp file holds all your edits in a "more or less" text format (xml). Darktable does not modify the original file that came from the camera, and writes all the changes to the xmp file (also called "sidecar"). It is fully non-destructive.
You also have a history stack on your left panel when in the "darkroom" tab of Darktable. You can rollback to any point in your editing process.
@@StudioPetrikas very cool to know! So I’m alittle dense when it comes to this. Most of the time the way I import my pictures is I have a usb to sd card adapter. I would plug this device in and drag all the files from the sd car onto my hard drive. Now when I load them into dark table. What happens? Is the image directly copied from my hard drive into dark table and then when I export my edited image it’ll be saved totally different from my original image?
@@thebutcher1412 after copying, when you load your files into Darktable, Darkable writes a . xmp file with the same filename as the original image. All the edits will be saved in that xmp file, and the original file will remain unchanged. However, the xmp file needs the original file, as the xmp file is just your edits, but not the picture itself.
After you use Darktable to export, you get a brand new file in your chosen format. The original remains unchanged.
In the end, you will have:
1. The original file that came from your camera
2. A sidecar (xmp) file that needs to go with your original file, that keeps all the edits you made in Dakrtable
3. The exported/output file, that is a formed picture, with all the edits "baked in". Usually in JPG format.
I hope this makes sense. Feel free to ask for more specifics
@@StudioPetrikas perfect that really did clear it up for me l. Now it all makes sense I appreciate this and will be finishing your dark table for beginners. Do you still use darktable exclusively in place of Lightroom and Gimp in place of photoshop ?
@@thebutcher1412 Glad to hear! Yes, Darktable has completely replaced Lighroom.
I don't use Gimp, I prefer a more robust solution - Affinity Photo.
Hi.. thanks for this video.. I am new to dark table and this is a good lesson for me.. I have a question though.. the bar at the bottom where the lightbulb is not showing for me.. not sure what setting I messed around with.. how can I get it back?
There's a little arrow *below* the timeline, at the centre of the screen (very bottom). Click it multiple times to cycle between toolbar display modes.
@@StudioPetrikas thank you so much. There is much for me to learn with this program
@@masoodkhalid4467 some things aren't intuitive yet, but the dev(s) are working hard to improve it!
I just want to know where DT files are stored when originals are stored on an external hard drive. Thanks!
In the same directory of the original raw files.
I saw that the photo you exported was only 2.15 MB. While in programs like GIMP, I could export to 10 MB or more. Doesn't small file size also lower the quality of the image? Or is it just my misconception?
File size depends on many factors, such as image size, compression, bit-depth, etc.
File size shouldn't be used as an indication for quality, however, bigger file = more data.
In the video, I resized the image to fit into 3000x3000 pixels, meaning the file size will be smaller. JPEG quality is also set to 95 for balance between quality and file size.
@@StudioPetrikas I figured something today. When I export my file as 4x5 the size is small (2 Mb) but when I exported for print of size 8x10 then it is big (12 Mb). I think the small file size is appropriate for social media where the quality does not matter a whole lot?
@@SandeepSharmakhatiwada yep, that's correct.
It's really annoying when you don't edit any settings or hotkeys and both my UI and hotkeys are completely different. Makes following this guide, or pretty much any of the guides, really difficult.
I think if your UI is completely different, you've got the wrong software open. This is default Darktable with darker colours.
If you have a custom UI setup, it's on you to know where you've put your stuff.
@@StudioPetrikas I have Darktable 4.8.0 open. I have not customed the UI. I have not altered the hotkeys from default. So yeah... I appreciate the prompt response but it's not really that helpful.
Teaching beginners use hotkeys is just bad practice. You have to understand what you're doing before optimising your workflow.
What are you missing? Can you give me an example? Have you set auto-apply pixel workflow defaults to filmic? (in the settings, beginning of the video)
@@StudioPetrikas Thank you but I don't think we are on the same page here. I will get help from Reddit.
The photo you chose first has to be one of worst examples of photography I've ever seen -- I'd toss the photo out and move on. But you kept saying: "Now let's resolve that huge glaring 'sun' spot and the overblown water". Then more talking; and once in a great while you actually move a slider. I cannot see any difference. Then, the 'bell-shaped-curve' adjustment actually does something I can see. Not much, but something. Then you proclaim this to be the greatest set of adjustments ever made -- so you make it into a Preset. So, for the next photo, you just use the preset; and the viewer cannot tell what has happened.
Now Darktable is confusing enough, but your 'photo' makes it even more so. I LOL'd when you said: "Now our Darkroom interface changes allow it to look just like Lightroom."!
I _cannot_ even imaging anyone processing Wedding Images using these methods -- before the B&G are old & gray.
Yikes, if I had such an uninformed opinion, I'd keep it to myself, and save the embarrassment.
Here's an advice, I suggest you use it:
"Better to Remain Silent and Be Thought a Fool than to Speak and Remove All Doubt"
Especially regarding "Things you can't see", or Darktable being "confusing".
You haven't provided a single argument 'why' something is incorrect; your comment is just a waste of space.
Why do you think I care about your taste in photography, random person off the Internet?
It seems that you are intimidated by the tools you don't understand, and instead of educating yourself, you and took it personally and decided to be a troll. This is your 1/2 warnings before you're blocked.
Thank you so much for making this video!!!!!!!!! I can not believe that you are the ONLY ONE who figured out that it takes more than the average common sense to know how to download these pictures into darkroom. Every other tutorial video assumes that the pictures have already been downloaded and ready to start editing. Extremely helpful, and must have video!!! Thank you a million times over!!!!!
It's nice to be helpful! You are very welcome, thanks for stopping by!
Finally, a video that explains precisely how to go about the new scene referred workflow. It was driving me nuts!
Thanks a lot for putting it up
Glad you found it useful! It was something I couldn't find when switching from LR, so I thought I might as well fill the gap myself.
@@StudioPetrikas yeah I just found about this a few days ago and at first it put me off cause I've used Darktable some time ago and now I thought they ruined it. But now I'm realizing this new workflow style is the future. Nice pics by the way
13:36 *IMPORTANT: Before exporting images, enable "high quality resampling" in the export menu.* I couldn't figure out why my exported images didn't look as crisp as they did in the darktable - I alt-tabbed and compared pixel by pixel the exported images and the darktable previews, and the difference was stark. That, until I enabled the said setting. Then the difference was gone.
Thank for great tip
What an informative video! Thank you for breaking down those modules, I was avoiding them because of how complex they are. Turns out that they accomplish what I need!
Excellent introduction to a real life workflow. I will be coming back to this when I develop my next batch of photos.
I found your video to be extremely well thought out and well-paced. Certainly too fast to take in in one viewing but in RUclips it is easy to pause or skip back a bit, so your tempo is great: I can get the gist of what you are doing and "zoom in" on the details later.
Thank you! You nailed it - any slower and this would stretch out to hours. So I had to pick up the pace with the thought that people can pause and rewind.
I'm already preparing a new video that will 'zoom in' on 'Filmic rgb', so we'll dissect this workflow bit by bit.
This was actually the most usefull tutorial for me. As a beginner I did waaaay to much to my photos. Played an hour with white balance, brightness and exposure, just to destroy it with my color corrections and start all over again.
I've been there! Nowadays I'm pretty happy with a slight adjustment to each "exposure", "filmic rgb", "color calibration" and "color balance rgb".
agree
Nice information, should you please update to newer version? Like for sure.
When I try this, my sun turns gray. What could be the reason for this?
Excellent tutorial - just the right detail and pace. I've just installed Darktable after finally giving up with Luminar 4 (which I paid £100 for). I'm sick of it freezing, slowing and crashing. I'm hoping to get into Darktable which has already shown itself to be faster and so far glitch free.
Quick and semple explaination of common photographic issues with helpful references! 👏
Thank you Gus! 🙂
Absolutely fantastic, straight to the point and really helpful.
Filmic rgb looks rad. Just a question: does it replace the use of base curves and tone curves? I'm not sure I get what it does exactly, apart from applying some sort of HDR tech.
Yes, it effectively replaces both.
To put it bluntly (and likely incorrectly) filmic takes all the information your camera captured and forms an image that your monitor is able to show, in a graceful way.
Thanks for this. My other half uses Capture One but I have been persisting with DarkTable as I prefer the end result. I find some of my clumsy mis-clicks can create frustrating results with the interface, lol, I seem to need an even more basic tutorial than this, but this is a fantastic clip to get one started.
Well, technically, the Sigmoid workflow is supposed to be even easier and more intuitive. I've recently released a video with the full workflow: ruclips.net/video/OBmMoTZJu8M/видео.html
Hopefully that helps!
Thanks for the video, very informative and easy to follow. Particularly liked the section on Filmic, a module I don't fully understand. More content involving deeper dives into Filmic would be greatly appreciated!
Nearly done making a video on Filmic rgb! I'm taking it easy during the Easter break. Plus I really need to be accurate with the information, as there's plenty of misinformation about the subject already. So if you have the patience, stay tuned!
Basics. -- at least show us what is happening --- where one is clicking --- it is NOT zoomed in , we canniot see. and it is too fast.
There's a pause button, and there's speed adjustment menu.
The Filmic rgb module is great for sure, but in a number of instructional videos, this and from other capable instructors, I have observed a tendency to accept the primary magenta rendering of the empty area to some marginal degree. In this case I think! I can see a residual magenta tint in the rescued area, and that would not be my preference for a glowing sun. Am I imagining magenta ghosts?
There might be.
I pushed it to a point where it was no longer an issue for me.
There are many things I would improve with this development, but since this is a 'first run' guide, I didn't want to get into the nitty-gritty.
It is trivial to get rid of the 'pink highlights', as shown in my other video, where I talk about what the pink highlights are and how to get rid of them.
Thx for this video!
Hmmmmm.
Thanks for making this video, I've just started looking into Darktable and you've just made it much more accessible for me.
Music to my ears, glad you found it helpful!
👍 for showing modern scene-referred workflow.
Fantastic intro to Darktable! Thank you!
Thank you for showing the process.
I guess the grossly overexposed sun is on purpose, but there's no wow effect to the picture here.
Perhaps show salvaging / enhancing details from clouds, getting from a blah grey sky to approaching dramatic effect, or getting details out of the darks, without noise.
Thanks for commenting on my creative choices and sorry for offending your superior taste in photography.
@@StudioPetrikas No thank you for your passive aggressive and for ignoring the important part of my comment.
No such part was found, sorry.
Nice video....I think you use Filmic as AP would intend...many people try to get contrasted finished images with it which is better achieved with local edits.... thanks for your contribution..
Thank you, that's very kind. I think once people see the broken colours, they can't unsee them and try to avoid them as much as possible. Filmic is excellent at that job!
Just a heads up for anyone trying it the first link was built machine specific for my 12 gen intel. THe second link is generic and so has no CPU specific tweaks and is likely the best choice to try it out....
i would love to learn about AUTO PRESET
so that my whole album gets the basic treatment
before I do anything else.
thanks
Thanks for this tutorial, really helped to get me started!!
I notice that I don't see the temperature and illuminant and all that stuff when I'm on Color Calibration... does anyone know why this might be?
Thank you. I'm new to darktable (really any processing) and this was very helpful.
Hi I hope you can share your workflow and tips on the new darktable 4.x. There's a dearth of tutorials on it despite being a great program comparable with LR and CO but better without the AI at least in my biased opinion. All the best.😊
Excellent tutorial.
Hi im just getting into photo editing and i felt that the filmic rgb module made my photos feel very dark
Lovely. I've just started using Darktable and this was a good place to start.
thank you very much 🙏🙏 it was really helpful and practical 🌹
Thanks for explaining the reconstruction tab in filmic. Useful!
My pleasure! I'll make a more in-depth video regarding Filmic RGB, but for now - baby steps.
Just in case - Darktable has a very in-depth user manual that I always refer to when I'm lost:
docs.darktable.org/usermanual/3.8/en/module-reference/processing-modules/filmic-rgb/
@@StudioPetrikas yes, I’ve begun reading it after relying a bit too much on RUclips videos. Ha! But really, I found your video useful and really like the scene referred workflow idea
If you have not seen them Nicolas WInspeare has a nice selection of DT videos and he strikes a nice balance between the highly techinal approach of Aurelien and the slider description type videos of others.... he has covered filmic... it looks like @studio petrikas will be making similar contributions to this area.....
@@emrg777 Yep, I’ve watched Nicolas’s vids. And I like Aurelien’s scientific depth and slightly FU, in a good way, attitude. Thanks. I’m going through the manual finally but it’s good to see things put into practice. The use of reconstruction here was very useful for me.
@@tonybarrett7557 Yes I have not had time to play with new HLR added recently that he has been working on....I will have to see how that works...I suspect it might be part of a video coupled with a demonstration of Filmic v6
I just downloaded this app to my Mac and am testing it out. As a heavy user of Lightroom and Photoshop combo for many years, I find this ... ehm, very powerful but really slow to use. It could however be that I am just osed to the LR workflow, especially with the shortcuts and dynamic link for opening images in PS. Often I have hundreds, sometimes thousands of images to cull through, develop in LR and retouch in PS... Do you feel Darktable might be a decent option for someone with such heavy throughput? (Not to mention presets upon which I often rely heavily, as well as my Fuji camera profiles/film recipes which are available post shooting). Many thanks for your time and effort to make this great tutorial!
Well... tough call. But I'm leaning towards 'No'.
For people who shoot Sports, Weddings, etc. and require to do a large amount of photos, with lots of modifications - Lightroom is difficult to beat.
That being said, I think I'm now able to match the speed of Lightroom with Darktable, but not Lightroom + Photoshop tandem.
Some additional info:
You can also Cull (mark as rejected, flag, rate) photos in Darktable.
You do also have Styles (Presets in Lightroom) in Darktable.
In addition, each module and each function is able to store presets of it's own. So even after you apply a style, you can have many stored presets of each 'tool' or 'function'.
The real slowdown happens during the processing stage. The actual adjustments take a lot of time to process, as it takes a rather long time to export the images.
My recommendation would be to keep using Lightroom, but make yourself comfortable in Darktable - it will pay off later on!
Hope this helps, good luck!
@@StudioPetrikas Thank you so much for the detailed reply! My feelings exactly (unfortunately) :/ . Cheers and all the best from Croatia!
Thank you so much for the tutorial it is of great help
This video is obviously meant for experienced professional photographers. I have been taking amateur photos for many years and I didn’t have a clue what you were talking about. I stuck to the end hoping something would click with me but no, nothing.
I wouldn't say that it's for professional photographers, and the experience level required is really just understanding the basics of digital photography as a whole (Exposure, Temperature, ISO, etc.)
It's perfectly fine to not be interested in such things, and there's definitely nothing wrong in enjoying "point-and-shoot" amateur photography. It's just that Darktable is meant for people who are a bit more invested and prefer to have more control of their image development process.
If there's something that you would like me to clarify, don't hesitate to reply.
This was useful and clear. Thanks.
Please do more.
I also liked your CAD tutorials for the same reason.
I have a new installation of Darktable 3.8.1. I'm trying to import pictures for the first time. I clicked the + button and I'm navigating to many folders which I know contain both Jpgs and Raws. In every folder, I see the message "No items match your search." If I try to import pictures by clicking Camera Roll or Saved Pictures, nothing happens. I can't find any help for this problem online. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, please help. Thank you.
The folders will look empty, just because you're selecting a folder specifically. It's just the way folder selection works for now.
Add a folder you know you put your photos in (with the + sign), then, in the Import dialog, select the recently added folder in the window below.
I don't see the point of 'straightening' the horizon (starting at about 10:35). When you drag a straight reference line across the image it clearly shows that the horizon is not curved or distorted in some way - either before or after this right click and drag. It does change the horizon to become - well - horizontal (the clue is in the name), however you make no mention of this. It's a bit confusing. And it happens in almost every other youtube video on software which provide this corrective function - all mention straightening a horizon which doesn't require straightening, but make no mention of correcting the tilt of the horizon, which often is required.
The module is called "Rotate and perspective". It does not include any curvature adjustments.
I might have used the wrong word to describe the action, as English is not my first language.
By "Straightening" I meant "make horizontal; level".
Noted for further videos, thanks.
Great video and understandable. Thank you. Question: I have a PIxii camera which has color profile files, mmmmmmmm.dcp. How can I import the DCP files into Darktable? Thank you.
I had my eye on a Pixii camera, looked very interesting. How are you liking it?
Darktable doesn't support .dcp files, only .icc. I've heard you can convert them using "dcp2icc" application.
Thanks!
Likewise! Thank you for your support!
Give us please more tutorials like this ! great presentation!
Great video...Thanks...
Great video, thanks!
Thank you very much. Your video is great! It helps me a lot to get a hold on understanding darktable! Keep up the great work :)
Comments like these make my day. Thank you!
i've tried to set DT for "modern daptations" and scene-referenced stuff and the whole image got brutal yellow tint. with color calibration turned off it jumped to blue :( at the moment i'm using DT 4.1.0, but that should not matter that much (i hope)
First time hearing about this problem, sounds link there might be something wrong with your setup.
Is "White Balance" module set to "Camera reference" (Lightbulb)? What are the settings of the "Colour calibration" module?
@@StudioPetrikas looks like the blue tint was caused by "CAT16" adaptation in "colour calibration" module. when switched to "none", the image goes orange..
Yes, white balance is set to bulb/camera reference. setting white ballance to "camera" instead of bulb fixes the issue altogether
Great tutorial! (and Vernazza is also a beautiful place!)
Thanks! It most certainly is! :)
Thanks for sharing.
Great info video but very low resolution?
Thanks. Should be 1080p, wouldn't want to go to 4K. I received a lot of complaints when I did...
Woow, many thanks.... more video about Filmic RGB and how to use it....does it relate to Adobe RGB 1998?
so AdobeRGB is a colour space. We pick the colour space we want to the image to be at the end of the video, around 11:50. This time, we picked sRGB.
I recommend using sRGB until the web, Mircrosoft and Linux are ready for other colour spaces.
Google Aurelien Pierre's YT channel ...he is the author of the module...its a global tone mapper
@@emrg777 Aurélien's channel is linked in the description and the video cards ;)
Hi, I've realised when I edit a photo in Darktable, it creates a CR2 file in my folder of RAW photos for each photo. This CR2 file has an a pallet and brush and is not accessible. I am worried each photo I edit is just going to keep making these CR2 files and might use up a fair bit of space, is there any way to stop Darktable from making them?
Thanks
Darktable should not be creating CR2 files. The CR2 file is a proprietary Canon file, that comes from your camera.
Do you copy your files from your SD card first, before you edit them?
@@StudioPetrikas Thank you for the response, usually I just move my photos straight from my camera into a folder, and simply edit photos from that folder. Should I not be doing that? 😅
@@lm06uk You should! So the CR2 files *are* the photos you capture. Darktable creates a "sidecar" XMP file with the same name, which is basically a text file with all the changes you made to the photo. It is recommended that you keep both CR2 files and XMP files together safe. This will allow you to make changes in the future.
@@StudioPetrikas Thank you very much for the help! Really appreciate it.
Great video! Thank you.
Thank you, much appreciated!
For example I want delete all collections and start over.
So your personal settings, collections, styles etc are stored (on Windows) here:
C:\Users\[USER]\AppData\Local\darktable
If you rename the "darktable" folder to "darktable_" you will get a fresh start at launch.
@@StudioPetrikas Thank you for responding. I was meaning for a mac. I eventually found it and cleaned it all out. I really am going to try to learn DT on my windows machine.