[newmikey]

I’ve done a small write-up on my own (non-commercial) web-blog about the making of this image using both a fully open-source workflow versus a workflow using a few commercial tools. Centerpiece of both workflows is Darktable 3.8.1 to keep things relatively comparable.

The link to my little write-up is here

The final image I created is:

Attached Images

 

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Last edited by newmikey; 03-18-2022 at 01:47 PM.

[Haenzel]

Amazing image! Need to visit this place. Thanks for your write up. I'm also solely depending on open source software. Piwigo, nice piece of software that hardly anybody knows...Have been using it for 10 years now.
Darktable needs no introduction, at least not to me!

[newmikey]

Amazing image! Need to visit this place. Thanks for your write up. I'm also solely depending on open source software. Piwigo, nice piece of software that hardly anybody knows...Have been using it for 10 years now.
Darktable needs no introduction, at least not to me!

Thanks! The photo gallery on my own website is Piwigo-based: you can peruse more of my work there

[AfterPentax Mark II]

This is beautiful picture of one of the most beautiful buildings in 's-Gravenhage in the Netherlands, my birthtown by the way. It is one of the oldest Arcades in the world and still kept well and in almost original state. After a big fire in one of its "arms" it has been fully restored to the original state and if you did not know better it still looks like nothing happened. It survived the bombings of the 2nd world war that were close by. Amazing building on an amazing picture!

[BigMackCam]

Fantastic image and an interesting comparison of processes!

Open source raw conversion and image processing apps have come a long way in the last few years. With the exception of A.I., tools like Darktable and RawTherapee now have similar, equal or - in some cases - slightly better capabilities than some well-established commercial options. Workflow, as you've pointed out, can differ significantly, and the apparent complexity of some open-source tools seems to put people off. I say "apparent" because the basic setup and adjustments - which are all most folks will need - are actually pretty easy to learn if you can see past all the other functionality that's exposed to the user. For those who can get past the initial learning hump, an entirely open-source tool-set really is a viable approach for achieving professional results...

[Dartmoor Dave]

Open source raw conversion and image processing apps have come a long way in the last few years. With the exception of A.I., tools like Darktable and RawTherapee now have similar, equal or - in some cases - slightly better capabilities than some well-established commercial options. Workflow, as you've pointed out, can differ significantly, and the apparent complexity of some open-source tools seems to put people off. I say "apparent" because the basic setup and adjustments - which are all most folks will need - are actually pretty easy to learn if you can see past all the other functionality that's exposed to the user. For those who can get past the initial learning hump, an entirely open-source tool-set really is a viable approach for achieving professional results...

I think open source photo editing software is still quite a long way behind the user friendliness curve of the open source world in general though. The days are (thankfully) long gone when getting a Linux machine up and running was all but impossible for those who didn't know their way around the command line, and most of the major applications that average users will need can now be installed and used with nothing but a few clicks with a mouse. But open source photo editing software has still got some catching up to do.

Only a small number of photographers will ever use the full range of geeky potential in apps like RawTherapee and Darktable, so I think the best move that developers could make right now would be to offer an "easy mode" and an "expert mode". It would really help in gaining wider acceptance if there were versions of apps like RawTherapee that initially installed with just the essential range of controls that 90% of users will ever need made visible, but offered an expert mode that could be switched on in preferences.

[BigMackCam]

I think open source photo editing software is still quite a long way behind the user friendliness curve of the open source world in general though. The days are (thankfully) long gone when getting a Linux machine up and running was all but impossible for those who didn't know their way around the command line, and most of the major applications that average users will need can now be installed and used with nothing but a few clicks with a mouse. But open source photo editing software has still got some catching up to do.

Only a small number of photographers will ever use the full range of geeky potential in apps like RawTherapee and Darktable, so I think the best move that developers could make right now would be to offer an "easy mode" and an "expert mode". It would really help in gaining wider acceptance if there were versions of apps like RawTherapee that initially installed with just the essential range of controls that 90% of users will ever need made visible, but offered an expert mode that could be switched on in preferences.

I'd broadly agree. I've never particularly liked the layout of RawTherapee... both it and Darktable need some user interface re-design. I think your idea of "easy" and "expert" modes is excellent. Even some guided wizards might help greatly. Documentation for both is quite comprehensive, but much of it seems to have been written by quite technical people and assumes the reader is similarly technical - so this could use some work too, though it's definitely improving with time.

For those having trouble getting past the learning curve with these open-source tools, I suggest limiting yourself to the adjustments that more-or-less replicate what you'd find in commercial software, and completely ignore the rest until you need it.

I got used to Darktable quite quickly, but it took a while before I clicked with RawTherapee. Now that I have, I love it - even taking into account the slightly clunky UI. There are still things about it that I'm learning and discovering, but the same is true with most software I use, commercial or open-source...

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Last edited by BigMackCam; 03-14-2022 at 03:58 AM.

[newmikey]

Only a small number of photographers will ever use the full range of geeky potential in apps like RawTherapee and Darktable, so I think the best move that developers could make right now would be to offer an "easy mode" and an "expert mode".

I'd say the same is true for Lightroom and certainly for Photoshop, isn't it? Do these apps have such "easy modes" or would you then just revert to PS Elements, Paint.net or PSP instead? On the open source side one could of course revert to simpler alternatives such as Showphoto (part of the Digikam package), immensely powerful but with easy one-click shortcuts and preset automated adjustments.

It would really help in gaining wider acceptance if there were versions of apps like RawTherapee that initially installed with just the essential range of controls that 90% of users will ever need made visible, but offered an expert mode that could be switched on in preferences.

Well, if there were enough people who would like that, they'd get up and either join the existing developers team or branch the codebase and create what they need. I suppose there is one major difference there in that with commercial software a company develops software, listens (or not) to feedback and then goes on to develop new options/upgrades/updates/spin-offs. With open source, if you need something, you find lots of others who need it as well and just make it so. I think most of what you want is already there anyway so others have done exactly thàt.

In the meantime, DarkTable developers have created an easy-access panel where you can store your most (or only) used modules. I often use a style preset and my easy access panel (first screenshot shown below) to edit raw files without ever touching any of the more esoteric modules. There is also a "beginners workflow panel" (second screenshot attached) which seems to accomplish most of what you suggest. Both my own personalized "easy access" panel as well as the built-in "beginners" panel are attached.

I sympathize with those who want "easy mode" software and I would never think of patronizing them but such software already exists and is there for grabs (and for free). I myself make extensive use of Digikam and, as I've shown in my write up for this post, use it myself when I do not require the full power of Gimp or DarkTable. A noteworthy application with an easy mode would be Fotoxx for instance. I've never taken to it myself but it looks exactly like the option you describe.

I honestly think though that if people would just spend a bit more time finding about about customization, they would discover that most open source software is easily customizable right from the get-go. That certainly applied to DarkTable but for some odd reason I always see people going on about the user interface having too many modules with too many weird functions. Spend half an hour clicking your user panel together - it will be the best half hour spent, I promise you!

---------- Post added 03-14-22 at 12:27 PM ----------

For those having trouble getting past the learning curve with these open-source tools, I suggest limiting yourself to the adjustments that more-or-less replicate what you'd find in commercial software, and completely ignore the rest until you need it.

That is exactly the right way to go about it. Put those adjustments in your own customized panel and only add in more detailed and technical modules once you learn about them. It is only recently I discovered the tone equalizer module, hadn't ever touched and found it confusing as hell. Once I'd seen a decent video howto and tried it out, it got added to my standard toolbox - no idea why I messed around with the shows-highlights tool for so long. The tone equalizer works in such an amazingly simple way, just by pointing to the shadow or highlight level you want adjusted and scroll the mousewheel - done.

But the real point is that there are only a limited number of pixel-value manipulation algorithms available to image science but an infinite way to combine them. Photoshop/Lightroom do that one particular way, DarkTable another. In the end, in either software you have the options to go for the uncooked step-by-step manipulations or the more complex combined ones - the choice is up to the user.

[AfterPentax Mark II]

Amazing image! Need to visit this place. Thanks for your write up. I'm also solely depending on open source software. Piwigo, nice piece of software that hardly anybody knows...Have been using it for 10 years now.
Darktable needs no introduction, at least not to me!

Amazing image! Need to visit this place.

Yes you should!

[tuco]

I don't mean this in a negative or disrespectful way, but on my monitor the image does not look and feel like a real picture. It looks like a scene you'd see generated in a video game or a graphics art project.

[longbo]

I'd say the same is true for Lightroom and certainly for Photoshop, isn't it? Do these apps have such "easy modes" or would you then just revert to PS Elements, Paint.net or PSP instead? On the open source side one could of course revert to simpler alternatives such as Showphoto (part of the Digikam package), immensely powerful but with easy one-click shortcuts and preset automated adjustments.

I use Camera Raw, which I believe has the same development module as Lightroom. I don't think it has an "easy mode" as such, but it's relatively easy just to use those tools needed to get what I want out of the software. I do find the other parts of Lightroom very complicated and sonewhat tedious - hence my use of Camera Raw.

[MossyRocks]

For a shot like that my opensource work flow would have been RawTherapee -> Hugin+enfuse -> RawTherapee where I would do initial development in RawTherapee with some tweaks to make life easy in Hugin+enfuse. Then using Hugin to do the image alignment and enfuse to do the HDR like blending and finally back to RawTherapee to do final image tweaking of the enfused image.

It is good to see others dabbling with open source software for photos. For regular shots I mostly stick with RawTherapee but once I get beyond single images shots I need more so tools like those bundled with Hugin (there are a lot) and GIMP are probably my next most used. For astro images it is a whole special set of software there I use some free, some pay, some opensource but the bulk of image editing is with GIMP and RawTherapee even if the stacking portion is done elsewhere.

[newmikey]

I don't mean this in a negative or disrespectful way, but on my monitor the image does not look and feel like a real picture. It looks like a scene you'd see generated in a video game or a graphics art project.

It's quite OK for you to feel this doesn't look and feel like a real picture - that is exactly what I was aiming for. I firmly support your right to NOT like that type of image, no negativity or disrespect perceived from my side at all. Thanks for the comment!

---------- Post added 03-14-22 at 08:54 PM ----------

For a shot like that my opensource work flow would have been RawTherapee -> Hugin+enfuse -> RawTherapee where I would do initial development in RawTherapee with some tweaks to make life easy in Hugin+enfuse. Then using Hugin to do the image alignment and enfuse to do the HDR like blending and finally back to RawTherapee to do final image tweaking of the enfused image.

I would certainly use enfuse if I was after a straight exposure-merge rather than a tonemap. If using enfuse, rather than having to rsort to hugin for image alignment, I use the Digikam exposure merge facility which combines Hugin's align_image_stack and enfuse in one easy to use GUI.

It is good to see others dabbling with open source software for photos. For regular shots I mostly stick with RawTherapee but once I get beyond single images shots I need more so tools like those bundled with Hugin (there are a lot) and GIMP are probably my next most used. For astro images it is a whole special set of software there I use some free, some pay, some opensource but the bulk of image editing is with GIMP and RawTherapee even if the stacking portion is done elsewhere.

I wouldn't say that I "dabble" with open source software for photos - I've used this software for over 15 years and have never done my workflow on anything else than a Linux OS loaded with open-source image editing software.

Back in 2010 I actually released a specially remastered PCLinuxOS edition called DPE (Digital Photography Edition) and was one of the first to get permission from Gabor Horvath to included the, then closed-source, rawtherapee in it. PCLinuxOS Magazine - HTML

[BigMackCam]

It is good to see others dabbling with open source software for photos. For regular shots I mostly stick with RawTherapee but once I get beyond single images shots I need more so tools like those bundled with Hugin (there are a lot) and GIMP are probably my next most used. For astro images it is a whole special set of software there I use some free, some pay, some opensource but the bulk of image editing is with GIMP and RawTherapee even if the stacking portion is done elsewhere.

I wouldn't say that I "dabble" with open source software for photos - I've used this software for over 15 years and have never done my workflow on anything else than a Linux OS loaded with open-source image editing software.

I shifted away from Adobe Lightroom when they moved to the subscription model (even though I still own and occasionally use Lightroom 6 stand-alone). For some time, Darktable was my tool of choice. These days, I tend to use a combination of RawTherapee and GIMP more than anything else, though I'll use Darktable when I feel its modules will give me preferable results. Either way, I've been using open-source tools almost exclusively for 4 - 5 years now, both under Linux and Windows...

[MossyRocks]

Back in 2010 I actually released a specially remastered PCLinuxOS edition called DPE (Digital Photography Edition) and was one of the first to get permission from Gabor Horvath to included the, then closed-source, rawtherapee in it. PCLinuxOS Magazine - HTML

Nice. RawTherapee is really a gem of opensource. It seems most people do just dabble with only a few really using it. I came late to Linux image editing as I didn't go digital until a little more than 4 years ago but have been a long time linux user going back to Slackware 3.1.

I would certainly use enfuse if I was after a straight exposure-merge rather than a tonemap. If using enfuse, rather than having to rsort to hugin for image alignment, I use the Digikam exposure merge facility which combines Hugin's align_image_stack and enfuse in one easy to use GUI.

I think this is where image preferences differ I have found I like the enfused look more than the tonemapped look. Hugin's GUI now includes using enfuse and align image stack nicely in its GUI provided you want to to an exposure fused image. I do like Hugin's GUI for outputting remapped images as it is just simpler than straight using the command line tools. For using enfuse I will just still run it from the command line with varying options depending on what I am doing. I used this method for getting the most out of my most recent moon shots and managed this with fusing contrast in enfuse.