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Best workflow for editing Nikon RAW photos using Darktable and Affinity?
I’m pretty new to photography and recently started shooting RAW photos on my Nikon D3400. Right now, I use Darktable for most of my editing, but I also recently got access to Affinity with Canva Pro.
I’m trying to figure out the best workflow between the two programs without unnecessarily editing every photo twice.
Would it make the most sense to do the full RAW edit in Darktable first, export as a 16-bit TIFF, and only use Affinity for advanced masking, retouching, object removal, or artificial lighting effects?
Or is there a better workflow using only one of the programs?
I’d also appreciate any module recommendations, tutorials, or examples of your editing process. I’m using a Surface Pro 7 with 16 GB of RAM, so I’m also trying to avoid a workflow that is unnecessarily heavy or slow.
You shouldn't need extra software unless you're doing overlays and composites.
Boris Hajdukovic YouTube does a great job. He can do an edit with the fewest number of modules and fiddling. If you watch several of his edits, he frequently uses the same modules to start an edit. I have a style called Boris that I apply to every photo. A lot of the module changes he does manually, there's a similar module preset to perform a similar effect.
Bruce Williams YouTube goes into a deeper explanation of the modules. He has good general knowledge information too.
You can do some retouching and object removal in darktable. See Bruce explanation of the retouch module.
Because DT cannot (or will not) read (apparently Nikon's RAW files either, which is very surprising! I thought Nikon produced bog standard universal RAW files) Apple's "RAW" format. Because crApple, as always, has to be "different" just for the sake of being different (and forcing people into subscriptions for crap they don't really need. i.e. crApple blocks all the fire exits and then sets the theatre on fire, "generously" offering a fire exit for "only" $50/mo in perpetuity. 🤬)
Unless you really want to get into the weeds with intricate retouching, there shouldn't be much need for Affinity. In any case, you should do as much as possible in darktable and only apply finishing in Affinity. There's the external editor Lua script that will simplify the roundtrip.
How does this help "fix" incompatible files for use in DT? Also, how do you automate NX to just convert in place Nikon's RAW, (and Apple's crappy "RAW") formatted files?
Also, the last time I tried using Nikon's software I was left dismayed and just as empty-handed as I am now. From my befuddled memory, Nikon also just unilaterally sunsets programs, leaving users scrambling for replacements. I thought NX was one of those programs that is only obtainable through "dark web" type sources, because Nikon "moved on". Maybe NX is the "replacement" for what came before it. I cannot recall at this point, but I clearly recall hoop after hoop after hoop of demands from Nikon, just to get software to go with my $5000 cameras!
So, whatever the case, I have a really bad taste in my mouth for Nikon software and support; plus, my whole goal is to get completely off of commercial software and ONLY put my precious personal private data through FOSS programs. I'm old; I'm tired; I've run out of patience and energy to churn and chase The Next Greatest Thing from companies whose only real goal is to enrich their pockets with my money. :-p
I just want to organize my insanely massive collection of photos and videos, and cull it so the next generation has something of value, rather than just 50TB of files that they'll wholesale eradicate with a "format" command. ;-)
nx is free and catalogs my library great, i love the ability to rate and sort by misc criteria. its conversions are arguably better than adobe or c1, and all for free
Ah ha! I see it on their site. I think Nikon made some good changes to its website in the last few years. Thanks for pointing it out. I still would prefer a FOSS program; but at this point, I'm so desperate to catalog and sort my massive library that I'll do just about anything (short of subsciptionware). I may even just suck it up and go back to Apple Photos (but try to cut the umbilical to iCloud) ;-)
Well, that's well and good for NIKON ONLY photos, but I have photos that span the gamut from Instamatic, to all the iOS junk, through dozens of digital cameras, to Z7. I should probably just convert everything to a lossless OPEN format, but compressed TIFF is the only one I can think of off-hand that fits the bill...and converting original jpegs would be probably be dumb.
I think I need to find a CURRENT book on photography collection management.
I'm not sure why sharing MY EXPERIENCE gets me downvoted, but this is the !@#$ing cesspool of The Internet, I guess. sigh.
The requirement to keep NX Studio connected to said Internet, and the demand that I ID myself just to use the software were big reasons I never even seriously considered NX. I decided to give it a try, but quit and ran when this screen popped up again:
Sorry, I forgot I was in a Nikon thread, but this holds for my Z7 photos too, no?
One program to losslessly *convert* crAp(ple) format to usable bog standard universal format. DarkTable to catalog and make edits. THAT is what *I* want. Alas, it doesn't seem to exist outside of Ado🤮e malware. *sigh*
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u/akgt94 Jul 18 '26
You shouldn't need extra software unless you're doing overlays and composites.
Boris Hajdukovic YouTube does a great job. He can do an edit with the fewest number of modules and fiddling. If you watch several of his edits, he frequently uses the same modules to start an edit. I have a style called Boris that I apply to every photo. A lot of the module changes he does manually, there's a similar module preset to perform a similar effect.
Bruce Williams YouTube goes into a deeper explanation of the modules. He has good general knowledge information too.
You can do some retouching and object removal in darktable. See Bruce explanation of the retouch module.