darktable ep 140 - A noobies guide to processing RAW files in darktable

#darktable #tutorial #raw
In this episode, we look at some basics of processing RAW files in darktable.
As always, thanks to my tier 1 Patreon supporters:
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If you'd like to support my work, get access to these videos before everyone else, AND get access to additional content, please head over to / understandingdarktable and pick a tier that is comfortable for you.

[@Eigil_Skovgaard]

Around 15:50: Yes, right-clicking is a good method when entering precise values. But if you only want to zero the value of any slider, it's easier to double-click on the digits, or anywhere on the scale, or on the index marker.

[@audio2u]

Yes, I keep forgetting to include that, even when that is what I do most of the time! :)

[@renejong]

Good video again Burce. I've watched to most of your stuff as I was new to editing pictures and didn't feel like buying Adobe. Learned a lot from it. 👍 Regarding resetting sliders: I found out you can also double-click on the slider, which will reset it to its defaults.

[@audio2u]

Thanks for the kind words. Yes, I keep forgetting to mention obvious stuff like double clicking to reset... I do that stuff so instinctually now, I don't even think about it.

[@mr.matt.eastwood]

Thanks Bruce! Even after 11 years of using Darktable, I still find new nuggets of wisdom in your videos - even if they're for beginners. The right-click rotation is a complete life-hack and I had no idea about it.

[@audio2u]

Glad to be of service!

[@jirinovotny5580]

I didn't know about that either and it will help me a lot 🙂

to reset a single slider inside a module, you can simply double click on that slider

[@audio2u]

Yep, forgot to mention that! 😃

[@tonybarrett7557]

Great video. I learnt something in the first few minutes and I’m not a noob. Extra points for the ultimate Aussie content; thumbnail’s a pic of a steak, first edited pic’s a wallaby and the author’s called Bruce!

[@audio2u]

Bwahahaha! None of that was intentional, but I love that you found it amusing! :)

[@simplexj4298]

Great video, thanks a lot! This is exactly the content and style I've been looking for for weeks. Subscribed! Will browse your existing videos for sure.

[@audio2u]

Thanks, and glad you found it helpful!

[@yamjandali]

What workflow do you recommend we use? I'd like to go through your videos for each module but with 140 videos to choose from, I'm not sure where to start. I am completely new to photo editing, should I go through your "darktable new users" playlist? This is your 10 recommended modules from ep 071 - are these still what you recommend and in this order? Some stuff like the White Balance seems to have changed based on this new episode. Basic Adjustments - Provides fundamental tools for adjusting exposure, contrast, etc. Color Correction - Simplified color adjustment module. Crop and Rotate - For cropping and rotating images. Denoise (Profiled) - Uses metadata to apply noise reduction. Highlight Reconstruction - Helps recover clipped highlights. Retouch - Allows for image cleanup and cloning. RGB Curve - Provides fine control over tonal adjustments. Sharpen - Enhances image sharpness. White Balance - Adjusts color temperature and tint. Filmic RGB - For tone mapping and color grading.

[@audio2u]

Most of those recommendations stay the same. Yes to White Balance, although you don't really need to touch it, because Colour Calibration gives you white balancing options that the WB module doesn't. If you don't mind the hit on the CPU, a lot of people like the Diffuse and Sharpen module, for sharpening duties over the original Sharpen module (although I'm happy with the original module, even to this day). Everything else is still relevant and worthy of the top 10. Seems there are a lot of new users coming to dt right now (probably because of Adobe's stoopid money-grabbing, rights-stealing priorities), so maybe I need to do a "basic workflow" video....

[@condor7001]

I remember watching Aurelien use 2 instances of color calibration and a LOT of mask refinement to rescue a photo of a live show that I thought was beyond saving. Really cool stuff

[@audio2u]

Yep, CC is great for mixed light sources!

[@andymcgarty3099]

I did not know about right click and drag for rotations! Will be a game changer for landscapes. Every day is a school day :)

[@audio2u]

Glad you found something useful in there! :)

[@cookiecap_465]

Hello, thank you very much for your tutorials they are awesome!

[@audio2u]

Thanks you so much for the kind words.

[@dereksewell7047]

Thank you so much for this. I have been using it for over a year now, but this filled in a few blanks - I was really struggling with the White balance/Colour Calibration as well as finding Colour saturation. Thanks again.

[@audio2u]

No problem. Glad it was helpful!

[@arthurhoornweg7894]

Hi Bruce, thanks for the video! Could you please do a tutorial on "how to efficiently process a folder with a thousand holiday images" ? I find Darktable frustratingly cumbersome in this respect. This is the reason why, after having used Darktable for many years, I have now moved to RawTherapee because its default starting point looks like the embedded Jpeg which makes the workflow infinitely faster, it takes only minor tweaks to make the images look the way I want. Also I find that RawTherapee somehow manages to extract more detail / three-dimensionality from my images which was a huge surprise to me. I am now re-processing lots of old folders using RawTherapee.

[@audio2u]

Intersting. I will certainly do my best on creating a video on that topic. Might make that a patreon-exclusive.

[@mattedwards8022]

I can't thank you enough for your dedication in keeping us all up to date on the latest in Darktable. I dislike the word masterclass because it is overused in the instructional space, but your channel is a shining epitome of the things a masterclass should embody. I'll be checking into your Patreon.

[@audio2u]

Many thanks for the kind words!

[@stevenjohnson2799]

Excellent! Thank you!

[@audio2u]

No problem! Glad it was helpful.

[@stevenjohnson2799]

@@audio2u It certainly was! Thanks again.

[@nigelskates6202]

Fantastic video!! Bruce, love your channel.

[@audio2u]

Thank you kindly! Glad you found it helpful.

[@nebula_M42]

Thanks for the video, I always learn something new from you. For new and old folks alike, i'd like to share the order of operations that gets me the best results, - color calibration (almost never needed) - exposure: i go all the way up right before I clip the highlights (upcoming modules will bring the exposure back down) - filmic rgb: I adjust white and black points, and try to avoid clipping (i turn the clipping indicator on for this) - tone equalizer, 90% of the time I go for the soft EIGF preset and then I auto adjust the mask exposure compensation slider, otherwise it goes too dark. - color balance rgb: go to mask tab and auto detect white fulcrum -> then go to 4 ways tab and adjust as necessary, but just a bit not too much -> then on master tab I finish adjusting light with brightness levels as needed. Then I proceed to give life with vibrance, chroma and saturation (being careful with saturation if there's people's skin or you can go full donald trump). I don't set contrast in this module, i don't like it. - I go back to filmic rgb and adjust for contrast in the look tab, if there's a lot going on in the image sometimes the local contrast module provides a better result. - denoise: (if needed with default settings), on rare cases I denoise with the contrast equalizer but I almost never do it right. - sharpen: (if needed with default settings) - crop to golden ratio I wish I could automate these steps on import, it would save me sooo much time, i'd like to have all these steps auto applied and then just review and make small corrections if needed. Anyone knows If I could achieve that?

[@audio2u]

Thanks for the workflow. I'll disagree with your approach to the exposure module though. Ideally, you'll identify the tones in your image which SHOULD be the mid-tones, and adjust the exposure so that THOSE tones look perfect (disregarding whatever happens to other areas, because as you correctly stated, we can tame the highlights and shadows later in the pipeline). As for automating the process, you could certainly create a preset which would apply all those modules. But that's probably not that useful, because you would probably then want to disable later modules, so as to dial in the settings on the earlier modules.

[@nebula_M42]

@@audio2u ok that's great feedback about the exposure module, I'll test that out.

[@MrSherwinJames]

Doing some investigation on switching from Lightroom/Photoshop to Darktable. Like your presentation style and content. Will check out your other videos. Thanks for the walkthrough.

[@audio2u]

No problem! Welcome to the dark side! :)

[@ThomasPBudil]

Thank you Bruce!

[@audio2u]

No problem!

[@robjordan63]

Fantastic, condensed guide to the most useful modules, thanks, it's exactly what I needed. Just one question: from some other video I picked up the suggestion to use Local Contrast for final sharpening. Do you use that? Any thoughts?

[@audio2u]

Local Contrast is good for sharpening mid-tone values only. Where the Sharpening module looks to increase contrast along edges across ALL tones in the image. That's my understanding, anyway.

[@edwinshank7865]

Hi Bruce, Love your channel, and your website. I am new to DT so I will be watching your videos as I learn this software. One quick question: do you know if DT is usable on the new iPad Pro from Apple? Been thinking the iPad could be a nice portable editing tool on my photo shoots, if DT works on it. Thanks, Bruce.

[@audio2u]

Thanks for the kind words. I'm not sure about dt's comparability with the iPad Pro. I know it runs on MacOS, but not sure about iOS.

[@marekzurke5057]

Bruce - good film. This is what I think a good idea is a video that shows how you edit a raw file from start to finish. Two or three examples.

[@audio2u]

I do videos like that for my tier 3 and 4 patrons.

[@jirinovotny5580]

@@audio2u Well, I'll have to see what that entails🙂

[@alvarohernang]

Thanks!

[@audio2u]

Many thanks!!

Amazing video, Bruce! Greetings from Euskal Herria / Basque Country

[@audio2u]

Thank you!

[@RawnakChoudhury-bo8oj]

Excellent video as usual Are planning to do a second episode, covering more advanced stuff I started using dt about 3 years a go and got started with your videos

[@audio2u]

I guess it comes down to what you would expect from a "more advanced stuff" kind of video? How to edit an image? I do those videos for my tier 3 and 4 patrons, or you could check out some of Boris' videos. He does a pretty good job of the processing side of things.

[@jeremystunell4325]

OMG - Totally subscribed - I just wiped out the Moon @22:43 - do you have a guide on milky ways and/just or night lapses

[@audio2u]

I know I did a video on a milky way shoot a couple of years ago, but it might have been a patron-only episode. Not sure about that.

[@AvGeekLucky]

Thank for the explanations, defiantly learned a few things. Although I must admit I was kind of hoping for a way to make the photos look like the thumbnails. I just find that a much more convenient starting point. I don't think my camera does not do a bad job and usually just want to do a few small tweaks rather than re-interpret the raw data.

[@audio2u]

Yeah, that's a big ask, simply because (as I think I mentioned in the video) every camera manufacturer has their own secret sauce baked into every camera-generated jpeg, and the best darktable can do is to try and reverse-engineer that look. And for that, your best approach is to use 'scene-referred (filmic)' from 'preferences/processing/auto-apply pixel workflow defaults'. FilmicRGB does a reasonable job of mimicing the in-camera jpeg, but you DO still need to massage it to get it closer. And in Aurélien's defence, that's as much as you can hope for because every camera brand has a different look.

[@AvGeekLucky]

​@@audio2u fair point. Makes me wonder how commercial products like Adobe Camera RAW does it. My guess would be it has camera specific "profiles" / code that reads the metadata and adjust colour mapping and other setting based on that. Or they buy the secret sauce from the camera manufacture and include it in the product.

[@audio2u]

I would wager that the second idea is the most likely... Adobe would have bought a "profile curve" from each camera manufacturer so that they can have a really-close starting point.

[@GreenhornPhototaker]

Been using darktable for years and still feel like a noobie. I am looking forward to this!

[@audio2u]

I hope it ticks some boxes for you!

[@BobOgden1]

Same 😮

[@mredben]

Another point would be to manage the photos sensibly, securely and well organised in Darktable. Also the missing quick photo selection via the file open and import module.

[@audio2u]

Library management is a WHOLE other kettle-of-fish! I am fairly certain I've covered most of that in previous videos, but I should probably revisit that.

[@mredben]

@@audio2u First time i was confused by Darktable xml Data files. And i did not really like that 🫣😉 - An other problem ist Data Back Up with Darktable

[@audio2u]

The xml files are your friend! I've addressed that in previous videos as well. Backing up your .db files (library.db and data.db) should be fairly straight forward.

[@DalsPhotography]

Hi from Uruguay Bruce. I would like to understand some terms, what is "Sigmoid" Thank you ! Great video :)

[@audio2u]

Sigmoid is the name of a recently-added tonemapping module in darktable. It behaves in a similar fashion to FilmicRGB, but presents fewer controls to the user. So, it's "easier" to use. But if you believe Aurélien (the author of the Filmic RGB module), it's not as accurate. Each to their own, I guess! :)

[@ZecaTrindade]

Hello, congratulations for your channel. I'm looking for a program that can replace Photoshop, mainly to go from raw to jpeg with only a little processing and this looks like an excellent program. However, when I open the photos in "darkroom" some processing is automatically applied, such as +0.07 EV and I notice that the photos appear as if a filter had been applied that removes sharpness. Faces become clearer and more mirrored. Will it be possible to open the photo with 0 processing, or will it be something else. Thank you

[@audio2u]

I've addressed this many times on this channel. ALL image editing software HAS to perform several functions when opening a RAW file, in order to display that image on your monitor. darktable is just the only one that actually SHOWS you all those steps. As for opening with no changes to the image, that's a tricky one. Any RAW file you import has the in-camera jpeg embedded as its thumbnail. That's what you'll see in lighttable view. But the moment you open that image in the darkroom, dt discards the jpeg preview because the program is designed to let you work from a blank slate. That can be frustrating for new users who are used to LR, which lets you basically start processing from a state very close to the in-camera jpeg.

[@steevewhitehead1416]

Is there a way of adding the basic processes that a camera applies to create the in camera colors of its out put jpeg, but to the raw file image in darktable, so that we have the colors we like out of camera but can still access the greater range which the raw file offers in recovering highlights and shadow areas?

[@audio2u]

Sadly, no. As I've mentioned in previous videos, each manufacturer has their secret sauce which determines the way colour saturation and contrast is rendered in their in-camera JPEGs. The best any software can hope to do is to try and reverse engineer that secret sauce, but it's not an exact science. The base curve module has presets which do just this, but that module is display-referred and should therefore be avoided (for the most part).

[@matthewharrison3813]

I've heard the suggestion that the sigmoid module may be a little more beginner friendly than filmic. Do you have any opinion on that?

[@audio2u]

Yeah, I'd agree that it IS a little less intimidating than FilmicRGB, but I also find that I use FilmicRGB about 95% of the time, and Sigmoid the other 5%. FilmicRGB gives you more control, but requires you to wrap your head around the colour science a bit more in order to make the most of it. Sigmoid dumbs things down so you don't need the colour science as much, but limits what you can do with it (which also prevents you from breaking things too badly).

[@93Logen]

I hope you have already prepared your tutorial about Color Equalizer module. I am looking forward to watching it.

[@audio2u]

Not yet, but it'll happen.

[@antipodesman2]

So if we use Darktable with denoise profile we don't need to spend the big bucks for the A7 III 😉

[@audio2u]

The great thing is the a7iii doesn't cost anywhere near what it used to! :) They're sitting at around AUD$2000 now.

[@MICHAJO27]

In your history there's no "color calibration". I'm using darktable 4.6.1 an there it is. And it's disturbing and annoying and destroys the colors. But i can't get rid of it when i choose scene-referred (filmic). How can i work the same way you do?

[@audio2u]

Make sure the white balance module is set to D65.

[@MICHAJO27]

@@audio2u In my white balance module there is no "D65". I get Panasonic DMC-G8 with values "daylight, cloudy, shade, incandescent, flash, 5000k, 5500k" that's all. The only way to get the real colors is to switch off/disable the color calibration. So color calibration is of no use to me.

[@mr.matt.eastwood]

@@MICHAJO27 In White Balance, check the toolbar at the top of the module with the icons. You'll want the filled light bulb icon, that's what sets the White Balance module to "D65" and allows the Color Calibration module to take over.

[@MICHAJO27]

@@mr.matt.eastwood Thanks. That's what i've done. And now i saw the comment while hovering ("set white balance to camera reference point in most cases it should be D65"). But when i activate color calibration it makes the whole picture blueish. It looks fine when i disable the color calibration.

[@audio2u]

So now that you have the wb module set to D65, in the colour calibration module, click the eye dropper on the right side and it will correctly read the white balance from the image.

[@macrain2691]

Bonjour, Tout d'abord merci. Je ne sais pas comment contacter le groupe qui développe Darktable ; mais j'aimerai leur demander d'ajouter dans la table lumineuse des menus en clic droit sur les miniature du style : supprimer cloner des étoiles .. HELLO, First of all thank you. I don't know how to contact the group that develops Darktable; but I would like to ask them to add right-click menus to the light table on the thumbnails like: delete clone stars...

[@audio2u]

In English? Sorry!

[@macrain2691]

@@audio2u On the bottom of the comment ... HELLO, First of all thank you. I don't know how to contact the group that develops Darktable; but I would like to ask them to add right-click menus to the light table on the thumbnails like: delete clone stars...

[@audio2u]

Ahhh, my apologies! KZbin doesn't display the entire message. It shows you a certain portion, and then has 3 dots and "show more". Right, getting in touch with the developers. You have 2 options. One is to join the darktable-dev mailing list. The other is to create an account on github, and then submit a feature request through the darktable project on github.

[@SoundOfAhhs]

Reset slider by double clicking on it.

[@audio2u]

Yep, don't know why I keep forgetting to mention that! Because that is generally the method I use all the time, too.

[@wegder]

I wish chatgpt was smart enough to rewrite the darktable manual, lol

[@audio2u]

Oh man! Now, that's an idea!

[@genesiusjaromsky808]

Have you tried it? I'm still a noob. I did not try with any instructions, just descriptive text. Manual raster masks As described in the previous sections, the final output of a module’s mask (the combined effect of any drawn and parameteric masks) is a grayscale raster image representing the extent to which the module’s effect should be applied to each pixel. This raster image is stored internally for active modules and can be subsequently reused by other modules in the pixelpipe. As with any mask, if the opacity value for a pixel in a raster mask is zero the module’s input passed through the module unchanged. If the opacity is 1.0 the module has its full effect. For each value between 0 and 1.0 the module’s effect is applied proportionally at that location. You can choose a raster mask from the combobox. Raster masks can be identified by the name of the module against which they were originally generated. ChatGPT A raster mask is basically a black-and-white picture that shows how much a special effect should be applied to each part of an image. It's like a guide for the computer to know where to add the effect. If a pixel in the mask is black, it means the effect won't be applied there. If it's white, the effect will be fully applied. And if it's a shade of gray in between, the effect will be applied partially. You can pick different masks from a list, and each mask is linked to a specific special effect. Thanks and God bless. 🙏📸

[@genesiusjaromsky808]

OK, so here are some simple instructions. Let me know, because I am still unsure as a nob, if this makes sense and if it works. Manual double-click (reset) Double-click on a slider or its label to reset back to the default value. Ctrl+double-click to reset its value back to any auto-applied preset (if one applies for the current image). If controls are grouped together within a tabbed interface, you can double-click on the tab’s header label to reset all settings in that tab. In addition, the speed of mouse-wheel, arrow-key and click+drag adjustments can be altered: hold down the Shift key while adjusting to increase the step size by a factor of 10. hold down the Ctrl key while adjusting to decrease the step size by a factor of 10. Both of these multipliers can be amended in preferences > shortcuts by altering the speed of the fallbacks/value actions. ChatGPT To reset a slider to its default value, just double-click on it. If you want to reset it to a preset value, hold Ctrl and double-click. If you have a bunch of settings grouped together, you can reset them all by double-clicking on the tab's name. You can also change how fast you adjust settings: Hold down Shift while adjusting to make bigger changes. Hold down Ctrl while adjusting to make smaller changes. You can tweak these speed settings in the preferences menu. Thanks and God bless. 🙏📸

[@audio2u]

Hot damn! ChatGPT is doing a pretty good job of rewriting that in plain English. There's a side project for someone who wants to take it on! :)

[@genesiusjaromsky808]

@@audio2u Bruce. The one issue I believe with this will be, only one person would/should do this. What I mean is, just like Google, the results from a ChatGPT query will be biased. They will be based on the history of previous queries by the individual. I would like to see if my hypothesis is true. If someone wouldn't mind taking the two above texts from the manual and asking ChatGPT "rewrite is simpler terms"