Darktable Tutorials | Avid Andrew

This page contains a collection of tutorials for how to use darktable, a powerful open-source RAW processor. These guides are divided as follows:

Fundamentals: instructions for how to capture an optimal exposure and then develop it using a scene-referred workflow
Creative Effects: instructions for how to apply a variety of artistic effects to your photo once you have developed it

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Sigmoid Makes Dramatic Black and White Simple

The new sigmoid module in darktable 4.2 makes it easy to create dramatic black and white compositions. While there are many ways to achieve this effect in darktable, sigmoid makes it fast and easy.

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Reducing Chroma Noise in Water

Review multiple techniques for reducing chroma noise in the water of seascape scenes.

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Selective White Balance

Adjusting the white balance of a photo is a fundamental skill needed when developing RAW files. In this tutorial, we take it a step further and show how to use darktable's powerful selective white balance to use different white balance settings on specific parts of the image. Typically, this would be used to correct the color from multiple light sources (each with different color temperatures), but in this case we'll use it to keep the subject neutral while adding a creative effect to the background.

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Highlighting The Subject Using RGB Channels

Mastering the channel mixer allows you to not only adjust white balance, but also creatively color grade a photo to set the mood, change the luminosity, and make local adjustments to specific areas of the photo. In this example, we use color calibration to highlight a subject when the surrounding content, in this case the green foliage, is naturally brighter than the subject and thus pulls your focus away. We can counteract this using channel mixer in color calibration.

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Color Contrast

When you think of contrast, you are probably thinking of luminosity, but color contrast can play an important role in creating a vibrant, dynamic image too.

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Directing Attention

Darktable's powerful parametric masks, combined with the ability to layer multiple instances of a module with a separate set of adjustments applied to each, makes it possible to quickly make high-impact edits. In this example, an additional exposure module directs the viewer's attention to the picnic table, the focal point of the image.

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The Darktable Scene-Referred Workflow

This post provides an overview of how to use the new scene-referred workflow in darktable.

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