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We're proud to announce the new feature release of darktable, 5.6.0!

The github release is here: https://github.com/darktable-org/darktable/releases/tag/release-5.6.0.

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-5.6.0.tar.xz
??? darktable-5.6.0.tar.xz

$ sha256sum darktable-5.6.0-x86_64.dmg
??? darktable-5.6.0-x86_64.dmg

$ sha256sum darktable-5.6.0-arm64.dmg
??? darktable-5.6.0-arm64.dmg

$ sha256sum darktable-5.6.0-arm64-13.5.dmg
??? darktable-5.6.0-arm64-13.5.dmg

$ sha256sum darktable-5.6.0-win64.exe
??? darktable-5.6.0-win64.exe

$ sha256sum darktable-5.6.0-x86_64.AppImage
???  darktable-5.6.0-x86_64.AppImage

When updating from the stable 5.4 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 5.4.

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 5.4:

  • ??? commits to darktable+rawspeed
  • ??? pull requests handled
  • ?? issues closed

Please note that the darktable documentation is not currently complete for release 5.4 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 5.6. Please see the user manual for more details of the individual changes (where available).

  • Added optional AI subsystem (build with -DUSE_AI=ON). AI features are disabled by default in preferences and can be enabled at runtime without restarting. When disabled, no ONNX Runtime libraries are loaded and no AI-related activity occurs. Models are downloaded from a configurable repository and managed through the AI preferences tab.

  • Added AI object mask tool in the darkroom mask manager. Uses SAM2.1 and SegNext models for interactive object segmentation — click on an object to generate a precise mask. Supports both foreground and background prompt points with iterative refinement. The encoder runs once per image (with optional GPU acceleration via CoreML, CUDA, MIGraphX, DirectML, or OpenVINO), and the lightweight decoder produces masks interactively.

  • Added neural restore module in the lighttable/darkroom sidebar for AI-based image denoise and upscale. Supports NIND UNet denoiser and BSRGAN 2x/4x super-resolution models via the ONNX backend. Features include an interactive before/after split preview with area picker, a detail recovery slider (wavelet-based texture restoration for denoise), batch processing with tiled inference, and TIFF output with automatic library import and image grouping. GPU acceleration is supported through CUDA, ROCm/MIGraphX, DirectML, OpenVINO, and CoreML execution providers.

  • Added colorharmonizer module that applies color harmony corrections in UCS color space, rotating hues toward a target harmony structure (complementary, split-complementary, triadic, tetradic, etc.). The saturation of target hues can be controlled, and custom-defined harmonies with an arbitrary number of anchor nodes at any angle are also supported. Options are provided to control the intensity of the effect, protect neutral colors, and apply a Gaussian filter to smooth harsh transitions. The module can be synced with the vectorscope in RYB mode, with harmony and rotation angles controllable directly from the vectorscope. Both CPU and OpenCL (GPU) implementations are provided.

UI/UX Improvements

  • In the crop module, the crop aspect ratio is added to the dimensions in the crop area preview.

  • Added the ability to pin any image from the filmstrip in the second darkroom window. Images can be pinned directly from the 2nd window, via drag&drop from the filmstrip and via keyboard shortcuts. Two new actions are the added:

    • Toggle pinned state for currently developed image
    • Pin current image in second view

  • Allow switching between point/area color picker directly on canvas with a simple Ctrl+Click.

  • When moving pictures from a collection we switch to the target collection only if we did not change manually to another collection during the move and the current collection is now empty.

  • When copying pictures from a collection we switch to the target collection only if we did not change manually to another collection during the copy.

  • In Color Calibration module the calibration box is now initialized on the current bounding box. That is, if a zoom is effective the calibration box will be fully visible and won't require to zoom out.

  • Make the slider background darker to gain some contrast making them easier to differentiate from the other labels.

  • Introduce a condensed mode for the panel's controls widgets. This mode is off by default ans can be select in miscellaneous interface preference.

  • Added a 2-up scope showing both the waveform and vectorscope. This allows for a simultaneous understanding of both the lightness and chromaticity of an image.

  • Support rendering and caching higher resolution (6K or 8K) thumbnail or full-screen preview images in lighttable view. Previously, for displays larger than a 4K, darktable would render a full-resolution preview then downscale it. These higher resolution previews also allow for less jumpy zooming in of high megapixel files.

  • Increase the resolution of the darkroom view's preview-resolution images from 720x450 to 1440x900. This produces better data for various situations, including in scopes and the color picker.

  • Use darktable icon in desktop environment when running under Wayland on a KDE-like system. Previously the window manager would use a generic icon.

  • Use server-side decorations (SSD) for windows when the user's window manager is capable of this, to make window decorations consistent with other applications. If SSD is not implemented (Gnome/Mutter under Wayland), use client-side decorations (CSD).

  • Added a welcome screen to help users understand and set the most relevant configuration options on the first run.

  • Added touchpad gestures in darkroom, including pinch zoom in/out and two-finger panning. Follow-up fixes refined input source handling to keep panning limited to touchpad smooth-scroll input.

  • Enabled shortcuts for some existing buttons in duplicate manager, snapshots, and AgX modules.

  • Enabled shortcuts to cycle through module groups, modules and module instances.

  • Added a configuration option to toggle the filmstrip auto-center behavior. Enabled shortcuts to toggle filmstrip auto-centering and to explicitly recenter the filmstrip on the current image.

  • The radius calculated for capture sharpening is now using only the central 60% of the image as lenses are mostly sharper here. For xtrans sensors the radius has been slightly increased as images tend to be more blurred.

  • The tone equalizer now visualizes an invalid curve (solver maths) also for old edits.

  • Add --library <path> command-line option to darktable-cli that allows specifying a library.db database file to read image processing history stacks from instead of requiring XMP sidecar files, for people who do not use XMP sidecar files.

  • Added display name to the available sort options for film rolls.

  • When creating a new workspace from the workspace dialog, settings can optionally be copied from an existing workspace as a template. The workspace-specific configuration is duplicated with paths, labels, collection history, and similar keys cleared so the new workspace keeps its own library database instead of reusing the source library.

Performance Improvements

  • Increased performance for OpenCL guided filter by internal tiling.

Other Changes

  • Added 2 apertures, f/0.95 and f/1.2, to the aperture section of the presets dialogue.

  • Added Canon Automatic Lighting Optimizer support for CR3-format images.

  • Added PNG support (8/16-bit) for external raster masks.

  • Removed Neo Intel and pocl OpenCL drivers from blacklist, the AMD-APP driver has been added as not supported by AMD for 10yrs.

  • In the styles module, a new option has been added to hide the preview in the tooltip. Additionally, a module preference now allows you to change the preview size, with two options available: default and large.

  • Improved debugging option --dump-diff-pipe for those of you interested in OpenCL code and debugging.

  • Added the possibility to vectorize the bitmap displayed in the External Raster Mask module. The vectorized mask is added into the Mask Manager module as a path object ready to be used as any other masks.

  • Remove the (unbound by default) keyboard shortcut to cycle through each histogram mode, and within each mode to cycle through its options. This was a relic of when there were fewer scopes and they were not accessible by shortcuts.

  • Increased the limit on the number of offset days in geotagging module to correct an incorrect camera timestamps from 99 to 9999 days.

  • Added a new collection filter for image duplicates.

  • The masks in restricted edit mode are now displayed on-canvas as dashed lines to ensure proper feedback.

  • Several improvements to AgX:

    • Default hue preservation is now 60% in most presets, reducing strong hue shifts in bright highlights.
    • Default contrast has been increased and toe/shoulder power tuned to more closely match sigmoid's defaults.
    • Added sigmoid-like presets that closely match sigmoid's tone curve.
    • Removed the punchy presets (except for the blender-like variant, whose parameters still follow Blender's settings).
    • Improved the toe/shoulder warning tooltips for clarity.
    • The scene-referred preset is no longer applied exclusively to HDR images.
    • Primaries selection is now visible even when "disable adjustments" is checked.

  • For non-raw images with gamma corrected data we do the initial scaling in linear mode for less artifacts.

  • Added a new option to filter images by capture month in collections and collection filters.

  • Added --library option to darktable-cli to use the image library instead of XMP files for reading processing history.

Bug Fixes

  • Properly apply the iop-order when applying a style at export time. This also fixes the style preview when flying over styles in the style module.

  • Drawn mask fixes:

    • Masks do not shift position when crop is toggled on/off.
    • Pixel-perfect node hovering and editing up to maximum (16x) magnification.
    • Fix Bezier handle misassignment in vectorized masks causing distorted curves on complex shapes (AI object masks and external raster masks).

  • If a tag category is marked as private, all tags and subcategories under it are also treated as private.

  • Fix occasional geolocation assignment errors in darktable's locations module involving polygon-shaped locations

  • Prefetch correctly sized thumbnails when user has display scaling enabled.

  • Honor the default configuration preference "never" for "use raw instead of jpeg from size": for unaltered images, always generate thumbnails/previews from embedded JPEGs rather than processing the raw file. If you prefer the prior behavior, which processed the raw file rather than upscale the embedded JPEG for higher resolution thumbnails/previews, use the new configuration option "auto".

  • In Quick Access Panel, "go to full version..." now reliably scrolls to the correct module.

  • In filmstrip, keyboard shortcuts for rating/color labels/reject now apply to the thumbnail under the cursor (including overlay elements) instead of the currently opened image.

  • Fix for usage of incorrect color profiles on secondary monitors on Windows.

  • Fixed unexpected localization of user's defined preset name and properly localize the module name displayed in the preset dialog.

  • Fixed a possible transient display of the crawler dialog while the splash screen is active.

  • Fixed improper mask mode displayed in the mask manager menu.

  • Fixed an issue where while creating a mask from mask manager and still in creation mode the mask was not following the mouse when moving over the darkroom. It was then not possible to place the mask at the right position.

  • Fixed an issue of style migration. A style created before a new module is introduced and integrating a specific module order was not properly handled. We now properly migrate the embedded module order to ensure all modules are described.

  • Fixed an occasional bug that dragging exposure change regions in histogram, waveform, or RGB parade scopes would adjust in the opposite of the expected direction. This occurred when the user had not yet selected a module group containing the exposure module.

  • Fixed a bug which showed an extraneous toast message in the center view when dragging in the vectorscope.

  • Fixed a wrong WB when reloading defaults after changing manually the WB. This was due to a missing reset letting the Color Calibration module starting with a wrong WB.

  • Avoid speckles when creating drawn masks using the vectorize option in the Raster File module.

  • Fixed spurious export size is reduced because of memory restrictions issue.

  • Fixed darktable on startup failing to delete left over database lockfiles for non default workspaces.

  • Fixed a rare bug which appeared when scale-pixels module was moved above the tone-mapper while applying a shift in "rotate and perspective" module.

  • Fixed white and middle-grey patches being swapped for Datacolor SpyderCheckr 48 in the Color Calibration module.

Lua

API Version

  • API version is now 9.6.0

New Features

  • N/A

Bug Fixes

  • N/A

Add action support for Lua

Other Lua changes

  • N/A

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 5.4, macOS versions older than 14.0 are no longer supported on Apple Silicon Macs, nor older than macOS 15 on Intel Macs.

Changed Dependencies

Mandatory

  • potrace 1.16 is a new requirement

Optional

  • ONNX Runtime 1.17+ for AI features

  • libarchive for AI model extraction

RawSpeed changes

  • N/A

Camera support, compared to 5.4

Base Support

  • N/A

White Balance Presets

  • N/A

Noise Profiles

  • N/A

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 ARW 4.0/5.0 downsized lossless ("M" for full-frame, "S" for full-frame & APS-C)
  • Sony ARW 6.0 compressed and compressed (HQ)

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

Translations

  • ???