Darktable plugin in Gimp

yteaot · October 14, 2016, 4:59pm

Hi, need help

In Gimp news for 2.9.4 is written:
On Linux, GIMP is now capable of using darktable for pre-processing raw images from DSLRs (Canon CR2, Nikon NEF etc.).

I have Linux Mint 18 , Gimp 2.9.5 from ppa:otto-kesselgulasch/gimp-edge and Darktable 2.0.6 .

How can I install and use that file-darktable plug-in ?

patdavid · October 14, 2016, 5:09pm

I’d defer to @houz to know exactly what might be needed. I thought it got picked up if you had dt installed already as a handler for that file type.

Colin_Adams · October 14, 2016, 5:24pm

I have both, and I just tried - it opend it as a tiff, showing the thumbnail

patdavid · October 14, 2016, 5:39pm

The notes point out that you must have a feature-complete build of darktable (in particular it needs to have LUA support).

Colin_Adams · October 14, 2016, 5:45pm

How do you tell if it has Lua support? I get mine from a copr repo for Fedora.

yteaot · October 14, 2016, 5:45pm

I have Darktable from ppa:pmjdebruijn/darktable-unstable.
Dont know if it have LUA support. How can I chkeck it?

patdavid · October 14, 2016, 5:51pm

You also have to have dt in your PATH.

$ echo $PATH

houz · October 14, 2016, 5:51pm

darktable --version will tell. At least the regular Fedora packages don’t ship with Lua support. For reasons. Complain to their package maintainer. He won’t listen to me.

Colin_Adams · October 14, 2016, 5:55pm

Darktable is in my path, and built by myself from github with Lua support.

I thought @patdavid was saying GIMP had to be built with Lua support.

Colin_Adams · October 14, 2016, 6:08pm

I know you need Lua in darktable for calling GIMP from darktable (that’s why I compiled it with Lua), but we’re talking the other way round here.

yteaot · October 14, 2016, 6:32pm

I am novice in using linux, i can only use regular packages to install programs. (I am novice in english too as you can see). So I think its better to me to open RAW-files in Darktable, save it in format that GIMP can handle and open it in GIMP if necessary.

Thanks anyway.

paperdigits · October 14, 2016, 6:42pm

github.com

darktable-org/lua-scripts/blob/master/contrib/gimp.lua

--[[

    gimp.lua - export and edit with GIMP

    Copyright (C) 2016 Bill Ferguson <wpferguson@gmail.com>.

    Portions are lifted from hugin.lua and thus are

    Copyright (c) 2014  Wolfgang Goetz
    Copyright (c) 2015  Christian Kanzian
    Copyright (c) 2015  Tobias Jakobs


    This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
    it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
    the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or
    (at your option) any later version.

    This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of

This file has been truncated. show original

Is the lua script, and lots of other useful lua scripts.

houz · October 14, 2016, 6:50pm

I know what we are talking about. And for GIMP to be able to use darktable to open a raw file you need darktable to be built with Lua support. If darktable --version confirmed that I would be interested in seeing what GIMP shows on the terminal when trying to open a raw file.
Oh, and please make sure that you have file-darktable in your GIMP’s plugins.

houz · October 14, 2016, 7:26pm

One more thing, darktable need to be compiled with OpenEXR support. I should probably add that to --version.

Colin_Adams · October 15, 2016, 7:09am

Where do I look to see if file-darktable is amongst the GIMP plugins? What can I do if it isn’t?

Colin_Adams · October 15, 2016, 7:11am

How do I check if darktable has been compiled with OpenEXR support (I compiled it myself, and didn’t take any non-default actions except for adding LUA support)?

Colin_Adams · October 15, 2016, 7:26am

colin@colin gimp-2.9]$ darktable --version
this is darktable 2.0.6+dirty
copyright (c) 2009-2016 johannes hanika
darktable-dev@lists.darktable.org

compile options:
bit depth is 64 bit
normal build
OpenMP support enabled
OpenCL support enabled
Lua support enabled, API version 3.0.0
Colord support enabled
gPhoto2 support enabled
GraphicsMagick support enabled

Colin_Adams · October 15, 2016, 7:30am

I’ve managed to find the location (/opt/gimp-2.9/lib64/gimp/2.0/plug-ins) and file-darktable isn’t there.

houz · October 15, 2016, 10:32am

That would explain why GIMP doesn’t try to use darktable.

Since I mentioned several requirements in my last messages it might be a good thing to put them all together in one list.

darktable requirements:

At least version 1.7.0 of darktable.
Lua support. Mentioned in darktable --version
OpenEXR support. Mentioned in darktable --version for the latest development builds. Otherwise look for “OpenEXR” being an available format in darktable’s export module.
darktable needs to be in PATH for GIMP to find it. If you can start darktable by just typing darktable in a shell and hitting enter you are golden.

GIMP requirements:

A development build of the 2.9 branch, newer than Mai 2016. That was when the feature got added. Or anything newer once released (2.10, …)
OpenEXR support in GIMP. Look for “OpenEXR” in the available image formats in GIMP’s open dialog.
With the above two requirements met you should have the “file-darktable” plugin in GIMP. Open the “Select File Type” list in the lower left corner of GIMP’s open dialog and look for a bunch of entries starting with “Raw”.

If all of those points are confirmed and it still doesn’t work I’d like to hear about it.

Dennis_Lovatt · April 20, 2017, 9:15am

I cannot get GIMP 2.9.5 latest unstable build to fire up darktable.

dennis@linuxXPS ~ $ darktable --version
this is darktable 2.2.4
copyright (c) 2009-2016 johannes hanika
darktable-dev@lists.darktable.org

compile options:
bit depth is 64 bit
normal build
SSE2 optimized codepath enabled
OpenMP support enabled
OpenCL support enabled
Lua support enabled, API version 4.0.0
Colord support enabled
gPhoto2 support enabled
GraphicsMagick support enabled
OpenEXR support enabled
Da

My problem seems to be no openEXR support in Gimp.
I installed the darktable lua to GIMP export, It successfully exported the file , fired up GIMP, then GIMP returns message “Opening xxxxx.exr failed Unknown file type”
When I open File Types I do not see any EXR support