[EN] basic photo processing for beginners in darktable 3.6

[@StudioPetrikas]

Thank you very much for this. It's so important for the beginners to have a comprehensive all-in-one first steps video, especially when we are converting our thought process from display-referred to scene-referred.

[@audio2u]

Thanks for the shout-out, and thanks for your continued work on dt development! :)

[@luisarevalo6112]

This specific video has been the most helpful I have seen since I started using Darktable several years ago! I have also watch and learned from Bruce William' videos too. I thought your other videos were too technical (and long) For Me, but after hearing your reasons, I understand why. In this video I learned so much of what I was doing wrong and how to make corrections or as I would say "reframe the question", I now have a Map and a Compass, Merci Beaucoup!

[@sherab2078]

Great video for a beginner like me. I have some experience with RT, but DT is quite a different beast - mostly in positive way.

[@derBrite4]

Wow, this is a perfect balance of practical advise and background knowledge about darktable to start. Thank you so much. I also appreciate your effort to reduce the environmental impact of this video. Awesome!

[@okay1904]

Thank you Aurelien, and all the darktable team. My photos in 3.6 are so much easier to edit, and with very few changes, look extremely realistic. and rich in colour./contrast

[@bernym4047]

Many, many thanks for this video. It will save me hours of time. A very practical demonstration of dt in use with several useful tips (e.g. zoom out when assessing contrast, exposure etc).

[@sudipto30]

Thank you for this short yet effective introduction .

[@CTRL_SMarcos]

Thank you very much for the video, extremely informative. It is very nice of you to recognize the great work that Bruce Williams does with his videos.

[@clinchergt]

This is THE video to watch when it comes to learning how to use darktable. So so insightful. Thank you so much for making this.

[@forkair]

Thank you! This was very insightful!! Very good video. Thanks for all your development and videos on Darktable

[@JuanBretti]

Thank you Aurélien. This is a great and simple workflow.

[@triplewinlin5576]

This workflow explanation is so important. I have been struggling to understand how to use the modules and in what order to do so. Thank you so much for all you do!!

[@fukutubeagain]

Again, thank you 1) very much for Darktable, and 2) for this wonderful tutorial. I have been looking for something like this for years.

[@overproppedrob8956]

After years of editing pictures, I have somewhat of an eye-opening experience. Thank you very much for the detailed and sound explanations. Very much appreciated.

[@DalsPhotography]

Thank you very much!!! I am just a new user, who wants to see what Darktable is about, and if I can use it to enhance my Fuji photos. I ditched Capture one due to the complicated ingest path. (folders tend to get very huge) . This lesson was really great. Best from Uruguay.

[@petermathews4636]

Many thanks for this tutorial. I found it really interesting and gave me a hugely better understanding of what I'm doing. I have been using Darktable now for 6 months now. I have viewed Bruce Williams and Boris Hajdukovic, both excellent but a little daunting for a beginner. For me the best KZbin channel for complete beginners is A Dabble in Photography by Nicholas Winspeare. His First Steps videos lead you very gently and give huge confidence. I was completely overwhelmed by Darktable until I discovered Nicholas. Now moving on and really appreciate the work you are doing. Huge thanks!

[@hkp9257]

Thank you so much. Iam so happy there is an english version :) I hope we will get more workflow videos. Maybe some b/w picutres? 135mm is a great focal lenght btw :) todo: always bring a red edged sign to my shoots to help with CA removal :P /s

B&W is actually just color editing with slightly more contrast and a lot less color annoyance, nothing difficult.

[@accentontheoff]

Thanks for this. To understand better, do the effects in the pipeline compound / add on to the ones that have gone before, or are they kind of independent of each other.

It's a pipeline in which we stack modules as filters, so the later modules inherit all the changes made in the earlier ones.

[@accentontheoff]

@ Got it, thanks!

[@foxus]

Very good summary for scene-referred scenarios basic editing :) It helped me a lot and I guess it's pretty sufficient in most cases to achieve good results :)

[@gumalak4804]

Thanks for this tutorial & for recording it in English. Just what I needed for 3.6

[@KuberKoos]

thank you for making the tutorial available in English too. #merci

[@giuseppecannella6237]

Great video as always from you, Aurelien! I notice that in preferences/processing you have selected lanczos2 for the pixel interpolation (warp) instead of bicubic. Any special recommendation from your side? Thanks

[@gabrielsanchezmartinez2456]

Great work on 3.6! Are you planning to make a video explaining the new color balance module in detail?

[@hkp9257]

there is a recent 50min video from " A dabble in photography" on youtube regarding that topic.

It's in the box right now. Coming soon.

[@sundersquare]

would this basic photo processing be any different now in the newest 4.4 version?

[@infinityfabric]

Super useful tutorial, thank you so much!

[@kimsuphan]

Thank you Aurelien. Very helpful.

[@LivingImage]

Useful tutorial, thanks

[@jef777]

Thanks for the amazing work on 3.6 an also this video. Have to admit, the settings from the beginning really did the trick for me, I mean the "auto apply pixel workflow", which I always had set to the defaults which does not harmonize with the usage of the filmic rgb modul or maybe even the scene referred workflow in general. I was always wondering what I was doing wrong and if I should switch to lightroom...

[@FairMiles]

Thanks. Important guidelines to try to deconstruct our histogram & 0-100% based reasoning (while still insisting on learning DT!). Q: Is a scene-referred workflow still the best option if you were to edit jpegs with DT? Or their lack of information "out of bounds" (already constrained) makes it equal (or worst) than a traditional display-referred approach? (sorry if you already explained this and I missed it)

[@93Logen]

Thanks for the basic editing tutorial. There is a new option in Color Calibration: Calibrate with a color checker. Tried to click on it but I wasn't able to find out how it works. I hope you will explain it soon.

Please read the doc, I have spent great time to write everything down in there.

[@markkrahe3216]

Thank you very much for your work. 👍 My Question: What about „Highlight reconstruction“? I always use it in „reconstruct colors“-Mode., Its enabled by default but in your Video its disabled……?

The reconstruct colors is flimsy : it may or may not work. And by "not working", I mean producing over-saturated colors and mosaiced patterns. So I have a preset to always disable it and I use filmic reconstruction when needed.

[@markkrahe3216]

@ ok, thank you very much…👍

[@lionking-sy8uq]

thank you very much. This helps a lot to get me started with darktable. Is there a module for focus stacking?

No, you will need to use other apps to merge focus stacking series.

[@alanlacey9437]

So informative

[@ilmangus]

Very useful video! Thanks! Just a question: you said that it's better to evaluate and edit the pictures with the image zoomed out and not pixel peeping at 100%. I absolutely agree but sometime, the zoomed out image isn't rendered with a good enough precision, producing artefacts or not representing colours very precisely (even setting the "performance over wuality" flag off). At 100% everything is fully rendered and precise instead, but obviously much slower. Is it an unavoidable compromise or is it something that could be improved?

What artifacts ? Blurs are not pixel-perfect if zoomed out, though we don't care about that when doing global contrast adjustments, but that should be all.

[@ngocnguyen6345]

Thank you for the video! Could I ask why do you need the custom preset for your white balance module?

You don't need it, it's just meant to get users started faster and replace the disputable saturation in filmic midtones.

[@dimejilagunju6771]

Hi Aurelien, I just want to ask if you know when cr3 canon raw will be supported in darktable. Also, is there any quality degradation when cr3 is converted to dng? Thanks

Hi, CR3 support will land into darktable when it will be stable and tested enough. I can't say more, I don't know. If we release too soon something unstable, people complain, if we take too much time to ensure it's stable, people complain, so there is no win there. The code change to support CR3 is quite substantial (5000 lines of code IIRC), so it's not something to take lightly. There should not be any quality loss by going to DNG.

[@dimejilagunju6771]

@ Thanks Aurelien. Glad to know support for CR3 is in the works. I’m a new user and I’m loving it. 🙏🏾

[@Giles29]

This was so helpful.

[@vaibhavbansal237]

This is great. Thanks!

[@ruudmaas2480]

Thank you!!

[@tramirez]

Gracias, Muchas gracias