14 ms·

Ansel

775 points by sts153 3y ago

sts153 3y ago
Photo-Editor beased on darktable
chpatrick 3y ago
Ansel makes me think of Nvidia Ansel.
- zoklet-enjoyer 3y ago
  Ansel Adams. Famous photographer
  - chpatrick 3y ago
    And well-known existing product name.
    - zoklet-enjoyer 3y ago
      I never heard of it. After looking it up, I don't get the appeal. Not sure why someone would want to take fancy screenshots of video games unless they're marketing a game.
      - Toutouxc 3y ago
        Nothing gets my blood boiling like a Steam/App Store game listing that only has these "in-engine but not the actual gameplay" screenshots. If it's a FPS, show me the screen with the gun and the crosshairs. Show me the HUD in a driving game, the position of the camera in a 3rd person RPG. I don't care how some random NPC or a building looks from a position I'll never get the camera to when playing the game.
      - Philpax 3y ago
        Photography, just like in the real world, but with lovingly-sculpted virtual worlds and (often) the ability to pose the actors in the scene as you wish. Dead End Thrills [0] is a master of this, both artistically and commercially, but much of his prior content seems to be down, which is a real shame. [0]: https://deadendthrills.com/ https://deadendthrills.com/
      - pdntspa 3y ago
        Gen Z absolutely demands it and gets cranky without a photography mode
    - ipsum2 3y ago
      Definitely not a well known product name, as someone who plays PC games and also does some CUDA development, I've never heard of this product from Nvidia.
    - joemi 3y ago
      Not nearly as well known as Ansel Adams, though. Especially among people interested in photography.
Banditoz 3y ago
> I have given 4 years of my life to the Darktable project, only to see it destroyed by clueless geeks playing code stashing on their spare time, everyone pushing his own agenda with no sense of design, in a project where nobody is responsible for anything and where we work too fast on everything at the same time. Anyone know what happened to the Darktable project? I've only used it a few times, but it seems nice for someone who knows how to use it (which isn't me!) but curious what drama happened.
- mrkeen 3y ago
  I just assumed it was what people used. I tried but couldn't get the hang of it. Couldn't flatten or remove things from the history.
  - h0l0cube 3y ago
    It’s not your fault. It has the worst UX of anything I’ve used. Be careful if you use the mousewheel anywhere, you don’t know what unexpected action it’s going to perform. Drawing vector shapes for masks is wildly frustrating too. It does have a lot of powerful modules though… and it’s free.
    - camtarn 3y ago
      There's a switch in preferences to make it just scroll by default. Definitely a bad UI decision indeed.
      - h0l0cube 3y ago
        I actually would prefer it to zoom, which it sometimes does. A couple of examples: if you're using the tone curve tool it'll change the exposure for the level under the pointer; or if you're hovering over a vector it will scale the vector when all you want to do is zoom on the vector so you can move its fiddly control handles; but then if you're hovering over one of the settings dials by accident it will move the slider left to right. Absolutely something I wouldn't expect and have not seen in any other software. The UX is mind-boggling inconsistent and unpredictable.
nas 3y ago
This is the work of a former "darktable" developer (Aurélien Pierre) who decided to fork the codebase and go it alone. He has strong opinions about the correct way to do things. I like some of the cleanup on the UI that he has done. For now, Ansel and darktable are compatible in terms of the underlying database. So you can easily switch back and forth between them. If the fork diverges significantly, it would be more difficult to maintain the compatibility. darktable has seen some major changes in the past few years, moving away from a "display-referred" to a "scene-referred" workflow. Aurélien contributed a lot of code to make that work, most significantly, the Filmic module. darktable is not as user friendly and as polished as other commercial tools (Lightroom, Affinity, Capture One) but it is capable if you take the time to learn it.
- photoGrant 3y ago
  The DB is compatible with Darktable v4.0 and below only
- jillesvangurp 3y ago
  Aurelian's youtube channel is pretty insightful. He explains a lot of what is behind the scene referred modules. And as you say, he has been driving a lot of that work. I've been using Darktable for many years for all my photo editing and it has improved massively in the last few years. He does a great job explaining how raw file processing works (in any raw photo processing tool) and how Darktable does it. https://www.youtube.com/@AurelienPIERREphoto/videos https://www.youtube.com/@AurelienPIERREphoto/videos I had no idea he was working on this. Having come across his rants on Darktable last year, I think he does have a point on the UX front. A lot of the filtering in the light table (where you organize your photos) is a bit of a mess of confusing buttons, options, and weird convoluted abstractions. I never liked that part of the software. I can work with it but years in, it remains counter intuitive how you get your files in there and manage them. It's just convoluted and weird all over. A lot of bad ideas layered on top of each other. Aurelian kind of freaked out when last year some pretty major changes were just pushed through without much debate. And I agree with him, it didn't really improve much things. Anyway the magic is in the darkroom part, which is the part where you edit photos. There is a wide variety of modules aimed at different expertise levels. Scene referred mode is basically a big upgrade over what a lot of other packages do, which is to blindly apply pre-defined curves for cameras without much regard for the actual pixels in the raw image. Filmic and other modules do this a bit more intelligently by actually looking at the pixels, using some heuristics and working from the lowest levels of the pipeline all the way up to do the right things. It adds up to a lot less work when editing photos for me compared to earlier versions. Mostly photos come out pretty OK without much tweaking. I might tweak perceptive saturation a bit, add some contrast in filmic, etc. Basically, the workflow is roughly: 1) tweak the exposure as needed for the gray point. Filmic adapts with sane settings for black and white points and you typically don't have to tweak that. 2) add some contrast in filmic 3) maybe add some local contrast 4) in the color balance module fiddle with perceptive saturation. Done. There are a few more things I do for sharpening, profiled denoise (as needed), etc. But that's pretty much it. One nice thing is being able to apply defaults based on rules to photos. I might play with Ansel a bit if I can find some time over Christmas. Kind of curious to see what he's done to lighttable and the rest.
camtarn 3y ago
Oof. Looking at the "Transitioning from Darktable" page ( https://ansel.photos/en/doc/special-topics/from-darktable/ https://ansel.photos/en/doc/special-topics/from-darktable/ ), the author is extremely disparaging about Darktable developers. Very off-putting, even if some of the changes seem sensible. [edit] Make that quite a lot of the changes, actually, including getting rid of some really dangerously bad bits of UI design. Still dislike the guy's attitude but I've got to admit he has a point.
- hatsunearu 3y ago
  This guy basically changed darktable from a shitty Lightroom clone to something truly unique very recently, and his approach is highly divisive among the users.
  - camtarn 3y ago
    Yeah, having read the article linked above [1] I see his point - it definitely looks like he's put in an enormous amount of work for the project, and I can see where his frustration comes from! To me, Darktable has a 'feel' of a highly technical editor for people who really care about colourspaces etc, and although I hardly know anything about colour I rather appreciate that. It's interesting to note that almost all the modules that contribute to that 'feel' are written by Aurélien. [1] https://ansel.photos/en/news/darktable-dans-le-mur-au-ralenti/ https://ansel.photos/en/news/darktable-dans-le-mur-au-ralent...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
acherion 3y ago
Weird, I scrolled down to see what cameras it supports, and there was a link labelled "Supported Cameras" that goes to https://rawspeed.org/CameraSupport.html https://rawspeed.org/CameraSupport.html but that's a squatted domain now. Is there a list somewhere? It doesn't instill much confidence in me if I can't even see what camera RAW formats are supported.
- okl 3y ago
  How about this? https://github.com/darktable-org/rawspeed/blob/develop/data/cameras.xml#L87 https://github.com/darktable-org/rawspeed/blob/develop/data/...
  - acherion 3y ago
    Thanks! I filtered out the lines in that XML blob for make="Nikon" (I shoot Nikon) and saw the list of cameras supported that I was interested in :)
- nurple 3y ago
  Take a look at the darktable docs: https://docs.darktable.org/usermanual/4.0/en/overview/supported-file-formats/ https://docs.darktable.org/usermanual/4.0/en/overview/suppor... The rawspeed lib is at github here: https://github.com/darktable-org/rawspeed https://github.com/darktable-org/rawspeed
hexo 3y ago
Can someone compare this to RawTherapee, pretty please?
macintux 3y ago
Somewhere very recently I encountered a quote from Ansel Adams, in which he seemed to anticipate that "electronic" photos would be the next big thing, in (IIRC) 1980. Wish I could find that again. Seemed remarkably prescient.
- robga 3y ago
  It was in Playboy (May 1983) https://petapixel.com/2022/07/30/ansel-adamss-interview-with-playboy/ https://petapixel.com/2022/07/30/ansel-adamss-interview-with... “There’s no end in sight. Electronic photography will soon be superior to anything we have now. The first advance will be the exploration of existing negatives. I believe the electronic process will enhance them. I could get superior prints from my negatives using electronics. “Then the time will come when you will be able to make the entire photograph electronically. With the extremely high resolution and enormous control you can get from electronics, the results will be fantastic. I wish I were young again!”
  - nurple 3y ago
    "I wish I were young again!" Ah, the oft-repeated refrain of those who never stop learning.
  - kqr 3y ago
    I have only read The Negative, but from it I get the impression that Ansel Adams is really good at boiling things down to fundamentals and understanding the key concepts involved in things (much like I gather Elon Musk can be, I suppose). I'm not surprised he was able to grasp the benefits of digital photography also.
- hurryer 3y ago
  In early 2000 a lot of photographers were saying that digital photography is not "real", it doesn't have a "soul", it should not be allowed in photo contests and it's just worthless in general.
  - macintux 3y ago
renjimen 3y ago
Looks good, I'll give it a whirl. I could never figure out a good darktable workflow. The UI seemed all over the place with some basic features missing and way too bloated in certain areas that I imagine 99% of users would never touch. Hopefully Ansel has figured out a better feature balance and UI. My current Linux photo processing tool is Another RawTherapee [1], which is a wonderful blend of the power of RawTherapee with a UI that has a lot of similarities to Lightroom. [1] https://discuss.pixls.us/c/software/art/36 https://discuss.pixls.us/c/software/art/36
- simulo 3y ago
  I also throught of ART as a fork of RawTherapee, also forked with the aim to make it easier to use. I wondered if that is something hard to avoid: Over time features get added, usability worsens. This might be general, but it could apply to FOSS in particular, which often takes a modular approach (cue UNIX philosophy) and rarely includes structures where potentially useful features are rejected in order to keep the whole experience simple.
  - renjimen 3y ago
    Yeah, I guess there's a point where starting afresh is beneficial to refocus. A bit different, but it's the same for institutions too. I know some countries have "sundowner" clauses on every institution, where they need to apply for a permit to continue operating every 10 years or so. Provides a good point to think "is this working and still serving its original purpose?".
Toutouxc 3y ago
> You will find very few people with this kind of full-stack understanding of light and color able to also write efficient computer programs and read academic research papers on applied mathematics. Yet, you will find a lot of image editing applications and a lot of guys trying… Wow, I'll have what he's having for confidence. On the other hand, open-source photography and bitmap editing is still waiting for its own Blender or Godot and I applaud anyone willing to have a go at it. What's available (GIMP, RawTherapee, darktable, ...) can mostly sort of get the job done, but if you're the kind of person who seeks relaxation, pleasure and aesthetics in photography, the open-source software feels just too geeky, too unfocused, too unrefined. I'm currently on DxO + Affinity and even though they cost quite a lot of money, I'd probably shoot and enjoy the whole thing significantly less if I had darktable and GIMP waiting at home.
- hatsunearu 3y ago
  Once you try it, and read his blogs about how all of this shit works, you'll know that he isn't exaggerating. The amount of control and physics-based editing you're doing is very unique. This wasn't what darktable was like a few years ago, but this guy has been making incredible strides to implement his vision.
  - jillesvangurp 3y ago
    Very much so. That, and he's French. The French way of critiquing is a bit different from what other cultures do and can be a bit abrasive. Cultural differences are a thing to be aware off when dealing with people from different nationalities. He means well and is deeply passionate about this stuff. He's worked his ass off in Darktable for many years. One of the few (only?) developers that was trying to do this full time on donations, etc. He's the closest thing Darktable had to a benevolent dictator style leader (like Linus Torvalds). Big loss for the project to not have him around. I hope they can reconcile their differences somehow. Would be best for all. Basically, what happened is somebody pushed through something that in Aurelian's mind were some severely misguided, low quality changes without much debate or process. It just showed up and he flipped out and did not appreciate being bypassed/ignored like happened.
- deleted 3y ago
hatsunearu 3y ago
lmao, Aurélien Pierre has been making insanely big leaps in darktable, putting it leagues above its competition and providing something so unique compared to Lightroom and others, so I'm not surprised that he just created his own fork.
camillomiller 3y ago
> On the following picture, I made the styling, the make-up, the lighting, the shot, the editing, the retouching, the software color filters, the documentation to use them, the website to talk about them in 2 languages, and even the colorspace used for saturation adjustment. You will find very few people with this kind of full-stack understanding of light and color able to also write efficient computer programs and read academic research papers on applied mathematics. Yet, you will find a lot of image editing applications and a lot of guys trying… Jeez, wish I had 1/10th of the confidence of this guy
nurple 3y ago
If you're using nix, I was able to make a build from the darktable derivation[0] modified to use fetchgit (since he hasn't made a github Release since December) and `s/darktable/ansel/g`. src = fetchgit { url = "https://github.com/aurelienpierreeng/ansel.git"; rev = "f7669af89a71882ebad15982d698b8df7e6c6ce8"; sha256 = "sha256-FI6dKUrmtTG7DIV0MmY6XdqlUpqdt7boKuXKU6CywjA="; fetchSubmodules = true; }; [0] https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/nixpkgs-unstable/pkgs/applications/graphics/darktable/default.nix https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/nixpkgs-unstable/pkgs/...
- l0b0 3y ago
  Nice, would you be willing to submit a PR[1]? [1] https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/269535 https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/269535
- spindle 3y ago
  You're my hero
podviaznikov 3y ago
nice, not super related but I made a simple tool to publish apple photos to the web. https://public.photos https://public.photos
turnsout 3y ago
This might actually get me to check out Ansel as a current Lightroom Classic user. I tried Darktable a year or two ago, and there were some immediate dealbreakers. I really like the idea of someone capable and opinionated forking a popular project. I’m rooting for him!
- charrondev 3y ago
  Out of curiosity what’s keeping you on Lightroom classic. I moved my admittedly amateur photography collection to the “new” Lightroom a couple years ago and have found it to be an improvement in pretty much every way - UI is snappier - Integrating syncing lets me leave my laptop at home when travelling and taking photos.
cpill 3y ago
pretty awesome tool! next steps are to make a chat interface to this so non photography nerds can use it
dave333 3y ago
On Win 10 downloaded the install pkg but it would not run until I tried program compatibility mode for Win 8 ??
- pests 3y ago
  Guess he shouldn't have bothered.
cetra3 3y ago
I use Darktable quite extensively for underwater photos, but keen to try Ansel out and see if it's less friction. An example of friction in darktable: - I have an external strobe which means I have to put the exposure down to its lowest when shooting, otherwise everything is washed out. Darktable in newer versions has "Compensate camera exposure" on by default, which washes out all the images until I click it off. I'm sure there's a way to make this checkbox disabled by default, but why can't it accept what comes out of the camera? - No favourites: there used to be a way to have all your panels in a favourites tab. This was great as I usually only use a handful of modules that I use. It's gone in later versions - The "color balance" panel, not to be confused with "color balance rgb", it's not in any of the default tabs but useful for saturation adjustments. Why are some of these useful modules hidden? Shouldn't all modules be available by default. The only way you can get to it is by searching. - White balance: there are now two modules and it warns you if you adjust one or the other: "white balance" the standard one on the "base" tab and "color calibration" tucked away on the "color" tab. Both modules are turned on by default, but if you adjust one or the other without turning one off it has a big red warning. - One upgrade decided to reset export settings, and so my EXIF data was stripped out when exporting. It took me way too long to figure it out.
- jillesvangurp 3y ago
  You can create a preset for the exposure module and define rules when it kicks in. For example based on the camera manufacturer, focal length, iso, etc. I use that to increase the default exposure compensation with my Fuji. I deliberately underexposes to prevent highlights from clipping. So I usually want a +1.25 exposure compensation. Likewise, you might want denoising on for high iso files. You can organize modules into profiles and simply hide all the ones you don't use. The default profile hides some of the deprecated or display referred modules. You can change this. White balance indeed has a deprecated variant for display referred and a scene referred one that works completely different that you typically use together with color calibration (which is where you should do most of your color correction, including color temperature changes). The reasons are mathematical and beyond me to explain properly (Aurelian does a great job on his Youtube channel). It boils down to not throwing away the baby with the bath water in terms of rounding errors accumulating and switching color model (to the one used by your display) too early in the pipeline. It might look pleasing but then it bites you when you want to tweak tone or do other things. This is the whole point of working with the scene referred modules. Having all the legacy modules around is indeed somewhat confusing and Aurelian solves this in Ansel by hiding all the deprecated modules now. They are there for legacy files still.
jiggawatts 3y ago
Some feedback from a long-time Lightroom user: Nikon "High-efficiency RAW" support is missing. This is IMHO the fault of Nikon and their vendor TicoRAW. If you're going to come up with a new RAW format, then it is your responsibility to commit the decoder to open-source libraries! Sure, patent and license the encoder, but if you keep the decoder closed-source and proprietary, then you're a <insert expletive>. The installer is an EXE instead of an MSI. Publish an MSI! Use the "wix" tool in your build pipeline, it's not that complex. The installer and the deployed app are not digitally signed, which throws up a litany of scary warnings and errors. Other open-source developers have gone to the effort of signing their builds. On first launch the app flashed a command-prompt window up and then disappeared. The "Exposure" tool has an automatic setting to compensate for the camera offset. Okay... then why did I bother to offset the exposure just to have ansel undo my intent by default? Then... it layers on a default +.7 EV for like no reason... The overall GUI is completely non-standard and bizarre. I've never seen anything even vaguely like most of the UI controls in this application anywhere else... ever. It's like someone who's never seen a GUI in their entire lives invented everything from scratch. The non-standard UI elements like the combo boxes aren't just weird, they're buggy too: they don't work consistently with the mouse. I can see the option being highlighted, I can click it... and then it'll pick something else! They only work reliably with the keyboard. In general the "selected item highlight" appears to be off-by-one, but not consistently. It's bizarre. Colour management is a mess. On a HDR OLED monitor, Lightroom can display wide-gamut and HDR images correctly if the desktop is set to HDR. E.g.: if toggle an image from SDR mode to HDR mode then the only difference is that highlights get brighter and some extreme colours become more saturated. Everything is correct by default and SDR tones don't "shift". In ansel, the colours look wrong and any setting I choose in the menu makes them even more incorrect. There's a lot of talk of HDR support on the site, and the menus even "suggest" that PQ/HLG support is there... but not really. The export formats are all from the 1990s and modern HDR formats like HEIC, AV1F, JPEG XL, etc... are missing in action. A lot of the options/alternatives seem like developers being too reluctant to get rid of old, bad code. For example, if a new superior demosaicing algorithm is added, then it's usually best to just drop the worse ones! I tried every option available, and all but one was broken, to the point of returning super-green results or just all-black. Lightroom for example just uses a really good demosaicing algorithm and doesn't burden users with a choice of a bunch of bad alternatives. In general, the same criticisms apply to ansel that applied to Darktable: over-complicated, too many options, most of which are either wrong or useless. Internal details exposed to the end-user in the UI that should be debug traces for developers, not permanent GUI elements. Easy to inadvertently "break" the whole thing by reordering pipeline elements by dragging and dropping something accidentally. I suspect that on top of the ~30K lines of code Aurélien Pierre deleted from Darktable 4.0, another 60K should be deleted...
irq 3y ago
Beautiful open-source photo editing app, and that's really saying something. A tremendous achievement. However, the lack of a macOS build shows a fundamental lack of market knowledge & project management skill that will ultimately doom this project. It always surprises me when technical acumen is combined with complete blindness to a significant potential customer demographic. I hope they wake up. EDIT: Am a professional photographer who frequently interacts with other pros on assignments and their own art projects. We're discussing tools constantly and have no qualms between paying for commercial tools or paying in the form of dedication to ascend the learning curve of a less friendly tool. We'll figure out a tool if it's worth it.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- still_grokking 3y ago
  > Mac OS support is not active, the main reason is only 4% of the Darktable user base runs it while the continuous integration bot for Mac OS needs weekly maintenance (for breaking unexpectedly). It may or may not work, but if it doesn't, I don't own a Mac box to have a look, so don't expect anything. Mac OS is anyway not playing nice with Open-Source, having deprecated OpenCL and all. Source: https://github.com/aurelienpierreeng/ansel/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/aurelienpierreeng/ansel/blob/master/READM...
  - ungamedplayer 3y ago
    Mac os users traditionally will pay for software. They have no shortage of products they can purchase that will be eol in the next+1 is version.
tambourine_man 3y ago
No macOS version?
- tambourine_man 3y ago
  > Mac OS and, to a lesser extent, Windows have known GUI issues that come from using Gtk as a graphical toolkit. Then perhaps that's not the best choice for cross-platform GUI framework?
- kilroy123 3y ago
  I really wanted to try this out on my mac. :-/
  - hammyhavoc 3y ago
    Install Linux on your Mac then. :- )
aoeusnth1 3y ago
I can't get this to build for MacOS, has anyone succeeded? I ran the brew commands from the mac-nightly CI script, did `git submodule init; git submodule update` and get this error running `build.sh`: ``` $ sh build.sh --build-type Release --install --sudo --clean-all; In file included from /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX14.0.sdk/usr/include/cups/http.h:39: /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX14.0.sdk/usr/include/netinet/ip.h:189:2: error: unknown type name 'u_char' u_char ipt_code; /* IPOPT_TS */ ``` ...etc
- flogoe 3y ago
  Did you see the OS Support section in the README [0]? I tried for about 15 minutes and didn't get it to build. And even if it did, it would probably not be stable enough to use for anything productively. [0] https://github.com/aurelienpierreeng/ansel#os-support https://github.com/aurelienpierreeng/ansel#os-support
  - aoeusnth1 3y ago
    Yeah, I saw that, but I also saw instructions for building on Mac and CI scripts for doing it so I got hopeful :( I don’t mind a few gtk bugs.
1905 3y ago
If I wasn't exclusively using linux, I would use photoshop (not interested in using wine) It is good to see some other alternatives out there. I couldn't get over the steep learning curve of darktable, along with what I perceived to be bloated ui and function
cwillu 3y ago
“Ansel is what Darktable 4.0 could have been if its developers were not so busy turning it into an usability nightmare. Ansel is a Darktable 4.0 variant where 30.000 lines of poorly-written code and half-broken features have been removed, and 11.000 lines rewritten : it runs faster, smoother, uses less power and requires less configuration. Enjoy an app focusing on getting work done and stability.”
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
hoistbypetard 3y ago
The author's search engine: https://chantal.aurelienpierre.com https://chantal.aurelienpierre.com might be the real hidden gem here. It's neat!
- WA 3y ago
  Interesting philosophy, but just tried it with "bokeh" and well, the results are pretty bad? "Related keywords" are interesting, but many miss the last letter. The result list shows some reviews for old smartphones. Nothing relevant at all. Whereas if I type this into Google, results look way better. Tried the reverse: One related keyword for "bokeh" is "out-of-focus". I typed "out of focus" into both Google and Chantal. Google: first result mentions bokeh. Chantal: Also mentioned somewhere, but not as a related keyword.
  - hoistbypetard 3y ago
    Nice choice of keyword. I kind of suspect "dumbrish" needs to be more of a first pass for classifying things as opposed to the whole story. Interestingly, using it as an exact keyword seems to improve some of the links but just empties the related keywords list. This feels like an approach that can work really well for topic-specific searches (despite the hole you spotted) but that probably won't ever generalize. Still... I'd have liked to have it for a couple of topics that I used to patrol forums and post basic answers for.
blackpeepo 3y ago
ok
fs111 3y ago
wow, that README is bitter https://github.com/aurelienpierreeng/ansel https://github.com/aurelienpierreeng/ansel
cycomanic 3y ago
My favorite photo development program remains lightzone, I find it has by far the most intuitive work flow that let's you achieve extremely advanced steps in a quite straight forward way (much of the functionality can be achieved in darktable but it's often very unclear how). I originally bought a copy but it has since been open sourced. Unfortunately it's photo management features are really subpar and development has been quite slow. I wish I could use it just for the development and use something else for the management, but last time I tried that wasn't really possible. I have looked into contributing several times, but it's written in java and I really don't the have time to invest in getting up to speed first.
agos 3y ago
innovation in raw developing software is always very welcome. my main gripe with basically all of them is that the controls to manipulate colors are very tricky to use for the precise work that color grading requires. "Curves" is still the de facto standard even if it is a usability nightmare, and apparently simple stuff like "take the non saturated, light blues and move them towards cyan" is very hard or straight up impossible in many raw converters. This is especially painful if you compare that to video grading software and its companion LUT building software, where new paradigms to manipulate color has emerged. I sincerely hope that this is an effort that will bring the state of the art forward - the author's stance on scene referred workflows is a good premise
merelysounds 3y ago
I’ve used Darktable and would happily try Ansel. But in recent years ios compatibility became an important feature for me. My camera can send raw files to my phone wirelessly, with an ios app I can edit them on site and have a draft ready instantly. This is especially useful for events or anything time sensitive - but convenient in other use cases as well. Still, I have good memories of Darktable and the author’s filmic module, I hope to try Ansel anyway at some point.
- jval43 3y ago
  For personal photos, integration with the iOS Photos library is something I'd like to see from more apps. RAW Power is pretty much the only raw editor that integrates well, without needing to copy files around and creating duplicates.
- ishanmahapatra 3y ago
  Agreed. iOS integration is really key for me. But I can understand that the developer doesn’t have an Apple device and isn’t interested in personally supporting it because of the cost and Apple’s attitude towards open source.
naejin 3y ago
For those who want to switch to Ansel or Darktable, it's possible to do it in one day with this youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@s7habo https://www.youtube.com/@s7habo The first video you should watch is this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsbw98KxMJc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsbw98KxMJc Then if you want to learn how to use one of the most powerful feature, parametric masks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hfw-GWowH9M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hfw-GWowH9M About the Ansel fork, I've used Darktable for 6 years and tried Ansel the last two weeks: if you have never used Darktable, Ansel UX is better for a first time user imo, more streamlined. Keep in mind that I'm biased as I agree with most of the author's points here: https://ansel.photos/en/news/darktable-dans-le-mur-au-ralenti/ https://ansel.photos/en/news/darktable-dans-le-mur-au-ralent...
non-nil 3y ago
Darktable needs the tantacrul treatment. https://www.youtube.com/@Tantacrul https://www.youtube.com/@Tantacrul Maybe Pierre can pull it off himself. He’s clearly knowledgeable and has strong convictions and Darktable is incredibly powerful, so I’m hoping the good bits from either camp can be reconciled into something lasting, minding the bus factor. Darktable’s issues and lack of coherent stewardship is quite noticeable.
laurent_du 3y ago
This man is on a mission. I love it. The world needs more people like Aurélien.
leononame 3y ago
I for one am glad that someone with a more holistic approach takes this on, even if Aurélien is really snarky. Darktable really is a usability mess and is easy to use incorrectly. I'm also glad he is taking donations, since the darktable project won't take any. It gives me hope that this would give him the freedom in actually implementing his vision.
- The_Colonel 3y ago
  Agreed. Darktable has always been an impressive project, produced great results, great features and the UI was IMHO above average for an open source project. But it did suffer from lack of holistic view, many features were kind of duplicated across modules and it was unclear what's the best way to do things. It seemed like people had a lot of freedom to implement their own thing in modules. I think Aurélien's snarkiness is quite distasteful and might prevent getting some of them on board. But he has a proven track record and I believe he can execute his vision, so I will be donating as well.
eternityforest 3y ago
Looks fantastic!
jug 3y ago
Haha, I love his a bit unprofessional tone. :D So much pent up anger - and I understand! Darktable has a strange approach to evolving their software. They somehow keep everything old and bad as they add improved versions and you end up with tons of ways to do very similar things, and to add to this mess, Darktable often uses its own nomenclature, or a very very technical one. If you're coming from Lightroom or Capture One, you feel like taking your first steps on a new planet. For no reason! So, I'm sold! I'll definitely take a look at this. He gets it!
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
fabrixxm 3y ago
so hot right now

Ansel

775 points by sts153 3y ago

sts153 3y ago

Photo-Editor beased on darktable

chpatrick 3y ago

Ansel makes me think of Nvidia Ansel.

zoklet-enjoyer 3y ago
Ansel Adams. Famous photographer
- chpatrick 3y ago
  And well-known existing product name.
  - zoklet-enjoyer 3y ago
    I never heard of it. After looking it up, I don't get the appeal. Not sure why someone would want to take fancy screenshots of video games unless they're marketing a game.
    - Toutouxc 3y ago
      Nothing gets my blood boiling like a Steam/App Store game listing that only has these "in-engine but not the actual gameplay" screenshots. If it's a FPS, show me the screen with the gun and the crosshairs. Show me the HUD in a driving game, the position of the camera in a 3rd person RPG. I don't care how some random NPC or a building looks from a position I'll never get the camera to when playing the game.
    - Philpax 3y ago
      Photography, just like in the real world, but with lovingly-sculpted virtual worlds and (often) the ability to pose the actors in the scene as you wish. Dead End Thrills [0] is a master of this, both artistically and commercially, but much of his prior content seems to be down, which is a real shame. [0]: https://deadendthrills.com/ https://deadendthrills.com/
    - pdntspa 3y ago
      Gen Z absolutely demands it and gets cranky without a photography mode
  - ipsum2 3y ago
    Definitely not a well known product name, as someone who plays PC games and also does some CUDA development, I've never heard of this product from Nvidia.
  - joemi 3y ago
    Not nearly as well known as Ansel Adams, though. Especially among people interested in photography.

Banditoz 3y ago

> I have given 4 years of my life to the Darktable project, only to see it destroyed by clueless geeks playing code stashing on their spare time, everyone pushing his own agenda with no sense of design, in a project where nobody is responsible for anything and where we work too fast on everything at the same time. Anyone know what happened to the Darktable project? I've only used it a few times, but it seems nice for someone who knows how to use it (which isn't me!) but curious what drama happened.

mrkeen 3y ago
I just assumed it was what people used. I tried but couldn't get the hang of it. Couldn't flatten or remove things from the history.
- h0l0cube 3y ago
  It’s not your fault. It has the worst UX of anything I’ve used. Be careful if you use the mousewheel anywhere, you don’t know what unexpected action it’s going to perform. Drawing vector shapes for masks is wildly frustrating too. It does have a lot of powerful modules though… and it’s free.
  - camtarn 3y ago
    There's a switch in preferences to make it just scroll by default. Definitely a bad UI decision indeed.
    - h0l0cube 3y ago
      I actually would prefer it to zoom, which it sometimes does. A couple of examples: if you're using the tone curve tool it'll change the exposure for the level under the pointer; or if you're hovering over a vector it will scale the vector when all you want to do is zoom on the vector so you can move its fiddly control handles; but then if you're hovering over one of the settings dials by accident it will move the slider left to right. Absolutely something I wouldn't expect and have not seen in any other software. The UX is mind-boggling inconsistent and unpredictable.

nas 3y ago

This is the work of a former "darktable" developer (Aurélien Pierre) who decided to fork the codebase and go it alone. He has strong opinions about the correct way to do things. I like some of the cleanup on the UI that he has done. For now, Ansel and darktable are compatible in terms of the underlying database. So you can easily switch back and forth between them. If the fork diverges significantly, it would be more difficult to maintain the compatibility. darktable has seen some major changes in the past few years, moving away from a "display-referred" to a "scene-referred" workflow. Aurélien contributed a lot of code to make that work, most significantly, the Filmic module. darktable is not as user friendly and as polished as other commercial tools (Lightroom, Affinity, Capture One) but it is capable if you take the time to learn it.

photoGrant 3y ago
The DB is compatible with Darktable v4.0 and below only
jillesvangurp 3y ago
Aurelian's youtube channel is pretty insightful. He explains a lot of what is behind the scene referred modules. And as you say, he has been driving a lot of that work. I've been using Darktable for many years for all my photo editing and it has improved massively in the last few years. He does a great job explaining how raw file processing works (in any raw photo processing tool) and how Darktable does it. https://www.youtube.com/@AurelienPIERREphoto/videos https://www.youtube.com/@AurelienPIERREphoto/videos I had no idea he was working on this. Having come across his rants on Darktable last year, I think he does have a point on the UX front. A lot of the filtering in the light table (where you organize your photos) is a bit of a mess of confusing buttons, options, and weird convoluted abstractions. I never liked that part of the software. I can work with it but years in, it remains counter intuitive how you get your files in there and manage them. It's just convoluted and weird all over. A lot of bad ideas layered on top of each other. Aurelian kind of freaked out when last year some pretty major changes were just pushed through without much debate. And I agree with him, it didn't really improve much things. Anyway the magic is in the darkroom part, which is the part where you edit photos. There is a wide variety of modules aimed at different expertise levels. Scene referred mode is basically a big upgrade over what a lot of other packages do, which is to blindly apply pre-defined curves for cameras without much regard for the actual pixels in the raw image. Filmic and other modules do this a bit more intelligently by actually looking at the pixels, using some heuristics and working from the lowest levels of the pipeline all the way up to do the right things. It adds up to a lot less work when editing photos for me compared to earlier versions. Mostly photos come out pretty OK without much tweaking. I might tweak perceptive saturation a bit, add some contrast in filmic, etc. Basically, the workflow is roughly: 1) tweak the exposure as needed for the gray point. Filmic adapts with sane settings for black and white points and you typically don't have to tweak that. 2) add some contrast in filmic 3) maybe add some local contrast 4) in the color balance module fiddle with perceptive saturation. Done. There are a few more things I do for sharpening, profiled denoise (as needed), etc. But that's pretty much it. One nice thing is being able to apply defaults based on rules to photos. I might play with Ansel a bit if I can find some time over Christmas. Kind of curious to see what he's done to lighttable and the rest.

camtarn 3y ago

Oof. Looking at the "Transitioning from Darktable" page ( https://ansel.photos/en/doc/special-topics/from-darktable/ https://ansel.photos/en/doc/special-topics/from-darktable/ ), the author is extremely disparaging about Darktable developers. Very off-putting, even if some of the changes seem sensible. [edit] Make that quite a lot of the changes, actually, including getting rid of some really dangerously bad bits of UI design. Still dislike the guy's attitude but I've got to admit he has a point.

hatsunearu 3y ago
This guy basically changed darktable from a shitty Lightroom clone to something truly unique very recently, and his approach is highly divisive among the users.
- camtarn 3y ago
  Yeah, having read the article linked above [1] I see his point - it definitely looks like he's put in an enormous amount of work for the project, and I can see where his frustration comes from! To me, Darktable has a 'feel' of a highly technical editor for people who really care about colourspaces etc, and although I hardly know anything about colour I rather appreciate that. It's interesting to note that almost all the modules that contribute to that 'feel' are written by Aurélien. [1] https://ansel.photos/en/news/darktable-dans-le-mur-au-ralenti/ https://ansel.photos/en/news/darktable-dans-le-mur-au-ralent...
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

acherion 3y ago

Weird, I scrolled down to see what cameras it supports, and there was a link labelled "Supported Cameras" that goes to https://rawspeed.org/CameraSupport.html https://rawspeed.org/CameraSupport.html but that's a squatted domain now. Is there a list somewhere? It doesn't instill much confidence in me if I can't even see what camera RAW formats are supported.

okl 3y ago
How about this? https://github.com/darktable-org/rawspeed/blob/develop/data/cameras.xml#L87 https://github.com/darktable-org/rawspeed/blob/develop/data/...
- acherion 3y ago
  Thanks! I filtered out the lines in that XML blob for make="Nikon" (I shoot Nikon) and saw the list of cameras supported that I was interested in :)
nurple 3y ago
Take a look at the darktable docs: https://docs.darktable.org/usermanual/4.0/en/overview/supported-file-formats/ https://docs.darktable.org/usermanual/4.0/en/overview/suppor... The rawspeed lib is at github here: https://github.com/darktable-org/rawspeed https://github.com/darktable-org/rawspeed

hexo 3y ago

Can someone compare this to RawTherapee, pretty please?

macintux 3y ago

Somewhere very recently I encountered a quote from Ansel Adams, in which he seemed to anticipate that "electronic" photos would be the next big thing, in (IIRC) 1980. Wish I could find that again. Seemed remarkably prescient.

robga 3y ago
It was in Playboy (May 1983) https://petapixel.com/2022/07/30/ansel-adamss-interview-with-playboy/ https://petapixel.com/2022/07/30/ansel-adamss-interview-with... “There’s no end in sight. Electronic photography will soon be superior to anything we have now. The first advance will be the exploration of existing negatives. I believe the electronic process will enhance them. I could get superior prints from my negatives using electronics. “Then the time will come when you will be able to make the entire photograph electronically. With the extremely high resolution and enormous control you can get from electronics, the results will be fantastic. I wish I were young again!”
- nurple 3y ago
  "I wish I were young again!" Ah, the oft-repeated refrain of those who never stop learning.
- kqr 3y ago
  I have only read The Negative, but from it I get the impression that Ansel Adams is really good at boiling things down to fundamentals and understanding the key concepts involved in things (much like I gather Elon Musk can be, I suppose). I'm not surprised he was able to grasp the benefits of digital photography also.
hurryer 3y ago
In early 2000 a lot of photographers were saying that digital photography is not "real", it doesn't have a "soul", it should not be allowed in photo contests and it's just worthless in general.
- macintux 3y ago

renjimen 3y ago

Looks good, I'll give it a whirl. I could never figure out a good darktable workflow. The UI seemed all over the place with some basic features missing and way too bloated in certain areas that I imagine 99% of users would never touch. Hopefully Ansel has figured out a better feature balance and UI. My current Linux photo processing tool is Another RawTherapee [1], which is a wonderful blend of the power of RawTherapee with a UI that has a lot of similarities to Lightroom. [1] https://discuss.pixls.us/c/software/art/36 https://discuss.pixls.us/c/software/art/36

simulo 3y ago
I also throught of ART as a fork of RawTherapee, also forked with the aim to make it easier to use. I wondered if that is something hard to avoid: Over time features get added, usability worsens. This might be general, but it could apply to FOSS in particular, which often takes a modular approach (cue UNIX philosophy) and rarely includes structures where potentially useful features are rejected in order to keep the whole experience simple.
- renjimen 3y ago
  Yeah, I guess there's a point where starting afresh is beneficial to refocus. A bit different, but it's the same for institutions too. I know some countries have "sundowner" clauses on every institution, where they need to apply for a permit to continue operating every 10 years or so. Provides a good point to think "is this working and still serving its original purpose?".

Toutouxc 3y ago

> You will find very few people with this kind of full-stack understanding of light and color able to also write efficient computer programs and read academic research papers on applied mathematics. Yet, you will find a lot of image editing applications and a lot of guys trying… Wow, I'll have what he's having for confidence. On the other hand, open-source photography and bitmap editing is still waiting for its own Blender or Godot and I applaud anyone willing to have a go at it. What's available (GIMP, RawTherapee, darktable, ...) can mostly sort of get the job done, but if you're the kind of person who seeks relaxation, pleasure and aesthetics in photography, the open-source software feels just too geeky, too unfocused, too unrefined. I'm currently on DxO + Affinity and even though they cost quite a lot of money, I'd probably shoot and enjoy the whole thing significantly less if I had darktable and GIMP waiting at home.

hatsunearu 3y ago
Once you try it, and read his blogs about how all of this shit works, you'll know that he isn't exaggerating. The amount of control and physics-based editing you're doing is very unique. This wasn't what darktable was like a few years ago, but this guy has been making incredible strides to implement his vision.
- jillesvangurp 3y ago
  Very much so. That, and he's French. The French way of critiquing is a bit different from what other cultures do and can be a bit abrasive. Cultural differences are a thing to be aware off when dealing with people from different nationalities. He means well and is deeply passionate about this stuff. He's worked his ass off in Darktable for many years. One of the few (only?) developers that was trying to do this full time on donations, etc. He's the closest thing Darktable had to a benevolent dictator style leader (like Linus Torvalds). Big loss for the project to not have him around. I hope they can reconcile their differences somehow. Would be best for all. Basically, what happened is somebody pushed through something that in Aurelian's mind were some severely misguided, low quality changes without much debate or process. It just showed up and he flipped out and did not appreciate being bypassed/ignored like happened.
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hatsunearu 3y ago

lmao, Aurélien Pierre has been making insanely big leaps in darktable, putting it leagues above its competition and providing something so unique compared to Lightroom and others, so I'm not surprised that he just created his own fork.

camillomiller 3y ago

> On the following picture, I made the styling, the make-up, the lighting, the shot, the editing, the retouching, the software color filters, the documentation to use them, the website to talk about them in 2 languages, and even the colorspace used for saturation adjustment. You will find very few people with this kind of full-stack understanding of light and color able to also write efficient computer programs and read academic research papers on applied mathematics. Yet, you will find a lot of image editing applications and a lot of guys trying… Jeez, wish I had 1/10th of the confidence of this guy

nurple 3y ago

If you're using nix, I was able to make a build from the darktable derivation[0] modified to use fetchgit (since he hasn't made a github Release since December) and `s/darktable/ansel/g`. src = fetchgit { url = "https://github.com/aurelienpierreeng/ansel.git"; rev = "f7669af89a71882ebad15982d698b8df7e6c6ce8"; sha256 = "sha256-FI6dKUrmtTG7DIV0MmY6XdqlUpqdt7boKuXKU6CywjA="; fetchSubmodules = true; }; [0] https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/nixpkgs-unstable/pkgs/applications/graphics/darktable/default.nix https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/nixpkgs-unstable/pkgs/...

l0b0 3y ago
Nice, would you be willing to submit a PR[1]? [1] https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/269535 https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/269535
spindle 3y ago
You're my hero

podviaznikov 3y ago

nice, not super related but I made a simple tool to publish apple photos to the web. https://public.photos https://public.photos

turnsout 3y ago

This might actually get me to check out Ansel as a current Lightroom Classic user. I tried Darktable a year or two ago, and there were some immediate dealbreakers. I really like the idea of someone capable and opinionated forking a popular project. I’m rooting for him!

charrondev 3y ago
Out of curiosity what’s keeping you on Lightroom classic. I moved my admittedly amateur photography collection to the “new” Lightroom a couple years ago and have found it to be an improvement in pretty much every way - UI is snappier - Integrating syncing lets me leave my laptop at home when travelling and taking photos.

cpill 3y ago

pretty awesome tool! next steps are to make a chat interface to this so non photography nerds can use it

dave333 3y ago

On Win 10 downloaded the install pkg but it would not run until I tried program compatibility mode for Win 8 ??

pests 3y ago
Guess he shouldn't have bothered.

cetra3 3y ago

I use Darktable quite extensively for underwater photos, but keen to try Ansel out and see if it's less friction. An example of friction in darktable: - I have an external strobe which means I have to put the exposure down to its lowest when shooting, otherwise everything is washed out. Darktable in newer versions has "Compensate camera exposure" on by default, which washes out all the images until I click it off. I'm sure there's a way to make this checkbox disabled by default, but why can't it accept what comes out of the camera? - No favourites: there used to be a way to have all your panels in a favourites tab. This was great as I usually only use a handful of modules that I use. It's gone in later versions - The "color balance" panel, not to be confused with "color balance rgb", it's not in any of the default tabs but useful for saturation adjustments. Why are some of these useful modules hidden? Shouldn't all modules be available by default. The only way you can get to it is by searching. - White balance: there are now two modules and it warns you if you adjust one or the other: "white balance" the standard one on the "base" tab and "color calibration" tucked away on the "color" tab. Both modules are turned on by default, but if you adjust one or the other without turning one off it has a big red warning. - One upgrade decided to reset export settings, and so my EXIF data was stripped out when exporting. It took me way too long to figure it out.

jillesvangurp 3y ago
You can create a preset for the exposure module and define rules when it kicks in. For example based on the camera manufacturer, focal length, iso, etc. I use that to increase the default exposure compensation with my Fuji. I deliberately underexposes to prevent highlights from clipping. So I usually want a +1.25 exposure compensation. Likewise, you might want denoising on for high iso files. You can organize modules into profiles and simply hide all the ones you don't use. The default profile hides some of the deprecated or display referred modules. You can change this. White balance indeed has a deprecated variant for display referred and a scene referred one that works completely different that you typically use together with color calibration (which is where you should do most of your color correction, including color temperature changes). The reasons are mathematical and beyond me to explain properly (Aurelian does a great job on his Youtube channel). It boils down to not throwing away the baby with the bath water in terms of rounding errors accumulating and switching color model (to the one used by your display) too early in the pipeline. It might look pleasing but then it bites you when you want to tweak tone or do other things. This is the whole point of working with the scene referred modules. Having all the legacy modules around is indeed somewhat confusing and Aurelian solves this in Ansel by hiding all the deprecated modules now. They are there for legacy files still.

jiggawatts 3y ago

Some feedback from a long-time Lightroom user: Nikon "High-efficiency RAW" support is missing. This is IMHO the fault of Nikon and their vendor TicoRAW. If you're going to come up with a new RAW format, then it is your responsibility to commit the decoder to open-source libraries! Sure, patent and license the encoder, but if you keep the decoder closed-source and proprietary, then you're a <insert expletive>. The installer is an EXE instead of an MSI. Publish an MSI! Use the "wix" tool in your build pipeline, it's not that complex. The installer and the deployed app are not digitally signed, which throws up a litany of scary warnings and errors. Other open-source developers have gone to the effort of signing their builds. On first launch the app flashed a command-prompt window up and then disappeared. The "Exposure" tool has an automatic setting to compensate for the camera offset. Okay... then why did I bother to offset the exposure just to have ansel undo my intent by default? Then... it layers on a default +.7 EV for like no reason... The overall GUI is completely non-standard and bizarre. I've never seen anything even vaguely like most of the UI controls in this application anywhere else... ever. It's like someone who's never seen a GUI in their entire lives invented everything from scratch. The non-standard UI elements like the combo boxes aren't just weird, they're buggy too: they don't work consistently with the mouse. I can see the option being highlighted, I can click it... and then it'll pick something else! They only work reliably with the keyboard. In general the "selected item highlight" appears to be off-by-one, but not consistently. It's bizarre. Colour management is a mess. On a HDR OLED monitor, Lightroom can display wide-gamut and HDR images correctly if the desktop is set to HDR. E.g.: if toggle an image from SDR mode to HDR mode then the only difference is that highlights get brighter and some extreme colours become more saturated. Everything is correct by default and SDR tones don't "shift". In ansel, the colours look wrong and any setting I choose in the menu makes them even more incorrect. There's a lot of talk of HDR support on the site, and the menus even "suggest" that PQ/HLG support is there... but not really. The export formats are all from the 1990s and modern HDR formats like HEIC, AV1F, JPEG XL, etc... are missing in action. A lot of the options/alternatives seem like developers being too reluctant to get rid of old, bad code. For example, if a new superior demosaicing algorithm is added, then it's usually best to just drop the worse ones! I tried every option available, and all but one was broken, to the point of returning super-green results or just all-black. Lightroom for example just uses a really good demosaicing algorithm and doesn't burden users with a choice of a bunch of bad alternatives. In general, the same criticisms apply to ansel that applied to Darktable: over-complicated, too many options, most of which are either wrong or useless. Internal details exposed to the end-user in the UI that should be debug traces for developers, not permanent GUI elements. Easy to inadvertently "break" the whole thing by reordering pipeline elements by dragging and dropping something accidentally. I suspect that on top of the ~30K lines of code Aurélien Pierre deleted from Darktable 4.0, another 60K should be deleted...

irq 3y ago

Beautiful open-source photo editing app, and that's really saying something. A tremendous achievement. However, the lack of a macOS build shows a fundamental lack of market knowledge & project management skill that will ultimately doom this project. It always surprises me when technical acumen is combined with complete blindness to a significant potential customer demographic. I hope they wake up. EDIT: Am a professional photographer who frequently interacts with other pros on assignments and their own art projects. We're discussing tools constantly and have no qualms between paying for commercial tools or paying in the form of dedication to ascend the learning curve of a less friendly tool. We'll figure out a tool if it's worth it.

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still_grokking 3y ago
> Mac OS support is not active, the main reason is only 4% of the Darktable user base runs it while the continuous integration bot for Mac OS needs weekly maintenance (for breaking unexpectedly). It may or may not work, but if it doesn't, I don't own a Mac box to have a look, so don't expect anything. Mac OS is anyway not playing nice with Open-Source, having deprecated OpenCL and all. Source: https://github.com/aurelienpierreeng/ansel/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/aurelienpierreeng/ansel/blob/master/READM...
- ungamedplayer 3y ago
  Mac os users traditionally will pay for software. They have no shortage of products they can purchase that will be eol in the next+1 is version.

tambourine_man 3y ago

No macOS version?

tambourine_man 3y ago
> Mac OS and, to a lesser extent, Windows have known GUI issues that come from using Gtk as a graphical toolkit. Then perhaps that's not the best choice for cross-platform GUI framework?
kilroy123 3y ago
I really wanted to try this out on my mac. :-/
- hammyhavoc 3y ago
  Install Linux on your Mac then. :- )

aoeusnth1 3y ago

I can't get this to build for MacOS, has anyone succeeded? I ran the brew commands from the mac-nightly CI script, did `git submodule init; git submodule update` and get this error running `build.sh`: ``` $ sh build.sh --build-type Release --install --sudo --clean-all; In file included from /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX14.0.sdk/usr/include/cups/http.h:39: /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX14.0.sdk/usr/include/netinet/ip.h:189:2: error: unknown type name 'u_char' u_char ipt_code; /* IPOPT_TS */ ``` ...etc

flogoe 3y ago
Did you see the OS Support section in the README [0]? I tried for about 15 minutes and didn't get it to build. And even if it did, it would probably not be stable enough to use for anything productively. [0] https://github.com/aurelienpierreeng/ansel#os-support https://github.com/aurelienpierreeng/ansel#os-support
- aoeusnth1 3y ago
  Yeah, I saw that, but I also saw instructions for building on Mac and CI scripts for doing it so I got hopeful :( I don’t mind a few gtk bugs.

1905 3y ago

If I wasn't exclusively using linux, I would use photoshop (not interested in using wine) It is good to see some other alternatives out there. I couldn't get over the steep learning curve of darktable, along with what I perceived to be bloated ui and function

cwillu 3y ago

“Ansel is what Darktable 4.0 could have been if its developers were not so busy turning it into an usability nightmare. Ansel is a Darktable 4.0 variant where 30.000 lines of poorly-written code and half-broken features have been removed, and 11.000 lines rewritten : it runs faster, smoother, uses less power and requires less configuration. Enjoy an app focusing on getting work done and stability.”

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hoistbypetard 3y ago

The author's search engine: https://chantal.aurelienpierre.com https://chantal.aurelienpierre.com might be the real hidden gem here. It's neat!

WA 3y ago
Interesting philosophy, but just tried it with "bokeh" and well, the results are pretty bad? "Related keywords" are interesting, but many miss the last letter. The result list shows some reviews for old smartphones. Nothing relevant at all. Whereas if I type this into Google, results look way better. Tried the reverse: One related keyword for "bokeh" is "out-of-focus". I typed "out of focus" into both Google and Chantal. Google: first result mentions bokeh. Chantal: Also mentioned somewhere, but not as a related keyword.
- hoistbypetard 3y ago
  Nice choice of keyword. I kind of suspect "dumbrish" needs to be more of a first pass for classifying things as opposed to the whole story. Interestingly, using it as an exact keyword seems to improve some of the links but just empties the related keywords list. This feels like an approach that can work really well for topic-specific searches (despite the hole you spotted) but that probably won't ever generalize. Still... I'd have liked to have it for a couple of topics that I used to patrol forums and post basic answers for.

blackpeepo 3y ago

fs111 3y ago

wow, that README is bitter https://github.com/aurelienpierreeng/ansel https://github.com/aurelienpierreeng/ansel

cycomanic 3y ago

My favorite photo development program remains lightzone, I find it has by far the most intuitive work flow that let's you achieve extremely advanced steps in a quite straight forward way (much of the functionality can be achieved in darktable but it's often very unclear how). I originally bought a copy but it has since been open sourced. Unfortunately it's photo management features are really subpar and development has been quite slow. I wish I could use it just for the development and use something else for the management, but last time I tried that wasn't really possible. I have looked into contributing several times, but it's written in java and I really don't the have time to invest in getting up to speed first.

agos 3y ago

innovation in raw developing software is always very welcome. my main gripe with basically all of them is that the controls to manipulate colors are very tricky to use for the precise work that color grading requires. "Curves" is still the de facto standard even if it is a usability nightmare, and apparently simple stuff like "take the non saturated, light blues and move them towards cyan" is very hard or straight up impossible in many raw converters. This is especially painful if you compare that to video grading software and its companion LUT building software, where new paradigms to manipulate color has emerged. I sincerely hope that this is an effort that will bring the state of the art forward - the author's stance on scene referred workflows is a good premise

merelysounds 3y ago

I’ve used Darktable and would happily try Ansel. But in recent years ios compatibility became an important feature for me. My camera can send raw files to my phone wirelessly, with an ios app I can edit them on site and have a draft ready instantly. This is especially useful for events or anything time sensitive - but convenient in other use cases as well. Still, I have good memories of Darktable and the author’s filmic module, I hope to try Ansel anyway at some point.

jval43 3y ago
For personal photos, integration with the iOS Photos library is something I'd like to see from more apps. RAW Power is pretty much the only raw editor that integrates well, without needing to copy files around and creating duplicates.
ishanmahapatra 3y ago
Agreed. iOS integration is really key for me. But I can understand that the developer doesn’t have an Apple device and isn’t interested in personally supporting it because of the cost and Apple’s attitude towards open source.

naejin 3y ago

For those who want to switch to Ansel or Darktable, it's possible to do it in one day with this youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@s7habo https://www.youtube.com/@s7habo The first video you should watch is this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsbw98KxMJc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsbw98KxMJc Then if you want to learn how to use one of the most powerful feature, parametric masks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hfw-GWowH9M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hfw-GWowH9M About the Ansel fork, I've used Darktable for 6 years and tried Ansel the last two weeks: if you have never used Darktable, Ansel UX is better for a first time user imo, more streamlined. Keep in mind that I'm biased as I agree with most of the author's points here: https://ansel.photos/en/news/darktable-dans-le-mur-au-ralenti/ https://ansel.photos/en/news/darktable-dans-le-mur-au-ralent...

non-nil 3y ago

Darktable needs the tantacrul treatment. https://www.youtube.com/@Tantacrul https://www.youtube.com/@Tantacrul Maybe Pierre can pull it off himself. He’s clearly knowledgeable and has strong convictions and Darktable is incredibly powerful, so I’m hoping the good bits from either camp can be reconciled into something lasting, minding the bus factor. Darktable’s issues and lack of coherent stewardship is quite noticeable.

laurent_du 3y ago

This man is on a mission. I love it. The world needs more people like Aurélien.

leononame 3y ago

I for one am glad that someone with a more holistic approach takes this on, even if Aurélien is really snarky. Darktable really is a usability mess and is easy to use incorrectly. I'm also glad he is taking donations, since the darktable project won't take any. It gives me hope that this would give him the freedom in actually implementing his vision.

The_Colonel 3y ago
Agreed. Darktable has always been an impressive project, produced great results, great features and the UI was IMHO above average for an open source project. But it did suffer from lack of holistic view, many features were kind of duplicated across modules and it was unclear what's the best way to do things. It seemed like people had a lot of freedom to implement their own thing in modules. I think Aurélien's snarkiness is quite distasteful and might prevent getting some of them on board. But he has a proven track record and I believe he can execute his vision, so I will be donating as well.

eternityforest 3y ago

Looks fantastic!

jug 3y ago

Haha, I love his a bit unprofessional tone. :D So much pent up anger - and I understand! Darktable has a strange approach to evolving their software. They somehow keep everything old and bad as they add improved versions and you end up with tons of ways to do very similar things, and to add to this mess, Darktable often uses its own nomenclature, or a very very technical one. If you're coming from Lightroom or Capture One, you feel like taking your first steps on a new planet. For no reason! So, I'm sold! I'll definitely take a look at this. He gets it!

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fabrixxm 3y ago

so hot right now