Recommendations (1/2):

• blobdrop (Linux specific) -- 'Just drag this file. From what window? no window, just drag this file.' . CLI DnD source (there are other apps, this is the only one that works for me). Add some xdotool sleep .25 getactivewindow click 1 to also automate the 'dropping' part of the process. My use: copy a file to the clipboard, drop it into DarkTable.

• DarkTable has been one of those rare 'oh, I've been doing things with one hand tied behind my back until now' experiences. Digital lighttable and darkroom. Yes, it's a photography app. The ability to just try out different crops, value distributions, and colorings, then easily compare and tag them has been really helpful for art. Shoutout the 'focus peaking mode' especially -- try throwing art you like at it and observing the patterns of color-coded edge strength.

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savageorange said:

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I feel like actual art apps miss out on the 'contextualization', with a heavy focus on the 'individual document'. Doing some crops in DarkTable helps me notice what things need fixing, then I can go back and fix them in the base file.
(changes will show up when I restart DT; or maybe sooner, but I didn't figure out how to refresh the cache yet)

Definitely high skill ceiling -- crazy powerful app IMO. Bruce Williams has a youtube channel that explains DT really well and in-depth. Got to my current point in 13 days with the help of that.
Also some really intelligent and interesting technical choices (eg. every single tag can have a 'custom sort order' associated with it -- user defines ordering via the usual DnD means)

Would be really interested to see if anyone uses DT to help designing comics -- seems like it would actually be extremely helpful for that.

• The Gold Bug . Current earworm :)

@savageorange: slightly unrelated but i wish darktable was an actually competent lightroom competitor instead of being complete fucking dogshit, in a similar vain to GIMP.