Beating Fuji jpegs with Darktable

Jesper - December 4, 2024 - 3 mins read

I really love Fujifilm cameras for a whole host of reasons. One of them being their straight out of camera jpegs. Yes I know – you have probably never heard that statement before. The main reason for my love of straight out of camera jpegs, is that I really dislike editing images. In part because I like to spend less time in front of a screen. But digging a bit deeper and sprinkling a pinch of introspection on top, the real reason is that I am not very good at it. Straight out of camera jpegs beats what I am able to achieve in post processing. Hence of course I prefer the option that not only produces a quicker result but also a better result. I am also putting up some hoops for myself to pass through as I use Ubuntu as the main operating system and hence cannot easily use the “standard” editing software solutions. This has “left” me with Darktable as my preferred editor and I have not really been able to get the full hang of it. Recently I made a breakthrough. I was finally able to “beat” the straight out of camera black & white images from my Fujifilm X-Pro3 with an edited version from Darktable. Although this may sound like a small victory it is a substantial step for me. I have not been able to get a sharper, more detailed and less noisy image, that still had the overall feel that I wanted, from an edited Raw file.

X-Pro3, 23mm F2, Edited Raw

X-Pro3, 23mm F2, Tri-X recipe

I have been using a variant of a Tri-X “recipe” for my black and white images for the last couple of years. For a lot of scenarios it makes amazing images straight out of camera. Especially scenes where there is a very clear subject in the foreground. But where I have found it lacking is in scenarios where the subject is further in the background. Then the grain that I love for close-up subjects becomes too pronounced and combined with the contrast washes out the subject if it is placed further in the background.

X-Pro3, 23mm F2, Edited Raw

X-Pro3, 23mm F2, Tri-X recipe

X-Pro3, 23mm F2, Edited Raw

X-Pro3, 23mm F2, Tri-X recipe

Writing this and inserting the images with the caption I can see that once the images are compressed and shown on a smaller screen, then the difference becomes less pronounced. But on a bigger screen in full resolution I can really see a difference. The added benefit of this raw-editing is of course that I can apply the same procedures to files from my Nikon ZF camera and produce coherent results.

Nikon ZF, 28mm F2.8, Raw edited

What the attentive reader will by now have realized is that I used the Nikon ZF image as “header/feature” image for my blog post on Fujifilm. You cannot trust anything on the internet these days. I plan on doing a very long write-up on my Nikon ZF at some point as I have had the most schizophrenic journey with it. Deciding to sell it one day, loving it the next. Over and over again. Now for over 6 months as far as I can see. I think I have decided to fully keep it by now. But I ave not finished my long document which I added paragraphs to every time I reconsidered. So at some point I will try to condense and write a coherent piece on the Nikon ZF. Until then. Have a wonderful day!