Darktable has just received a massive version 4.2 update bringing with it a whole host of new and updated features. The summary of major highlights is down below and you can see the complete list of changes over on GitHub, but some of the much-welcomed new features include two new highlight preservation modes to reduce the effects of clipping and automatic lens distortion correction straight from EXIF data. Other major additions include a reworked pixelpipe caching feature with improved speed and reduced memory footprint, previews of presets without applying them, an improved duplicates manager, focus peaking, and a new Sigmoid display transform alternative to the filmic and base curve modules that allows you to expand or contract the dynamic range of the scene.
One of the biggest features for many photographers will be the two new highlight recovery modes, which are “inpaint opposed” and “segmentation based”. Inpaint opposed, says the Darktable team, “has proved very stable and provides good results in many images” and has become the new default mode for dealing with highlights instead of just clipping them completely. It provides a pretty natural highlight falloff instead of just a hard edge from pure white to the rest of your scene. The rest of the feature highlights look like this: You can read the complete set of changes with the 4.2 update over on GitHub, but if you’re an existing Darktable user or you simply want to get out of the monthly subscription model cycle and still be able to edit your photos, the new update is well worth checking out. It’s also available on GitHub, or you can get it from the Darktable website for Windows, Mac and Linux. Are you a Darktable user? [via DPReview]
