darktable icon
darktable icon

darktable

Open source non-destructive RAW editor and virtual darkroom with zoomable lighttable, database-driven organization, HDR and EXR support, floating-point workflow, batch exporting, and advanced editing for photography and scientific imaging across platforms.

Darktable’s lighttable mode showing a collection

Cost / License

Application type

Platforms

  • Mac
  • Windows
  • Linux
Darktable’s darkroom mode with an image opened
Darktable’s darkroom mode, sharpening an image
+3
Darktable’s darkroom mode, split toning an image
darktable alternatives  
371likes
82alternatives
7articles

Features

Properties

  1.  Privacy focused

Features

  1.  Advanced retouching
  2.  No Coding Required
  3.  Non Destructive Editing
  4.  No registration required
  5.  Watermark images
  6.  Multiple languages
  7.  Built-in viewer
  8.  Dark Mode
  9.  Ad-free
  10.  Works Offline
  11.  Hardware Accelerated
  12.  Photographic filters
  13.  Geotagged Photos
  14.  Batch Editing
  15.  No Tracking
  16.  Live Preview
  17.  Support for scripting
  18.  Extensible by Plugins/Extensions
  19.  Lua scripting
  20.  File Tagging
  21.  Portable
  22.  Command line interface
  23.  Support RAW file formats

 Tags

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Comments and Reviews

   
Comment summary: Darktable is widely recognized for its powerful, non-destructive RAW photo editing, strong feature set, and open-source nature, making it a leading alternative to Adobe Lightroom, especially for Linux users. Users appreciate its cross-platform support and advanced processing quality. However, opinions note the user interface can be overwhelming, with a steeper learning curve and technical explanations. Stability on older Windows versions may be inconsistent.
Top Positive Comment
Thelle Christensen
9

DarkTable is similar to Adobe Lightroom icon Adobe Lightroom and open source. If you come from LightRoom DarkTable is very familiar..

Top Negative Comment
ccier7u87wl2pvvz7o
-1

Doesn't support Apple ProRAW DNGs

TBayAreaPat
0

Didn't open the old .SRF that Synchredible generated, but Universal Viewer seems to work.

as dll
0

solid open source raw editor

nbvgoodman
1

Good for developing raw photos, doing non-destructive editing, and managing large galleries.

Ákos Dián
1

The most capable RAW editor, as a professional photographer. Only 4 stars, because the UI/UX needs a redesign IMO and the GUI is often overwhelming to a degree of confusion. The built in explanations came really handy (hover the mouse over), but the explanations of said function sometimes too technical, even for me - and I did previously worked as a developer -, especially for the target audience of photographers. The tagging and metadata editor needs a redesign as well, but after the user get used to the clanky UI/UX, it is the most powerful RAW editor.

Johnathon_Smithinson
1

Downloaded it a while ago and was shocked at it's capability. I work with images sometimes, and this will always be in my workflow. It can do everything Lightroom does and more.

7 of 15 comments

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What is darktable?

darktable is a virtual lighttable and darkroom for photographers: it manages your digital negatives in a database and lets you view them through a zoomable lighttable. it also enables you to develop raw images and enhance them.

This project tries to fill the gap between the many excellent existing free raw converters and image management tools (such as UFRaw icon UFRaw or F-Spot icon F-Spot). The user interface is built around efficient caching of image metadata and mipmaps, all stored in a database. The user will always be able to interact, even if the full resolution image is not yet loaded.

All editing is fully non-destructive and only operates on cached image buffers for display. The full image is only converted during export. the frontend is written in gtk+/cairo, the database uses sqlite3, raw image loading is done using libraw, hdr, exr and low dynamic range are supported through imagemagick (magickcore). the core operates completely on floating point values, so darktable can not only be used for photography but also for scientifically acquired images or output of renderers (high dynamic range).

darktable information

AlternativeTo Categories

Photos & Graphics, System & Hardware, File Management, OS & Utilities

GitHub repository

  •  13,080 Stars
  •  1,428 Forks
  •  684 Open Issues
  •   Updated  
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Our users have written 15 comments and reviews about darktable, and it has gotten 371 likes

darktable was added to AlternativeTo by wegschmeiss on and this page was last updated .