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Comment by t0bia_s | Hacker News Reader

For advanced contrast editing you need curves, not sliders. And masks, ideally in Photoshop.

I think you missed the point. Darktable, effectively, has a parametric curve (implemented by the tone mapper) at the end of its processing chain. And this "curve" will, by default, compress contrast at the bright end in a way undesirable for high-key photos (infinitely smooth rolloff instead of sharp clipping). Adding another curve below that will not help, as the contrast compression factor by the tone mapper is gradually approaching infinity. The fight with this default, which is inappropriate for high-key photos, was the topic of my previous comment.

Curves (in the form of Tone Equalizer and the old display-oriented Curve) do exist in Darktable, as well as parametric, drawn, external, and, since 5.6, AI masks.

Another problem with Darktable is, that it has millions functions, demosaic algorithms, sharpening styles, etc. and a lot of developers that probably like tons possibilities but fail incredibly with default options thus making this software inappropriate for photographers that need few reliable tools to get job done rather than experimenting with sliders and buttons.

You speak in theory that geeks and enthusiastic photographers like talk about. Pro photographers don't care, they need results.

Yes. Darktable courses go as far as saying "ignore all modules and sliders not mentioned in this course" - which of course works until you get an assignment that is best solved with one of the non-reviewed modules or sliders, and in my case it was as simple as "a professionally looking high-key photo".

And here is another problem: very weak default look. This is a problem because the default unedited look is the basis of further editing decisions, and the photographer is lured into thinking that the photo is supposed to look desaturated and with open shadows. I repeatedly got the same critique, "why did you decide to kill the contrast and color saturation that was present in your RAW file?" I didn't kill them. I didn't even know they existed. And now I made a change to my workflow (a preset) to compensate, but this should not have been necessary.

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