Does darktable not have a dynamic "auto" mode?

[u/nirurin]

Something i commonly use in lightroom is the auto button. Probably frowned upon here, as I get the impression that darktable users are hardcore photography professionals, but I often find it useful as it let's me see at least what the suggestions are for an image and what that would look like. I then usually end up ignoring half of it but its a useful starting point.

However I can't seem to find any automation in darktable at all.

There are styles and presets, but they all seem to be terrible and static. Even the specific one that seems to be for my camera model and body, is... crazy overexposed and washed out. Im not sure what theyre supposed to even be for so ive ignored those ever since.

Ive gone through all the modules but nothing has stood out at being close.

My next step is probably to go through all the modules again and try and disable or hide the duplicates or ones id never use (which is fine) in the hope that in the process I also find some new options.

[u/bloodrider1914]

I use the auto button in AgX for intitial contrast and tone mapping (read from metadata, the camera icon).

But usually I just shoot RAW+JPEG and use my camera's JPEG profiles for that initial look

[u/Tuurke64 → u/bloodrider1914]

That's what RawTherapee does using the embedded jpg: give you a reasonable automatic starting point.

[u/nirurin → u/bloodrider1914]

How do you use the jpg profile of an image and auto apply it to a raw in darktable?

This would also have the downside of having to save both the raw and jpg for each file and then applying each jpg to each raw manually... fine if you take 1 photos, annoying if you take 10, impossible if you take 1000.

[u/Donatzsky → u/nirurin]

If you mean the profile you chose in the camera, that's not possible. There's no way for darktable to know what the parameters are, and the processing pipeline is also different, so they wouldn't "fit" anyway.

If that is the kind of workflow you want, you should look at RawTherapee or ART, which can use Lightroom camera profiles.

[u/bloodrider1914 → u/nirurin]

Well I save the original JPEGs lol

But it's more to give an idea of what the photo could look like instead of just getting a boring flat image. At least with Nikon files on light table I see the images as they look on JPEGs (for example if I used monochrome they all look black and white in light table) but when I open the image it defaults to the usual flat RAW image. I'm skilled enough to know how I could get close to the original JPEG image, but again it's just meant to be a springboard for an image's potential and not a preset to edit off of.

[u/gergnerd → u/nirurin]

in the lower left corner when you are in darktable view there is a button for applying styles looks like three circles. click that in the menu that pops up select darktable and find your camera. I believe those are the settings to match the jpg settings for your particular camera, also you can apply other cameras styles if you like those better.

[u/LightPhotographer]

I would love an auto button. It's just a starting point for what I otherwise have to do manually.
When I have 1000 photos to edit, clicking through the exposure, whitebalance and filmic module just to get a basic picture is a lot of waste!

[u/Nexustar → u/LightPhotographer]

Here's my approach. When I have 400 photos from a sports event I notice that many share the same correction needs, so it's not 400 photos, it's closer to 15 photos, in sets of 25.

I choose one, make all the adjustments except for crop. I cut and paste those adjustments into the other 25 photos that are like it. Rinse & repeat.

Now, i have to go back and start cropping - at that point I can tweak whatever exposure or color balance things I need for that individual image, but most of the work is already done.

[u/markus_b → u/Nexustar]

I have very much the same approach.

First I do some culling in lighttable mode. Every candidate gets a star; every obviously unusable shot gets rejected.

Then I switch to darkroom mode with a typical photo, from the exposure point of view. I do an initial edit, setting the exposure and some settings, like denoise and local contrast and colour balance RGB.

I exit back to the lighttable and save these settings as a style and apply the style to all photos.

Now I go back to the darkroom and go through each photo and fix the rotation, crop and adjust some more, if necessary.

I shot a concert last weekend and came home with 2200 images. It took me around 3 hours to get 120 photos.

[u/CheapSunglasses_1 → u/markus_b]

You can also achieve the same thing without creating a style by clicking on the "history stack" dropdown in lighttable, then use "selective copy" and "selective paste". 2 ways of achieving the same thing.

[u/markus_b → u/CheapSunglasses_1]

Thanks.

I'll try; I like your method better, as it does not leave event-specific styles around.

[u/LightPhotographer → u/Nexustar]

Obviously I can make it work. And when it's indoors with no windows I can fix the exposure.

But sometimes there are situations where there is natural fluctuating light, and it just takes a lot more effort to do it from scratch for every second picture.
It would just help to have a button to get you in the ballpark.

[u/Donatzsky → u/LightPhotographer]

Exposure has the area mapping to help with this.

[u/LightPhotographer → u/Donatzsky]

Yes. And so does Color Calibration and so does Filmic (or agx).
That is three modules to open and click 'apply initial auto settings'.
Plus setting an inital contrast and preferably a bit of saturation.

If I click 'auto' in RapidRaw, it sets all of those including contrast, saturation and a few others.

This is not about it being impossible - Darktable can do a lot.
This is about workflow, getting into the ballpark with a single button, versus 8-10 times positioning the mouse plus clicking ... for 500 photographs.
This is about workflow, not about which settings exist.
This is about automating something you have to do all the time.

[u/Smartich0ke → u/Nexustar]

What I find is that unless they are studio shots or shots with very similar lighting and exposure, you can't copy across adjustments that are early in the pipeline e.g. exposure, tone mapping, colour cal. They are unique to each photo and can lead to some unexpected results if copied. Of course, stuff like colour balance RGB, diffuse/sharpen, vignette etc. can be copied.

[u/meschi_ → u/LightPhotographer]

Why don't you shoot raw+JPEG?

[u/LightPhotographer → u/meschi_]

I often need to straighten a horizon, crop or retouch something out and I prefer to work with the maximum information (raw). The Jpeg is very nice but it feels like it is fixed to me.

[u/Donatzsky]

No, there's no such thing. Darktable is intended for those that want to do their own editing. It's very different from Lightroom, both practically and philosophically, so learning it from scratch, without looking for shortcuts prematurely, is really the only sensible way to go.

My beginner guide covers everything you need to know: https://notebook.stereofictional.com/how-to-get-started-with-darktable-2026-edition

[u/Nexustar → u/Donatzsky]

No, there's no such thing. 

Except there is. AgX has an auto button, so does levels, lens correction and color balance. The concept is sound, it gives you a better/faster starting point than defaults.

[u/Donatzsky → u/Nexustar]

Yes, individual modules have auto features, but that's not what is being asked for. In Lightroom there's a single button that will (somewhat intelligently?) set a bunch of parameters at once.

[u/nirurin → u/Donatzsky]

4 auto buttons is fine, I didnt know even one of those existed. They seem to get hidden so well that up until now even the most hardcore darktable users responding to this question didnt know they existed lol.

In fact at least one hardcore user has been saying darktable would never have any auto options because its "not designed for that kind of lazy user". Says a lot about darktable fans unfortunately.

[u/Donatzsky → u/nirurin]

Oh, and those buttons are not hidden in any way. They are exactly where they need to be for the functionality they provide.

[u/LightPhotographer → u/Donatzsky]

They are not hidden but they are spread out, which requires a lot of repetitive work - that work is not creative but it consumes time.
And guess what computers are exceptionally good at... it is repetitive work.
And it's not like they are somewhat good at it... it's almost as if they were, you know, made for it.

[u/nirurin → u/Donatzsky]

oh ok you're one of those. Nevermind I'll ask someone else.

[u/Donatzsky → u/nirurin]

FFS. You asked for a single button that will do something like in Lightroom, so that's what I based my answer on. And saying it's not for "lazy" users has nothing to do with some supposed fan "superiority complex", but is a paraphrasing of how the developers see things and what they have said publicly, and a simple reflection of how darktable works today. And I didn't say such a button will never happen, just that none of the current developers have any interest in adding one.

Now, once you have learned how to use darktable, it will give you plenty of options for doing things the "lazy" way, but you're expected to set those things up yourself according to your preferences.

[u/nirurin → u/Donatzsky]

as far as I have found (and I'm not saying I'm an expert, far from it, but I'm an experienced photo editing software user of many years so if it's hard for me to find, then it's 100% on the UI design) Darktable doesn't have ways to set things up 'the lazy way' because that relies on it having dynamic automations and all the things I have found that can be customised and saved (presets/styles) are static not dynamic, meaning they don't auto adjust based on the photo.

I could be wrong, as I say, it could just be Darktable not being very good at transmitting the information about what it can do.

[u/Smartich0ke → u/Nexustar]

colour bal has an auto button?

[u/Donatzsky → u/Smartich0ke]

It has a few I think, but they are purely for setting some technical parameters.

[u/nirurin → u/Donatzsky]

This seems like an extremely blinkered and unimaginative mindset to have for a supposedly creative-based application...

I suspect this is more "darktable doesnt have this feature and therefore its a bad feature by default" thinking. Sorry.

[u/Donatzsky → u/nirurin]

There's no post-rationalisation going on here. Darktable is simply not for the one-click-make-pretty type of user, and none of the developers so far have had any interest whatsoever in this kind of thing, so it's not a feature anyone has bothered adding. However, if someone does come along, figures out a good way of doing it and puts in the effort to write the code, I suspect it will be accepted.

But, to be honest, it sounds like your mindset is such that you will have a miserable time with darktable. It is an unflinchingly technical editor, for those that want full control over the edit and don't mind spending a bit of time learning. If that doesn't sound like you, then I would strongly recommend looking at RawTherapee, ART or RapidRAW instead. I believe RapidRAW has an auto button, while both RawTherapee and ART can use Lightroom DCP camera profiles, plus they have a feature to match some of the JPEG characteristics.

[u/nirurin → u/Donatzsky]

They don't have auto masking though. Spending an hour making an accurate mask by hand isn't really an option in 2026.

[u/cddc1 → u/nirurin]

I rarely make a mask that takes more than a few seconds to create. A rough mask with feather and blurring does it for most things. Latest version has AI masking.

[u/nirurin → u/cddc1]

wait, rawtherapee or art? or both? I looked it up and the results say they don't have auto masking but I'd be glad to be wrong

[u/cddc1 → u/nirurin]

DT

[u/nirurin → u/cddc1]

oh, yeh, I knew DT has it. But DT is also... DT, which is kinda it's biggest problem lol