Darktable : quickly visualize several styles

Question

I have downloaded a series of darktable styles and I want to quickly visualize interactively the output of each one on a picture by clicking on one style after the other.

I thought that I would be able to apply the styles one after the other in the darkroom but I can't find how to apply styles when I'm in the darkroom...

In the lighttable part I had to increase the vignette size to its maximum and then I can apply a style from the "styles" menu with a double click and visualize the result. But when I apply another style it will not reset the preciding style and sometimes simply add on top of it so it is difficult to understand the effect of each style separately. So I have discard the history in the "history stack" menu and confirm with "yes" on a pop-up window before applying each style. Not very smooth and easy...

Any easier way with less clicks ?

Also I'm wondering if you can apply a style while in the darkroom. It would be easier to visualize the history and if needed click on "original" to discard the history without popup window...

Answer 1

The interface for applying styles in darkroom mode is the button on the left side of the bottom toolbar below the image display (if the toolbar is not visible, click the white triangle to toggle it). After applying and viewing the style, you can use the Ctrl+z shortcut to revert to the previous history stack before applying a different style.

If you want to easily compare a few styles at the same time, you can create duplicates of the image in lighttable mode, and apply a different style to each. You should duplicate the image with a basic default history stack, since this is probably what the creator of the style intended it to be applied to (but there's no way to be certain, unless it's stated explicitly). Many of the downloadable styles are quite old, and may not use the best available features in recent darktable releases, so keep that in mind.