Darktable vs Capture One

William Lewis

All-Pro
Location
Eau Claire, Wisconsin
Name
William Lewis
I don't generally do a whole lot of postprocessing. Depending on the circumstance, I can be very happy with the JPG SOOC from my M 240. I have been feeling the financial bite of my Capture One 22 subscription and am pondering whether to buy a standalone license for it and update down the road if I feel the need to. Or move to the free open source Darktable.

I currently have both loaded and took an image from a couple of days ago. I tried to do similar things to the raw image but it's hard to be certain since the UI is very different.

Monochrome JPG SOOC:

L1005597-SOOC.JPG
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As processed by me in Capture One:

L1005597-c1.jpg
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As processed by me in Darktable:

L1005597-darktable.jpg
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As processed as monochrome in Darktable:

L1005597-mono-dt.jpg
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I'm really not sure what, if anything, this exercise tells me. Anyone have a thought?
 
To me, the files outputted from your particular camera don’t require major processing, just colour/ mono, minor temperature adjustments, haze/ clarity adjustment and not much else. So an intensive PP application probably isn’t required.
Ray's on the money there - if I need extensive pp, darktable does as good a job in my book as any of the paid applications, but handles differently (and it's not particularily fast, either). However, usually, a few "standard" tools are sufficient; I've chosen Polarr for this kind of day-to-day stuff (my jam, anyway) because I like to have curves handy and almost always use them, but you can probably do the most essential things with every simple image processors, and there are quite a lot of these ... However, I'm paid up with Polarr (early supporter, once-in-a-lifetime subscription - but that's no longer available), but its the free version lacks a few things I like to have at hand (noise reduction, for one thing - even though I hardly ever use it because frankly, most files just don't need it). Polarr's RAW support is scetchy, too - whereas darktable can handle almost everything. And if not, there's always Adobe's free DNG Converter ...

So, maybe something really simple plus darktable? I'd be fully on board with this ...

M.
 
Thank you folks, I appreciate the thoughts. I have been wondering if I really needed anything as powerful as Capture One. I've been paying $20/month subscription and while that's not that much, it adds up over a year. I'd rather spend it on a lens :drinks: I think I'll just keep puttering around with Darktable for now while keeping my eyes open for a simpler tool that works well for me.
 
Dunno if one of your cameras is in the cadre of the Capture One Express versions, but that might be an option.

I bought my license of Capture One outright, so I can definitely feel your pain.

In my spelunking around Darktable, it seems really powerful, but also a bit cryptic. There seems to be the feeling from the dev's that you have to prove yourself worthy to make good use of it.

One of the free tools I REALLY like is ART. This is a fork of Raw Therapee that has been drastically refactored for ease of use. It's amazing what one talented developer can do.

good luck with your transition.
 
Dunno if one of your cameras is in the cadre of the Capture One Express versions, but that might be an option.

I bought my license of Capture One outright, so I can definitely feel your pain.

In my spelunking around Darktable, it seems really powerful, but also a bit cryptic. There seems to be the feeling from the dev's that you have to prove yourself worthy to make good use of it.

One of the free tools I REALLY like is ART. This is a fork of Raw Therapee that has been drastically refactored for ease of use. It's amazing what one talented developer can do.

good luck with your transition.
I'm quite impressed with ART - thanks for the pointer. However, I feel you need quite a bit of screen real estate to fully enjoy it. Not an issue, just something to keep in mind.

M.
 
My Nikon has a free version so that got me hooked but Leica is full price. Ouch.

And, yeah, cryptic is a good word for that UI. I'd need to figure out how to do "filter" effects (yellow on a monochrome image).

I am definitely interested in checking out ART so I'll download that give it a shot. Thanks!
 
If'n you need further help with art try here: ART

The developer hangs out there and is very responsive.

'tis amazing how one guy can develop something as good as ART and still be able to interact directly with users of his program.

Some other commercial companies could learn a few things....
 
I own both CS5 and CS6 Premium editions of Adobe, plus I subscribe to the photographers package for AUD$14.99 a month (about USD 11 p.m.).

That's worth it to me.

The Adobe licence fee also covers my Android devices.

I also own a lifetime licence for Polarr, FastStone Viewer and PIE Studio. All useful in their own ways.
 
You will not be able to achieve the exact same result as the internal processing of C1 is unknown.
But you might get close.

My tips and tricks after almost 2 years experience with Darktable, coming from Lightroom.

- There are multiple ways of achieving similar things in Darktable. It takes time to find your way
- Darktable doesn't do anything that is not technically necessary to process images. Opening an image in the darkroom gives you a very muted, dull look. You might think Darktable is faulty, but it shows you the pure raw file
- It has some really powerful masking techniques like parametric masks
- Darktable has over 70 different modules, you only need a handful. There are older deprecated modules still around to be backwards compatible. Don't use them.
- Every module has its very specific function, don't try to achieve things it wasn't made for.
- Darktable is transitioning from a display-referred workflow to a scene-referred workflow. If you are new to Darktable, I would strongly suggest to learn the 'scene-referred' workflow as this is the way forward. Unfortunately a lot of info on the net is using older versions of darktable which sometimes show the use of (now) deprecated modules. Be aware of this.
- Darktable is a project in progress. With every release new features, better versions of modules are released, others get deprecated
- Darktable can be very technical, make sure to check the user manual
- Certainly check PIXLS.US - Free/Open Source Photography and youtube channels by Aurelien Pierre, Boris Hajdukovic, Bruce Williams, A dabble in photography
- The user interface, certainly the modules interface can feel very different and weird at first, but once you get used to them switching back to other tools like lightroom is going to feel very restrictive and limited
- Darktable does not work like Lightroom and it does not compete with Lightroom. It's a raw processor with its own strong and weak points.
 
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Sadly not in my case…

If you right click on the downloaded file rather than double click and select open, after a warning it will allow you to install it anyway.

For those looking for a free post processing app, take a look at adobe bridge https://www.adobe.com/uk/products/bridge.html It’s like an older version of Lightroom, it’s free as long as you have or sign up for a free adobe account and comes with the latest version of camera raw like photoshop and lightroom.
 
If you right click on the downloaded file rather than double click and select open, after a warning it will allow you to install it anyway.

For those looking for a free post processing app, take a look at adobe bridge https://www.adobe.com/uk/products/bridge.html It’s like an older version of Lightroom, it’s free as long as you have or sign up for a free adobe account and comes with the latest version of camera raw like photoshop and lightroom.
Thanks for the tip, will try it again
 
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