A fast-start guide to beginning darktable editing for new users and those transitioning from other software. Practical rather than theoretical.
Why this article?
Darktable offers many different ways to edit a photograph. That’s one of its greatest strengths, but it’s also what overwhelms new users. There’s no denying darktable is intimidating at first sight. There are so many modules, so many possible editing routes, the big problem is where do you even start? Do I start with this module or that one. What next? And what after that?
This article is not intended as a definitive guide to darktable; I’m not going to try and teach every feature of darktable. No, what I am trying to do is simply provide a solution to the problem that many newbies face when they try darktable for the first time (especially if you have a background with Lightroom Classic): how to start editing. A practical basic editing workflow that will get the job done for a typical image that can be learned in an afternoon.
Before we get down to it, a brief digression about how darktable’s philosophy is different from commercial products and why this can make it hard to get started. Bear with me, it’s worth it!
In some ways, darktable is more Photoshop than Lightroom in philosophy:
- Photoshop is a great big image editing workshop, full of tools, and it is down to you to decide what to do with them (or let the massive tutorial publishing industry it supports decide for you).
- Lightroom, on the other hand, is different. It is opinionated. The designers figured out what they think is a reasonable workflow and they designed the UI around that concept: Start at the top of the edit panel, and work your way down is not a bad idea for approaching a Lightroom workflow.
Darktable is a unique product with its own philosophy and design. It looks vaguely like Lightroom, but don’t be fooled – its editing tools are not neatly and suggestively organised for you like Lightroom’s. Instead, the devs trust the user to know what they are doing and leave you to figure out your own workflow. You can’t just start at the top and work your way down.
This is excellent for power users, darktable’s capabilities are awesome, the devs did a fantastic job technically. The downside for newbies and former Lightroom users fancying a move, is that when you open it for the first time, it is difficult to identify an obvious step by step editing workflow.
What I want to do is show you my own opinion of how you could use darktable to compensate for its lack of a designed in opinion. My opinion is just my opinion but it’s a starting place from which you can develop your own methods. This article condenses eight years of using darktable after moving from Lightroom into a straightforward workflow that gets you editing quickly and gives you the confidence to use darktable for quite complex editing without requiring the deep module understanding that your first sight of the product might suggest you need. Yes, it can be powerful and simple! No need to worry too much about what all the other stuff means at the beginning, save that for when you are more experienced.
I’m starting in the middle here with the editing phase, skipping installation, import and cataloguing because I know you are impatient and want to dive straight in – I am too! I’ll write a separate article later covering the boring stuff – if I can’t convince you it’s a fine editor straight up, the rest doesn’t matter. Once you can do basic editing confidently, you will have the basis to be free to explore the software’s more advanced capabilities at your own pace.
The workflow
Where to start: global edits
Raw convertors are primarily designed around global editing tools. The edits you apply affect the whole image. The best also provide local editing features that let you edit different parts of an image independently. I want to start by suggesting a simple global editing workflow, then we will move on to some local editing tricks that really exploit darktable’s power.
Darktable supports several workflows based around different tone-mapping modules, and different users have their favourites. At the time of writing, AgX is generally regarded as the most modern approach, so to keep things simple I am focusing on an AgX based Workflow. Don’t worry about what this means at the moment. I think it is best to think of a tone-mapping workflow as a black box, a step-by-step process for setting up the editor basics before you get down to the serious editing. Once learned, you will just do it in a few clicks every time without thinking, it’ll become automatic.
Step 1. Exposure module
This is your starting place – always. But not perhaps for the reasons you might think. We treat the exposure module less as an editing task and more as a configuration tool for the AgX module. I will explain what I mean in a minute, but first how to use the model in this workflow:
Ignore the black level slider, we are only interested in the exposure slider. And we are only interested in a very special way. What we want to do is use it to simply adjust the mid-tones to a roughly suitable level, nothing more. Focus on the mid-tones only and ignore the effects on the shadows and highlights. Brighten the mid-tones roughly right, don’t worry if the highlights go off the scale. It’s all part of the plan!
Step 2. AgX module
Next, AgX.
AgX is a very special processing module. It’s a tone-mapping module. All raw software uses a tone mapping module, darktable is unusual in that it exposes the module to you, where most hide it out of sight. I’m not going to go into the subtleties of exactly what it does at this point, the key thing is to understand that it works together with the exposure module. Use the exposure module to prep the ground for AgX. Then, when we open AgX, it will do its work properly.
All I want you to do at this point with AgX is to switch on the module and click the Autotune levels eyedropper. That’s it. For the moment ignore all its awesome and baffling sliders and buttons, just hit autotune.
AgX will now automatically spread the image tones over the full range while carefully managing the highlight roll off for you to ensure a nice even tonality and film-like treatment of colour in the highlights. This sets up a great starting point for subsequent edits.
At this point after just two adjustments, your image should look reasonable. Not ready, but reasonable, for very many average images.
Step 3. Local contrast module
This module is similar to Lightroom’s clarity module and it can be used to add crunch. But I have found that the built in Clarity preset doesn’t seem to just add punch and texture, rather it kind of opens up shadows and smooths out tonality. I don’t really understand why, I just know it does from experience! So, for now, just think of it as part of the standard image preparation phase: open the module, and click the Clarity preset and you are done.
Step 4. Global colour/white balancing – colour calibration and white balance modules
White balancing removes obvious global colour casts and is a basic editing step. This will sound a little odd to Lightroom users but in darktable we need to use a combination of two modules to do this. I say don’t worry about it, just roll with it for now, it’s simply a technical set up process, not so much editing but configuration. It helps get the image to a standard starting place we can use as the foundation for the real editing which follows.
Open the white balance module and, out of the multiplicity of options, just choose the Camera reference button. Trust me on this one.
Next, open the colour calibration module and select the As shot in camera preset.
That’s it. These two settings set-up the basic colour response foundation. The modules are much more powerful than this, but let’s just leave it at that for now, a standard reference point for further edits to sit on top of.
Step 5. Global Technical corrections
The lens correction profiles module – This applies corrections for vignetting, chromatic aberration and geometric distortion. Darktable uses the Lensfun database for profiles. These get updated for every release, but it is possible to update the profile library yourself to get the latest profiles. Normally you just switch on the module and it applies corrections automatically. If it doesn’t there are manual options, including presets.
Chromatic aberrations module – There is also a separate, manually controlled chromatic aberrations module, if your lens profile is not available or doesn’t get the job done. Switch it on and set amount and other options using sliders. It’s simply a case of moving the sliders and visually inspecting until the fringing goes away.
Retouch module – This can be used for lots of things, but here I am just using it as a clone tool to remove dust spots. Switch on the module, select the clone or heal tool, the circle brush and click and drag to remove a spot. If you ctrl+click the circle brush it will keep working for multiple spots. Otherwise reclick the circle shape to do each one individually.
Right, these 5 steps are the foundation for the AgX workflow. I find for the majority of images, this little lot will get the image into reasonable shape. Depending on your ambition, you can leave it at that or you can move on to more advanced editing using local edits and the excitement of AI supported masking…
More advanced: Local edits
Global editing is fairly similar across most products. You are adjusting the same basic set of parameters. Every piece of software has its quirks and does things a little differently but the principles remain the same; darktable’s biggest quirk is its lack of an obvious workflow – hence this article. You can continue to fine tune the image using more global editing tools (we will look at these in a later article) but I want to promote a different approach. Once you have your basic global edits in a stable place, switch to local editing to tweak the image. The real power of darktable (in my opinion, of course) is its masking system which allows for excellent local editing.
Darktable’s masking system
Darktable’s masks are available independently on just about every module, so you can create custom selections and masks to restrict the effects of a particular module – you are not limited to a subset of tools that share a common masking system, you have the complete power of masks on every module (you can also share masks between modules to speed things up).
Darktable’s module instance system
Darktable has one trick which works superbly with the masking system: multiple module instances. You are not limited to using an editing tool once – you can create as many duplicate instances of a module as you need (for example, you could create multiple duplicates of the curves module).
You then apply a dedicated custom mask to each instance to restrict the effect of that instance to the masked area only.
In effect, the combination of module-based masking and multiple module instances acts a bit like Photoshop layers, where you can put a single edit on a separate layer and you can switch these layers on and off independently to review the effects. It’s not exactly layers, but it is quite a Photoshop-like way of working.
Local editing example
Let’s illustrate this by example. Let’s say after doing the global edits above, you review the image and decide you need to do some dodging and burning – lighten some parts of the image and darken others. How do we do this?
First we need to decide on what module we will use to darken and lighten. There are many choices, part of the joy and the nightmare of darktable! I have found two modules particularly useful for dodging and burning: RGB curves and Tone equalizer.
I’m assuming you have a basic understanding of how to use curves. You click the default curve (which starts as a straight line) to create one or more grab-handle points and by bending the curve in various ways you alter the tones in the image. Probably the simplest usage is to create a single grab handle by clicking the centre of the curve (line) and bending it upwards to brighten the image or downwards to darken it. There is a lot of sophisticated processing you can do with curves alone, but let’s keep it this simple for now.
So how do we use the curves tool for basic dodging and burning in darktable?
The trick is to create duplicate instances of the curves module, one instance for each patch of the image I want to dodge and burn. Each instance then gets its own dedicated masks for each patch.
This approach means I can use one instance + mask to localise the edit to one patch of the image. Additional instances + masks are used to localise other edits. This allows you to darken and lighten individual patches of the image – localised dodging and burning.
You can actually name each instance, so you can make it clear what each does: ship, figure, sky, background, whatever. Once you have a list of multiple dodging and burning tools active and named, it is then easy to turn them on and off in turn to inspect the effects. Very layers-like, and a very powerful way to edit an image effectively. Editing with local tools opens up advanced editing without resorting to incomprehensibly complex global edit techniques.
AI masking
I like to think of local editing as a sort of souped-up wet darkroom style dodging and burning exercise where waving bits of card under an enlarger gets replaced by loose drawn masks. Even though I don’t use any kind of precise masking – we not doing advanced compositing here – local editing still depends on masking.
My approach is to use rough approximate masks and use the feather slider to smoothly blend the masks into the surrounding area. All this drawn mask creation can involve a lot of clicking. Sounds like hard work. I’m lazy so I really like the AI masking introduced with v5.6. For me it is great time saver. Instead of manually drawing each mask with a brush or path tool, I just select the AI mask tool and click on part of the image and the AI figures out the mask for me. It doesn’t even need to be that good at it, click a couple of times to roughly cover the desired area, then apply a soft feather to blend it in gently. Old style darkroom dodge and burn on steroids!
The Tone equalizer
The alternative to curves I use often for dodging and burning is the Tone equalizer. This tool divides the tonal range into 9 separate tone ranges or zones from shadows to mid-tones to highlights, much like Ansel Adams’ zone system did. It provides a slider for each tone band and you can adjust the tones that fall into each of the bands independently, darkening or brightening each tone band. Quite nice. But out of the box it works globally across the image while what we need for dodging and burning is to restrict the effects to a narrow region of the image.
Once again, masking and multiple instances do this for us. If I wanted to, say, dodge or burn 4 different parts of the image, I would create 4 instances of the tone equalizer module and mask each instance to the desired area. This gives me total control. Again you can name each instance so your dodging and burning becomes a self-documented list of edits you can turn on and off to inspect the effects.
The broad approach is identical to using curves, but because Tone Equalizer is a little fiddlier to use, here’s a bit more detail:
First switch on the module. Click the advanced tab to start the prep stage. Click the two eye dropper buttons. This makes the module analyse the image and assign tones to the various sliders. Tone equalizer is now ready for use.
Next we draw a mask. Click the mask tool button and select the AI mask tool. Click on the patch of the image you want to mask. AI will draw the mask. Click again if it is incomplete, or misses. Once you have selected an area, right click to convert the AI selection to a drawn mask, and apply a bit of feather to blend it in.
Tone Equalizer has a neat trick which is a kind of targeted adjustment tool like Lightroom has. Once you have masked an area, you click the mouse on the masked region, then simply scroll the mouse scroll wheel to lighten or darken the tones in the masked area under the mouse pointer.
Quite handy, and the main reason I use Tone Equalizer as an alternative to plain old curves. Try both, see which you prefer or pick and choose whatever seems most appropriate at the time.
Summary of my beginner workflow
1. Use the exposure module slider to set the mid-tones of your image roughly correctly
2. Switch on the AgX module and click the autotune button
3. Enable the local contrast module and click the Clarity preset
4. Enable the white balance module and choose the Camera reference option
5. Enable the colour calibration module and choose As shot in camera preset
6. Use the lens correction, chromatic aberration and retouch modules for technical corrections
This completes the basic global edits.
Switch to local editing to do basic dodging and burning with either the RGB curves or the Tone equalizer modules. Use the masking features (including the AI mask helper tool) to draw masks and isolate the effect of the module to the masked area.
Create multiple instances of curves or tone equalizer, rename each instance so you can easily see what it is for. Each instance has it own mask to restrict dodging and burning to different local areas in a self documenting way.
Conclusions for now
I think you can achieve a hell of a lot in darktable by combining a basic global edit stage with local editing dodging and burning. Of course, there are a ton more editing modules and a ton more capabilities not even touched on here, but as a starting point to editing in darktable I think this is a good approach. This is my basic approach and I think it is one of the simplest ways to get started with darktable using the most modern workflow.
In later articles, I’ll cover more of the editing capabilities, as well as looking at installation and configuration.