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Since no one mentioned it yet. There is a darktable fork called ansel https://github.com/aurelienpierreeng/ansel https://github.com/aurelienpierreeng/ansel that

Since no one mentioned it yet. There is a darktable fork called ansel https://github.com/aurelienpierreeng/ansel https://github.com/aurelienpierreeng/ansel that tries to remove bloat and make darktable more user friendly. It's rather opinionated and done by Aurélien Pierre. For those interested in the why https://ansel.photos/en/news/darktable-dans-le-mur-au-ralenti/ https://ansel.photos/en/news/darktable-dans-le-mur-au-ralent... there is also a YouTube video with strong language. There is an appimage so I recommend people to at least try it.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
n144q 2y ago
> What happens when a gang of amateur photographers, turned into amateur developers, joined by a bunch of back-end developers who develop libraries for developers, decide to work without method nor structure on an industry software for end-users, which core competency (colorimetry and psychophysics) lies somewhere between a college degree in photography and a master’s degree in applied sciences, while promising to deliver 2 releases each year without project management ? All that, of course, in a project where the founders and the first generation of developers moved on and fled ? A number of open source design software comes to mind, but I am too scared to name them.
- BlackLotus89 2y ago
  Yeah it's a common problem, but it is in the nature of open source to be done by enthusiasts (of course it can be done by professionals/enterprises, but I think it's fair to say that most open source software stems from a personal need). I'm really not judging any project, because a working solution that is done by enthusiastic amateurs is better than no solution at all and let's be honest, most of my code is amateurish at best/hacked in a week/month as well. It's only bad if you see a project heading in the wrong direction and not being able to stop this, but for this god invented forks ;)
- Derbasti 2y ago
  If he's so hung up on the open source process of Darktable, I can't wait to hear what he has to say about enterprise software, LOL.
- TomK32 2y ago
  It can't be that bad if there's a new active generation of developers. Not every project (FOSS or commercial) survives this step.
HelloUsername 2y ago
> Since no one mentioned it yet Yes they did, couple minutes before you: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42558923 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42558923 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42558937 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42558937
sneak 2y ago
I can't try it because I do my photo editing on a high-end mac and they don't care to keep their macOS builds working because only 4% of existing darktable users are on macOS (and the dev doesn't have a mac to test on). (Nevermind that a lot more would be if darktable didn't suck, and that we're all paying for Lightroom instead because of it.)
teamoet 2y ago
I've seen this fork mentioned around a couple of times so I've decided to read the articles on https://ansel.photos/en/news/ https://ansel.photos/en/news/. I'm not trying to deny that his motives are right, but the way and how often he bashes on darktable developers is really off-putting. I'll only cite a couple but they're easy to find: > a handful of guys with more freetime and benevolence than actual skills > So I fixed the whole logic [...] You might think that was a problem solved and a job well done, but that’s leaving Darktable’s geniuses out of the equation. If you want to work alone I guess you can have that sort of negative attitude... but to me it clearly says "don't use or contribute to this software". It's easier to spot mistakes after others have already made them, and then come up with better approaches. And it's easy to find yourself complaining about what is basically a prototype somebody else made and spared you the effort. It can definitely pump your ego up. I'm saying this because one-man forks almost never lead to popular adoption, and almost always lead to abandoned forks, even if the new developer is technically gifted. I'm somewhat reminded of KWinFT (KDE fork) that has been somewhat recently renamed to Theseus' Ship. I understand that you acquired a repulsion to design by committee, but when dealing with large projects you can't do it all by yourself, so you need to start learning how to deal with people. But who knows, maybe it's possible to find other like-minded contributors who are not so easily thrown off by the immaturities of a project's leader.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- inferiorhuman 2y ago
  but to me it clearly says "don't use or contribute to this software" As an end user the sheer arrogance and condescending attitude that the darktable devs bring to the table is far more offputting than someone (an ex-darktable dev no less) losing patience with that behavior.
  - chongli 2y ago
    Still, there’s a lot to be said for taking the high road. If the attitude of the upstream devs is so toxic to drive you to create a fork, then why not differentiate yourself by creating a toxicity-free community to the best of your abilities? You might even adopt forum rules similar to HN’s but with a focus on improving access to open source photographers’ tools (which is what this software is supposed to be in the first place).
purew 2y ago
There is also rawtherapee which I switched to after using DT for about a year. Rawtherapee workflow seemed to work better for me and I haven't really looked back.
Derbasti 2y ago
Frankly, Ansel is outdated by now. No color equalizer, no camera styles, no Sigmoid. Mainline Darktable has overtaken it.
t0bia_s 2y ago
Is it something like ART, a fork of RawTherapee? http://art.pixls.us/ http://art.pixls.us/ It's interesting how bloated those open-source editors are. There are a ton of useless options. Instead of focusing to implement needed tools like AI masking or lens correction, we have bunch of de-mosaic non function methods or multiple sharpening tools that are non practical to use in classical workflow. Even defaults render broken RAW files! It's like many volunteer programmers doing software without ever actually using RAW development professionally.
- gazook89 2y ago
  People come to volunteer with the interests and skills they have. It’s easier to let problems that are hard or not interesting fall to the wayside, and for the maintainers to take what they can get (especially if they think that happy contributors will contribute more).
- Almondsetat 2y ago
  this is the same as GIMP and Audacity and many other FOSS projects: a proliferation of menus and niche features and zero overarching design and ideas
  - gmueckl 2y ago
    That's because the incentives don't align between developers and users on OSS projects when they aren't catering to developers. There is no product management as a go-between that is tasked with understanding the user base and edits feature requests and developer contributions into a coherent package.
    - imtringued 2y ago
      Basically this. The "scratching your own itch" approach to open source development doesn't work if your users aren't software developers. Or the inverse. If your open source developers aren't photographers.
      - 2y ago
ratmeadow 2y ago
I have used Ansel for many months before giving up and switching to Lightroom (blasphemous, I know). Ansel is still very much alpha software. My experience was it's slow, buggy, and lacking usability. Lightroom just works for the most part, Darktable and Ansel don't. I hope Ansel can succeed despite having just 1 developer. Also, I think the angle Aurelien is taking with Ansel is peculiar. He's really hard on the colour science aspects. I read somewhere Ansel is targeted towards computer novices yet colour science experts. I wonder if a significant user base exists there. Do most pro photographers have degrees in colour science? Plus photography at the end of the day is an art for most people. It's telling when I can achieve my creative goals in a few clicks in Lightroom vs hours in Darktable/Ansel...
- actionfromafar 2y ago
  Ansel slow and buggy, yes, "but you should have seen the other guy". Between the two my bet is on Ansel.
  - ratmeadow 2y ago
    I momentarily used Darktable, and IIRC there were fewer bugs. Performance was about the same for image processing. I guess these things will come out in the wash as Ansel is developed (although maybe very slowly because of the whole 1 man thing).
vouaobrasil 2y ago
I've used both and darktable is far superior. Most of the edits I do would be difficult in Ansel...

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

n144q 2y ago

> What happens when a gang of amateur photographers, turned into amateur developers, joined by a bunch of back-end developers who develop libraries for developers, decide to work without method nor structure on an industry software for end-users, which core competency (colorimetry and psychophysics) lies somewhere between a college degree in photography and a master’s degree in applied sciences, while promising to deliver 2 releases each year without project management ? All that, of course, in a project where the founders and the first generation of developers moved on and fled ? A number of open source design software comes to mind, but I am too scared to name them.

BlackLotus89 2y ago
Yeah it's a common problem, but it is in the nature of open source to be done by enthusiasts (of course it can be done by professionals/enterprises, but I think it's fair to say that most open source software stems from a personal need). I'm really not judging any project, because a working solution that is done by enthusiastic amateurs is better than no solution at all and let's be honest, most of my code is amateurish at best/hacked in a week/month as well. It's only bad if you see a project heading in the wrong direction and not being able to stop this, but for this god invented forks ;)
Derbasti 2y ago
If he's so hung up on the open source process of Darktable, I can't wait to hear what he has to say about enterprise software, LOL.
TomK32 2y ago
It can't be that bad if there's a new active generation of developers. Not every project (FOSS or commercial) survives this step.

HelloUsername 2y ago

> Since no one mentioned it yet Yes they did, couple minutes before you: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42558923 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42558923 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42558937 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42558937

sneak 2y ago

I can't try it because I do my photo editing on a high-end mac and they don't care to keep their macOS builds working because only 4% of existing darktable users are on macOS (and the dev doesn't have a mac to test on). (Nevermind that a lot more would be if darktable didn't suck, and that we're all paying for Lightroom instead because of it.)

teamoet 2y ago

I've seen this fork mentioned around a couple of times so I've decided to read the articles on https://ansel.photos/en/news/ https://ansel.photos/en/news/. I'm not trying to deny that his motives are right, but the way and how often he bashes on darktable developers is really off-putting. I'll only cite a couple but they're easy to find: > a handful of guys with more freetime and benevolence than actual skills > So I fixed the whole logic [...] You might think that was a problem solved and a job well done, but that’s leaving Darktable’s geniuses out of the equation. If you want to work alone I guess you can have that sort of negative attitude... but to me it clearly says "don't use or contribute to this software". It's easier to spot mistakes after others have already made them, and then come up with better approaches. And it's easy to find yourself complaining about what is basically a prototype somebody else made and spared you the effort. It can definitely pump your ego up. I'm saying this because one-man forks almost never lead to popular adoption, and almost always lead to abandoned forks, even if the new developer is technically gifted. I'm somewhat reminded of KWinFT (KDE fork) that has been somewhat recently renamed to Theseus' Ship. I understand that you acquired a repulsion to design by committee, but when dealing with large projects you can't do it all by yourself, so you need to start learning how to deal with people. But who knows, maybe it's possible to find other like-minded contributors who are not so easily thrown off by the immaturities of a project's leader.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
inferiorhuman 2y ago
but to me it clearly says "don't use or contribute to this software" As an end user the sheer arrogance and condescending attitude that the darktable devs bring to the table is far more offputting than someone (an ex-darktable dev no less) losing patience with that behavior.
- chongli 2y ago
  Still, there’s a lot to be said for taking the high road. If the attitude of the upstream devs is so toxic to drive you to create a fork, then why not differentiate yourself by creating a toxicity-free community to the best of your abilities? You might even adopt forum rules similar to HN’s but with a focus on improving access to open source photographers’ tools (which is what this software is supposed to be in the first place).

purew 2y ago

There is also rawtherapee which I switched to after using DT for about a year. Rawtherapee workflow seemed to work better for me and I haven't really looked back.

Derbasti 2y ago

Frankly, Ansel is outdated by now. No color equalizer, no camera styles, no Sigmoid. Mainline Darktable has overtaken it.

t0bia_s 2y ago

Is it something like ART, a fork of RawTherapee? http://art.pixls.us/ http://art.pixls.us/ It's interesting how bloated those open-source editors are. There are a ton of useless options. Instead of focusing to implement needed tools like AI masking or lens correction, we have bunch of de-mosaic non function methods or multiple sharpening tools that are non practical to use in classical workflow. Even defaults render broken RAW files! It's like many volunteer programmers doing software without ever actually using RAW development professionally.

gazook89 2y ago
People come to volunteer with the interests and skills they have. It’s easier to let problems that are hard or not interesting fall to the wayside, and for the maintainers to take what they can get (especially if they think that happy contributors will contribute more).
Almondsetat 2y ago
this is the same as GIMP and Audacity and many other FOSS projects: a proliferation of menus and niche features and zero overarching design and ideas
- gmueckl 2y ago
  That's because the incentives don't align between developers and users on OSS projects when they aren't catering to developers. There is no product management as a go-between that is tasked with understanding the user base and edits feature requests and developer contributions into a coherent package.
  - imtringued 2y ago
    Basically this. The "scratching your own itch" approach to open source development doesn't work if your users aren't software developers. Or the inverse. If your open source developers aren't photographers.
    - 2y ago

ratmeadow 2y ago

I have used Ansel for many months before giving up and switching to Lightroom (blasphemous, I know). Ansel is still very much alpha software. My experience was it's slow, buggy, and lacking usability. Lightroom just works for the most part, Darktable and Ansel don't. I hope Ansel can succeed despite having just 1 developer. Also, I think the angle Aurelien is taking with Ansel is peculiar. He's really hard on the colour science aspects. I read somewhere Ansel is targeted towards computer novices yet colour science experts. I wonder if a significant user base exists there. Do most pro photographers have degrees in colour science? Plus photography at the end of the day is an art for most people. It's telling when I can achieve my creative goals in a few clicks in Lightroom vs hours in Darktable/Ansel...

actionfromafar 2y ago
Ansel slow and buggy, yes, "but you should have seen the other guy". Between the two my bet is on Ansel.
- ratmeadow 2y ago
  I momentarily used Darktable, and IIRC there were fewer bugs. Performance was about the same for image processing. I guess these things will come out in the wash as Ansel is developed (although maybe very slowly because of the whole 1 man thing).

vouaobrasil 2y ago

I've used both and darktable is far superior. Most of the edits I do would be difficult in Ansel...