Export image in a specific order in darktable

Software darktable
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Hi there,
II’ve recently discovered the power of tags and metadata in darktable, which has helped me organise my work more effectively, and I’m currently working on a portfolio.

One of the key requirements for building the photographic narrative of a project is being able to arrange the images in a specific order to tell a story.

The traditional method I use is to print the photos, lay them out on a table, and build the sequence.

There you go.

I’d like to do the same thing in darktable, in the lighttable, by arranging the photos in a specific sequence so that I can export the images and number them by adding ‘xxx_to_the_file_name’.

I’ve seen a ‘custom order’ option, but even after reading the manual, I haven’t worked out how to do it.

Help me unlock this superpower !

Thanks

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An idea to test out:

Crete a tag category called Order or Sequence. Then create 010, 020, 030, ##0 tags. Assign the photos the order you want. export using that.

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Hi,

if I understand your question correctly, I would here do the following:

  • generate a specific collection of the images you like to export in your order (e.g. by assigning a specific tag)
  • open this collection in the lighttable
  • choose “custom sort” as “sort by”
  • drag the images into the desired order
  • export with custom filename e.g. “SEQUENCE[4,1])_$(FILE_NAME)” (what will have the exports start with a “nnnn”-numbering based on the current sorting in the lighttable.

cheers, Martin

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That would work, but it wouldn’t be repeatable if you changed to another collection. Adding a tag with the position would ensure you could repeat the collection and the order.

This is wrong, see below…

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But order is inherently relative to a set of elements, isn’t it? You cannot define the order of something relative to anything. You must know what are the other elements of the collection.

Probably I misunderstood what you are trying to say.

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I tested my theory and it was wrong. I assumed if I selected the tag that they would be sorted but that’s not the case.

EDIT: But, it would help you remember the order for the collection :smile:

EDIT 2: Did more testing because inquiring minds want to know. Custom sort is preserved across darktable invocations (in the image table position field).

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But how about export to files which are still in the same order as seen by the OS. Will this then do that

If so… Brilliant!

Always amazed by details that dt users know :slight_smile:

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This.

Thanks, I already have callection by tag and for some reasons this afternoon I was not able to sort the picture with the custom sort.
I followed you reply and…
boom.

It works.

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