Darktable is a pretty great Raw developer, but it also appears complex at first. It has over 70 processing modules giving it much more flexibility and tools than other software like Capture One Pro and Lightroom. But that doesn’t mean Darktable has to be complex. It can be simple too! The trick is not to try and learn every module in darktable. Do you use every button on your microwave? Probably not. Just the timer and the start and cancel buttons, right?
Darktable is the same. Of course later on, you’ll probably want to learn more modules, but at the start you can get by with very few of the tools available in Darktable. I went through my edits myself and asked myself, what modules are really necessary? It turns out just 12-15 modules were enough. I put the 12 most basic ones in this video:
I’d also maybe recommend adding the “monochrome” module to do black and white. Most people will want to do black and white at some point so that’s useful.
Alright, someone recently asked me on my YouTube channel: can I put all the modules I need in just one tab? Some software like Nikon NX Studio looks more like that. And here’s a screenshot of my simplified setup to show how this can work:
The key to doing this is to customize your module list. You can do that by clicking on the hamburger menu on the top right of the list of modules. I explain everything here:
You don’t have to put all the modules in one tab certainly and I prefer multiple tabs, but the option is there if you need it! In any case, what I recommend is taking just these modules and maybe 1-2 more that you’re really interested in and just editing your photos with those for maybe 2-3 months. Then if you get curious about more modules, just add them to your custom setup as I explained in the above video.
However, I’m not lying when I say I really can do 95% of my editing with just 12-15 modules, depending on the photo. All those extra darktable modules are fun to use if you like experimenting, but they’re really not necessary. Why do they exist, you might ask? For example, let’s take the color correction module:
I didn’t put this module in my list of crucial modules, although I do use it frequently. Why didn’t I put it in my list? Because I use it more to put some minute finishing touches on my photo.
And at some point, I definitely recommend learning to use it! However, it’s not really necessary to get an amazing photo and besides you can do most of what this module does with the color balance RGB module’s 4-way tab. That’s something I explain in our darktable course on Udemy, which incidentally I recommend taking if you want to learn a little bit more about the darktable modules in detail. (In that course, I talk about more modules than just the crucial ones.)
There are other modules that are useful for specific cases, but not for everyone. Dartkable has a really great module called ‘negadoctor’ which allows you to reverse a negative and thus make scanning negative film easy. But most people with a digital camera won’t be doing that! Again, it’s not really essential to understand this module when you’re starting out.
One other thing I recommend is to just start out with one tonemapper! And as in the first video I put above, I recommend Sigmoid. If that sounds technical, just think of Sigmoid as a way to get a smooth rolloff in the highlights. Or even easier: it just makes the highlights look good. Yeah I know, darktable has three tonemappers: Sigmoid, AgX, and Filmic. And there is some talk of integrating a fourth module that’s sort of like a tonemapper (Spektrafilm). But in any case, just starting out with one and not even worrying about what “tonemapping” is, is a good idea 😉
Anyway, my point is that darktable does not have to be complicated. Just start out with a few modules, and focus more on your artistic intent rather than learning what every knob and button does. Don’t just play around with all the modules. Instead, learn the basics first and darktable will become a lot easier.