I have a collection of approx. 24´000 pictures organized and developed in darktable.
Just about half a year ago, I discovered, that a remarkable number of the pictures show serious discoloring. I attach on to show the appearance:
When I first discovered this, I then tried to correct it. Foor this I have in the darkroom to go prior to filmic RGB, then the picture looks as follows:
Off course, I could do that to these destroyed pictures, however I found out meanwhile, that these are thousands, and I do not want to make things even worse.
My present installation is an appimage with darktable 4.8.1, and I work on an iMac.
it would probably good if you could attach one of those xmp files which caused the breakage with the recent versions. also if you can find out with which old version it was written, it could be an useful information.
also you say you work on an imac but this looks like linux. so this is linux on an imac and not macos right?
It seems like there is a fix in the current code…if you don’t want to try the recent code to confirm as @darix says you could share a sidecar and raw to allow others to confirm for you…
Thank you darix and priot: First of all, my iMac is on Linux (Mint) and I have switched over from Adobe Lightroom in 2018.
I have gone through the answers, and I cannot see any solution, maybe this is due to my not so well-trained english.
I do however include the xmp of the picture I enclosed in the first mail: xmp von 15.11.09_Fe_Canarias_Gomera_104.pdf (51.7 KB)
I defer to the experts trying to answer your question here, but could you share an image and the xmp file as I would like to test it with the new code. I know I saw this problem once and the problem got rectified. I want to see if it works on my windows 4.9 version of DT.
If you experience the same issue as described here
which is solved by the fix mentioned by @priort , then 4.9 / upcoming 5.0 will solve the problem you experience. I checked it with quite a lot of my old edits. It works fine again.
I just grabbed the txt fromt the PDF and made an xmp…applied it and it still has the issue…I am wondering if the fix would have opened the old edit correctly but once it gets opened and updated in 4.8.1 then the weird values in filmic just seem to get passed…at least it did on 4.8.1 and last night’s nightly…
For Linux, download the AppImage file, make it executable (chmod +x at the console, or via your file manager: right click, Properties and make executable or similar):
Once installed, there’s no going back to 4.8.1 without manually restoring the database files (a backup will be made automatically before the upgrade).
Thank you Kofa
Does loading this AppImage of darktable 4.9 (Nightly) update the existing installation, or would it run parallel as a separate installation to which I could import a folder of the most damaged pictures and find out whether it works well.
When I open Gear lever, my managing tool for the AppImages, it says “no updates found”, which I interpret so, that a new installation of darktable would be installed when I run the download of the Appimage. Am I correct?
I could then still decide to wait until end of December and update the proper way which would make it easier.
Regards Peter
An AppImage is just a file. I don’t know what tool you use to manage your packages; for AppImage files, I don’t use any package manager or similar tool, I just download them, make them executable and run them. You’ll have to consult your distribution’s documentation.
Using command-line arguments (see darktable docs), you can separate it completely from your other installation (different configuration, database, cache). However, unless you use different directories for the images, XMP sidecars will probably still cause problems, as those written by the new version may not be (most probably won’t be) compatible with the older version of darktable.
According to your recommendation, I downloaded the nightly build of darktable 4.9.0. First to my laptop, which I use as a kind of data backup and on which I did no work since late September. To my satisfaction, all the pictures I found corrupted in the tabletop were in perfect order, meaning that the database of the laptop is in order. I then did download the 4.9.0 onto the tabletop as well, however the files remained corrupted.
I think, therefore, that the reason for the difficulties lies in the database of the tabletop. Now my question, because I am not really an expert in data processing:
Would it be advisable to copy the database of the laptop (~/.config/darktable and ~/.cache/darktable) to the correspondent folders on the tabletop? This is a procedure, which I normally do for data backup, mentioned above.
In the two months, which lie in between the dates of the two databases, I did not really import many pictures to darktable on the tabletop.
Thank you for your help Peter
Don’t copy databases; unless all paths are the same (that is, you have the exact same pictures at the exact same locations on both the laptop and the desktop), it won’t work.
The problem was that when old darktable settings were converted to the current version, part of that conversion, related to the filmic rgb curve, was skipped. If you still have access to the original XMPs (which have the old filmic rgb settings, for example in a backup), you could remove (not delete) the images from darktable’s database, and re-import them using the old XMP files.
Hello Kofa
Thank you for your help. Against your recommendation, I did copy the database of the laptop and transfer it to the desktop. It is a procedure I do approx. 6 times a year.
The outcome is just fine, no more distorted pictures.
As long as the paths match (e.g. you use a network drive mapped to the same drive letter in Windows), it can work. It’s just not the proper way, since you don’t synchronise edits, but rather overwrite them.
I’m glad you were able to fix the problem. That’s what counts most.
