Open sourced Based Workflow?

kjg48359 · 11-17-2014, 07:20 PM

Now that the core of the indoor sports season is just about on me (competitive cheer), I am wondering what kind of options people familiar with editing software would recommend.

Is there any resources that could get me up to speed on a more serious workflow processing than just using Photoshop elements and Premiere elements? I can use GIMP, but for the most part just need to go though about 300 pictures a week quickly and easily (for instance, out of about 300 I'll shrink down about 30 or 40 for posting to the team's facebook site).

Last season I just shot in JPG, and usually regard raw formats as something for more precise portrait and landscape work. For the faster paced sporting shoots, I'm thinking jpg will still be fine.

So as I start to dig into GIMP, I just tried "UFRaw" and after playing with it for a few minutes I'm impressed.

So my real question is: what else is out there that would help? Are there any good resources where the various software packages can be compared? And any "workflow" resources that can help me get more organized?

I'm old enough to have run the B&W darkroom at my college, it's truly amazing how far it's all come in the last 20 or so years!

ngokevin · 11-17-2014, 07:31 PM

Darktable is an open-source Lightroom. Haven't tried it, but heard of it.

**MSL** · 11-17-2014, 07:42 PM

Darktable is for unix based operating systems only.

FastStone will let you look through large batches of images quickly, do some decent but basic processing and allow for batch processing.

I have played with Rawtherapee a bit, but only on single images at a time and so I can`t comment on whether it might work for what you want to do.

PeaceFroggy · 11-17-2014, 08:11 PM

RawTherapee is my prefered raw editor and has some library feature too but I prefer digiKam for that. And as for downsizing jpeg's, digiKam should be just fine for you.
And Gimp for my specified editing of course.

**paulh** · 11-17-2014, 08:16 PM

My Linux Mint workflow consists mainly of digiKam, with GIMP for specialized tasks. Darktable is promising, but I'm still learning it at the moment.

**ashurbanipal** · 11-17-2014, 08:33 PM

I use digiKam for image management and uploading. For raw development I use Darktable. Either one works well for me when it comes to culling images. However, I'm not sure what OS you're using; I can only vouch for these programs on *nix since I haven't tried them on anything else.

damianc · 11-17-2014, 09:34 PM

I use Digikam for image management, Rawtherapee for raw processing and GIMP for specific editing. Rawtherapee's batch processing is excellent for processing a large number of files taken under the same conditions. I also find the interface quite intuitive on the whole, but like most applications it's worth putting a little time and effort in to truly make use of it's potential.

rullrich · 11-18-2014, 12:25 AM

I use for almost all of my processing darktable, and, for hard cases, Gimp. I also tried RawTherapee and digiKam, but I found darktable to be better for me, since it allows the management of digital collections (whereas RawTherapee is primarily a raw converter, though a very good one) with an more sophisticated than digiKam. darktable is running not only running on Linux but on MAC OS as well, but not under Windows. If You have any experiences in working with Lightroom you should give darktable a try, since it's got some features like geo-tagging, export to different storage options like hard-disk, flickr, email etc. and a whole bunch of image-processing modules to develop Your files. Maybe You should take a look at darktables blog (blog | darktable) to see what it can do.

Regards,
Ralf

**GUB** · 11-18-2014, 02:45 AM

Ubuntu OS here. Digikam image management -- Darktable Basic Raw development - Gimp for final colour curves, smartsharpening and downsizing.
I do not batch process but prefer to concentrate on each image individually. (Amatuer photographer).
Used to use UFRaw but found Darktable gave superior results with the raw images. It is a bit of a messy interface tho if like me you are individually addressing each image.
Darktables graduated density and also the profiled denoise are excellent.
Oh and one final step if I am printing images-- I use a virtual XP OS with picasa to print . (Really the only option with my Canon printer).
BTW I have tried the Gimp on a windows OS and have found it quite buggy compared to on Linux.

rullrich · 11-18-2014, 03:04 AM

Originally posted by GUB

Ubuntu OS here. Digikam image management -- Darktable Basic Raw development - Gimp for final colour curves, smartsharpening and downsizing.
I do not batch process but prefer to concentrate on each image individually. (Amatuer photographer).
Used to use UFRaw but found Darktable gave superior results with the raw images. It is a bit of a messy interface tho if like me you are individually addressing each image.
Darktables graduated density and also the profiled denoise are excellent.
Oh and one final step if I am printing images-- I use a virtual XP OS with picasa to print . (Really the only option with my Canon printer).
BTW I have tried the Gimp on a windows OS and have found it quite buggy compared to on Linux.

Only curious: why use digikam and darktable together?

cfraz · 11-18-2014, 07:54 AM

Originally posted by kjg48359

Now that the core of the indoor sports season is just about on me (competitive cheer), I am wondering what kind of options people familiar with editing software would recommend.

Is there any resources that could get me up to speed on a more serious workflow processing than just using Photoshop elements and Premiere elements? I can use GIMP, but for the most part just need to go though about 300 pictures a week quickly and easily (for instance, out of about 300 I'll shrink down about 30 or 40 for posting to the team's facebook site).

Last season I just shot in JPG, and usually regard raw formats as something for more precise portrait and landscape work. For the faster paced sporting shoots, I'm thinking jpg will still be fine.

So as I start to dig into GIMP, I just tried "UFRaw" and after playing with it for a few minutes I'm impressed.

So my real question is: what else is out there that would help? Are there any good resources where the various software packages can be compared? And any "workflow" resources that can help me get more organized?

I'm old enough to have run the B&W darkroom at my college, it's truly amazing how far it's all come in the last 20 or so years!

I've found a few resources comparing open source photo processing and workflow, but they are all (as of last time I looked) woefully out of date and mostly trivial evaluations. I started using UF-Raw, but switched to DigiKam because of it's very good workflow (cataloging, tagging, etc.) capabilities. Added RawTherapee to my routine because it's raw conversion and processing was much better than DigiKam's, but still used DigiKam for workflow.

Finally switched to Darktable, replacing both DigiKam and RawTherapee. Darktable's workflow features nearly match those of DigiKam, except for tagging which is still a bit cumbersome. The Darktable project seems to be in active development so I expect improvements at a better pace than I saw with DigiKam. The raw conversion and developing capabilities of Darktable are very well integrated and documented; RawTherapee may have the edge in some esoteric features, but I found Darktable to have a much more intuitive interface and overall produces better results. I use The Gimp for final editing only when I need edit beyond what Darktable gives, which is pretty extensive.

You might find that using raw is not any slower than jpg with a package like Darktable. You can spend a few minutes tweaking settings for one image, then apply those settings to a batch of images which were taken with similar lighting conditions, for example. The batch processing can run in the background with essentialy no cost in time to your workflow. May not work for your needs, but might be worth considering. I find also that I learn some things that work well in each batch of pictures I develop and with Darktable, it's easy to apply those parameters as a starting point for the next project.

Volker76 · 11-18-2014, 09:17 AM

Hi,

I find Gimp a bit overwhelming. So many features and menues...

a) zsh: I copy the files into my pentax directory (cp -auv ...)
b) gwenview: for a quick review. You can also resize and crop pictures in gwenview easily.
c) darktable: If I come to the conclusion that some pictures need some attention, I open them out of gwenview with darktable. I had some trouble regarding colours with either rawtherapy or rawstudio and found the other of the two a bit fickle. So darktable was the candidate that won that horse race.

kjg48359 · 11-18-2014, 10:34 AM

Nice start, thanks everyone. Duh, should have mentioned that I'm on Win7

Volker76 · 11-18-2014, 11:11 AM

doesn't matter. gimp, gwenview and AFAIK darktable work under windows too.

**MSL** · 11-18-2014, 11:14 AM

Originally posted by Volker76

doesn't matter. gimp, gwenview and AFAIK darktable work under windows too.

Darktable does not work under windows as noted above.

11-17-2014, 07:20 PM	#1
kjg48359 Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2013 Location: Just outside of Detroit MI Photos: Gallery Posts: 103	Open sourced Based Workflow? Now that the core of the indoor sports season is just about on me (competitive cheer), I am wondering what kind of options people familiar with editing software would recommend. Is there any resources that could get me up to speed on a more serious workflow processing than just using Photoshop elements and Premiere elements? I can use GIMP, but for the most part just need to go though about 300 pictures a week quickly and easily (for instance, out of about 300 I'll shrink down about 30 or 40 for posting to the team's facebook site). Last season I just shot in JPG, and usually regard raw formats as something for more precise portrait and landscape work. For the faster paced sporting shoots, I'm thinking jpg will still be fine. So as I start to dig into GIMP, I just tried "UFRaw" and after playing with it for a few minutes I'm impressed. So my real question is: what else is out there that would help? Are there any good resources where the various software packages can be compared? And any "workflow" resources that can help me get more organized? I'm old enough to have run the B&W darkroom at my college, it's truly amazing how far it's all come in the last 20 or so years!

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
Sensor-based panning?	ofer4	Photographic Industry and Professionals	2	09-04-2013 02:50 AM
Samsung 'Galaxy NX' Android-based mirrorless camera !	jogiba	Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Other Camera Brands	15	07-02-2013 12:23 AM
Lens based photography challenges for yourself?	6BQ5	Photographic Technique	9	06-18-2013 11:25 PM
Exposure: Creative Program (based towards depth of field)	pluto	Pentax K-5 & K-5 II	7	03-14-2013 10:28 PM
A More Precise Workflow & Sharpening Workflow	benjikan	Digital Processing, Software, and Printing	2	06-01-2007 06:07 AM

11-17-2014, 07:31 PM	#2
ngokevin New Member Join Date: Nov 2014 Posts: 4	Darktable is an open-source Lightroom. Haven't tried it, but heard of it.

11-17-2014, 07:42 PM	#3
MSL Site Supporter Join Date: Feb 2012 Location: Greater Toronto Area Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 4,749	Darktable is for unix based operating systems only. FastStone will let you look through large batches of images quickly, do some decent but basic processing and allow for batch processing. I have played with Rawtherapee a bit, but only on single images at a time and so I can`t comment on whether it might work for what you want to do.

11-17-2014, 08:11 PM	#4
PeaceFroggy Senior Member Join Date: May 2012 Posts: 112	RawTherapee is my prefered raw editor and has some library feature too but I prefer digiKam for that. And as for downsizing jpeg's, digiKam should be just fine for you. And Gimp for my specified editing of course.

11-17-2014, 08:16 PM	#5
paulh Site Supporter Join Date: Sep 2010 Location: DFW Texas/Ventura County, CA Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 33,252	My Linux Mint workflow consists mainly of digiKam, with GIMP for specialized tasks. Darktable is promising, but I'm still learning it at the moment.

11-17-2014, 08:33 PM	#6
ashurbanipal Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Lincoln, Nebraska Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 515	I use digiKam for image management and uploading. For raw development I use Darktable. Either one works well for me when it comes to culling images. However, I'm not sure what OS you're using; I can only vouch for these programs on *nix since I haven't tried them on anything else.

11-17-2014, 09:34 PM	#7
damianc Pentaxian Join Date: Nov 2012 Location: Highlands of Scotland Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 360	I use Digikam for image management, Rawtherapee for raw processing and GIMP for specific editing. Rawtherapee's batch processing is excellent for processing a large number of files taken under the same conditions. I also find the interface quite intuitive on the whole, but like most applications it's worth putting a little time and effort in to truly make use of it's potential.

11-18-2014, 12:25 AM	#8
rullrich Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2012 Location: Berlin Posts: 122	I use for almost all of my processing darktable, and, for hard cases, Gimp. I also tried RawTherapee and digiKam, but I found darktable to be better for me, since it allows the management of digital collections (whereas RawTherapee is primarily a raw converter, though a very good one) with an more sophisticated than digiKam. darktable is running not only running on Linux but on MAC OS as well, but not under Windows. If You have any experiences in working with Lightroom you should give darktable a try, since it's got some features like geo-tagging, export to different storage options like hard-disk, flickr, email etc. and a whole bunch of image-processing modules to develop Your files. Maybe You should take a look at darktables blog (blog \| darktable) to see what it can do. Regards, Ralf

11-18-2014, 02:45 AM	#9
GUB Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Aug 2012 Location: Wanganui Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 5,757	Ubuntu OS here. Digikam image management -- Darktable Basic Raw development - Gimp for final colour curves, smartsharpening and downsizing. I do not batch process but prefer to concentrate on each image individually. (Amatuer photographer). Used to use UFRaw but found Darktable gave superior results with the raw images. It is a bit of a messy interface tho if like me you are individually addressing each image. Darktables graduated density and also the profiled denoise are excellent. Oh and one final step if I am printing images-- I use a virtual XP OS with picasa to print . (Really the only option with my Canon printer). BTW I have tried the Gimp on a windows OS and have found it quite buggy compared to on Linux.

11-18-2014, 03:04 AM	#10
rullrich Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2012 Location: Berlin Posts: 122	Originally posted by GUB Ubuntu OS here. Digikam image management -- Darktable Basic Raw development - Gimp for final colour curves, smartsharpening and downsizing. I do not batch process but prefer to concentrate on each image individually. (Amatuer photographer). Used to use UFRaw but found Darktable gave superior results with the raw images. It is a bit of a messy interface tho if like me you are individually addressing each image. Darktables graduated density and also the profiled denoise are excellent. Oh and one final step if I am printing images-- I use a virtual XP OS with picasa to print . (Really the only option with my Canon printer). BTW I have tried the Gimp on a windows OS and have found it quite buggy compared to on Linux. Only curious: why use digikam and darktable together?

11-18-2014, 07:54 AM	#11
cfraz Veteran Member Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Oregon, USA Posts: 521	Originally posted by kjg48359 Now that the core of the indoor sports season is just about on me (competitive cheer), I am wondering what kind of options people familiar with editing software would recommend. Is there any resources that could get me up to speed on a more serious workflow processing than just using Photoshop elements and Premiere elements? I can use GIMP, but for the most part just need to go though about 300 pictures a week quickly and easily (for instance, out of about 300 I'll shrink down about 30 or 40 for posting to the team's facebook site). Last season I just shot in JPG, and usually regard raw formats as something for more precise portrait and landscape work. For the faster paced sporting shoots, I'm thinking jpg will still be fine. So as I start to dig into GIMP, I just tried "UFRaw" and after playing with it for a few minutes I'm impressed. So my real question is: what else is out there that would help? Are there any good resources where the various software packages can be compared? And any "workflow" resources that can help me get more organized? I'm old enough to have run the B&W darkroom at my college, it's truly amazing how far it's all come in the last 20 or so years! I've found a few resources comparing open source photo processing and workflow, but they are all (as of last time I looked) woefully out of date and mostly trivial evaluations. I started using UF-Raw, but switched to DigiKam because of it's very good workflow (cataloging, tagging, etc.) capabilities. Added RawTherapee to my routine because it's raw conversion and processing was much better than DigiKam's, but still used DigiKam for workflow. Finally switched to Darktable, replacing both DigiKam and RawTherapee. Darktable's workflow features nearly match those of DigiKam, except for tagging which is still a bit cumbersome. The Darktable project seems to be in active development so I expect improvements at a better pace than I saw with DigiKam. The raw conversion and developing capabilities of Darktable are very well integrated and documented; RawTherapee may have the edge in some esoteric features, but I found Darktable to have a much more intuitive interface and overall produces better results. I use The Gimp for final editing only when I need edit beyond what Darktable gives, which is pretty extensive. You might find that using raw is not any slower than jpg with a package like Darktable. You can spend a few minutes tweaking settings for one image, then apply those settings to a batch of images which were taken with similar lighting conditions, for example. The batch processing can run in the background with essentialy no cost in time to your workflow. May not work for your needs, but might be worth considering. I find also that I learn some things that work well in each batch of pictures I develop and with Darktable, it's easy to apply those parameters as a starting point for the next project.

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

11-18-2014, 09:17 AM	#12
Volker76 Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2014 Posts: 211	Hi, I find Gimp a bit overwhelming. So many features and menues... a) zsh: I copy the files into my pentax directory (cp -auv ...) b) gwenview: for a quick review. You can also resize and crop pictures in gwenview easily. c) darktable: If I come to the conclusion that some pictures need some attention, I open them out of gwenview with darktable. I had some trouble regarding colours with either rawtherapy or rawstudio and found the other of the two a bit fickle. So darktable was the candidate that won that horse race.

11-18-2014, 10:34 AM	#13
kjg48359 Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2013 Location: Just outside of Detroit MI Photos: Gallery Posts: 103 Original Poster	Nice start, thanks everyone. Duh, should have mentioned that I'm on Win7

11-18-2014, 11:11 AM	#14
Volker76 Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2014 Posts: 211	doesn't matter. gimp, gwenview and AFAIK darktable work under windows too.

11-18-2014, 11:14 AM	#15
MSL Site Supporter Join Date: Feb 2012 Location: Greater Toronto Area Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 4,749	Originally posted by Volker76 doesn't matter. gimp, gwenview and AFAIK darktable work under windows too. Darktable does not work under windows as noted above.