Darktable photography workflow application and RAW developer released new stable 4.6.1 yesterday!
The release finished the documentation for the new 4.6 release series, include translations to Ukrainian, Polish and Dutch.
And, it now performs image discovery asynchronously in the import dialog. Meaning that long parsing due to huge number of sub-directories and
files can be easily interrupted by selecting another place or un-checking recursive mode.
The release now drops support for macOS versions older than 12.5. Other changes are mostly bug-fixes. They include:
Fix memory and resource leaks in the QOI image loader.
Fix RGBE image loader.
Fix crashes when running low on GPU or system memory.
Fix OpenCL startup for various cards.
Fix compatibility issues with HDR created DNG files.
Darkable, the popular photography app and raw developer, released new major 4.6.0 version a day ago!
The new release introduced auto-save feature for editing history. By default, it save changes every 10 seconds. User can go to ‘Preferences -> storage‘ to change the time interval, or set it to 0 to disable it.
Darktable 4.6.0 also features new rgb primaries processing module. It allows delicate color corrections and creative color grading, by moving the red, green and blue primary colors around using “hue” and “purity” controls.
Darktable 4.6.0
The release also has a big performance improvements. OpenCL is now initialized in the background to speed up the app launching. Image display speed in the map view has been increased by 25%. And, the chromatic aberrations module is now approximagely 10% faster when run on the CPU.
Other changes in Darktable 4.6.0 include:
sigmoid module now includes a new primaries section, to gracefully handle difficult lighting situations (e.g. LEDs) and tune the overall look of the image
The full uncropped image is now always shown when working with the liquify and retouch modules.
The hot pixels module now supports monochrome images.
long-running import session can now be canceled.
built-in “Display P3” color profile
And much more! See the official release note for details
How to Install Darktable 4.6.0 in Ubuntu Linux
Option 1: Snap
Darktable is easy to install as Snap package, which runs in sandbox, using Ubuntu Software (or App Center for 23.10).
Option 2: Official deb package
The developer team offers official RPM and DEB packages for Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, openSUSE, through the OBS building repository.
Also, it’s NOT updated to v4.6.0 at the moment of writing. Keep an eye on this page if you prefer the official package.
Option 3: Flatpak package
Darktable is also available to install as Flatpak package, another universal Linux package format runs in sandbox!
Linux Mint 21 user can directly search for and install the Flatpak package from Software Manager.
While, Ubuntu user can open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run the 2 commands below one by one to install the Flatpak:
Besides using the official DEB package (See Option 2), I’ve also upload the package into this unofficial PPA for Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 23.04, and Ubuntu 23.10.
NOTE: The PPA includes updated libheif (1.16.2) library for Darktable to support HEIF in Ubuntu 22.04. Please report if it’s running into conflict with other packages in your system!!
1. First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run command to add PPA:
2. Linux Mint needs to update system package cache manually after adding PPA:
sudo apt update
3. Finally, install Darktable 4.6.0 via command:
sudo apt install darktable
In addition for old Ubuntu 20.04, 18.04, & 16.04, keep an eye on this PPA. However, it has tons of updated libraries that MAY run into dependency hell and/or package conflict!
Uninstall Darktable
Depends on which package your installed, remove Darktable via one of the commands below:
For Snap package, just remove it from Ubuntu Software.
How to Install Darktable 4.6.0 (Updated) in Ubuntu:
There are 4 sources to get the Darktable package in Ubuntu: Flatpak, Snap, OBS, and Ubuntu PPA.
Option 1: Snap
The easiest way to get the latest Darktable 4.6.0 in Ubuntu is using the Snap.
Ubuntu 20.04 and higher with both amd64 and arm64 CPU architecture types, can simply search for and install the package from Ubuntu Software. Though, it’s a containerized software package run in sandbox.
Option 2: Flatpak
The latest Darktable is also available to install as Flatpak, another software package run in sandbox.
Ubuntu user can install the package, by running the 2 commands below one by one:
NOTE: the OBS is not yet updated at the moment of writing.
Option 4: Ubuntu PPA
For those who prefer the classic Ubuntu PPA, I’ve upload the new release package into this PPA for Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 23.10 and Ubuntu 23.04.
NOTE: Sorry for being lazy. There’s no updated package for Ubuntu 20.04 in this PPA. The new release needs gcc-12 for building the package, which is not available in 20.04.
1. First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run command to add PPA:
