5 ms·

I've used Darktable for almost a decade quite happily, but recently am moving off of it because they made one MASSIVE blunder with the new shitty color grading

by qurren 3mo ago

I've used Darktable for almost a decade quite happily, but recently am moving off of it because they made one MASSIVE blunder with the new shitty color grading and white balancing tool that never gets any of my images right, all the tones are off, and it doesn't have sane defaults that renders things at least "almost correctly" at first go like the previous white balance tool did. It was way better a couple years ago with the vanilla "White Balance" and "Base Curve" tools. Darktable also cannot correctly color any of my DJI Mini Pro imagery. None. They all have really bad greenish hues. I haven't been able to publish any of my DJI images for 4 years now because Darktable won't fix it, and it's a known issue that they explicitly plan to not fix (https://github.com/darktable-org/darktable/issues/13319 https://github.com/darktable-org/darktable/issues/13319). I'm currently starting to love RapidRAW (https://github.com/cybertimon/rapidraw https://github.com/cybertimon/rapidraw); the developer is super active and releases new features every couple of weeks. I'm also able to add a few minor nitpick features I want quite easily with AI code tools. I have a good feeling I can get AI to fix the DJI issue on RapidRAW since the code is quite nicely organized.

c7b 3mo ago
Stupid question, if there's an old version that you liked, couldn't you just keep using that version?
- qurren 3mo ago
  It's a pain in the ass to maintain when it has dependencies on older stuff while I upgrade the rest of the system
  - epihelix 3mo ago
    Well, you shouldn't need to maintain - just compile a static linked binary and you should be good for the rest of your system's life. But more practically - I've been using darktable for well over a decade, and it's remained backward compatible with my old styles. If you like the older modules, they should still be there, and you should still be able to apply your old styles the same as always. My own problem is that darktable keeps improving, so much so that I want to reprocess all my old photos again :/
pmarreck 3mo ago
I now have a business idea: Curated Open-Source App Forks. Would you pay to have access to a service which tweaked the open-source software you use just enough to make it much more useful to your workflow, and automatically updated it over time? (I'm not just talking about a one-time fork; I'm talking about a subscription to get access to a maintained fork that stays current with upstream, fixes any conflicts, does the rebuild, hosts the build, etc... This justifies a cost) This incompatibility with DJI images that the Darktable devs #wontfix is a perfect example use-case. Needless to say this would be for professional use, with professional expectations, but if your business depends on having that slightly-tweaked tool, then it may be worth it; just exploring the idea, here
- qurren 3mo ago
  Honest answer from me: Probably not, because vanilla Claude Code already does a great job of maintaining my forks with open-source main, and also handles the packaging and installation beautifully. There is a huge overlap between (OSS users, people who can code) and an even bigger overlap between (OSS users, people who can use coding AI tools) The people who can't even use coding AI tools almost universally use closed-source software like Adobe Lightroom that you can't fork easily.
  - pmarreck 3mo ago
    There's quite a difference in my experience between "using coding AI tools" and "using coding AI tools _well_", especially when it comes to editing code.
    - qurren 3mo ago
      Doesn't really matter in this case. Doesn't matter enough for people to pull out their wallet. You can re-fork from clean OSS and re-implement any time while you sleep, using whatever AI subscription you already have.
      - pmarreck 3mo ago
blutack 3mo ago
I don't think your assessment of the DJI Mini thing is very fair. Sounds like they would be more than happy to accept a pull request and indeed there is an open one the maintainers are helping get merged [1]. Shame that the new workflow doesn't work well for your particular camera and setup - but I would encourage other people to try it, because it works great for mine. We know :-) It very much seems there is no dt developer currently interested in this sort of correction, i suppose none are using such devices. Just two reminders: Such "missing support for my camera" started me to get into darktable code. A lot of code to be reused is there, there are already some hints, just go ahead :-) Some comments above i suggested something ... :-) 1: https://github.com/darktable-org/darktable/pull/20467 https://github.com/darktable-org/darktable/pull/20467
mikae1 3mo ago
> but recently am moving off of it because they made one MASSIVE blunder with the new shitty color grading and white balancing tool If you're talking about color calibration and color balance rgb you can disable them and use darktable exactly as before.
jimnotgym 3mo ago
I followed the github issue you posted. There is a pr they are trying to merge, last comment was...10 hours ago. I'm not sure how this is 'actively plans not to fix'

by qurren 3mo ago

c7b 3mo ago

Stupid question, if there's an old version that you liked, couldn't you just keep using that version?

qurren 3mo ago
It's a pain in the ass to maintain when it has dependencies on older stuff while I upgrade the rest of the system
- epihelix 3mo ago
  Well, you shouldn't need to maintain - just compile a static linked binary and you should be good for the rest of your system's life. But more practically - I've been using darktable for well over a decade, and it's remained backward compatible with my old styles. If you like the older modules, they should still be there, and you should still be able to apply your old styles the same as always. My own problem is that darktable keeps improving, so much so that I want to reprocess all my old photos again :/

pmarreck 3mo ago

I now have a business idea: Curated Open-Source App Forks. Would you pay to have access to a service which tweaked the open-source software you use just enough to make it much more useful to your workflow, and automatically updated it over time? (I'm not just talking about a one-time fork; I'm talking about a subscription to get access to a maintained fork that stays current with upstream, fixes any conflicts, does the rebuild, hosts the build, etc... This justifies a cost) This incompatibility with DJI images that the Darktable devs #wontfix is a perfect example use-case. Needless to say this would be for professional use, with professional expectations, but if your business depends on having that slightly-tweaked tool, then it may be worth it; just exploring the idea, here

qurren 3mo ago
Honest answer from me: Probably not, because vanilla Claude Code already does a great job of maintaining my forks with open-source main, and also handles the packaging and installation beautifully. There is a huge overlap between (OSS users, people who can code) and an even bigger overlap between (OSS users, people who can use coding AI tools) The people who can't even use coding AI tools almost universally use closed-source software like Adobe Lightroom that you can't fork easily.
- pmarreck 3mo ago
  There's quite a difference in my experience between "using coding AI tools" and "using coding AI tools _well_", especially when it comes to editing code.
  - qurren 3mo ago
    Doesn't really matter in this case. Doesn't matter enough for people to pull out their wallet. You can re-fork from clean OSS and re-implement any time while you sleep, using whatever AI subscription you already have.
    - pmarreck 3mo ago

blutack 3mo ago

I don't think your assessment of the DJI Mini thing is very fair. Sounds like they would be more than happy to accept a pull request and indeed there is an open one the maintainers are helping get merged [1]. Shame that the new workflow doesn't work well for your particular camera and setup - but I would encourage other people to try it, because it works great for mine. We know :-) It very much seems there is no dt developer currently interested in this sort of correction, i suppose none are using such devices. Just two reminders: Such "missing support for my camera" started me to get into darktable code. A lot of code to be reused is there, there are already some hints, just go ahead :-) Some comments above i suggested something ... :-) 1: https://github.com/darktable-org/darktable/pull/20467 https://github.com/darktable-org/darktable/pull/20467

mikae1 3mo ago

> but recently am moving off of it because they made one MASSIVE blunder with the new shitty color grading and white balancing tool If you're talking about color calibration and color balance rgb you can disable them and use darktable exactly as before.

jimnotgym 3mo ago

I followed the github issue you posted. There is a pr they are trying to merge, last comment was...10 hours ago. I'm not sure how this is 'actively plans not to fix'