Reviews

Darktable – an Open Source Photography Application for Ubuntu

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Mehedi Hasan

Modified date: October 25, 2024

Darktable is a completely free and open source photography software for all the major OS, including various Linux distros, Windows, macOS, and FreeBSD. It lets you store all the precious digital negatives in a database that you can later develop raw images. It’s a powerful image editing application created by photographers for photographers. This software has a huge community where everyone can contribute to its development through their thoughts, ideas, and even coding. Darktable edits the images non-destructively via a set of polished tools.

Important Features of Darktable

Support for tags and ratings in the watermark module
Read Xmp.exif.DateTimeOriginal from XMP sidecars
Build and install noise tools
Add a script for converting .dtyle to an .xmp

See the full changelog here

Screenshot

darktable’s lighttable mode showing a collection

darktable’s darkroom mode with an image opened

darktable’s darkroom mode, sharpening an image

How to Install Darktable on Ubuntu

There are many ways to install the darktable photography app on Ubuntu Linux. Though it’s a multi-platform supported software, we will show you how to install it on Ubuntu only.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUHrNQJvGTA

Method 1: Install via Ubuntu Software Center

Darktable officially supports the Ubuntu software repository, so you can easily search it on Ubuntu or distro-specific software center and install it.

Method 2: Install via Stable PPA

This software can be installed on Ubuntu via stable PPA. Open the Terminal and run the below command one by one:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:pmjdebruijn/darktable-release
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install darktable

After the first command, you will be asked to give the password. After typing the password, press Enter to continue.

How to Restore or Remove the Package

If you want to remove to restore the package into the repository stock version, run the following command into the Terminal:

sudo apt-get install ppa-purge
sudo ppa-purge ppa:pmjdebruijn/darktable-release

Run the below command for completely removing darktable from the system:

sudo apt-get remove --autoremove darktable

(Optional) To remove the PPA, launch “Software & Updates” utility and navigate to “Other Software” tab

If you like this tutorial, please share it with your friends in social media. And leave a comment if you face any problems during the installation or share your experience.

Note: The features mentioned here are not all-inclusive. The features mentioned are compiled either from their respective official websites or from my personal experience using them.