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Darktable is not even in the same category as Lightroom. I spent months trying to figure out how to make it work for me before realizing it has zero library man

Darktable is not even in the same category as Lightroom. I spent months trying to figure out how to make it work for me before realizing it has zero library management functionality, which the devs seem to have missed is Lightroom's main value proposition. It is purely a non-destructive editor, and if you look up discussions on this topic on the mail lists you'll see WONTFIX responses in the vein of "just use your file manager and a tangle of custom shell scripts!"

girvo 8y ago
I would absolutely love to see a FOSS alternative to Photo Mechanic. It’s a brilliant bit of software, stores info in the file itself in a neat way that syncs well across NextCloud, giving me a neat “cloud” workflow (sync folder raw after import, process, then remove sync once it’s done). It plus Darktable (or in my case, Affinity Photo) absolute rules
komali2 8y ago
Wait, library management is supposed to be the main value prop? I didn't get the point of libraries - I already have my images in separate folders, what does the library actually add to that dynamic? Different folder, different instance of lightroom works for me.
- RussianCow 8y ago
  Being able to organize thousands of photos dynamically by tags, date, etc, is enormously productive, as opposed to only having a single, static hierarchy through which to find photos. For instance, I could quickly retrieve all scenic photos across our entire collection.
  - komali2 8y ago
    Did not even realize tagging existed... but does that mean all photos must be in the same library? For example my workflow is usually Pull pictures off camera manually into a date-named folder Open lightroom, click "new catalog" Put catalog into named date folder Import those photos (import without move option) Work on those photos, use the slider catalog thing at the bottom to filter by flagged (the ones I edited and like), then ctrl+a and export.
    - RussianCow 8y ago
      It's been several years since I've used it, so I could be completely wrong, but yes, I believe that kind of filtering only works at the catalog level, so all of your photos would have to be in the same catalog to gain that benefit. When I used it, I only had one catalog that encompassed my entire photo library. My impression is that Lightroom is really designed for you to go "all in" and let it organize everything.
BeetleB 8y ago
>I spent months trying to figure out how to make it work for me before realizing it has zero library management functionality It would help if you specify what you mean by library management. What it doesn't do, and is very clear, is handle things like renaming files. You are expected to have copied the files over to your hard drive and organized them into folders (in any way that you like). Beyond that, it serves library management well enough. You import a folder, and it becomes a collection. You can tag it, do queries, etc. It works very well for me when I want to find all photos of, say, my cat - even though they are spread across many directories. Why would you have to spend months to figure that out
- ghostly_s 8y ago
  > You import a folder, and it becomes a collection. Right. And then as I'm working on a project, and decide that collection needs to be two sub-collections, these three shots should actually be in this other project, these two shots maybe should be part of both this project and that project, these three portraits might fit the mood of that collection I'started putting together a few months ago... what do I do then? I'm fine with having to pick a folder to store my files in, that's a simple data storage problem. Library management is about semantic data, and in case you haven't noticed every file browser is absolutely garbage at that. Tags, especially the tiny little PITA tag browser box that was so clearly an afterthought in darktable, are an inadequate solution. (I spent months trying to figure out what I was missing because I heard darktable repeatedly pitched as an equivalent to Lightroom, such as in the comment I replied to here, so I figured an answer to these fundamental workflows needs must be hidden in there somewhere and I was just committing the cardinal sin of Not Reading The Docs. When I finally did pore through the docs and find nothing more than tagging is when I jumped on the mail lists and discovered the devs are actually not interested in building an Lightroom equivalent.)
oedmarap 8y ago
That's quite odd. I've noticed that every other photographer I know dislikes Lightroom for the very fact that it uses libraries -- ending up being way too bulky and a resource hog when scaling across cameras, editing machines, studio locations, and storage drives. Phase One's Capture One solves this by using "sessions" instead, which lets you keep any sort of workspace as a loose individual folder; with preset subfolders for raw files, output, trash, previews, etc. You still get the benefits of tagging and other bells and whistles of searchable libraries but with much easier grouping and portability. While this really doesn't apply to casual editing, I think the performance benefits and flexibility of the session approach over LR's insistence on libraries cannot be overstated if your RAW files start to number in the thousands after a few months (event/wedding photographers, etc.).

girvo 8y ago

I would absolutely love to see a FOSS alternative to Photo Mechanic. It’s a brilliant bit of software, stores info in the file itself in a neat way that syncs well across NextCloud, giving me a neat “cloud” workflow (sync folder raw after import, process, then remove sync once it’s done). It plus Darktable (or in my case, Affinity Photo) absolute rules

komali2 8y ago

Wait, library management is supposed to be the main value prop? I didn't get the point of libraries - I already have my images in separate folders, what does the library actually add to that dynamic? Different folder, different instance of lightroom works for me.

RussianCow 8y ago
Being able to organize thousands of photos dynamically by tags, date, etc, is enormously productive, as opposed to only having a single, static hierarchy through which to find photos. For instance, I could quickly retrieve all scenic photos across our entire collection.
- komali2 8y ago
  Did not even realize tagging existed... but does that mean all photos must be in the same library? For example my workflow is usually Pull pictures off camera manually into a date-named folder Open lightroom, click "new catalog" Put catalog into named date folder Import those photos (import without move option) Work on those photos, use the slider catalog thing at the bottom to filter by flagged (the ones I edited and like), then ctrl+a and export.
  - RussianCow 8y ago
    It's been several years since I've used it, so I could be completely wrong, but yes, I believe that kind of filtering only works at the catalog level, so all of your photos would have to be in the same catalog to gain that benefit. When I used it, I only had one catalog that encompassed my entire photo library. My impression is that Lightroom is really designed for you to go "all in" and let it organize everything.

BeetleB 8y ago

>I spent months trying to figure out how to make it work for me before realizing it has zero library management functionality It would help if you specify what you mean by library management. What it doesn't do, and is very clear, is handle things like renaming files. You are expected to have copied the files over to your hard drive and organized them into folders (in any way that you like). Beyond that, it serves library management well enough. You import a folder, and it becomes a collection. You can tag it, do queries, etc. It works very well for me when I want to find all photos of, say, my cat - even though they are spread across many directories. Why would you have to spend months to figure that out

ghostly_s 8y ago
> You import a folder, and it becomes a collection. Right. And then as I'm working on a project, and decide that collection needs to be two sub-collections, these three shots should actually be in this other project, these two shots maybe should be part of both this project and that project, these three portraits might fit the mood of that collection I'started putting together a few months ago... what do I do then? I'm fine with having to pick a folder to store my files in, that's a simple data storage problem. Library management is about semantic data, and in case you haven't noticed every file browser is absolutely garbage at that. Tags, especially the tiny little PITA tag browser box that was so clearly an afterthought in darktable, are an inadequate solution. (I spent months trying to figure out what I was missing because I heard darktable repeatedly pitched as an equivalent to Lightroom, such as in the comment I replied to here, so I figured an answer to these fundamental workflows needs must be hidden in there somewhere and I was just committing the cardinal sin of Not Reading The Docs. When I finally did pore through the docs and find nothing more than tagging is when I jumped on the mail lists and discovered the devs are actually not interested in building an Lightroom equivalent.)

oedmarap 8y ago

That's quite odd. I've noticed that every other photographer I know dislikes Lightroom for the very fact that it uses libraries -- ending up being way too bulky and a resource hog when scaling across cameras, editing machines, studio locations, and storage drives. Phase One's Capture One solves this by using "sessions" instead, which lets you keep any sort of workspace as a loose individual folder; with preset subfolders for raw files, output, trash, previews, etc. You still get the benefits of tagging and other bells and whistles of searchable libraries but with much easier grouping and portability. While this really doesn't apply to casual editing, I think the performance benefits and flexibility of the session approach over LR's insistence on libraries cannot be overstated if your RAW files start to number in the thousands after a few months (event/wedding photographers, etc.).