There's an important difference between powerful and difficult to use. Darktable lands solidly in the latter camp. This mythical power being used as an excuse is doubly frustrating as:
- Network effects mean competitors will struggle to gain traction
- Darktable shamelessly apes the Lightroom UI which gives a superficial impression that it'll be similarly intuitive. It's not.
My favorite interface behavior is that in Darktable clicking on empty space (accidentally or in an attempt to unfocus a widget) will usually send an event to a nearby widget. That's not power, that's just sloppy design. Oh and sliders give no indication of how to input an exact value.
Or there's color balance. There are two competing modules. One presents a complex and unintuitive interface, the other offers to mimic camera settings but triggers warnings if you dare touch it. In the way that Tesla makes cars for people who love gadgets but hate cars, Darktable is a product for folks who love monkeying with code but hate photography.
Ansel solves much of this, but brings its own shortcomings to the table.
- Network effects mean competitors will struggle to gain traction
- Darktable shamelessly apes the Lightroom UI which gives a superficial impression that it'll be similarly intuitive. It's not.
My favorite interface behavior is that in Darktable clicking on empty space (accidentally or in an attempt to unfocus a widget) will usually send an event to a nearby widget. That's not power, that's just sloppy design. Oh and sliders give no indication of how to input an exact value.
Or there's color balance. There are two competing modules. One presents a complex and unintuitive interface, the other offers to mimic camera settings but triggers warnings if you dare touch it. In the way that Tesla makes cars for people who love gadgets but hate cars, Darktable is a product for folks who love monkeying with code but hate photography.
Ansel solves much of this, but brings its own shortcomings to the table.