Darktable (stylized as darktable) is a free and open-source photography application and raw developer. Rather than being a raster graphics editor like Adobe Photoshop or GIMP, it comprises a subset of image editing operations specifically aimed at non-destructive raw image post-production. It is primarily focused on improving a photographer's workflow by facilitating the handling of large numbers of images. It is freely available in versions tailored for most major Linux distributions, macOS, Solaris and Windows and is released under the GPL-3.0-or-later.[6]
![]() | |
![]() darktable 4.4.2 in darkroom view with the colour balance module expanded and its mask shown as yellow area | |
Original author(s) | Johannes Hanika[1] |
---|---|
Initial release | April 2009[2] |
Stable release | 4.8.1[3] ![]() |
Repository | github |
Written in | C and GTK |
Operating system | FreeBSD Linux macOS Solaris Windows |
Platform | x86-64, ARM64 |
Size | 8.72 MiB (source (tar.gz)) 108 MiB (Windows) 91 MiB (macOS) |
Available in | 18 languages[4][5] |
Type | Photo post-production |
License | GPL-3.0-or-later[6] |
Website | www |
Features
editDarktable involves the concept of non-destructive editing, similar to that of some other raw manipulation software. Rather than being immediately applied to raster data of the image, the program keeps the original image data until final rendering at the exporting stage — while parameter adjustments made by a user display in real-time. The program features built-in ICC profiles, GPU acceleration (based on OpenCL), and supports most common image formats.
Main features
edit- Non-destructive editing with the XMP change description entry
- Work in 32-bit float mode on a color channel in CIE LAB space
- Full implementation of color management
- Supports RAW, JPG, RGBE, PFM and more
- Completely modular architecture
- More than 30 modules for transformation, color correction, quality improvement and artistic effects
- Organize images and search by parameters
- Translated into 19 languages
- Support for shooting directly through the camera
- Find similar photos
- Support for geographical coordinates labels with the display of photos on the map
- An integrated mover for executing Lua scripts. Scripts can be linked to hotkeys or specific events, such as when importing new images.
Masks
editSupport for drawn masks was added in Darktable version 1.4, allowing application of effects to manually specified areas of an image. There are five mask types available: brush, circle, ellipse, bezier path, and gradient; all are resizable, allow fade-out radius for smooth blending and can have their opacity controlled. An arbitrary number of masks can be created and are collected into a "mask manager" on the left hand side of the darkroom UI.[7]
Color
editDarktable has built-in ICC profile support for sRGB, Adobe RGB, XYZ and linear RGB color spaces.[8]
Importing and exporting
editDaktable provides a simple file management system to import and export photos, Raw image formats, JPEG, HDR and PFM images can be imported from disk or camera, and exported to disk, Picasa Web Albums, email, and to a simple HTML-based web gallery as JPEG, PNG, JPEG XL, TIFF, WebP, PPM, PFM and EXR images.[9] Images can be exported to Wikimedia Commons using an external plugin.[10] darktable file management system is quite user-friendly when trying to find files from specific locations by using the "Import" function. Select "Image" or "Folder" to navigate to the desired directory on your file system. Darktable scans and imports images from the specified folder. Use the "Collections" module to filter and manage images by folder, date, tags, or metadata efficiently.[11]
Scripting
editDarktable can be controlled by scripts written in Lua version 5.2. Lua can be used to define actions which Darktable should perform whenever a specified event is triggered. One example might be calling an external application during file export in order to apply additional processing steps outside of Darktable.[12]
Multi-mode histogram
editMultiple histogram types are available, all with individually selectable red, green and blue channels: linear, logarithmic and waveform (new in version 1.4).[7]
User interface
editDarktable has two main modes: "lighttable" and "darkroom". Each represents a step in the image development process. Two more modes are tethering and a map view. Upon launching, lighttable opens by default, where image collections are listed. All panels in all modes can be minimized to save screen real estate.[13]
Lighttable
editThe left panel is for importing images, displaying Exif information, and filtering. Rating and categorizing buttons are at the top, while the right-side panel features various modules such as a metadata editor and a tag editor. A module used to export images is located at the bottom-right.
Darkroom
editThe second mode, "darkroom", displays the image at center, with four panels around it; most tools appear on the right side. The left panel displays a pannable preview of the current image, an undo history stack, a color picker, and Exif information. A filmstrip with other images is displayed at the bottom, and can be sorted and filtered using lists from the upper panel. The latter also gives access to the preferences configuration. Darktable's configuration allows custom keyboard shortcuts and personalized defaults.
Tethering
editThe third mode allows tethering through gPhoto to some of the cameras which support it.[14]
Map
editThe fourth mode can display maps from different online sources and geotags images by drag-and-drop. It also uses maps to show images already geotagged by a camera.
Plugins
editAs of December 2019,[update] darktable includes 67 image adjustment plugins, which it divides into 5 groups;[9]
Basic group
editPlugins for simple well-known photo adjustment operations include: contrast brightness saturation module; shadows and highlights; color reconstruction; base curve with presets to automatically improve contrast and colors; crop and rotate; orientation; exposure; demosaic; highlight reconstruction; white balance; invert and raw black/white point.
Tone group
editPlugins related to contrast and lighting include: fill light for modifying the exposure based on pixel lightness; levels to set black; tone curve; zone system; filmic; local contrast; global tone mapping and tone mapping.
Color group
editPlugins related to hue and saturation include: velvia, which mimics Velvia film colors by increasing saturation on lower saturated pixels more than on highly saturated pixels; channel mixer; output color profile; color contrast; color correction, to modify the global saturation or to give a tint; monochrome; color zones; color balance; vibrance; color look up table; input color profile and unbreak input color profile.
Correction group
editPlugins for repairing visual imperfections include: dithering; sharpen; equalizer; denoise (non-local means); defringe; haze removal; denoise (bilateral filter); scale pixel; rotate pixels; liquify; perspective correction; lens correction using the LensFun library; retouch; spot removal; denoise (profiled); raw denoise; hot pixels and chromatic aberrations.
Effect group
editArtistic postprocessing plugins used for visual effects include: watermark; framing; split-toning; vignetting; soften; grain; highpass; lowpass; lowlight vision; bloom; color mapping; colorize and graduated density.
Development
editGoogle Summer of Code
editIn 2011, the Darktable team participated in the Google Summer of Code (GSoC). The main goals were to remove libglade dependency from Darktable and to make room for more modularity. The input system for handling shortcuts was also rewritten and incorporated into version 0.9.[15][16]
Distribution
editDarktable is released under the GPL-3.0-or-later as free software.[17] The current version of Darktable works on Linux, macOS and Windows. Many Linux distributions include Darktable in their default repositories, including Debian, Fedora, openSUSE, Arch Linux, and Gentoo Linux.
Darktable also runs on Solaris 11,[18] with packages in IPS format available from the maintainer.[19]
Localization
editDarktable is available in multiple languages. Darktable is notable for using all-lowercase literals in every language by default. Since version 4.4.0, a new locale called "en@truecase" allows users to apply conventional casing to English.[20]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ "contact". Darktable.org. Archived from the original on 2012-03-21. Retrieved March 16, 2012.
- ^ "Darktable main repository". Darktable.org. Archived from the original on 2017-01-19. Retrieved August 23, 2012.
- ^ "Release 4.8.1". 24 July 2024. Retrieved 22 August 2024.
- ^ "darktable 4.4.2 released". darktable.org. 22 July 2023. Archived from the original on July 31, 2023. Retrieved August 18, 2023.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) - ^ "LINGUAS". darktable.org. Retrieved February 4, 2016.
- ^ a b "about". Darktable.org. Archived from the original on 2012-03-07. Retrieved March 15, 2012.
- ^ a b Willis, Nathan. "Darktable 1.4". Archived from the original on 2014-05-02. Retrieved April 30, 2014.
- ^ "3.2.10. Color management | usermanual | darktable". Archived from the original on 2018-01-14. Retrieved 2018-01-13.
- ^ a b "features". Darktable.org. Archived from the original on 2013-04-17. Retrieved March 15, 2012.
- ^ "DtMediaWiki". Retrieved October 14, 2018.
- ^ "Lightroom Vs Darktable Comparison, Which Is Best App 2024?". 2024-06-16. Retrieved 2024-08-07.
- ^ "Darktable user manual chapter 7". Darktable.org. Archived from the original on 2017-11-17. Retrieved April 30, 2014.
- ^ Schroder, Carla. "A RAW Feast on the Linux Darktable (Photo Editor)". Archived from the original on May 7, 2012. Retrieved April 28, 2012.
- ^ Schroder, Carla. "How to Remote Control Your Camera with Darktable on Linux". Archived from the original on May 2, 2014. Retrieved April 30, 2014.
- ^ "Who's New in Google Summer of Code: Part 7". Google Open Source Blog. Archived from the original on 2011-07-29. Retrieved 2012-03-15.
- ^ "Glade Removal Complete, Moving on to Keyboard Accelerators". 6 June 2011. Archived from the original on 2013-03-30. Retrieved 2012-03-17.
- ^ "GNU General Public License". Free Software Foundation. June 2007. Archived from the original on 2012-12-17. Retrieved August 23, 2012.
- ^ "Darktable and Solaris: It Just Works(tm) .... and there are some nifty benefits too". 7 May 2012. Archived from the original on 2012-09-15. Retrieved August 23, 2012.
- ^ "www.jmcpdotcom.com/Packages". Archived from the original on 2013-12-22. Retrieved 2012-07-25.
- ^ Obry, Pascal (2023-06-21). "darktable 4.4.0 released". darktable. Retrieved 2023-09-02.
Bibliography
editExternal links
edit