The release of the program for organizing and processing digital photos Darktable 4.2 is presented, which is dedicated to the tenth anniversary since the formation of the first release of the project. Darktable acts as a free alternative to Adobe Lightroom and specializes in non-destructive work with raw images. Darktable provides a large selection of modules for performing various photo processing operations, allows you to maintain a database of source photos, visually navigate through existing images and, if necessary, perform distortion correction and quality improvement operations, while maintaining the original image and the entire history of operations with it. The project code is written in C language and distributed under the GPLv3 license. The interface is built using the GTK library. Binary builds are prepared for Linux (OBS, flatpak), Windows and macOS.
Major changes:
- A new Sigmoid transformation module is proposed, which combines the functionality of the filmic and base curve modules, and can be used instead to change the contrast or expand the dynamic range of the scene to bring them into line with the dynamic range of the screen.
- Two new pixel color restoration algorithms have been added to the highlight reconstruction module, which do not have information about RGB channels (pixels in the illuminated areas of the image, the color parameters in which the camera sensor cannot determine): "opposite colorization" and " based on segmentation.
- The pixel pipeline (pixelpipe) used to display in processing mode (darkroom) has been redesigned. The specified pipeline can now also be used in the window on the second screen, in the duplicate manager, in the style preview window, and in functions for working with snapshots.
- In the second image processing window (darkroom), support for focus detection and ISO-12646 color evaluation modes has appeared.
- The module for working with snapshots has been completely redesigned, which, instead of capturing fixed areas of the screen, uses dynamic image generation using a pixel pipeline, which allows zooming and panning using the keyboard or mouse.
- The manager of duplicates has been improved, which has been transferred to new pipeline subroutines when calculating areas for preview, which made it possible to obtain thumbnails that are identical to the image in processing mode.
- The ability to preview the effect from applying a custom style to the image, at the stage before actually applying the effect (when you hover the mouse over the effect in the menu or in the list, a tooltip with a thumbnail of the result of applying the effect is displayed).
- The lens distortion correction module is adapted to take into account lens correction data recorded in the EXIF ββblock.
- Added support for reading and writing JPEG XL images
- Added support for JFIF (JPEG File Interchange Format) files.
- Improved profile support for AVIF and EXR formats.
- Added support for reading images in WebP format. When exporting to WebP, the ability to embed ICC profiles is implemented.
- Auxiliary modules and processing modules have been changed so that their interface is immediately visible in full when expanded (without the need to scroll).
- A new animated effect has been added for expanding and collapsing modules.
- Caching has been completely redesigned when working with pixel pipelines (pixelpipe), cache efficiency has been increased.
- The slide show mode has been redesigned, in which a simplified thumbnail is shown before the full image is processed.
- A new drop-down menu has been added to the left filter panel, through which you can add and remove filters.
- The range evaluation filter interface has been redesigned.
- Added the ability to manipulate shapes without using the mouse wheel, for example, on Tablet PCs.
- A tiling mode balancing between OpenCL and CPU is proposed, which allows the CPU to be involved in segmentation when the graphics card does not have enough memory to perform this operation using OpenCL.
Source: opennet.ru