Culling RAWs and sidekick files

Software darktable
1

Want to cull pics, delete them from darktable AND from my HDD, including the sidekick file.

Making a bit of a mess of it at the moment by deleting RAWs in Faststone Image Viewer and then the sidekick file in file manager, there has to be an wasier way!! :slight_smile:

2

From the manual:
Select in lighttable, then in right sidebar: “Actions on selection” → “delete (trash)”.

As usual, test on a small sample.

4 Likes
3

Thanks rvietor, I should have checked the manual! :slight_smile:

4

I actually cull my pictures in darkroom mode when editing in DT by using the keyboard shortcut of r for reject. Then later in lightroom view I filter for rejected only images and do as Rivietor suggests and delete them which gets rid of the side car file as well. That normally sends to to the trash on my windows computer and I can still recover them until I clear my trash. Deleting them outside of DT is a pain in the butt because you end up with skulls everywhere.

2 Likes
5

That would be my recommended culling workflow, too. Set the filter at the top to non-rejected photos; open darkroom.

image
(click and pull from “not rated” all the way to the right).
Then reject photos with r and move through them e.g. with spacebar. Then when you are finished filter for just rejected photos and shift+del them.

6

It seems interesting that some of us end up culling in the darkroom instead via the culling layout. I recently tried the culling mode (X) and the full screen one (F). I could not get the workflow to work.

7

I have exactly the same method.

For me the are two reasons the culling layout doesn’t work:

  1. I am often on my laptop with just a track-pad. I have not find a way to zoom in the culling laptop to see how the focus / sharpness actual is.
  2. In action photography, well I am still learning, so sometimes I over- or underexpose. But that doesn’t mean that the image is bad. But this much harder to deal with in tge culling layout.
8

One reason for me to cull in darkroom is that I bracket my exposures so I edit the best one and delete the extra ones. The raw clipping indicator is helpful determining the brightest picture without clipping the highlights. This is usually the best for noise with my Canon R7. Sometimes I use snap shots for comparison to determine the best for noise, facial expressions or something else.

9

Hmm I don’t know how to zoom in, I tend to try to get as full a screen as I can and work with that. I will have to read up, plus I think there is a sharpness indicator also which could help.

This would be my first time culling in darktable, so far I have used Faststone Viewer.

10

If you have buttons on your trackpad, you can click the middle button to get to 100%. Otherwise, I have defined a shortcut (e.g. alt-F), that switches to 100% when in full screen mode (F).

11

Triple finger tap triggers a middle click on both my laptops.

12

Thanks! I don’t have buttons on my track-pad… And tripple finger also don’t work. Maybe it is Mac related. I will check out the short cuts.