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+# Photography
+
+## Getting Started with Darktable
+
+Ansel Adams once said "the negative is the score, and the print the performance.” Were he shooting digital today, I suspect Adams would rephrase that to: ***the RAW file is the score, and the print the performance.*** 
+
+Today's RAW file is the equivalent of a film negative (RAW files are actually considerably more malleable, but you get the idea). The point is, if you want more control over the final look of your photographs, you want to shoot RAW format images. These days nearly every camera can shoot RAW files -- even my four-year-old phone can do it. You may have to turn this features on though. Look through your manual or menus until you find something like "image format", which should have options for JPG and RAW. You want RAW. You can shoot in RAW *and* JPG if you want, but I tend to shoot just RAW.
+
+The problem with RAW is that they are the equivalent of film negatives. You have to "develop" them. As with developing film, the process of developing a RAW file takes time and skill. When you're first starting it can seem overwhelming, which is probably why you're here. Don't worry. Remember what Thoreau said, "nothing can be more useful to a man than the determination not to be hurried." I'm sure Thoreau would say "a person" if he were writing today, but the point is, relax, take a breath, there's no need to rush, it'll make sense eventually.
+
+There are a lot of great tutorials out there on Darktable (see this guide's [parent page](/guides/photography/) for some links). The problem I noticed as I was learning is that tutorials go out of date, especially video tutorials. Videos show you what to do better than words can sometimes, but they're a pain to re-shoot and keep up-to-date so hardly anyone does. When I was learning Darktable, I found it frustrating to watch good tutorials, but discover that the features described no longer worked the same way in Darktable. I am trying to avoid doing that here. Darktable is updated twice a year at the moment, so not that often, but things do change. And I find new tricks from time to time too. I will keep this guide updated to reflect both changes in Darktable and changes in my own workflow.
+
+Okay, ready? Let's get started.
+
+---
+
+##### Table of Contents
+
+- [Setting Up Darktable](#setup)
+- [Learning Your Way Around Darktable](#around)
+- [Customizing Development Modules](#customize)
+- [Example Quick Edits (Video)](#example)
+---
+
+### Set Up Darktable {: #setup }
+
+The first thing to do is [download Darktable](https://www.darktable.org/install/) for your PC. Darktable is available for Linux, Mac, and Windows. I have never used the Windows version, but presumably it works like Mac and Linux.
+
+Once you have Darktable installed, open it up and you will get a blank library screen. Before you do anything else, let's check some settings to make sure we're all on the same page. Click the gear icon toward the top of the screen to the right side:
+
+<img src="images/2023/darktable40-settings.jpg" id="image-3854" class="picwide" />
+
+Click the Processing tab on the left side of the settings panel and make sure that **Auto Apply Pixel Workflow defaults** is set to **scene-refered (filmic)**, like this:
+
+<img src="images/2023/darktable40-processing-settings_6cAuG3R.jpg" id="image-3849" class="picfull caption" />
+
+This will ensure that what's applied by default when you import an image is the same as what's applied to mine. This isn't necessarily the "right" thing to use, scene-referred (sigmoid) will also work, but it won't produce the same results as the rest of these tutorials. 
+
+We're done with settings. Hit escape to close the settings window and save your changes. Yeah, that's weird way to do it, but that's the way it works in Darktable (on Linux at least). 
+
+Let's add some images to our Library view so we can explore both that and the darktable view. To do that you want to open the import module in the upper left corner of the screen and click the **add to library** button.
+
+<img src="images/2023/darktable40-import_zzr1pfq.jpg" id="image-3851" class="picwide caption" />
+
+Naming and organizing your images is a topic into itself. I am going to assume that you have a system for this and that you don't want Darktable to move or rename images. Because you don't, it's tools are not the best for that. I have a custom shell script that renames my images for me, but you can do that same thing using [Rapid Photo Downloader](https://damonlynch.net/rapid/) on Linux. I'm sure MacOS and Windows have similar apps (if you have suggestions, drop a comment below and I will add them here).
+
+Use what works for you. What I do is use a directory structure of a folder for the year, then within that folders that start with the month number, followed by the event name. So if I took some pictures at Edisto Beach in January of 2024, those images would live in `2024/01_edisto-beach`. Within that folder every images is named YYYY-MM-DD_HHMMSS_event-name.ARW. Which works out to a timestamp with the event name on the end so I can sort them by date taken in any application, including the file browser, but know roughly what they are without opening them (thanks to the event name on the end). Anyway, this is what works for me, do what works for you.
+
+The import dialog has a few options worth understanding. The "select only new pictures" option is a handy option if you regularly add more images to existing folders as I do. Darktable **WILL NOT** automatically add new images to your database. You must go and import them manually, even if the folder is already in Darktable. If you check the "select only new pictures" option, the new images will be automatically selected when you open that folder in the import dialog.
+
+That other option is to find new images recursively. I leave this unchecked because I never import a folder with another folder inside it, but if you do, this will tell Darktable to import all the images, no matter how many folders deep they might be buried.
+
+Also see the [relevant Darktable Manual entry for the import dialog](https://docs.darktable.org/usermanual/4.4/en/module-reference/utility-modules/lighttable/import/#import-dialog).
+
+###Learning Your Way Around Darktable  {: #around }
+
+I prefer to navigate Darktable mostly using keyboard shortcuts. I use some built-in shortcuts, like **`d`** and **`l`** to switch between **`d`**arkroom and **`l`**ighttable views, and I have quite a few custom shortcuts as well. The one I consider most essential is mapping the Exposure model to `Shift+e`. This allows me to hold down Shift-e and flick my mouse scroll wheel (or trackpad) up and down to increase and decrease exposure. I don't have to futz with opening the Exposure module or anything else, I hit the shortcut and adjust. This save so much time.
+
+Here's how I set it up. Open the preferences pane again. Choose **Shortcuts** in the left menu and then click the little arrow to open the **processing modules** section and scroll down to **exposure**. Click the arrow next to **exposure** and then double click on **exposure**. After you double click, Darktable is waiting for you to define the keyboard shortcut. Hold down shift, press 'e' and scroll your mouse. Now look below and you should see a line like what's in this screenshot:
+
+<img src="images/2023/darktable40-exposure-shortcut.jpg" id="image-3852" class="picwide caption" />
+
+Hit escape to save and exit the preference. Yup, still weird, but now we're used to it. Next select an image, hit **d** to open it in Darktable view. Test your shortcut: hold down **Shift** and **e** and scroll up and down and your image should get lighter and darker. Awesome. If not, re-read the above. It took me hours to figure this out the first time I tried to set this up, so don't feel bad if it doesn't work right away. Re-read the above and try again. Remember Thoreau. Don't hurry.
+
+### Customizing Development Modules  {: #customize }
+
+Darktable adjustments are done in what are called modules, little tools that handle a certain type of adjustments, for example the exposure modules adjusts exposure, sets a black point and handles other things related to exposure. Darktable has enough of these little modules that I am overwhelmed by the full list even after using the app for eight years. When I counted just now I came up with 64 user-adjustable modules. That's a lot of options. Too many in fact. But you don't have to use all of them. 
+
+Of those 64 modules I use 9 on a regular basis and another 6 occasionally. Why so many options? This is the nature of open source software to some extent. Anyone with an itch can write some code to scratch it, and if the core developers are okay with including it in the app, it ships. I rather like that, even if most of it gets in my way. There's an easy solution: I narrow down the modules considerably by customizing which ones I see.
+
+If you'd like to do the same, here's what I suggest. These are the core modules where I spend most of my time:
+
+- **Exposure** (lighten or darken an image)
+- **Filmic RGB** (control how light the whites and how dark the blacks)
+- **Color Calibration** (set the white balance)
+- **Color Balance RGB** (enhance colors and color contrasts)
+- **Diffuse or Sharpen** (Sharpen)
+- **Crop**
+- **Tone Equalizer** (raise shadows)
+- **Retouch** (fix spots)
+- **Rotate and Perspective**
+
+Then there are some others I use only occasionally but I like to have easy to get to, things like **denoise**, **chromatic aberrations**, and **LUT 3D** since I use a number of LUTs to speed up development. There are a couple others you can see in the screenshots below, but mostly I ignore the other 51 modules. To make them easier to ignore, I hide them. To customize which development modules are shown, click the hamburger menu at the top of the modules section (which is on the right side of the screen in darktable mode) and select **Manage presets**.
+
+That will bring up a huge screen with all the modules in columns. I suggest first clicking the preset drop down menu and selecting **workflow: scene-referred**. That gives you all the modules optimized for a scene-referred workflow. It's not important to understand what that means, but if you'll recall, we set up Darktable to apply the scene-referred presets when we import new images. This continues using that same workflow. We want to use those modules, but not all of them, so select duplicate and give your new module layout a name. Now you can customize this layout. I start by deleting the quick access column completely because I don't need it, nor do I find it quick. There's a checkmark at the top of the screen to disable it.
+
+Then I set up the other four like this:
+
+<img src="images/2023/darktable40-custom-modules.jpg" id="image-3853" class="picwide caption" />
+
+When you have things set up that way hit... wait for it... escape to save your changes. Still weird, but maybe less so after the third time. Or not. I still think it's weird.
+
+### Example Edits (Video)  {: #example }
+
+Okay, you now have Darktable set up just like I do. This may or may not end up suiting you, but for now it gives you place to start. To show you how I work within this setup, check out the video below and then you can jump to the next article in this series, which covers what each module does and how I use them.
+
+