Hi Jason,
Noise reduction has greatly improved in the latest version of DT and
meets most of my needs. Occasionally I have to resort to RawTherapee over
any other program including DT and LR. Rawtherapee is the best noise
reduction program because it can be used to tackle noise by selecting a
demosaic algorithm that minimises noise from the start. But DT has made
great improvements in this direction and suits most
of my noise reduction needs. LR can actually create rainbow coloured noise
in the shadows of some images. I was surprised by this discovery, but a
friend had an image producing red green banding noise in the deep shadows.
I got the raw file and replicated the problem in LR on my system but DT and
RawTherapee did not have the banding noise.
FYI here is a list of strengths and weaknesses for RawTherapee. I share
this as a wish list for DT. I love RawTherapee, but the lack of the drawn
and parametric masks in RawTherapee is the deal breaker for me that makes
DT the winner for most of my work.
RawTherapee Strength
· Extensive range of demosaic options which can help with high ISO
and noisy images.
· Nice tools in the Detail Tab for noise reduction and image
sharpening of high ISO images. One of the better programs when dealing with
noisy images. Edges and microcontrast can help sharpen images that are
noisy without confounding the problems.
· *Auto-matched tone curve* applied by RT matches embedded JPEG image
and includes D-lighting effect in Nikon
· A sophisticated selection of types of tone curves combined with six
different curve modes. This significantly improves control over colour and
saturation when curves are applied.
· Very nice Shadow/highlights tool that tends not to produce halos
and can be used in RGB or Lab colour space.
· Offers Lab adjustments which allow you to adjust brightness without
affecting colour to better approximate human vision
· HSV Equalizer allows adjustments based on hue.
· Good options for lens correction including manual adjustment if the
lens is not profiled.
Weakness
· Does not have virtual copies like LR or duplicates like in DT
· History does not show what edits have been applied in previous
sessions. However, the image will load as last saved and by going to the
individual tool controls you can reset back to default.
· Many tools only show accurate preview at 1:1 preview scale
· Lack of drawn and parametric masks
On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 at 15:53, Jason Polak <[email protected]> wrote:
> Just going to second what you said regarding the "fun" in darktable.
>
> I've been using darktable for about five years now and have edited over
> 20K images. It is just really fun to use, which a lot of modules that
> allow really fine-grained adjustment. The only thing I did not really
> enjoy was noise reduction, but that was vastly improved with the 3.x
> series and now it does pretty much everything I need.
>
> Darktable is awesome!
>
> Jason
>
> On 6/26/20 7:15 PM, Terry Pinfold wrote:
> > Hi Tony,
> > I teach photography and imaging classes. I promote GIMP as a
> > free alternative to Photoshop because it does 99% of what photoshop
> > does, is free and in my opinion is nicer to work with. I do not promote
> > DT as a LR alternative because in my opinion it is not. LR is a program
> > designed by Adobe for professional photographers. Lr manages the
> > digital assets (images) so well. I personally use keywords, but it also
> > offers rating systems, collections and can search metadata. The second
> > side to LR is fundamental editing of images including Raw images. The
> > editing ability of LR is sufficient for the average studio or wedding
> > photographer that needs to do some final tweaks before presenting the
> > image to the customer. LR is a beautiful professional photographer's
> > tool. Subscription cost should not be a barrier to a professional.
> >
> > However, LR's editing capabilities are relatively limited. I have so
> > much more fun working images in DT. I love the various modules and the
> > flexibility of the drawn and parametric masking systems that are so much
> > more flexible than LR's. I love the ability to do multiple instances of
> > the same module. I love the multiple options for sharpening and noise
> > reduction. I love DT as a photographer and as an artist because of its
> > ultimate level of editing control, which LR can not rival. However, if I
> > was a professional photographer I would stick to LR. The reason is time
> > is money. Firstly I would photograph in RAW and JPG and I would try to
> > have my JPG tweaked by camera settings to be a finished quality not
> > requiring any editing because that is a waste of a professional's time.
> > However, if I did have to do editing I would want some quick and dirty
> > fixes that could be applied to all the images in just minutes. That is
> > what LR is great at. DT has styles which can also process images quickly
> > but it is no rival in terms of speed to LR.
> >
> > I still use LR for HDR merge of raw files and sometimes for panorama
> > stitching. Microsoft ICE is a really great free panorama stitcher for
> > Windows and can handle challenging merges that PS and LR fails at. For
> > restoring scanned images and film I use DT for sharpening and grain
> > reduction (noise reduction) but then move onto GIMP for dust removal. DT
> > could do dust removal but GIMP is easier and quicker. I also like to
> > experiment with levels and curves in GIMP to tweak the final color and
> > contrast.
> >
> > My suggestion is to pick the best from each program. I wish DT had the
> > DAM capabilities of LR and then it would be an alternative to LR. Your
> > post was very successful at starting or reigniting a conversation on the
> > topic.
> >
> > On Fri, 26 Jun 2020 at 23:36, tony Hamilton <[email protected]
> > <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
> >
> > Hi Terry,
> >
> > I'm a bit ... well, I suppose the concept is 'humbled' ... by the
> > response to my posting on this topic. I am equally very impressed by
> > the consistency of the advice I have been given. I have obviously
> > invested far too much time and effort in this part of DT where other
> > solutions - such as you describe - are far more practical. So now I
> > should focus on those functions DT is good at: raw processing.
> > Plenty of work to do there, I sense.
> >
> > On 25/06/2020 22:34, Terry Pinfold wrote:
> >> Hi Tony,
> >> I replied to the long post. I feel just use DT for editing
> >> images and another program such as LR or Adobe Bridge to catalog,
> >> sort and import (copy) images from your SD card. DT is a great
> >> editor but is not an all-in-one solution like LR tries to be.
> >> Good luck.
> >>
> >> On Fri, 26 Jun 2020 at 03:44, tony Hamilton
> >> <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
> >>
> >> Hi Terry,
> >>
> >> I had not considered this option (as you can see from my long
> >> posting just a few minutes ago), but what you say makes good
> >> sense to me - I see you share my concern about the security of
> >> images on the SD card. That factor really gave me the
> >> heebie-jeebies when I realised what DT was doing - shudder...
> >> I'll examine this in more detail.
> >>
> >> Tony
> >>
> >> On 24/06/2020 02:49, Terry Pinfold wrote:
> >>> Hi Tony,
> >>> since you have LR use that program to import and
> >>> organise your files. It is well designed and excellent at
> >>> that task. It also does good editing of Raw files, but DT is
> >>> more sophisticated in the edits you can do. I own LR and use
> >>> it as a catalog, sometimes to do panorama stitching and
> >>> sometimes HDR images. But I love DT editing far more than LR
> >>> editing usually. Focus on what DT does great, which is
> >>> editing not cataloging. BTW, the extra images may be JPG
> >>> files associated (embedded) with Raw files but I am not sure.
> >>> I also recommend never letting the computer delete images
> >>> from your camera's SD card. I have seen this as a cause of
> >>> problems with my photography students in the past. I
> >>> recommend copying images from the Sd card. Ensuring you have
> >>> a minimum of two copies of the original on separate drives.
> >>> Then, and only then, format the card in the camera to clean
> >>> up the card. I would format rather than delete all images.
> >>> Hope that helps.
> >>>
> >>> On Tue, 23 Jun 2020 at 21:30, tony Hamilton
> >>> <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
> >>> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> In addition to the difficulties I am having with import
> >>> (the subject of
> >>> an earlier posting) I now find that DT imports more
> >>> images than there
> >>> are on my SD card. The camera tells me my card has 52
> >>> images; Windows
> >>> tells me my card has 52 images. Lightroom finds and
> >>> imports 52 images.
> >>> iMatch tells me there are 52 images and adds them to its
> >>> database as I
> >>> expect. DigiKam does likewise. DT, uniquely, finds 72 of
> >>> these 52,
> >>> providing sometimes as many as 8 images with the same
> >>> file name. What
> >>> causes this strange behaviour and how can I trust that DT
> >>> is also not
> >>> 'losing' some images on import, in addition to 'creating'
> >>> some?
> >>>
> >>>
> ____________________________________________________________________________
> >>> darktable user mailing list
> >>> to unsubscribe send a mail to
> >>> [email protected]
> >>> <mailto:darktable-user%[email protected]>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> Dr Terry Pinfold
> >>> Cytometry & Histology Lab Manager
> >>> Lecturer in Flow Cytometry
> >>> University of Tasmania
> >>> 17 Liverpool St, Hobart, 7000
> >>> Ph 6226 4846 or 0408 699053
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Dr Terry Pinfold
> >> Cytometry & Histology Lab Manager
> >> Lecturer in Flow Cytometry
> >> University of Tasmania
> >> 17 Liverpool St, Hobart, 7000
> >> Ph 6226 4846 or 0408 699053
> >>
> >
> >
> > --
> > Dr Terry Pinfold
> > Cytometry & Histology Lab Manager
> > Lecturer in Flow Cytometry
> > University of Tasmania
> > 17 Liverpool St, Hobart, 7000
> > Ph 6226 4846 or 0408 699053
> >
> >
> >
> ____________________________________________________________________________
> > darktable user mailing list to unsubscribe send a mail to
> > [email protected]
>
> ____________________________________________________________________________
> darktable user mailing list
> to unsubscribe send a mail to
> [email protected]
>
>
--
Dr Terry Pinfold
Cytometry & Histology Lab Manager
Lecturer in Flow Cytometry
University of Tasmania
17 Liverpool St, Hobart, 7000
Ph 6226 4846 or 0408 699053
____________________________________________________________________________
darktable user mailing list
to unsubscribe send a mail to [email protected]
