darktable 5.2.0 released

We’re proud to announce the new feature release of darktable, 5.2.0!

The github release is here: https://github.com/darktable-org/darktable/releases/tag/release-5.2.0.

To build from source, do not use the autogenerated tarball provided by GitHub on the release page, download our tar.xz file instead. If you’re just building for yourself without creating a package for some distribution, then using source code cloning in git is an even more convenient way.

The checksums are:

$ sha256sum darktable-5.2.0.tar.xz
53a46cd46ef7118485c4abf4ab407c181639bb8634243ec0ed1f7c1e8299bec6  darktable-5.2.0.tar.xz

$ sha256sum darktable-5.2.0-x86_64.dmg
bdffebcf758cd1ec6d4ee26eb031d52b1d7e4fe8fe000e728edb14bec91f3a35  darktable-5.2.0-x86_64.dmg

$ sha256sum darktable-5.2.0-arm64.dmg
8dabf58b6d76c04800be8ab540d3c2f1e772123279e22629a7396fe3e26273de  darktable-5.2.0-arm64.dmg

$ sha256sum darktable-5.2.0-arm64-13.5.dmg
8b35cff9d926bc4ae08ea88a09a2a45082756548c9f641afad0d785371dcf384  darktable-5.2.0-arm64-13.5.dmg

$ sha256sum darktable-5.2.0-win64.exe
4c1499e9d137efcd87e8b70fb6a0374f7139f1d0f0c49baeac9923ef7df7bdaa  darktable-5.2.0-win64.exe

$ sha256sum Darktable-5.2.0-x86_64.AppImage
294eff1d74d322cc5459221361ac7bdcdf0dc41529a02c165d0861e085978d58  Darktable-5.2.0-x86_64.AppImage

When updating from the stable 5.0 series, please bear in mind that your edits will be preserved during this process, but the new library and configuration will no longer be usable with 5.0.

You are strongly advised to take a backup first.

Important note: to make sure that darktable can keep on supporting the raw file format for your camera, please read this post on how/what raw samples you can contribute to ensure that we have the full raw sample set for your camera under CC0 license!

Since darktable 5.0:

1099 commits to darktable+rawspeed
386 pull requests handled
49 issues closed

Please note that the darktable documentation is not currently complete for release 5.2 and contributions are greatly appreciated. Please see the project documentation for more information on how to contribute.

The Big Ones

The following is a summary of the main features added to darktable 5.2. Please see the user manual for more details of the individual changes (where available).

View snapshots side-by-side with the current image, instead of as a partial overlay, by clicking the button next to “take snapshot”. The center viewport is divided in two equal panels and can be zoomed and panned (by dragging while holding the “a” key) as before. The dividing line can not be moved and any click without “a” rotates the layout.
The metadata module is now fully configurable and allows to add and maintain any tags which are supported by exiv2.
Added a new module “raster mask import”. After setting up a root folder containing PFM files, a file can be selected to be used as a raster mask, it is scaled to full image size. You can also define what combination of the RGB channels of that PFM file will be used for the raster mask.
Sigmoid module is now the default tone-mapper selected for new installation.
The export module has got a new section multi-preset export which allows to export the selected images with multiple presets in one single export run.

UI/UX Improvements

Replaced the zoom range widget, which controls the number of thumbnails displayed on the thumbnail table, with a spin button. This makes it easier to set the exact value.
In the 4 ways tab in Color Balance RGB, ctrl+click now picks the actual color while regular click continues to pick the opposite color. This gives users more flexibility and control when selecting hues.

Performance Improvements

Eliminated unnecessary GUI refreshes.
Improved user interface responsiveness for blending operations.

Other Changes

Removed the levels and contrast brightness saturation modules (which were deprecated in 2023) from the deprecated modules group. Since this group would be empty after that, it has also been removed for now.
Due to an upstream issue, exporting JPEG XL in 16-bit float at quality 100 is not currently mathematically lossless.
Allow reading of files in Cineon format (developed by Kodak) and DPX format (developed by SMPTE) with .cin and .dpx file extensions.
The “prefer performance over quality” preference setting has been removed.
A workaround for old broken AMD OpenCL drivers that has been in place for 12 years has been disabled by default. Hopefully more recent drivers don’t need it anymore and it caused problems with the translation of the user interface during startup, causing part of it to appear in English. If you have problems with OpenCL that you believe may be caused by this change, please do two things:
- Add the line opencl_force_c_locale=anything to your ~/.config/darktable/darktablerc file.
- If that solves your problem, please report the issue to GiHhub PR #18342, including information on the make of your GPU and the version of your drivers. We can then for the next release either by default re-enable the workaround for drivers that need them, or warn people with antiquated drivers that they need to update.
Presets can now be arranged in sub menus, like styles can, by inserting | in their name between levels. The shortcuts dialog/preferences tab now show these collapsible hierarchies for styles and presets too (and the bug that style shortcuts were not translated is fixed).
Give a hint for pending background work when darktable is closing.
Improved rendering output of Denoise Profile, Dither and Astrophoto Denoise on second window or in high quality processing mode.
Hide “reduce resolution of preview image” preference setting. This was a way to get better responsiveness on slow systems introduced in 2020, but at the same time it was making the color picker and mask support inaccurate (quality loss).
Improved quality of inpaint opposed highlight recovery algorithm for sRAW images.
Reduced haze removal visible difference between exports and HQ darkroom processing. For some images the algorithm fails to calculate correction parameters, this is reported via control log.
Lens info is now read from OM-System/Olympus image files taken with lenses without electronic data if this info is entered in the camera lens info settings dialog. The lens correction module will automatically find the lens, if it is supported by lensfun and the entered name matches the lensfun name, which can be seen in the lens selection drop down list.
Raster masks got internal improvements and now support the same refinement tools as all other masks including details threshold, feathering guide and radius, blurring radius and contrast. Some UI refinements for raster-masks.
The highlights module offers a raster mask with information about level above clip level.
Changing orientation (via the flip module) respects changes done in crop module.
The shown dimension while cropping now matches the default export dimension and keeps the exact chosen ratio.
In the history module item tooltip, fixed the formatting and scaling of the changes to match the values as seen in the modules themselves.
Added auto login to the piwigo export module. This can be enabled in the security section of the preferences.
Add 45x35 aspect ratio to the crop module, which is popular on IDs and passports.
Color assessment conditions: Changed total border width to relative scaling which should work well on small and big screens, independent of physical screen resolution, added pop-up window for parameterization and removed ISO12464 reference.
Improved visibility of masks in darkroom. This is controlled by the new hidden “darkroom/ui/develop_mask_mix” configuration option.
Add a new setting to change which images are taken into account for actions: By default, the image under the cursor takes priority. With this parameter enabled, the selected images will take priority, and the image under the cursor will only be taken into account to feed the information modules.
Added a tag icon on thumbnails to display the list of attached tags when hovering over it.
In the map view, it is possible to pan the entire track in one of the following ways: by double-clicking on the track segment list, by left-clicking on the list header, or by shortcut option.

Bug Fixes

Fixed sidecar writing if quitting from darkroom.
Fixed some rare race conditions while processing the pixelpipes.
Fixed collection filter presets based on capture time creating an empty widget.
Proper high quality demosaicing and details blending support for second window.
Fixed a bug that allowed NULL pointer dereference in tethering mode under certain conditions, which resulted in a crash.
Fixed darktable shutdown code so pending background jobs are properly finished and give a control log if there is pending work.
Fixed a crash in the import dialog when trying to add a new place to an empty places list.
Fixed bit-depth setting not saved in AVIF export presets.
Fixed reset button not working in the geotagging module. Also a loaded GPX track in the geotagging module is now properly removed.
Fixed darktable-cli crashing if the darktable database is locked.
Fixed image not properly layout in the print module after being rotated from Lighttable.
Fixed a bug where the changes in various edit fields are not saved correctly when the field loses the input focus.
Fixed incorrect reporting of whether a flash was fired in expansion variables $(EXIF.FLASH.ICON) and $(EXIF.FLASH) under certain conditions.
Fixed the edit style dialog to show all module’s duplicates. Also, when creating a new style we don’t show the whole history but only the last version of each module.
Fixed a bug in xtrans demosaicers that could feed NaNs into the pixelpipe.
Fixed display of image using a composite module when the modules are reordered.
Many TIFF loader fixes and improvements:
- Fixed crash on files for which libtiff would issue warnings or errors
- Fixed crash on files with missing SAMPLESPERPIXEL tag
- Enabled CMYK TIFF support
- Added support for loading TIFF with missing/undefined sample format
- Fixed reading of grayscale images with min-is-white interpretation (made them not inverted)
- Fixed regression in support of many more exotic variations of the TIFF format, such as tiled encoding, planar layout, uncommon bit depths (such as 12 or 14 bits, or less than 8)

Lua

API Version

API version is now 9.5.0

New Features

Added apply_sidecar to dt_lua_image_t so that a sidecar file can be loaded and applied to an image in lighttable.

Bug Fixes

Expanded width of preference boxes Lua Options so that long input is visible.

Add action support for Lua

Other Lua changes

Notes

When exporting to AVIF, EXR, JPEG XL, or XCF, selecting specific metadata (e.g. geo-tag or creator) is not currently possible. For AVIF, EXR, JPEG XL, and XCF formats, darktable will not include any metadata fields unless the user selects all of the checkboxes in the export module’s preference options.
Starting with release 4.8, macOS versions older than 13.5 are not supported.

Changed Dependencies

Mandatory

Optional

RawSpeed changes

OM System 14-bit high-resolution ORFs are now supported.
Canon EOS 5D Mark II crop was updated.
Fujifilm FinePix X100 crop was updated.
Samsung EX1 crop and white level were updated.
Sony ILCE-1M2 color matrix was updated.

Camera support, compared to 5.0

Base Support

Canon EOS R5 C (requires LibRaw 202502 and later)
Fujifilm GFX100RF (compressed)
Fujifilm GFX100S II (compressed)
Nikon COOLPIX P1100 (12bit-uncompressed)
Nikon Z5_2 (14bit-compressed)
OM System OM-3
Olympus SP510UZ
Panasonic DC-G97 (4:3)
Panasonic DC-G9M2 (4:3)
Panasonic DC-GH6 (4:3)
Panasonic DC-S1RM2 (3:2)
Panasonic DC-S5M2 (3:2)
Panasonic DC-S5M2X (3:2)
Panasonic DC-S9 (3:2)
Panasonic DC-TZ99 (4:3)
Panasonic DC-ZS99 (4:3)
Phase One IQ150
Phase One P40+
Sigma BF (DNG)
Sony DSC-RX100M7A
Sony ILCE-6100A
Sony ILCE-6400A
Sony ILME-FX3A
Sony ZV-1A
Sony ZV-E10M2

White Balance Presets

Fujifilm GFX100 II
OM System OM-3
Panasonic DC-S9

Noise Profiles

Fujifilm GFX 100
Leica SL2
OM System OM-3
Panasonic DC-S1RM2
Panasonic DC-S9
Sony ILCE-1M2

Missing Compression Mode Support

Apple ProRAW DNGs
CinemaDNG lossless (Blackmagic, some DJI, etc.) and lossy (Blackmagic)
DNG 1.7 using JPEG XL (Adobe enhanced, Samsung Expert RAW)
Fujifilm lossy RAFs
Nikon high efficiency NEFs
Phase One other than IIQ L
Sony downsized lossless ARWs (“M” for full-frame, “S” for full-frame & APS-C)

Suspended Support

Support for the following cameras is suspended because no samples are available on https://raw.pixls.us:

Creo/Leaf Aptus 22(LF3779)/Hasselblad H1
Fujifilm IS-1
Kodak EasyShare Z980
Leaf Aptus-II 5(LI300059)/Mamiya 645 AFD
Leaf Credo 60
Leaf Credo 80
Olympus SP320
Phase One IQ250
ST Micro STV680

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