I gave Darktable a try (never used Lightroom), and as an amateur, it is still kind of hard for me to achieve something better than the "out of camera" JPGs when post-processing RAW photos from my rather old Canon DSLR camera.
I don't want to do elaborate stuff like working with masks / applying filters to sections of the photo only.
Only thing I usually do is increase saturation, and, rarely, brightness/aperture. Saturation is maxed in OOC-JPGs anyways leading to clipping if it's increased more for the overall image.
And what I almost forgot, lense correction and rotating towards drawable vertical or horizontal lines are great features.
So what it does for me is basically barely noticably adjusting the saturation/contrast values, fixing the horizon and applying lense correction.
So what it does for me is basically barely noticably adjusting the saturation/contrast values, fixing the horizon and applying lense correction.