darktable icon
darktable icon

darktable

 315 likes

Open source non-destructive RAW editor and virtual darkroom with zoomable lighttable, database-driven organization, HDR and EXR support, floating-point workflow, batch exporting, and advanced editing for photography and scientific imaging across platforms.

Darktable’s lighttable mode showing a collection

License model

  • Free • Open Source

Application types

Country of Origin

  • DE flagGermany
  • European Union flagEU

Platforms

  • Mac
  • Windows
  • Linux
Darktable’s darkroom mode with an image opened
Darktable’s darkroom mode, sharpening an image
+3
Darktable’s darkroom mode, split toning an image
darktable alternatives  
4.5 / 5 Avg rating (16)
315likes
12comments
63alternatives
4news articles

Features

Suggest and vote on features

Properties

  1.  Privacy focused

Features

  1.  RAW Photo Editors
  2.  Advanced retouching
  3.  No Coding Required
  4.  Non Destructive Editing
  5.  Multiple languages
  6.  Watermark images
  7.  Hardware Accelerated
  8.  Photographic filters
  9.  Works Offline
  10.  Ad-free
  11.  Built-in viewer
  12.  Dark Mode
  13.  No registration required
  14.  Geotagged Photos
  15.  Batch Editing
  16.  No Tracking
  17.  Live Preview
  18.  Support for scripting
  19.  Extensible by Plugins/Extensions
  20.  File Tagging
  21.  Command line interface
  22.  Lua scripting

 Tags

darktable News & Activities

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Recent News

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Recent activities

  • nu1iess3, alexzeecomedy and Polygonie liked darktable
    22 days ago
  • POX updated darktable
    about 1 month ago
  • App icon
    POX added darktable as alternative to PhotoSort
    about 1 month ago
  • thesuncitywitch, niksavc, Fadikkop and OpenSourceSoftware liked darktable
    about 2 months ago
  • canermeow liked darktable
    2 months ago
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Comments and Reviews

   
 Post comment/review
Top Positive Comment
glenkpeterson
★
★
★
★
★
Aug 26, 2019
9

Darktable's 16-bit-per-color, non-destructive photo editing allowed me to finally get rid of Adobe Photoshop so that I could switch to Linux. I still use GIMP for filters and drawing/touch-up, but do all my initial editing and color correction of RAW files in Darktable. Photoshop is more convenient because it does filters and touch-up in the same application, but Darktable works on Linux and is good enough (with GIMP), so bye-bye Adobe (and Windows)!

nbvgoodman
★
★
★
★
★
Mar 16, 2025
0

Good for developing raw photos, doing non-destructive editing, and managing large galleries.

Ákos Dián
★
★
★
★
★
Jan 3, 2025
1

The most capable RAW editor, as a professional photographer. Only 4 stars, because the UI/UX needs a redesign IMO and the GUI is often overwhelming to a degree of confusion. The built in explanations came really handy (hover the mouse over), but the explanations of said function sometimes too technical, even for me - and I did previously worked as a developer -, especially for the target audience of photographers. The tagging and metadata editor needs a redesign as well, but after the user get used to the clanky UI/UX, it is the most powerful RAW editor.

Johnathon_Smithinson
★
★
★
★
★
Mar 3, 2023
1

Downloaded it a while ago and was shocked at it's capability. I work with images sometimes, and this will always be in my workflow. It can do everything Lightroom does and more.

Guest
★
★
★
★
★
Jan 1, 2022
1

Literally the best open source alternative to lightroom. Great processing quality, tons of options, and modern, easy to use interface.

come_on_follow_me
★
★
★
★
★
Dec 29, 2020
-6

Windows 7 does not work on

miromarvel
★
★
★
★
★
Aug 2, 2020
3

More powerfull than Lightroom. FOSS.

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7 of 12 comments

What is darktable?

darktable is a virtual lighttable and darkroom for photographers: it manages your digital negatives in a database and lets you view them through a zoomable lighttable. it also enables you to develop raw images and enhance them.

This project tries to fill the gap between the many excellent existing free raw converters and image management tools (such as UFRaw icon UFRaw or F-Spot icon F-Spot). The user interface is built around efficient caching of image metadata and mipmaps, all stored in a database. The user will always be able to interact, even if the full resolution image is not yet loaded.

All editing is fully non-destructive and only operates on cached image buffers for display. The full image is only converted during export. the frontend is written in gtk+/cairo, the database uses sqlite3, raw image loading is done using libraw, hdr, exr and low dynamic range are supported through imagemagick (magickcore). the core operates completely on floating point values, so darktable can not only be used for photography but also for scientifically acquired images or output of renderers (high dynamic range).

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darktable information

AlternativeTo Categories

Photos & Graphics, System & Hardware, File Management, OS & Utilities

GitHub repository

  •  10,890 Stars
  •  1,191 Forks
  •  389 Open Issues
  •   Updated Jun 8, 2025 
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Our users have written 12 comments and reviews about darktable, and it has gotten 315 likes

darktable was added to AlternativeTo by wegschmeiss on Mar 14, 2010 and this page was last updated May 4, 2025.