{{More citations needed, date=May 2008 Digital "darkroom" is the hardware, software and techniques used in

digital photography Digital photography uses cameras containing arrays of electronic photodetectors interfaced to an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) to produce images focused by a lens, as opposed to an exposure on photographic film. The digitized image is sto ...

that replace the

darkroom A darkroom is used to process photographic film, to make prints and to carry out other associated tasks. It is a room that can be made completely dark to allow the processing of the light-sensitive photographic materials, including film and ph ...

equivalents, such as enlarging, cropping,

dodging and burning Dodging and burning are terms used in photography for a technique used during the printing process to manipulate the exposure of select areas on a photographic print, deviating from the rest of the image's exposure. In a darkroom print from a fi ...

, as well as processes that don't have a film equivalent. All photographs benefit from being developed. With film this could be done at the print lab, or an inexpensive home darkroom. With digital, many cameras are set up to do basic photo enhancement (contrast, color saturation) immediately after a picture is exposed, and to deliver a finished product. Higher end cameras, however, tend to give a flatter, more neutral image that has more data but less "pop," and needs to be developed in the digital darkroom. Setting up a film darkroom was primarily an issue of gathering the right chemicals and lighting; a digital darkroom consists of a powerful

computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as C ...

, a high-quality monitor setup ( dual monitors are often used) and software. A printer is optional; many photographers still send their images to a professional lab for better results and, in some cases, a better price. While each implementation is unique, most share several traits: an image editing workstation as the cornerstone, often a

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases sp ...

-driven

digital asset management Digital asset management (DAM) and the implementation of its use as a computer application is required in the collection of digital assets to ensure that the owner, and possibly their delegates, can perform operations on the data files. Termin ...

system like

Media Pro 1 Phase One Media Pro (formerly Microsoft Expression Media and iView Media Pro) was a commercial digital asset management cataloging program for Microsoft Windows and Apple OS X operating systems. It was the next version of iView MediaPro which Micr ...

to manage the collection as a whole, a

RAW Raw is an adjective usually describing: * Raw materials, basic materials from which products are manufactured or made * Raw food, uncooked food Raw or RAW may also refer to: Computing and electronics * .RAW, a proprietary mass spectrometry dat ...

conversion tool like

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Adobe Lightroom (officially Adobe Photoshop Lightroom) is a piece of image organization and image manipulation software developed by Adobe Inc. as part of the Creative Cloud subscription family. It is supported on Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, ...

Capture One Capture One (also known as Capture One Pro) is a photography software suite. Capture One offers Capture One Pro for desktop, a tool to edit, catalog raw image file process, and tether. Capture One works with raw files from many different digita ...

, and in many cases the software that came with the camera is used as an automated tool to "upload" photos to the computer. The machine itself is almost always outfitted with as much

RAM Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to: Animals * A male sheep * Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish People * Ram (given name) * Ram (surname) * Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director * RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch * Ra ...

as possible and a large storage subsystem - big hard drives.

RAID Raid, RAID or Raids may refer to: Attack * Raid (military), a sudden attack behind the enemy's lines without the intention of holding ground * Corporate raid, a type of hostile takeover in business * Panty raid, a prankish raid by male college ...

and external

USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply (interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A broad v ...

and

FireWire IEEE 1394 is an interface standard for a serial bus for high-speed communications and isochronous real-time data transfer. It was developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s by Apple in cooperation with a number of companies, primarily Sony an ...

drives are popular for storage. Most photographers consider a

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...

-burner essential for making long term backups, and keep at least one set off-site. The term was coined by

Gerard Holzmann Gerard J. Holzmann (born 1951) is a Dutch-American computer scientist and researcher at Bell Labs and NASA, best known as the developer of the SPIN model checker. Biography Holzmann was born in Amsterdam, Netherlands and received an Engineer' ...

Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mult ...

for a book entitled ''Beyond Photography: The Digital Darkroom'', in which he describes his pico image manipulation language (not to be confused with the pico programming language).

Software

The software employed in a digital darkroom varies greatly depending on the photographer's needs, budget and skill. The following are general areas and examples of software. Image Acquisition: entails downloading images from a camera or removable storage device or importing from a scanner.

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...

and

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...

both include an inbuilt wizard for importing images, including scanning images. Many professionals however may choose an importation tool built into image management software such as

Apple Aperture Aperture was an image organizer developed by Apple for the macOS operating system. It was first released in 2005 and was discontinued in 2015. The software handled a number of tasks common in post-production work such as importing and organiz ...

ACDSee ACDSee is an image organizer, viewer, and image editor program for Windows, macOS and iOS, developed by ACD Systems International Inc. ACDSee was originally distributed as a 16-bit application for Windows 3.0 and later supplanted by a 32-bit ver ...

, or

darktable Darktable (stylized as darktable) is a free and open-source photography application program and raw developer. Rather than being a raster graphics editor like Adobe Photoshop or GIMP, it comprises a subset of image editing operations specifically ...

. Image Library Management: involves managing images in a photographer's library and may extend to backing up images. Software such as Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, Apple Aperture and

are examples of major image management software. RAW Software: software, either stand alone or as part of image library management software that is designed to import and process

images. Most digital cameras capable of outputting RAW images will include a program or plug-in for this purpose such as Canon RAW Image Converter. Commercial Programs such as

and

, as well as open source projects such as

and

RawTherapee RawTherapee is application software for processing photographs in raw image formats, as created by many digital cameras. It comprises a subset of image editing operations specifically aimed at non-destructive post-production of raw photos and is ...

, include extensive support for RAW importation and processing. Image Editing: There are countless image editing suites, programs and tools available. Adobe Photoshop is among the most highly used in professional circles as are programs from

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company b ...

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

Macromedia Macromedia, Inc., was an American graphics, multimedia, and web development software company (1992–2005) headquartered in San Francisco, California, that made products such as Flash and Dreamweaver. It was purchased by its rival Adobe Systems ...

(now Adobe), ACD, Phase One and various open source projects. Consumers may use professional software or choose less expensive options such as

Adobe Photoshop Elements Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc. for Windows and macOS. It was originally created in 1988 by Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, the software has become the industry standard not only in raste ...

, Capture One Express or free open source options such as

The GIMP GIMP ( ; GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a free and open-source raster graphics editor used for image manipulation (retouching) and image editing, free-form drawing, transcoding between different image file formats, and more specialized task ...

. Camera Control Software: software that can remotely control a camera from a computer connected via USB (tethered shooting). Normally included as utilities with camera, these allow photographers to control the camera from a nearby computer. Cameras such as the

Canon 40D The Canon EOS 40D is a 10.1-megapixel semi-professional digital single-lens reflex camera. It was initially announced on 20 August 2007 and was released at the end of that month. It is the successor of the Canon EOS 30D, and is succeeded by th ...

include such software and a live view mode so that a user may use a computer to control numerous functions of the camera while seeing a virtual viewfinder onscreen.

is one of the pioneer software programs used for tethered shooting which is very useful especially for studio photographers. Capture Pilot is a photography app with camera control. The photographer is able to use a virtual camera display on an iPhone or iPad to remotely fire the camera and control capture parameters such as ISO sensitivity, exposure mode, shutter speed, aperture, exposure compensation. Capture Pilot requires

to function.

Hardware

As image size and resolution increases, so do the requirements for hardware in a digital darkroom. Computer: A computer in a digital darkroom typically have a generous amount of RAM, often 4GB or more, coupled with discrete graphics and a powerful

multicore processor A multi-core processor is a microprocessor on a single integrated circuit with two or more separate processing units, called cores, each of which reads and executes program instructions. The instructions are ordinary CPU instructions (such a ...

. For much of the 1980s and 90s,

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...

based systems were dominant in the digital imaging market as Adobe's powerful new Photoshop software had only then been developed for the Mac. However, Windows-based systems such as

Dell Dell is an American based technology company. It develops, sells, repairs, and supports computers and related products and services. Dell is owned by its parent company, Dell Technologies. Dell sells personal computers (PCs), servers, data ...

's high-end Precision range have become increasingly popular in recent times; better value for money than Apple's high-end Mac Pro and a more familiar

Operating System An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

are both factors that affect the choice of many prospective buyers of photo-editing systems. Cameras/Scanners: Digital cameras and image scanners are increasing in quality, including the amount of colour they can capture and output. Many newer digital cameras can support wider colour spaces such as

Adobe RGB The Adobe RGB (1998) color space or opRGB is a color space developed by Adobe Systems, Inc. in 1998. It was designed to encompass most of the colors achievable on CMYK color printers, but by using RGB primary colors on a device such as a compu ...

and have higher resolution

analog-to-digital converter In electronics, an analog-to-digital converter (ADC, A/D, or A-to-D) is a system that converts an analog signal, such as a sound picked up by a microphone or light entering a digital camera, into a digital signal. An ADC may also provide ...

s; 14 bits rather than the common 12 bits. Displays: Professionals may use premium displays from companies such as

EIZO is a Japanese visual technology company, founded in March 1968, which manufactures display products and other solutions for markets such as business, healthcare, graphics, air traffic control, and maritime. The company is headquartered in Ha ...

and

which are capable of displaying a wider range of colours than consumer oriented devices. Printers: In addition to computers and displays, digital darkrooms may include printing equipment, ranging from smaller size printers for proofing to large format productions printers. Scanner and studio photographic equipment may also be included.

Digimage Arts program

Digital Darkroom is also the trademarked name of an

image editing Image editing encompasses the processes of altering images, whether they are digital photographs, traditional photo-chemical photographs, or illustrations. Traditional analog image editing is known as photo retouching, using tools such a ...

program for the

published by Digimage Arts.Bot generated title -->
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References

Digital photography Photo software