The problem with DT isn't just that it presents too many options, it's that the interface itself is bad and the options are presented poorly. Providing a million knobs to fine tune things is not a substitute for smarter, more coarse adjustments. The vast majority of end users don't want to have to manually set the TCP flags for each network request in a web browser. Darktable is better if you're wanking about with an academic paper, but it's just a plain bad experience for photo editing.
With your example, the multitude of denoise filters is appropriate because one of them is actually the grain removal. When in fact grain and noise are two separate issues.
How about demosiacing? There are nine different algorithms to choose from. Great if you're writing a research paper, useless if you're actually working on a photo.
How about white balance? If you thought that twiddling the knobs in the "white balance" was the way to go, boy are you in for a surprise. That'll just trigger warnings and errors. What you really wanted was "color calibration". You didn't want to change the color temperature, you wanted to worry about gamut compression and illuminant.
Now let's say you're working on a photo and have already narrowed down some settings you'd like to commonly apply. Well. First you have to drop out of the "darkroom" module and go to the "lighttable" module. Then you have to accept that your edit history is going to get fucked because darktable doesn't store a history of individual changes but rather aggregates them often by module. So if you hit undo, you potentially undo more than just the "style" you just applied. But what style did you just apply? Darktable (intentionally) doesn't keep that information around at all. You can have the style add an instance name, but Darktable eventually gets confused if you go back and forth between different presets.
To add insult to injury, there's no A/B view in Darktable. Nine different demosiacing algorithms but no easy way to compare them.
Not to detract from the entirely justified criticism, but in case it helps somebody: The "Snapshot" feature in Darktable can be used to compare two renderings. It is a bit clumsy but this can be used to compare output of two algos.
That pretty well underscores my point, however. Darktable can do much of what Lightroom does, just in a more tedious manner. When confronted with this the DT devs respond with a "DT is just too powerful for most users". The biggest problem with DT isn't that it's too powerful it's that the interface is just dreadful.
With your example, the multitude of denoise filters is appropriate because one of them is actually the grain removal. When in fact grain and noise are two separate issues.
How about demosiacing? There are nine different algorithms to choose from. Great if you're writing a research paper, useless if you're actually working on a photo.
How about white balance? If you thought that twiddling the knobs in the "white balance" was the way to go, boy are you in for a surprise. That'll just trigger warnings and errors. What you really wanted was "color calibration". You didn't want to change the color temperature, you wanted to worry about gamut compression and illuminant.
Now let's say you're working on a photo and have already narrowed down some settings you'd like to commonly apply. Well. First you have to drop out of the "darkroom" module and go to the "lighttable" module. Then you have to accept that your edit history is going to get fucked because darktable doesn't store a history of individual changes but rather aggregates them often by module. So if you hit undo, you potentially undo more than just the "style" you just applied. But what style did you just apply? Darktable (intentionally) doesn't keep that information around at all. You can have the style add an instance name, but Darktable eventually gets confused if you go back and forth between different presets.
To add insult to injury, there's no A/B view in Darktable. Nine different demosiacing algorithms but no easy way to compare them.
Darktable misses the forest for the trees.