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The open-source, free and multi-platform Darktable 3.2 RAW image editor arrived today as a massive update that brings many new features and improvements, along with better camera support.
Darktable 3.2.1 is now available and it’s the first major update to the application since the introduction of the 3.0 series. If you’re asking, there wasn’t a 3.2.0 release, nor a 3.1 release. The development team jumped straight to the 3.2.1 version number from version 3.0.2, which you’re probably using right now on your GNU/Linux distribution, because of a last minute bug in the 3.2.0 release.
But don’t let the version number fool you, because Darktable 3.2.1 is a massive update with lots of goodies for amateur and professional photographers alike. Highlights include support for up to 8K screen resolutions thanks to the complete rewrite of the Lighttable View and the revamped Filmstrip.
The Lighttable thumbs now allows for multiple types of overlay and the Lighttable modules now feature buttons that are only highlighted when the context makes the action possible.
The look and feel of Darktable has been changed as well, and it’s now more professional thanks to a complete overhaul of the CSS styles of the user interface. And since the UI was overhauled, the Color Picker and Location modules needed updating to integrate better.
Also revamped is the Preferences dialog, which now requires less scrolling and looks much better, and the Spot Removal module, which now supports continuous shape creation and features a new button that lets you hide or show the shapes.
Darktable 3.2 also introduces a new negadoctor module for inverting negative films, a new histogram display called RGB Parade, a new down-sampling preference for faster response in darkroom, support for curved gradients, support for AVIF file format, as well as two new filters for the Collect module, namely module and module order.
The image change detection is now more reliable, the Filmic RGB feature now includes integrated highlight recovery, users can now finally choose which information will be displayed in the metadata editor, and Darktable will now display a confirmation dialog when deleting or updating presets.
Other noteworthy changes include much improved denoise profile module, undo and redo support for orientation changes in the Lighttable view, grey-scale exporting of TIFF for monochrome images, exporting of masks in the TIFF image format, and support for more than 500 images in tethered control for time-lapse.
There are also new keyboard shortcuts for the retouch module, combo-boxes, for enabling and disabling the tooltips, for toggling the last snapshot on and off, as well as for showing or hiding the lib modules and the drawn masks for the currently active module. It’s also now easier to find keyboard shortcuts with the new search field in the shortcuts tab.
Darktable 3.2 also adds support for new cameras, including Fujifilm FinePix S1, GFX 100 (compressed), X-Pro3 (compressed), X-T200, X-T4 (compressed) and X100V (compressed), Hasselblad H4D-50, X1D II 50C and X1DM2-50c, as well as Nikon COOLPIX P950 (12bit-uncompressed), D780 (12bit-compressed, 14bit-compressed) and Z 50 (12bit-compressed, 14bit-compressed).
The Olympus E-M1MarkIII and E-PL10, Panasonic DC-FZ10002 (3:2), DC-GX880 (4:3), DC-S1 (3:2), DC-S1H (3:2), DC-S1R (3:2), DC-TZ91 (4:3), DC-TZ95 (4:3), DC-TZ96 (4:3), DC-ZS80 (4:3), DMC-FZ40 (1:1, 3:2, 16:9) and DMC-FZ45 (1:1, 3:2, 16:9), as well as Sony ILCE-6100 and ILCE-9M2 cameras are also supported in the new release.
New white balance presets are available for Canon EOS 77D and EOS 9000D, Fujifilm X-E3, X-T30 and X-T4, Nikon COOLPIX P1000, Olympus E-M1MarkIII, E-PL6 and TG-5, Panasonic DC-GH5, DC-TZ95, DC-TZ96 and DC-ZS80, Samsung NX1, and Sony ILCE-7RM4 cameras.
Lastly, new noise profiles are available for Canon EOS-1Ds, Fujifilm X-H1, X-T100, X-T30 and X-T4, Nikon COOLPIX P1000 and Z 50, Olympus E-510, E-M1MarkIII, E-M5 Mark III and TG-6, Panasonic DC-GF9, DC-GX800, DC-GX850, DC-GH5, DC-TZ95, DC-TZ96 and DC-ZS80, as well as Sony DSC-RX100M6, DSC-RX100M7, ILCE-6600, ILCE-7RM4, ILCE-9 and ILCE-9M2 cameras.
You can download Darktable 3.2.1 right now from the official website. However, I strongly recommend that you install it from the stable software repositories of your favorite GNU/Linux distribution.
Last updated 4 years ago
