Additional Information
Open source photography workflow application and RAW developer
| Latest Version | Darktable 4.8.1 |
| Requirements |
Mac OS X |
| Updated | July 26, 2024 |
| Author | Johannes Hanika |
| Category | Imaging and Digital Photo |
| License | Open Source |
| Language | English |
| Download | 246 |
Overview
Darktable for Mac is an open source photography workflow application and RAW developer. A virtual lighttable and darkroom for photographers. It manages your digital negatives in a database, lets you view them through a zoomable lighttable and enables you to develop raw images and enhance them.
Raw is the unprocessed capture straight from the camera's sensor to the memory card, nothing has been altered. There are multiple alternatives in the open source world for raw development (ufraw, dcraw, rawtherapee) but Darktable tries to fill the gap between the excellent existing free raw converters and image management tools (such as e.g. ufraw, rawstudio, f-spot, digikam, shotwell). It focuses on the workflow to make it easier for the photographer to quickly handle the thousands of images a day of shooting can produce. It's also one of the very few FOSS projects able to do tethered shooting.
The internal architecture of the app allows users to easily add modules for all sorts of image processing, from the very simple (crop, exposure, spot removal) to the most advanced (simulation of human night vision).
The user interface is built around efficient caching of image metadata and mipmaps, all stored in a database. The main focus lies on user interaction, both in terms of a smooth interface design as well as processing speed. High quality output is also one of goals.
All editing is fully non-destructive and only operates on cached image buffers for display. The full image is only converted during export. Raw image loading is done using rawspeed, high-dynamic range and standard image formats such as jpeg are also supported. The core operates completely on floating point values, so Darktable for macOS can not only be used for photography but also for scientifically acquired images or output of renderers (high dynamic range).
Features and Highlights
Raw is the unprocessed capture straight from the camera's sensor to the memory card, nothing has been altered. There are multiple alternatives in the open source world for raw development (ufraw, dcraw, rawtherapee) but Darktable tries to fill the gap between the excellent existing free raw converters and image management tools (such as e.g. ufraw, rawstudio, f-spot, digikam, shotwell). It focuses on the workflow to make it easier for the photographer to quickly handle the thousands of images a day of shooting can produce. It's also one of the very few FOSS projects able to do tethered shooting.
The internal architecture of the app allows users to easily add modules for all sorts of image processing, from the very simple (crop, exposure, spot removal) to the most advanced (simulation of human night vision).
The user interface is built around efficient caching of image metadata and mipmaps, all stored in a database. The main focus lies on user interaction, both in terms of a smooth interface design as well as processing speed. High quality output is also one of goals.
All editing is fully non-destructive and only operates on cached image buffers for display. The full image is only converted during export. Raw image loading is done using rawspeed, high-dynamic range and standard image formats such as jpeg are also supported. The core operates completely on floating point values, so Darktable for macOS can not only be used for photography but also for scientifically acquired images or output of renderers (high dynamic range).
Features and Highlights
- darktable runs on GNU/Linux / GNOME, Mac OS X / macports and Solaris 11 / GNOME.
- Fully non-destructive editing.
- All darktable core functions operate on 4x32-bit floating point pixel buffers, enabling SSE instructions for speedups. It offers GPU acceleration via OpenCL (runtime detection and enabling) and has built-in ICC profile support: sRGB, Adobe RGB, XYZ and linear RGB.
- A collect module allows you to execute flexible database queries, search your images by tags, image rating (stars), color labels and many more. Filtering and sorting your collections within the base query or simple tagging by related tags are useful tools in your every-day photo workflow.
- Import a variety of standard, raw and high dynamic range image formats (e.g. jpg, cr2, hdr, pfm, .. ).
- darktable has a zero-latency fullscreen, zoomable user interface through multi-level software caches.
- Tethered shooting.
- darktable currently comes with 21 translations: Albanian, Catalan, Czech, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portugese (Brazilian and Portugese), Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Ukrainian.
- The powerful export system supports Picasa webalbum, flickr upload, disk storage, 1:1 copy, email attachments and can generate a simple html-based web gallery. darktable for macOS allows you to export to low dynamic range (JPEG, PNG, TIFF), 16-bit (PPM, TIFF), or linear high dynamic range (PFM, EXR) images.
- darktable uses both XMP sidecar files as well as its fast database for saving metadata and processing settings. All Exif data is read and written using libexiv2.
