
Open Source Photography Workflow - macco
http://www.rileybrandt.com/2015/10/15/foss-photo-flow-2015/
======
vvanders
That first line is telling. It took him years to find a workflow that met his
needs.

It's probably not a popular opion here but there are some things that are
worth paying for. When it comes to working with 500+ photos from a shoot you
can pry lightroom from my cold dead hands.

~~~
sandGorgon
Have you tried out darktable? I'm wondering what your opinion is about it.

~~~
vvanders
Not yet, I did some cursory glances and it looks like they're missing RAW
support for quite a few camera(all the Sony A7* series). They also seem to
have very limited lens correction profiles(missing some classics like Canon's
35mm F1.4).

I will say their UI and look & feel looks very much like lightroom although
I'd be curious what their culling workflow is like.

~~~
rwh86
It's an open source tool. If you'd like support to be added for your camera,
take a look at this page:

[https://www.darktable.org/2012/10/whats-involved-with-
adding...](https://www.darktable.org/2012/10/whats-involved-with-adding-
support-for-new-cameras/)

The lens correction comes from the lensfun project, which is also open source.
They even run a lens calibration service if you submit the necessary images:

[http://lensfun.sourceforge.net/](http://lensfun.sourceforge.net/)

A lot of distributions have ancient versions of lensfun for some reason, so
upgrading can make a big difference. They're currently working on splitting
the lens definition file into a separate package from the software so that it
can be updated more frequently.

If you have any questions for the developers you can always jump on to
#darktable on freenode IRC. darktable 2.0 has just entered feature freeze.

~~~
sandGorgon
I think darktable should have a single click button to be able to submit a
lens calibration (which might get redirected to the lensfun API). Most people
are highly uncomfortable going through all the trouble.

------
mpnordland
Also look at gphoto2 for setting up your camera, on my camera, gphoto2 can do
some pretty cool things like set the date and time (much better than doing it
on the camera) and even take photos. When I went more professional I switched
from Shotwell to using Rapid Photo Downloader and I created some scripts
around sxiv
([https://github.com/muennich/sxiv](https://github.com/muennich/sxiv)) that
lets me pick out which shots I want and then I run then through darktable. I
haven't gotten color management yet, just not in my (college student) budget.

------
contingencies
Darktable, which I've been using for at least three years now, is certainly a
reasonable lightroom replacement. Its initially rough edges have been mostly
well rounded now, and some of the more hard-line decisions from the developers
(like "no file delete functionality at all") have been sensibly slackened.

Some things I think are still missing from open source photography workflow:
adequate support Linux from high-end printer manufacturers (eg. I have a Canon
Pixma Pro 1 and I basically have to use it through a shitty Windows VM), and
better front-ends for lens distortion calculators.

~~~
ISL
What might one recommend as an introduction to Darktable?

I've transitioned to RAW in the past couple of months, and while I'm starting
to develop a workflow, I get occasional surprising (to me) behavior. Is there
a nice review of the thinking and backend behind the Darkroom UI?

~~~
rwh86
There's a bunch of resources on the darktable website:

[http://www.darktable.org/resources/](http://www.darktable.org/resources/)

The screencasts might be a good place to start, and the user manual is quite
comprehensive. Disclaimer: I did some of the screencasts. Riley's course is a
more-complete overview, but it's not free.

Also keep in mind that darktable just entered feature freeze for 2.0, should
be released around the end of the year.

------
green7ea
I have the same workflow as he does and recently upgraded it by using the
experimental GIMP 2.9 branch. It supports 16 and 32 bit colour channels and
better interpolation which enables the use of GIMP as a RAW editor (which I
find easier than darktable). If there are tech savvy photographers out there,
I recommend taking the extra time to compile GIMP.

------
unknownzero
If nothing else that was a great pitch for the class at the end. It was
actually informative and I felt pretty confident that I could get something
out of the course by the time that I got to the end and saw it. A+

------
glenda
Also, gphoto2 is great for interacting with cameras using the command line. I
will typically use it to import/backup all the images directly from a camera
but it has so many more features. I believe darktable uses it behind the
scenes, but it is extremely powerful on its own.

Another good command line program is dcraw, especially for batch developing
RAW photos. These two programs probably make up more than half of my
photography workflow.

------
sohkamyung
lwn.net has a number of articles covering photography with Open Source
software.

Doing a generic search via DuckDuckGo [
[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Alwn.net+photography](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Alwn.net+photography)
] shows a number of articles which may be of interest.

------
tefo-mohapi
Thanks for this. Looking to uninstall windows and move to Ubuntu on my laptop,
this comes in handy

------
eveningcoffee
I am actually wondering why does Adobe not invest a little into Linux?

Considering that their current platform providers are moving towards business
models where they will want to take large share from every software sale, it
would allow Adobe to gain competitive advantage and negotiation power.

Beside they would probably create completely new market for themselves.

------
GutenYe
The Open Source Community should really join forces together to create an
unified-killer app for it.

~~~
Elv13
This is exactly how the FLOSS community doesn't work. FLOSS only work well
with the Unix philosophy. Small, targetted tools/libraries and then some
higher level GUI for those. Then, let the law of the jungle get rid of the
weaks and let the stong and new contenders fight for market share.

There is some exceptions like Blender and GIMP, but overall, there is no such
thing as getting together to build a killer mega-app. This is why OSS have
hard time getting into CAD, EDA and (serious) accoutability feilds. Those are
simply too large to wrap small tools into bigger ones.

