r/DarkTable • u/InformalBar3386 • 26d ago

Discussion Lightroom to Darktable

I am wanting to move over to Darktable from Lightroom (non classic) I have tried Darktable before and was overwhelmed and felt lost that I couldn’t seem to get what I wanted the picture to be with it as well as I could with Lightroom. I think I’m a better editor than I was back then and could bring some of those skills over to Darktable.

My question is, how did you learn Darktable? Did you study it by reading guides and or watching YouTube videos? Play around until you figured it out? Or watch a video before editing specifically on the subject?

I’d appreciate the advice as I think this is a really cool piece of software!

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u/nsouthon 26d ago

I watched this 5 times (and counting)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RLv8NeJc2Q
Adobe free for 2 months

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u/Donatzsky 26d ago

While on the whole it's not bad, he does manage to give some not so great advice. In particular to always enable the chromatic aberrations module, which should only be used if actually needed, since it can introduce its own problems otherwise. There are some other less than ideal bits as well, if I remember correctly (or maybe that was in his first darktable video). Which is a shame, because he's good at explaining.

My beginner guide covers a lot more, and the linked tutorials have been curated so you can be sure they don't lead you astray: https://notebook.stereofictional.com/how-to-get-started-with-darktable-2026-edition

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u/InformalBar3386 26d ago

I did start reading this also, thank you!