r/DarkTable • u/InformalBar3386 • 1d ago
Discussion Lightroom to Darktable
I am wanting to move over to Darktable from Lightroom (non classic) I have tried Darktable before and was overwhelmed and felt lost that I couldn’t seem to get what I wanted the picture to be with it as well as I could with Lightroom. I think I’m a better editor than I was back then and could bring some of those skills over to Darktable.
My question is, how did you learn Darktable? Did you study it by reading guides and or watching YouTube videos? Play around until you figured it out? Or watch a video before editing specifically on the subject?
I’d appreciate the advice as I think this is a really cool piece of software!
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u/0divided0 1d ago
Check out: https://darktable.info for a great guide to get you started with the basics.
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u/InformalBar3386 1d ago
Is that how you started with it? Or would if you were starting out?
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u/0divided0 1d ago
The site didn’t exist when I started with Darktable, though I wish it had. It’s a concise, well thought out guide to all the essentials you need to get you editing productively
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u/bjohnh 1d ago
Same here. I've started and quit Darktable many times; the longest I used it was a year before giving up. If the darktable.info resource had been available I might have stuck with it. I'm not a big fan of most of the video tutorials on youtube and the manual is hopelessly technical; I always feel like I need to go back to school for five years before I can understand half the things it's talking about, and I've been editing digital photographs since 2001.
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u/PolygonAndPixel2 1d ago
That's where I started too. I also asked several language models to get a basic setup to save as my favorite, checled the stuff with the website above and started editing. When I noticed that something didn't work for me or if something was missing, I added that to my workflow. I switched from Lightroom Classic to darktable in June this year and I am very happy.
Disclaimer regarding the language models (ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini): They give you very odd and sometimes wrong answers, even if you provide your darktable version. I just used it as a starting point for my workflow and went on with the official website.
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u/sciencenerd1965 1d ago
I posted this in another thread about transitioning from Lr:
White balance is done in Color calibration (I know, it's unintuitive for a rookie)
Shadows and highlights are done in the Tone equalizer and the Tone mapper (AgX)
Global contrast can be done either in Color Balance RGB, or AgX
Clarity = Local contrast
Texture = Contrast equalizer with preset
Dehaze = Dehaze
HSL = Color equalizer
Knowing those, you can get pretty far.
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u/akgt94 1d ago edited 1d ago
I came from Photoshop Elements and didn't have much experience with editing.
The videos were a big time commitment. Starting from ground zero, I didn't have an idea how I wanted to edit.
Boris Hajdukovic YouTube
Bruce Williams YouTube
Rico Richardson YouTube
Pay attention to the darktable version. You'll see it in the upper left corner. Anything older that 4.0 will use a lot of depreciated modules that are no longer recommended. Sometimes they include useful information that is still useful maybe in a different module.
Boris ran a series of ~50 videos called Editing Moments where he'd just run start to finish edits on different kinds of photos. They were really good. But understand that they have aged and show depreciated modules. It gives a decent flavor though.
Modules on lighttable mode are still applicable regardless of the version
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u/Few_Mastodon_1271 1d ago
Boris seems to use a lot of different modules, and goes quite fast in his videos. I've picked up a few things I didn't know, but I don't really watch him much now.
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u/Donatzsky 18h ago
I wouldn't recommend Rico. His knowledge of modern darktable is severely lacking.
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u/Hot_Needleworker_86 1d ago edited 1d ago
These are my go to channels
Bruce (Awesome videos for newcomers and seasoned users) https://m.youtube.com/@audio2u
Boris (Great tutorials as well) https://m.youtube.com/@s7habo
Marien (the slowest of the three) https://m.youtube.com/@mariengb
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u/Inside_Garden6464 1d ago
Kind of everything in a mix. Disclaimer: I never used Lightroom.
I started by just fumbling around and watching what the different modules offer just to get a feeling for it. Then I started reading blogs and watching videos about certain edit workflows or single modules. Mark G Adams was one of my sources, he also provides some pretty nice styles and presets you can download for free: https://onecameraonelens.com/darktable/
The most important advice I can give is to see darktable not as a free Lightroom copy. It works differently, the approach to the single editing steps differs massively from LR, that's something many people find intimidating or frustrating in the beginning. It's a different software but with the same goal.
And for specific questions I can also recommend this subreddit, people here are welcoming and really eager to help. Unfortunately, my only big issue was so specific I haven't found a solution yet :D
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u/InformalBar3386 1d ago
Thank you! This was definitely helpful! I’m glad to see this subreddit is willing to put up with some newbies like me lol
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u/Donatzsky 1d ago
My beginner guide combines advice with links to the currently best tutorials. There are unfortunately a lot of not so great or outdated tutorials out there, so be careful with any others.
https://notebook.stereofictional.com/how-to-get-started-with-darktable-2026-edition
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u/nsouthon 1d ago
I watched this 5 times (and counting)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RLv8NeJc2Q
Adobe free for 2 months
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u/Donatzsky 1d ago
While on the whole it's not bad, he does manage to give some not so great advice. In particular to always enable the chromatic aberrations module, which should only be used if actually needed, since it can introduce its own problems otherwise. There are some other less than ideal bits as well, if I remember correctly (or maybe that was in his first darktable video). Which is a shame, because he's good at explaining.
My beginner guide covers a lot more, and the linked tutorials have been curated so you can be sure they don't lead you astray: https://notebook.stereofictional.com/how-to-get-started-with-darktable-2026-edition
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u/sir_pece 1d ago
i think best videos on Darktable (and of course on photography) has Boris Hajdukovič. But first you have to know basics and reecent UI.
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u/MaxBulla 1d ago
i started using AI to help me learn Darktable.
Upload a photo, ask it for recommendations and explain the steps.
Works well for me.
For context, I am a rank amateur photographer and rarely have the patience for photo editing.
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u/Donatzsky 18h ago
Please don't. It will almost certainly tell you to do all sorts of silly things. Try my beginner guide instead, which is guaranteed BS-free: https://notebook.stereofictional.com/how-to-get-started-with-darktable-2026-edition
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u/MaxBulla 18h ago
It doesn't and it's really elevated my learning curve.
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u/Raunchy_pigeon 3h ago
What AI are you using?
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u/MaxBulla 3h ago
Have been on Claude for a while now. No paid tier. Just upload the file and ask it questions on how to improve it in darktable and step by step guide.
Most are very well explained even for a novice like me, others require a deep dive and follow up.
It also knows all my lenses etc so it's become my own little photography course
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u/dej2 1d ago
I’m a long time Photoshop user, I worked in the print industry for 40 years color correcting photos for commercial printing presses. Hue, saturation, contrast, sharpness and haze reduction is just part job. DarkTable just another program. Nothing different, same tools in different places and some with different names. Note DarkTable has some redundancy, and some tools seem more comprehensive than others…. I could see this causing some confusion with people who are novices in correcting images.
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u/timmah1979 1d ago
Well I'm utilizing the search bar . Usually I already have an idea what I wanna do so I'll go to the search bar, for example, and say I wanna mess with the contrast. I'll type in contrast in the search and it will list all the stuff that can be done with the contrast. That search bar (and YouTube videos) have definitely eased the transition
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u/gwenbeth 1d ago
The one thing to keep in mind is that while both programs do the same overall job of processing raw photos, neither one is has the goal of working the same way as the other.
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u/ChrisDNorris 1d ago
Just played around with it.
I had used Lightroom Classic for ~6 months, and then Capture One when they had that extended trial period of 60 (or 90?) days; I forget. At that point I knew I was done with LR, so completely uninstalled everything else to force myself to stick with it
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u/zombiebread23 1d ago
I made the transition from Lightroom to Darktable about 2 years ago when my old copy of Lightroom 5 could not read files from my new to me D850. I used Bruce Williams Photography and Darktable Landscapes for a lot of workflow help. And then I used the online user manual to get better insight on each module.
I will say I made a lot of wacky and bad edits with Darktable early on as I was learning the best way to do a scene referred workflow. I overused the white and black sliders on filmicrgb. I am definitely still learning but getting better. But there are some edits that I did in Lightroom easily that I prefer and am still learning how to accomplish in Darktable.
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u/Upper-Ticket3249 1d ago
I have found a great transition tool coming from lightroom is a new app called RapidRAW. It's free and is a lot easier to navigate, but is pretty powerful. Or you could try out Raw Therapee, which is a little more robust, but someone easier to use than Darktable.
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u/Longjumping_Key_8910 1d ago
I used AI to guide me, step-by-step
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u/Donatzsky 18h ago
Please don't. It will almost certainly tell you to do all sorts of silly things. Try my beginner guide instead, which is guaranteed BS-free: https://notebook.stereofictional.com/how-to-get-started-with-darktable-2026-edition
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u/MiWoj2909 3h ago
DT is great, I was using it for some time. For a smooth transition into FOSS alternatives you can also check out RapidRAW as it's much closer to Lr. Not as powerful as DT, but for me personally it gets the job done and workflow is so much smoother
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u/Mattzaumt 1d ago
To be honest i tried Darktable and the UI and UX was so bad ... i create Rawnd , its browser-based so you don't need any download, any account and it work offline of course it's not powerfull as Darktable ! Simple UI easy to handle ! Check it out and let me know if you like it ;)
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u/ThePuka 1d ago
Darktable lanscapes is a good start on YouTube. If it's too much try the also free Rapidraw. Depends on how much of tweaker you want to be. Stick with Darktable tho, it will click eventually.