Mike,
I don’t want you do do anything. All I have suggested was putting more personal effort into learning PhotoLab so you would be less of a burden to all those who have spent a considerable amount of their time over the years trying to bring you up to speed.
Mark
Understood. Your version is better than what I wrote. I’m pretty sure everyone here understands, and I’m certainly putting in a lot more effort than before. Maybe it shows.
Mike, if you want to join a Darktable forum the main one is pixls dot us (be aware of the spelling). I think there are others, but I rarely attend any of them. I read the manual. In case something doesn’t work you can ask for help on pixls. If a bug shows up, you submit a report on Issues · darktable-org/darktable · GitHub.
The way forward is to watch videos on YT about DT. I can recommend the series by Bruce Williams - primarily from 2024. Be sure to use the newest version (currently 4.8.1), get it from darktable dot org.
Also videos by Boris Hajdukovic, who is a wizard in DT tricks.
And latest the editing examples from Darktable Landscapes. Btw. - his latest title was “The Best Raw Processor is Completely Free” (not my words, but the man is right).
Hope it can help, and good luck.
Don’t believe that Darktable is difficult to learn just because people with practical limitations tell you so. It isn’t.
It definitely shows!
Mark
The problem with this conversation is that it is getting confused.
I believe that you were thinking that you could combine the two, with the excuse of teaching as a motive for learning it.
You, yourself, have said you are barely getting to grips with PhotoLab, which makes me question the wisdom of embarking on the odyssey of learning one of the more complicated apps there is around.
Apart from one Darktable enthusiast, who has something against DxO, you are not really going to find too much information in these fora and the wisest possible course of action is to get back to the PIXL.US fora that you are already part of and start asking questions there. Start reading the manual, start watching videos but, most importantly, ask folks who use it every day, not this bunch of DxO users.
As to your own needs to process RAW files that are not supported by DXO, then I have suggested several alternatives, including the possibility of using something like Adobe’s ACR as a RAW converter and exporting TIFFs or JPEGs to either bring back into PhotoLab or whichever app floats your boat.
The main compromise will be that you won’t get DeepPRIME noise reduction, which is applied on the rAW data on export from PhotoLab.
Based on the reaction of most photo club members to the presentations we have had on Darktable, most folks went away more confused and frustrated than educated. Which is why I, personally, would question the wisdom of following that path. Even more so if you think you can learn enough to teach others in a short time period.
By all means move to Nikon’s own software, but you will discover there is a whole load of functionality that you will miss when compared to what you are used to.
NX Studio produces a .nksc sidecar file, as long as you select the option, in a subfolder of the current folder. You would need to find the appropriate sidecar from the folder if you wanted to send it to someone.
Well, simple answers:
It’s all rather simple. And if it’s a struggle, most things that are worth doing involve a struggle. No big deal.
No need to discuss this any more, but feel free to ask, or make suggestions, or to make critical comments. For me, this is a “hobby”. I enjoy it. I enjoy talking about it. I’ve got nothing to prove, to nobody. 
I would like to create one image I enjoy every day. That’s sort of becoming a goal. If I don’t like it, it’s unlikely anyone else will like it. Maybe it’s a challenge. But everything will come to a halt in the very near future, when I fly to India.
Thanks for the suggestions, even if I don’t use several of them.
I already posted the jpg version of this image, but tonight I wanted to export the raw file version.
I never thought in the past that the D2h could create this good of an image. Or, maybe I just got lucky.
Uh oh, the above use of the word “never” is not true. When I bought the D2h, I expected it to be what people now feel about the D850, a “do-anything” camera… but Nikon created both the D2h for sports, and the D2x for general photography. Back then, I thought the D2h was good enough for anything I wanted to do. Looking back on those days, I have so many bad feelings about the D2h, but they were all due to the silly things failing, needing a return to “the mother ship”. That’s when and how I got the D2x, which once again, I felt could do anything.
Now I think the D3 is/was the best for anything/everything, but as Joanna pointed out, the newer Nikons are better in so many ways. True, but none of them are built to the same standards as the D2, 3, 4, 5, and 6) cameras. I know the D850 is technically better, but I would love to own a D6, even after reading Joanna’s long post on what it lacks compared to today’s Nikons. I guess I’m not being rational about my desires, and considering the cost involved, I doubt I’ll ever own one of them unless I win the lottery.
Anyway, this thread is about my visit to the Florida Everglades, with the D2h. I used to process my images in Lightroom. To me, I now see the advantages of both PhotoLab and DarkTable. I love the results, as long as I did my part correctly. I’ll post one image later today that I would have loved, had the camera focused where I wanted it to focus - dumb mistake on my part.
This was 20 years ago…
Obviously, I did the right thing by steering clear of those “pro” models. I bought a D100, which had 6Mpx instead of the measly 4Mpx of the D2 range.
Never had a problem with it until I swapped it in for the D200.
D100 from 19 years ago…
Wowee, I love the water flying off the bird’s wings, along with the reflections and splashes in the water! Very nice catch.
Or, is the bird trying to tell you something???
The measly megapixels were for the D2h which was designed for capturing fast action, where a fast burst rate was a prime requirement. The D2x (which Nikon finally sent me to replace my defective D2h) had just under 13 megapixels, and turned out to be more than fast enough for me. The D3 that followed was the first Nikon with a full frame sensor, and a huge list of other improvements (better menus, two memory cards, better almost everything, but the same bullet-proof design).
I know nothing about the Nikon D100 - way back then, I only had a D70. As to the D200, my brother bought one, and the more I read about it, the more I liked it. Lots of people had good things to say about the D200.
But to be fair and honest, while the D2 and D3 Nikons were built like a tank, by comparison with other cameras, they felt like they weighed as much as a tank. But they made the most of all that space, and mostly could be controlled by the buttons, without needing to constantly go into the menu. …and for me, all of this came to an end when I visited B&H Photo on a day when Nikon was there to promote their cameras. My choice was Nikon Df (light and compact), D750 (for me, a perfect compromise) and D800 (heavier than I wanted).
Do you still have your D200? Do you ever take it for a spin, for old times’ sake?
Not that long ago, I thought “tech specs” were so, so important. I no longer feel that way - but you wring the very most you can out of whatever camera you’re using, and unless Nikon releases the D880, I doubt you will ever replace your D850.
The above photo proves one thing very clearly - the end result, the image, depends far more on YOU than whatever camera you were holding.
Can I ask what software you used to process the above image? Adobe? Did you edit it any more before uploading it here to the forum? Oh, and was it a single shot, or one shot out of a burst? Also, what lens were you using? Thanks for posting.
Let’s mostly go back to discussing the Everglades photos, including the camera and techniques (or lack of) in creating them. All the distractions are fine, but let’s please avoid beating up on each other. Forum discussions always get “confused”. Let’s accept that.
Just to clear one personal thing up - I intend to use both PhotoLab and DarkTable from now on. Both have advantages, and both have disadvantages. Nothing is ever “perfect”, and everything changes over the course of time. And I have no desire to go back to Adobe.
Not that it matters - I’m just one person here, out of hundreds/thousands of others. We all have our own opinions on things, and always will.
And about this thread - since PhotoLab will not open my 2005 images from the Florida Everglades, and I want to use the raw images, and since I do NOT want to use Adobe products, for these images I will continue to use DarkTable.
Most of the time, I will continue with PhotoLab 6.
“Don’t throw out the baby with the wash-water.”
Maybe the last image I’ll post of the 2005 everglades. I’m surprised things went so well. For every image I edited in DarkTable, the next image got so much easier, and at least now I’m somewhat familiar with the controls.
Considering the lighting, back lighting, I like what I got, but I don’t yet know how to make the sky a little more intense.
Framing is available, if I want it. Captions are almost as easy as PhotoLab. So many tools I still don’t understand. The bird sure was focussed on ME. That adds to the drama.
I’m trying to think what Joanna would also have done, perhaps a blue sky with fluffy white clouds, but I don’t yet know how to do that.
_DSC0581.NEF (3.2 MB)
_DSC0581.NEF.xmp (10.7 KB)
I’m sure you’ll all laugh at me even more for this, but I’m a person who would rather be driving around in my old MGA 1960 Coupe than a new Porsche or Ferrari. I miss my old past, never to be repeated. I miss my old motorcycles, but riding one in Miami is far too dangerous.
Oh well - supposedly by using the NEF file, and the xmp file, anyone with DarkTable can replicate what I did. If any of you want to open it in PhotoLab, you need to find a way around the “non-supported camera” issues, but I used to simply cheat with the EXIF data, and Joanna suggested some other work-arounds.
never mind, post deleted….
Whatever you are doing in Darktable, the colour balance is totally out of whack.
Here is a screenshot from Nikon NX Studio…
From Apple Photos…
The RAW from FastRawViewer…
The JPEG from FastRawViewer…
The RAW from Topaz Photo AI…
Even from Apple Preview…
… or QuickLook…
Lastly, from Affinity Photo 2…
… but all are infinitely better than the murky, mushy, orangey colours that you got out of Darktable.
Here they all are for a side by side comparison…
Thanks.
Oh, and I almost forgot. Converted to 16bit TiFF in Apple Preview and then edited in PL7, to bring out the cloud detail in the sky…
Well, the answer is I wasn’t doing anything in Darktable, because until late last night, I didn’t know how to do so.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucjAmTMIEOI …and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiWBZ3FOMo8
What I think I learned (haven’t tried it yet) is that “Filmic” is a tool that will be able to adjust this. Later today, I need to try this out.
I watched both videos, went to my computer to save a book mark, twice, and then fell asleep.
Thanks for the comparison. Did you just open the image, and do a screen capture, or did you use any of the tools to make adjustments? I wish you had been able to open the image in PhotoLab, but do do that, you’d need to edit the EXIF data so PhotoLab could open it. All eight of those other editors opened the image with no problem. I wish PhotoLab had a “work-around” to allow it to open images from unknown cameras, maybe just adding a warning about this - but at least open the image.
Anyway, that was a LOT of work on your part. Thank you for doing so. Now I need to do my part, and learn how to use the color correction tools.
Gosh, every one of the image processing programs opened this image except PhotoLab.
I just received a message about this - I asked for permission to quote it in the open forum.
It is obvious that with my limited ability to use DarkTable, and Joanna’s ability to do just about anything with any editor, this image is apparently more difficult to edit.
It’s also obvious that every one of those editors, except PhotoLab, opened the image.
I just posted a new thread in the suggestions forum, that DxO remove that limitation. Heck, 20 years ago, there weren’t that many choices for image editing, and PhotoLab hadn’t been released yet.
All I did was regularise the colour temperature to 5600°K in those apps that allowed it…
NXStudio, Apple Photos and Affinity Photo 2. All the rest are unchanged.
It’s not that simple. The body is supported but not the lens that you attached. And changing the EXIF for a lens is not simple, due to it being held in a compound tag, which is made up from several others.
Except only four of them were editors - the others were just viewers.
See my last comment.
Nope, no more difficult. It’s just that the lens you used is not supported, just like a whole load of other body/lens combinations aren’t. You could always submit a request to DxO.
Correction. This problem has noting to do with the lens, it is because the files are compressed RAW…
