Hi Terry,
Thanks for your observations. Please understand that the words
'professional' and 'photographer' are orthogonal to my current life
skills: I stopped going to work 25 years ago; I have 61 times 1 year's
worth of experience being a picture taker, as distinct to a
photographer, but I do have some 10's of thousands of images (and
sounds) in digital, chemical and printed form. DAM is damned important
to me: I've got to get it all bundled up to hand over to the next
generation, preferably at least a few milliseconds before they become
the current generation.
I also made the choice to move away from a big, heavy DSLR to a simpler,
smaller, lighter mirror-less camera with good glass: Fuji X-series. I
didn't realise at the time that Lr was going to be a): a con-job by
freezing support for a licensed product I had paid for and b): really
terrible at handling the Fuji X-Trans sensor.
That encapsulates the challenge I face: find a replacement to Lr that
removes Adobe's oppressive foot from my neck, is an effective raw
processor and will protect my investment in photo assets (all of which
are slowly being converted to digital). Having looked at (in varying
levels of detail) the front runner raw processor replacements to Lr it
became clear to me that none of them provided adequate DAM capability
(and that's not even considering the audio assets I have).
The clear front runner DAM is iMatch but it is almost overkill for my
needs, is relatively expensive and is Windows only. It also doesn't do
the 'ingesting' tasks all that well: I was hoping that one of the better
raw-processor candidates - DT - would address that issue, so I spent a
long time trying to understand the import features of DT and how it
would integrate with iMatch. As you may have seen from my posts here, it
was/is a painful experience.
Many far more experienced and knowledgeable people than me comment how
good a raw processor DT is, so I want to go with it but need a better
import front end (import is most definitely not DAM - a part of it
maybe, but only a minor part). The front runner for this role is Rapid
Photo Downloader, but it is Linux only.
So I might just stay with Lr 6 for the import/ingest/file rename
functions and also for the wider DAM functions built around the catalog,
such as keywords, flags, labels, ratings, collections, versioning,
stacking, exporting, printing etc and hope to do the raw processing in
DT plus Gimphoto, if I can get it to work with DT (I haven't been able
to get to grips with Gimp because it looks and feels so different to PS;
I'm hoping Gimphoto will address this).
The fall back plan is to use PhotoMechanic or Fast Stone Image Viewer or
XnView-MP for the front end functions, DigiKam for the main-stream DAM
functions and DT + Gimphoto or PS for the raw processor functions,
assuming I can cobble together a reasonable work flow out of this. It
would be oh so nice if there were an effective DAM with DT as a
preferred 'plug-in'.
Time is the constraint - I can no longer put in 18 hour days on this
task, so I'd better stop here and get back to not-work.
On 27/06/2020 00:15, 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]
