dtourolle
f4c3f425dd
The recording sampled a red brick wall and moved the sliders by three units, which at GIF size is a click that does nothing. The scene now drags the frame cold first and picks a white air conditioner, so the correction is visible and the picker's being absolute - set from the photograph, not from where the sliders were - is what the picture shows. The text says so, and says a blown highlight is refused.
229 lines
9.4 KiB
Markdown
229 lines
9.4 KiB
Markdown
# DarkRoom, shown
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A tour of what the application does, one picture per thing. Every image on
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this page was captured from the desktop build driving itself — nothing is a
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mock-up, and nothing has been retouched outside DarkRoom. Where a feature is
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better seen moving, it moves.
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The requirements behind each feature are in [requirements.md](../requirements.md);
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the reasoning is in the design documents linked from each section. This page
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is only about what you see.
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The photographs are the author's. None show a person.
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## Opening a library
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DarkRoom opens on a library: a folder on this machine, a folder a sync
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client keeps, or a Nextcloud account. A folder needs no password and uploads
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nothing.
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Once a folder is named, it is the library — you are not asked for it again,
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and `Open library` opens it whole. `Subfolder…` narrows the scan to part of
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it. The formats ticked are what the scan looks for; RAW is on and JPEG off
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by default, because a RAW editor's sensible default is the file the camera
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wrote first.
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## The library
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Photographs are ordered by capture time, with a month heading where each
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begins. The strip on the left is the timeline — drag it to jump to a year.
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The bar above the grid filters by rating, flag and where the file is (on this
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device, or only on the server).
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### Rating and flagging
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Hover a cell and the stars appear; click one. The filter chips above the grid
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count what each rating holds, and clicking `3+` shows only those.
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### Getting about
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Drag the timeline to scrub through years; Ctrl and the wheel resize the
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thumbnails.
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### Selecting several
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`Select` in the header — or Ctrl-click — starts a selection. Shift-click picks
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a range. The bar at the foot of the grid is everything a selection can be done
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to: collections, keywords, presets, export, and merging to a panorama.
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`Keywords` on that bar opens a sheet; type a word and press return, and it
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is on every photograph selected. The list below the field is every keyword
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the library has, ticked where the selection carries it.
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### Collections
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`+` at the head of the sidebar makes one. Drag a photograph — or the whole
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selection — onto its row to file it there; click the row to see it. A
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photograph can be in several, and the badge on its cell counts them.
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## Developing a photograph
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Click a thumbnail to open it. The column on the right is every adjustment;
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the strip at its head narrows it to one group.
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### Light
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Exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, blacks, whites and a tone curve.
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Hold `Before` to see the photograph as it was.
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### Looking closer
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Double-click for 1:1; drag to move about; double-click again to fit. The
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wheel zooms to any amount in between.
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### White balance from the photograph
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Press `pick` in the White Balance group, then click something neutral —
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a white wall, a grey card, the air conditioner here. The picker sets the
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sliders from the photograph, not from where they were: below, the frame
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is dragged cold first and one click puts it right. A blown highlight is
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refused, since a clipped pixel has no colour left to balance.
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### Composing
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Crop by dragging the frame's corners, straighten with the slider, lock a
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ratio from the chips. `Done composing` returns to the photograph.
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### Local adjustments
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`Local` in the rail turns the column into a mask stack. `Find subjects` runs a
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segmentation model over the photograph; what it recognises appears as a list
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of categories with how much of the frame each covers. Click one and it is a
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mask — then every slider below edits only that region.
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A mask is a stack of parts. Paint into it, subtract a gradient from it, grow
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or shrink its edge, choose how it falls off. `Show masks as` draws the mask
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tinted, as alpha, or as an outline; the eye on its row switches it off.
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Linear and radial gradients, a tone range and a colour range are the other
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ways to make one; each can be combined with any other.
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### Repair
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`Repair` in the rail: click a mark and it is covered from a source DarkRoom
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chooses beside it. Drag either circle to move it; the size, feather and
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opacity are in the panel. Heal blends; clone copies.
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### Film
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The `Film` chooser at the head of Adjust applies a spectral simulation of a
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named stock; below it, the print exposure and push controls a film has and a
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sensor does not.
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### History, snapshots, presets
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Every change is a step; `Undo` and the History panel walk them. `Snapshot`
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keeps the current state under a name. `Presets…` saves the settings to
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apply elsewhere, and imports `.xmp` from other applications.
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## Merging a panorama
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Select the frames, then `Merge to panorama` from the selection bar. The
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frames are read, aligned, and drawn on the suggested projection with each one
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outlined where it landed — twelve hand-held portrait frames across an alpine
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valley, here. Change the projection (a 150° sweep on a flat perspective is
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what the middle of the film shows, and why cylindrical is suggested), ask for
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the border to be filled rather than cropped, then `Merge`. The composite is
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written beside its sources as a DNG and appears in the grid with the merge
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as the first step in its history.
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## Export
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`Export` in the develop header, or `Export N` from a selection. Format,
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size, colour space, sharpening, naming and where the file goes are in
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Settings, and apply to every export until changed. An export with no folder
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set is refused, and the header says so.
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## Settings
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Background activity with progress, thumbnail and face indexing, storage on
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this device, display and colour, export defaults, what is written to XMP
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sidecars, and a diagnostics bundle for a bug report.
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## People
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Face detection and identity run over the library and group faces by person;
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the `Identity` page is where suggestions are confirmed, rejected and split,
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and `People` on the filter bar narrows the grid to someone. Not pictured
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here, for the obvious reason — [faces.md](../faces.md) has the design.
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## Where things are written down
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| Feature | Design |
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| Local masks and segmentation | [segmentation.md](../segmentation.md), [mask-editing.md](../mask-editing.md) |
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| Repair | [spot-removal.md](../spot-removal.md) |
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| Panorama | [panorama.md](../panorama.md) |
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| Faces and identity | [faces.md](../faces.md) |
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| Gestures, generated from the code | [gestures.md](../gestures.md) |
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| Navigation and layout | [ui-navigation.md](../ui-navigation.md) |
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| Sync and storage | [storage.md](../storage.md) |
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## How this page is made
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[`tools/manual/`](../../tools/manual/README.md) drives the desktop build on
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a private X server and records each scene; `record.sh <library>` re-makes
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every picture here. Run it after a change to the interface and commit what
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changed. The pictures are in LFS.
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Making it the first time turned up nine faults, each fixed in its own
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commit before the pictures were taken: the folder picker could not choose
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the top level, month headings overprinted each other, a category mask
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widened the column off the window, the mask tint outlived its mode, the
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first sync uploaded an empty thumbnail shard, a merge that ran out of GPU
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memory left the page on Stop for ever, the export settings promised to ask
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for a folder and did not, the keyword sheet sent its keys to the grid, and
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an empty trash told you to check your library folder.
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