I'm a recent darktable convert
I'm a recent darktable convert
I'm growing more and more impressed with its capabilities the more I use it! Wrapping my head around its approach to masking, and its "scene referred pipeline" took some time, but now that I'm getting the hang of it, I think I can say I genuinely prefer it to Lightroom.
Combined with digiKam, which is excellent for photo collection management, I'm a very happy photographer :)
Got recommended it from the other site a few years ago when I couldn't justify the expense of Lightroom anymore. Agree when you say you prefer it to Lightroom. But I don't use it nearly as much as I ought to. It is very good though isn't it?
One of the programmes where I am happy to drop a few quid towards the developer, even if I don't have to.
I moved from Windows to Linux, and I just couldn't get Lightroom working on Linux. If I could have, I'd probably still be paying Adobe money, but instead, I was forced out of my comfort zone, and I'm thankful for it!
Same here. I'd never want to go back, Darktable is so customizeable, I realy prefer it to Lightroom.
I also want to make the switch away from Lightroom and it looks like that you here might have the solution for my problem. The Lightroom feature, where I can import everything on my PC and then sync these "smart previews" to their cloud and then hand out a link or just a tablet to my wife, friends or anyone, makes everything so much easier. They can then decide which photos they want to keep or be deleted and also label those, which I should develop first. Is there a FOSS (or at least non-Adobe) solution that would give me similar possibilities? I'm not afraid of hosting something myself.
We rsync the jpgs (not the RAW files) to our self hosted photoprism instance. Not for the same reason you do, but it could easily be used the way you describe it!
Alternatively, if you don't shoot in jpeg+raw, or if you want to reduce the size of the jpegs before you sync them, digiKam has a batching tool that would let you automate exporting smaller versions of all of your files as part of the import process.
Same here, that's my favorite feature. If you don't find anything, I might be able to help develop it
Thanks! I don't know how plugins for digiKam work but that would probably be a good point to start. Though I think I have not enough time at the moment look at this more thoroughly. Sometime maybe :)
I've been using it for around a year and am really happy with the program.
The big workflow gap for me is culling. Thankfully I have a legacy license for Photo Mechanic, but their new pricing structure is very unappealing.
I just got an OM1-MkII, which has a "pro shooting mode" that basically dumps the last 2 seconds to the card when you press the button. Useful for sports and animals. But it makes culling a whole job!
So far, I've been using digiKam for that, and it is working, but I definitely don't have that workflow optimised yet...
As an OM-1 MK1 dabbler, I find my hit rate much higher if not using one of the SH modes. Not sure if procap is available with 'regular' ES. But you're right, metric tons of photos to cull. I'll have to give digiKam a go. All I use PM for us culling. There's a ton more it can do, but I'm def not using it to it's fullest.
I am trying to make the switch from lightroom to darktable but I cant figure out the import process, I go to add to library and I select the top most directory and clicked on recursive mode but the add to library button is greyed out, not sure what to do, are we supposed to only open one photo at a time?
edit: nvm after finding the right spot in the manual I guess Im supposed to import folder by folder and I have to wait for the photos to populate on the right pane so that I can then select them to be imported, I was trying to do all my 70k photos in one go haha, this is going to take a while x_x
You don't need to import your library in to darktable. Darktable isn't great at photo management and workflow.
What I do is use digiKam to manage my old Lightroom collection. In lightroom, make sure you've set it up to store metadata in sidecar files. Write your sidecar files out (this can take a long time). Open digiKam, and you can import all of your lightroom photos and data.
Then photos that need editing get sent to darktable from digiKam
I recently picked up photography a bit more seriously again having used Nikon Capture NX 2 for years. I tried all the linux and FOSS options but I ended up buying DXO Photolab 7 and found it far superior for my needs. I've had to setup a dual boot system to get it to work but it's definitely worth it. Dark table is good, but it's a long way off the commercial offerings in terms of ease of use and image quality.