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Darktable 4.4 open-source, free, and cross-platform RAW image editor has been released today six months after darktable 4.2 and it looks like it’s a major update that brings numerous new features, performance improvements, new camera support, and more.
Darktable 4.4 introduces support for many new cameras including Canon PowerShot SX10 IS, SX160 IS, SX20 IS, SX220 HS, SX230 HS, SX240 HS, SX30 IS, SX530 HS, SX710 HS, Fujifilm FinePix F550EXR, Fujifilm X-A7, Hasselblad X1D, Hasselblad X2D 100C, Leica M10 Monochrom (DNG), Leica M11 (DNG), Leica M11 Monochrom (DNG), Leica Q3 (DNG), Nikon Z 8 (14-bit compressed), Panasonic DC-GH5M2 (4:3), Panasonic DMC-FZ100 (1:1, 3:2, 16:9), Panasonic DMC-GF8 (4:3, 1:1, 3:2, 16:9), Phase One IQ180, Phase One P45, and Sony ILME-FX30.
It also adds new white balance presets for the Canon PowerShot SX160 IS, Fujifilm X-H1, Fujifilm X-H2S, Fujifilm X-T200, Nikon Z 6_2, OM System OM-1, Pentax K-1 Mark II, Ricoh GR IIIx, Sony DSC-RX100M7, Sony ILCE-7C, Sony ILME-FX30, Canon EOS R7, and Canon EOS R10 cameras.
New noise profiles for the Canon PowerShot SX160 IS, Nikon Z 6_2, Ricoh GR IIIx, Sony ILCE-6100, Sony ILCE-7M4, Sony ILCE-7RM5, and Sony ZV-E10 cameras are present as well in this release.
New features in darktable 4.4 include the ability to define multiple automatically applied presets against a single processing module, revamped default parameters of various processing modules, image metadata-based default parameters for many modules, and support for chromatic adaptation workflow setting and the Sigmoid display transform module in the default workflow configuration option.
Furthermore, the Scopes module received a new color harmony overlay option in RYB vectorscope mode with support for nine different color harmonies, and a new right-click-and-drag global operation promises to allow image rotation to be corrected without the need to first open the Rotate and Perspective module.
Darktable 4.4 also completely overhauls the drawn mask functionality and introduces several performance improvements and enhancements to numerous processing modules and core routines. In addition, it adds OpenCL support to the Sigmoid module and OpenMP support to the XCF export and RGBE loader.
Last but not least, darktable 4.4 revamps the pixelpipe code and caching strategies, improves the performance of the highlight reconstruction inpaint opposed algorithm, improves the guided Laplacian highlight reconstruction mode to eat fewer resources, and improves sliders and widgets to be more responsive.
Lens correction functionality received support for DNG files, XMP regions are now properly transformed from metadata, the Diffuse or Sharpen modules received new sharpness presets, the color picker code has been completely overhauled, the histogram calculation code has been modernized, and numerous bugs were fixed.
Check out the full changelog for more details about the changes introduced in darktable 4.4. Meanwhile, you can download the source tarball from the official website if you fancy compiling darktable from sources or wait for the Flatpak version to arrive on Flathub or for your distro to add the new version in its repositories.
Last updated 10 months ago
