Darktable making my pictures crap right when I first open them
 

I used to use a program called Raw Studio, and it had the best work flow and I liked everything about it. Problem is, it's not available on Mint 18. I don't know why, they just never chose to include a package for that distro. So I've been using Dark Table as that one has a half decent work flow. But I noticed today how it really bodges the quality of the images.


Check out this horrible jpg artifacts. This was shot in raw:

http://gal.redsquirrel.me/thumbs/lrg-3813-darktable.png

The exact same file in Raw Therapee. (downside of that program is it lacks proper workflow management so it's why I can't use it)

http://gal.redsquirrel.me/thumbs/lrg...awtherapee.png

These are without making any changes to the pictures, just opening them.

Oddly this is probably the very worse I've ever seen, been using Dark table for a while now and other than high noise compared to Raw Studio I've never seen this much jpg artifacts before. Wonder if it's some kind of update that caused that.

Any other programs in Linux I can try, or a way to make this one better? I really need something with proper work flow as I tend to take lot of pictures then pick the best ones.


Oddly, the first one resembles more of what is in camera as far as darkness goes. It was shot at about 10s (I forget what I had set it to) and 100 iso with F3.5.

You can run Raw Studio on Mint by adding the following PPA:

https://launchpad.net/~rawstudio/+archive/ubuntu/ppa

found through the Raw Studio downloads page:

https://rawstudio.org/download.php

Regarding the Darktable issue, if no-one is able to help you here, you could try the forum at https://www.dpreview.com/forums/1006 (if you do, then please let us know how you get on).

I tried that already, I then get an error that it's not available for Xenial.

Ah. You're right of course. I assumed it would be available for Xenial but it appears it isn't. Apologies, particularly because we originally debated the same subject! (where has my memory gone?) http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...-a-4175589242/

I know you're not keen on it, but have you considered making Raw Studio from source (via e.g. Github, as described on the downloads page)? Not only might it well work, but it would also be a useful learning experience. If you want to do so, I can do the same on my Mint VM at the same time in order to help you resolve any potential problems.

Ok so think I figured it out. It seems that by default it applies a "base curve" and it actually makes the pic quality worse than if I adjusted it myself. I never really noticed this before. If I reset this curve and retouch it's way better. I also found an option under "show global preferences" (gear on top, somewhat right area) which lets me change the default curve to "per camera". The one it picks for my camera is also not as bad as the default. Not sure how to change the default, or how to change any of them, but when I'm in edit mode I can still reset them on the left where the modification steps get stored.

Kind of glad I found this as I was finally starting to get used to the workflow of Darktable so did not really want to switch programs.

Thanks for letting us know, RS.