darktable 4.8.0 released

We’re proud to announce the new feature release of darktable, 4.8.0!

The github release is here: https://github.com/darktable-org/darktable/releases/tag/release-4.8.0.

As always, please don’t use the autogenerated tarball provided by github, but only our tar.xz file. The checksums are:

$ sha256sum darktable-4.8.0.tar.xz
419849e9015270e4075f2341c6b5532d3d1cccccfa8f19592cb2ea3ad17f9255  darktable-4.8.0.tar.xz
$ sha256sum darktable-4.8.0-x86_64.dmg (macOS 13.5)
bded6986f72af8901f0fa28686d6d06e6b766d831c29abe8a0163b5a503a50e6  darktable-4.8.0-x86_64.dmg
$ sha256sum darktable-4.8.0-arm64.dmg (macOS 14.0)
628442bf336e4f51fdf39f8b144372cbd855fe7b17812e359b5f8f3e6b6d99fb  darktable-4.8.0-arm64.dmg
$ sha256sum darktable-4.8.0-win64.exe
a1396ca8640df4b25ae41ef0dec1649e2c9f33018e955090e770737abf9d2160  darktable-4.8.0-win64.exe

When updating from the stable 4.6 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 4.6.

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 4.6:

1484 commits to darktable+rawspeed
513 pull requests handled
60 issues closed

Please note that the darktable documentation is not currently complete for release 4.8 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 4.8. Please see the user manual for more details of the individual changes (where available).

Introduced the color equalizer module to control hue/lightness/saturation based on colors. This is a (partial) scene-referred replacement for the legacy color zones module.
Two new modules have been introduced to support image composition.
- Enlarge Canvas: As the name implies, this module can be used to add areas on the left, right, top or bottom of the image. The new area can be assigned a different color to help masking if necessary. The new areas can the be filled with the Retouch module by copying some other part of the image, using Liquify if the area is small or the new module overlay.
- Overlay: This module can be used to add new content on the image by overlaying pixels from the current image or another image. The overlay content is defined by a drag-and-drop from the filmstrip to the Overlay module. This new content can be scaled, rotated and shifted horizontally or vertically. Using a mask, it can be used to fill an area created by the Enlarge Canvas or to add some new part into the image using masking. A common example is to overlay multiply pictures of a firework to create a bigger one.
Implemented a toggle switch for the darkroom mode, forcing the pixel-pipe processing to use the whole image data instead of just the area displayed. This allows the user to inspect processed data without errors introduced via internal scaling, and equals what we get by exporting in “high quality resampling” mode.

Performance Improvements

Rewrote the clustering code in map view for dramatically faster performance on large collections (mapping should now be usable with more than one million geotagged images selected).

Other Changes

Changed the sort order of tags to a natural and case-insensitive order.
Added Apple Keychain password storage backend for macOS devices.
Collect module sorting has been integrated into the module’s header instead of a preference. All collections can now be sorted easily by a single click on the sort button.
Removed “unrestricted” mode from darktable’s preferences resources for safety. This setting has been proved to be unsafe in many cases. It can still be enabled via the resource file if needed.
Added buttons next to the snapshots to allow restoring it as the new history. Also, the snapshots are now supporting drawn masks. It is possible to visualize the difference between the main darkroom view and a snapshot with different masking for example.
Using Right-Click on color label icons (bottom toolbar of lighttable) it is possible to add a description to color labels. This is an handy way of remembering the color label usage in the workflow.
Removed the AI options in color calibration module because of mediocre quality.
It is now possible to import images in-place in a GVfs mount on GNU/Linux.
Added a dashed outline of the currently selected area in the print view.
Added a few more EXIF fields to the image information module: White balance, exposure program, flash and metering mode. These get filled automatically for new imports. For existing photos, please perform a “refresh EXIF” on the selected images.
Added Windows credential manager password storage backend.
Added mask blending to the highlights reconstruction module. The generated raster mask holds the amount of reconstructed data and can be used with all algorithms.
Color picker positions are defined by image coordinates instead of output. They will stay at the same location, whatever distorting modules are used.
The history autosaving might be disabled because of slow drives, this is now done per image instead of globally.
Added support for DNG files requiring the CameraCalibration tags for correct white balancing. (Some google pixel cameras for example). Requires re-reading exif metadata.
Improved efficiency of the quick access panel by allowing modules to be reset and presets to be applied without opening the full module. Added more controls by default to further reduce the need to leave the panel while editing.
Added more collection types and filters for flash, white balance, exposure program, metering mode and image grouping.

Removed the old image grouping collection type and filter, which gave confusing results.
Added support for CMYK profiled histogram.
The map view can now be scrolled with the arrow keys (left/right/up/down) in small steps and in combination with Ctrl in bigger steps.

Bug Fixes

Fixed copying of multiple instances to ensure the proper order is applied when pasting to a new image.
Fixed raw chromatic aberration on Clang based systems.
Fixed backthumb crawler for deleted history. We make sure that the crawler is aware of a deleted history and so will regenerate the thumbs as expected.
Fixed drawn masks visualizing in darkroom after pixelpipe module have changed. The drawn masks will now be properly adjusted if there is new distortion on the pipe, for example. This was not the case until one was editing the mask.
Fixed memleak while importing avif images.
Fixed mask blending for sraw images while in IOP_CS_RAW colorspace.
Fixed OpenCL device locking for modules calling dt_dev_pixelpipe_process().
Fixed the UI becoming unresponsive due to very large history.
Fixed UCS colorspace maths, avoiding div-by-zero and out-of-gamut errors.
Fixed a number of issues with guided filter blending and internal mask distortions.
Fixed some issues related to cropping module and output/export dimensions.
Fixed export processing when high quality is disabled and upscale is set.
Fixed camera mounting when GPhoto2 internally reports a single attached camera multiple times.
Fixed a issue preventing export to recent Piwigo’s version.
Fixed many stability issues for better overall robustness.

Lua

API Version

API version is now 9.3.0

Bug Fixes

Add action support for Lua

Other Lua changes

Upgraded internal Lua to 5.4.6
Added duplicate_image_with_history function to darktable.database
button widget - added halign member to horizontally position the label
button widget - added image member to use an image as the button label
button widget - added image_align to horizontally position the image
box widget - added expand member to control cells being expanded to fill the width of the box
box widget - added fill member to control if the widgets fill the cell
box widget - added padding member to control padding size of the cells
added active_preset member to darktable.gui.libs to get the lib’s active preset name

Notes

Exporting with up-scaling and whithout using the high quality option will result in corrupt images.
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.
Release 4.8 drops support for macOS versions older than 13.5.

Changed Dependencies

Mandatory

Minimum libpng version 1.5.x is now required
Bump Exiv2 requirement to 0.27.2
Minimum pugixml version 1.5 is now required
Minimum libcurl version 7.56 is now required

Optional

RawSpeed changes

Fujifilm X-Trans 4 based and newer cameras now use the vendor supplied crop

Camera support, compared to 4.6

Base Support

Canon EOS R100 (requires LibRaw 202403 and later)
Canon EOS R50 (requires LibRaw 202403 and later)
Canon EOS R6 Mark II (requires LibRaw 202403 and later)
Canon EOS R8 (requires LibRaw 202403 and later)
Canon EOS Ra (requires LibRaw 202403 and later)
Fujifilm FinePix S9600fd
Fujifilm X100VI (compressed)
GoPro FUSION (DNG)
Leica SL3 (DNG)
OM System OM-1 Mark II
Panasonic DC-TZ95D (4:3)
Panasonic DMC-FX150 (4:3, 3:2, 16:9)
Panasonic DMC-FZ28 (3:2)
Phase One P25+
Phase One P45+
Ricoh GR III HDF (DNG)
Ricoh GR IIIx HDF (DNG)
Sony ILCE-9M3
Sony UMC-R10C

White Balance Presets

Canon EOS R6 Mark II (requires LibRaw 202403 and later)
Fujifilm X-H2
OM System OM-1 Mark II
OM System OM-5

Noise Profiles

Canon EOS R6 Mark II (requires LibRaw 202403 and later)
Fujifilm GFX 50R
OM System OM-1 Mark II
OM System OM-5
Phase One IQ180
Sony ILCE-9M3
Sony ZV-1

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
OM System 14-bit high resolution ORFs
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
Minolta DiMAGE 5
Olympus SP320
Phase One IQ250
Sinar Hy6/ Sinarback eXact
ST Micro STV680

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