LEISURE - PHOTOGRAPHY - 25.06.2018

Managing and editing photos with darktable

Darktable

Darktable software ( http://www.darktable.org ) is available for macOS, Linux and Windows. The Windows version isn’t equipped with all the options of the other platforms yet, but fortunately the developers are releasing regular updates.

Like Adobe Lightroom, darktable lets you edit as well as manage your photos. The program can handle all kinds of RAW formats, making it an excellent virtual light table and darkroom for photographers. However, precisely because of the large number of features, the program has quite a steep learning curve.

Import

You can import individual images or entire photo folders, but it’s possible to import photos directly from a memory card or a camera. Conveniently, you can add your own metadata to the photos even during the import, such as author’s name.

Sidecar

The imported photos are displayed as thumbnails, and if you wish you can immediately give them a rating (by means of stars). Darktable saves the metadata plus all the photo edits in a so-called XMP “sidecar” file, in other words, not in the photo file itself. In this way, nothing can happen to the originals and you can always revert to their original state. Note. The use of sidecars has the disadvantage that metadata and edits are not included when you copy the actual photo files to another medium. However, you can resolve this by exporting the photos from darktable (for instance as JPG files) to the desired medium, in which case all the information will be effectively integrated into the actual photo files.

Photo editor

You only need to click on a thumbnail in order to start editing the photo. There are many different editing modules, including basic image operations, colour tone, colour correction, image correction and special effects.

When you open one of these modules, all the relevant image operations are listed. For instance, the “basic image operations” include shadows & highlights, crop & rotate, orientation, exposure and white balance. Each change you make is reflected in the histogram as well as in the preview of the photo.

Darktable has many predefined settings. One example: in the colour zones module, you will find a “natural skin tones” profile, so that one click on the button lets you optimise the colours of your portrait photo. It’s possible to record all the changes you make in profiles - this can save you time if you subsequently want to apply similar changes to other photos. Tip. Here’s another method to transfer your changes easily: select the edited photo, hit Ctrl+C, select the photo(s) you want to edit and hit Ctrl+V. Handy!

Interestingly, if something has gone wrong during editing, or you don’t see the expected result, the reset button in most cases lets you revert to the original photo. In addition, there’s an extensive history, so that it takes only one mouse-click to revert to any of the previous versions in the editing process.