Photography Software with Darktable
October 11, 2019
Intro
Already mid way through October and this year is just flying by! It’s been a while since i’ve made a post so I thought to check in and make a quick post about a program I came about as I was trying to edit some of my photos of a recent trip. Just a few weeks ago I was backpacking in Peru primarily doing day trips out of Cusco (an incredible city) in the Andes mountains and I ended the vacation off with a few days in Colombia. The featured image above is an awesome shot I got of Machu Picchu (RAW image with slight contrasting changes converted over to JPEG). This post won’t be too in depth as I just want to introduce some thoughts on darktable - an open source photo editing software that photographers can use instead of the traditional application Adobe Lightroom.
Why use darktable?
enhance your images
I am by no means a professional photographer but I am a hobbyist just learning my way around the camera. Post editing of images is an essential part of photography and many photographers will shoot their photos in RAW format. This means that the photo taken is exactly as the sensor in the camera sees it without any editing and therefore the file is not actually usable for viewing unless it has been edited and converted over to a different file format (most common one being JPEG). If you only shoot your images in JPEG you are limiting yourself to what you can do with your images. I shoot my photos in RAW + JPG so that I have the option to quickly send files to share and also having the ability to edit the RAW image file to produce more astonishing photos with an image editing program. Darktable is what i’ve decided to use and it provides an impressive alternative to adobe lightroom at the price of $0! Adobe has moved over to a “creative cloud” platform with their apps going for $9.99 a month subscription based. Lightroom is the go-to program in the photography community but after a few days with darkroom I have to say that it is an impressive program to work with given all of the features involved. The only negative I can see with darktable is that it definitely has a bit of a learning curve. I think this is a good thing as this software contains everything that adobe lightroom has and you can even see elements of lightroom incorporated into darktable. If you are trying to find a solid RAW image editing software this may be a great alternative if you want to avoid paying.
My Photography Gear
Camera: Nikon d810 DSLR
Lens: 18-200mm zoom, 50mm prime, 20mm Nikkor wide angle prime
Flash: Nikon speedlight flash unit
Bag: Kept camera in regular backpack used Domke F-34L 19-Inch Protective Wrap -Red for added protection
My darkroom example edits
Here are a few of my raw image files with slight edits converted over using the program…
Personal blog by Alex Virdee, 