Is DARKTABLE Secretly Better Than LIGHTROOM? - Darktable vs Lightroom

The thing with learning darktable is, you not just learn to move sliders, but you learn a whole lot of science and theory, which was so fascinating to me. There are great and entertaining introductions, eg from Boris Hadjukovic (a photographer explaining the craftsmanship on an impressive level, which is both very effective and motivating to learn more und try out), Aurilien Pierre (the awesome dude who developed filmic and other core features, and a great teacher of the science behind), and Bruce Williams (explaining the modules in such a sympathic and patient way). Thank you too Nick.

Just an observation.. You put your talking head circle over an important part we need to see. There is an empty space in the bottom left corner.

Darktable is excellent, the problem, at least for me, is that it is difficult to use and there are only a few sources for training ....

I've watched two of your videos which have been very helpful, but they were about two very specific topics. A great video to do would show just the basic, typical and essential tools and workflow to develop an "ordinary" photo...one that is slightly under-exposed in the shadows and has just a few blown highlights. So, steps to discuss: Exposure>Shadow Adjustment>Highlight Adjustment>White Balance>any Hue changes>cropping/straightening>Eliminate distracting noise>sharpening>Exporting & Printing. (This is not necessarily the same order that you would use in Darktable vs Lightroom, but those are the most typical adjustments users fool with.) Thx!

As a Pro Photographer and Since using Darktable for a few years now, and i will never go back to Adobe, along with all its other products!

Capture one pro still for me. DT is excellent but its a very very detailed and very technical learning curve. I've used and still have the app and I go to it when i need some quickies done if I'm not using affinity photo. But dark table does unlock potentials for those that hate subscription nonsense like Adobe and with what they got going on now, people are leaving them. That and those that simply can never afford $300 for Capture one pro or more to say don't want to pay the price. Darktable is freakin awesome.... but it will never beat the process of the other apps like C1P which is my primary for bulk editing, affinity photo for my single photo work and XnView MP for my on location quick tag work

The issue with Darktable isn't that it lacks features, it's that Darktable takes more time to develop photos, is far less intuitive in use, there is no structure or order you can just edit in and get, you kind of have to jump around. Also in LR you pretty much didn't edit the photo, so it would be expected it won't be to your taste if you barely touched it as opposed to Darktable. Also while both DT and LR won't address your issues with the programs, if you try get issue noticed in DT you will get informed that you're wrong, and stupid, and how dare you expect functionality from free software, which isn't really the case, as people I saw posting issues were approaching it from perspective of wanting this project to grow, and be more accessible to people in general, often people who won't read 300 page manual for photo editing software before first use. Did I mention just how painful it is to synchronize settings for multiple photos for the pictures? XD

Nothing beats Darktable, especially when it comes to masking. Masking in Darktable is so much faster and accurate compared to LR, once one understands it of course :) Nice video, hope to see more.

Super helpful video - thanks Nick!

I'd love to see more videos like this. Workflow with included in depth tips along the way!

Thanks for showcasing Darktable, looks interesting. What holds me back from using other software than Lightroom is the lack of AI-based masking, like one-click accurate selection of the sky or subject, or a person's face, or hair, which I use all the time. With regard to your video, I'd like to suggest to put your cam image on the bottom left rather than have it cover the histogram.

Yeah I pretty much agree with the first few seconds. I'm a photography noob but I instantly understood what to do generally when I first used Lightroom. Darktable is just confusing all around for a beginner. Just tried using it again after a year of Lightroom now that I know what I'm looking for when editing. It's just as powerful if not more The lowercase letters also is annoying in darktable. Makes the UI feel so off. I hope they release some version with proper caps lock on the labels.

There is a way that almost all youtubers and bloggers don't put up or don't realize. You can get perfect result from raw files. Here is how. 1) process your raw file like you normally do and save it as jpg fileA 2) go back to the raw file and reprocess it with different values and save it as jpg fileB. Repeat this process several times with different values. Some times you wish you lightened up some spots or darken up another spot or some place more red and other place more green etc etc etc. Save each iteration as a different jpg file. After go to Photoshop and load up these jpg files into stack and ask photoshop to blend it all.

I watched this video after your tutorial on the tone equalizer module, and once again, the comparison between Lightroom and darktable brought some aha-moments. Thank you very much! Keep up the good work!

Thank you very much for sharing Nick !! I've just discovered Darktable and surprised by it (in the past I was used to use Photoshop tools for my panoramas), then I needed something like this video to start playing Darktable. Great!

Thanks so much for the video Nick. Just a comment on your PIP. It was covering the histogram which would have been so handy to see what you're looking at to dial it in. All the best, and looking to see what else you have next!

thanks for doing the comparison, would love to see more workflow videos on darktable

I can't related to this coffee-drink feeling but I am happy for you that you enjoy it that much. 😆 I love to hear that so many people enjoy free and open software like Darkroom. In my opinion Adobe treats its customers atrociously, it is great that there are alternatives for Adobe software which will do what you need.

Excellent.

Does darktable have an auto heal brush?