Software update: Darktable 4.4.0

Version 4.4.0 of Darktable has been released, as the successor to version 4.2.1. Darktable is an open source raw photo editing program, a virtual lightbox and darkroom for photo editing. It manages digital negatives via a database. The raw photo files are developed using so-called sidecar files, where the photos are edited in a non-destructive manner. The software is available for various Linux distributions, macOS and Windows. The complete changelog for this release can be found here this page are being found. These are the most important improvements:

The Big Ones
The following is a summary of the main features added to darktable 4.4. Please see the user manual for more details of the individual changes (where available).

• It is now possible to define multiple automatically-applied presets against a single processing module. Each preset after the first will be added to a new module instance immediately after the first instance in the pipeline.
  To better visualize which module instance corresponds to which preset, the module label will be automatically set to the name of any preset that matches the current module’s parameters. If you subsequently alter those parameters, the label will be cleared, unless its parameters match to another preset, in which case it will be changed to the name of the matched preset. If the module label has been hand edited it will never be updated automatically.
  A new option (preferences > darkroom > automatically update module name) has been introduced to allow this functionality to be disabled.
• The default parameters of some processing modules have been reworked to allow them to be more easily used in copy/paste, presets and styles.
• Many modules have default parameters based on image metadata or current workflow, for example:
  • exposure: in a scene-referred workflow, the exposure is adjusted using the Exif exposure compensation value,
  • denoise (profiled): set based on camera and ISO,
  • lens correction: set based on camera, lens, focal length, focus distance,
  • base curve: set based on the camera maker,
  • white balance: set based on Exif metadata,
  • orientation: set based on Exif metadata,
  • color calibration: set based on Exif metadata

  For all of these modules it is now possible to paste settings while ensuring that the proper image metadata is used to set the module parameters. This is achieved by selecting the “Reset” column in the preset and style dialogs, which makes the module behave as if its reset button has been clicked.
  When creating or editing presets, a new option, “reset all module parameters to their default values”, has been added. Choose this option to auto-add modules to matching images while retaining their default parameters (including any set based on image metadata).
  This functionality has allowed us to clean up a number of module-specific hacks that previously achieved similar functionality (albeit in a more limited way).

• The default workflow configuration option (preferences > processing > auto-apply pixel workflow defaults) has now been adjusted to incorporate the previous chromatic adaptation workflow setting and to include the new sigmoid module. Options are now as follows:
  • scene-referred (filmic) – default
  • scene referred (sigmoid)
  • display-referred (legacy)
  • None

  With these new options, the color calibration module and scene-referred module order will be automatically applied for all workflows except “display-referred (legacy)”, which will continue to use only the white balance module for chromatic adaptation. The value in brackets represents the default module used for tone mapping (filmic/sigmoid). In the legacy mode, base curve will be used for tone mapping and in “none” mode, no tone mapping module will be applied.

• The scopes module now has a new color harmony overlay option in RYB vectorscope mode. You can choose from 9 different color harmonies:
  • Monochromatic
  • Analogous
  • Analogous complementary
  • Complementary
  • Split complementary
  • Dyad
  • Triad
  • Tetrad
  • Square

  These will show as overlays on top of the vectorscope to tell you where the “harmonic” colors are. You can rotate the overlays by scrolling with your mouse.
  Color harmony guides can be used along with the global color picker module to guide you in shifting your image’s colors to fit a given color harmony – think of them like crop composition guides, but for colors.

• A global right-click-and-drag operation has been added to allow image rotation to be corrected without first opening the rotate and perspective module. This operation can be used as long as the currently-focused module does not already use that shortcut for another purpose.
• Drawn mask functionality has been completely overhauled with a large number of changes and fixes:
  • The “brush smoothing” and “pen pressure” options have been moved from the global preferences dialog to a new collapsible “properties” section in the mask manager, so that they can be changed while drawing and can be assigned shortcuts.
  • The drawn mask shape size/feather/hardness sliders in the mask manager now use a logarithmic scale and scrolling over them makes relative adjustments, just like Shift+scroll over the shape itself. As with other sliders, Ctrl or Shift can be used to make fine or coarse adjustments (similarly with shortcut fallbacks enabled). Shortcuts assigned to the sliders can be used to adjust brush size/hardness while drawing.
  • A fifth set operator has been added to the mask manager to allow drawn shapes to be combined in “sum” mode. This allows repeated brush strokes with low opacity to be layered on top of each other to increase the strength of the mask. This mode is now the default for brush shapes.
  • It is now possible to change the set operator (mode) for all shapes in a group from the right-click menu in the mask manager.
  • Some actions in the mask manager menu previously could be activated even though they would have no impact on the image in some contexts. The move up/down actions are therefore now disabled for the first and last element in a group respectively, and it is no longer possible to choose a set operator (mode) for the first element in a group.
  • The sort order of the shapes in mask manager groups has been reversed so that the lowest ranking shape is at the bottom of the group. The sort order of shapes outside of a group has also been changed for consistency.
  • It is now possible for all mask types to be added continuously in the mask manager.
  • Fixed an issue where the brush was not properly displayed after being created from the mask manager, and a crash when creating gradients from the mask manager has also been fixed.
  • For all shapes the editable state is now properly set after creation making it possible to move and resize the different parts of the shapes.
  • Fixed a display issue when editing a shape name in the mask manager.
  • Fixed the state of the set operators in the mask manager – when moving a mask up/down we now ensure that the first mask has no operator and that the second one always has an operator assigned. If no operator has been set yet the default (union) operator is used.
  • When using a shortcut to add shapes to a drawn (blending) mask the blending mode will automatically switch to “drawn mask” or “drawn & parametric mask”, depending on what it was before, so that any newly created shape will actually affect the image.
  • In the drawn mask blending mode there used to be an “invert mask” option that had the same functionality as the “toggle polarity” option. Since both were doing the same thing, “invert mask” is now removed.
  • The drawing of masks has been reworked to ensure that all types of masks are drawn in the same way – the central area, border, and highlighted segments are now displayed consistently. The highlighted segment is now more visible, especially for the brush mask, where the highlighted segment was barely distinguishable due to a bug.
  • In the style and copy/paste dialogs a new column has been added to show whether a module uses a mask (drawn/parametric/raster) using the standard mask icon.
  • Editing of drawn masks has been improved – it is now easier to select masks’ control points and path segments (in some cases it was easy to accidentally select the whole path mask rather than a single segment). On-canvas mask rendering has also been improved for better consistency between shape types.
  • The brush path is now slightly more transparent in order to better see the underlying image.