[uds-announce] Darktable experience

[Eric Gregory]

On Oct 27, 2012, at 8:47 AM, "Thomas Bushnell, BSG" <tbushnell at google.com> wrote:

> If there is someone at UDS with expertise in using Darktable (or, actually, Shotwell) for photo handling, I'd love to pick your brains and have a conversation about what's most effective. As a prelude, I can give you some of the topics that I would love to hear more about:
> 
> 1) Shotwell gives me the choice between the camera's jpeg "developing" and its own, and almost always I find my camera did a much better job. (It's a pretty high-end prosumer model, so this does not surprise me.) Is there a way to get darktable to give me that choice? It seems to simply treat the raw and jpeg files as two separate images.
> 
> 2) Is there a way to get the Shotwell photo handling and have darktable as a backend, without dealing with lots of files and constant important back-and-forth myself?
> 
> 3) If I use shotwell or darktable, their non-destructive editing seems all-or-nothing, when what I'd love is a sort of "tree" of changes, where the whole history is kept in some way. Am I missing something here?
> 
> 4) My understanding is that if I run the Canon software on Windows, it would present me with a lightroom/darktable sort of interface, and it would show me the file as it was "developed" by the camera, and then let me tweak from there. Can darktable do this? Of course, that means that the Canon software has exactly the same algorithms as are in the camera, and presumably darktable does not. What's best?
> 
> 5) What is the best way to have fun for a decent photographer, but a total noob at digital photo editing, to learn how these tools to make photos better?
> 
> Please don't fill the list with replies, but if you'd like to have a conversation this week--maybe more than one--I'd love the chance to learn from some more experienced users.
> 
> Thomas

Hi Thomas, 

Four of us from Yorba, developers of Shotwell, will be at UDS. Improving RAW support in Shotwell is a priority for us. 

If you don't bump into us, give Jim (jim at yorba.org) an email to arrange a meet up with our crew. 

 - Eric