I am using a few external editors with darktable on macOS - Pixelmator pro, Luminar Neo, and NIK Collection. The LUA script for external editors is terrific but it does not allow the export of Olympus RAW .ORF files to the editors. I have to add a TIFF, PNG, or JPEG to the collection. Not a problem but it is an extra small step. Is there a way to create a preset that performs this step? Also, can darktable track the changes made by the editor and add the changed file to the collection after external edits?
CaptureOne did all of that automatically. You could edit any file in the catalog with a right click and selection on a menu listing the editors and your file changes were updated on the roundtrip back to C1.
I can do all of that in darktable with a few extra steps, but it would be handy if it worked with presets one could define. Is that possible somehow today?
since darktable never touches a raw file it doesn’t make sense to have an export function for raw files in darktable.
But you can use the ext_editor.lua script as a base for a own script to edit the raw file in an external editor.
I tried using the tweaked lua script to export the raw nef into Photoshop. It loads the file into Adobe camera raw. Is there is a way to tweak the script in order to send the nef directly into Photoshop, bypassing camera raw?
I may be wrong, but my understanding is that Photoshop and GIMP can not handle RAW files themselves so GIMP uses a third party program like DT or Rawtherapee to decode the RAW file and then open the resultant image file in GIMP. PS does the same approach using Camera RAW. PS can make no sense of a RAW file.
I tend to open the RAW file in DT and do what work I want in DT and then export a 16bit Tiff file which I open in the next editing program such as GIMP or PS. I often wonder if there is an advantage to be had by export as a 32 bit file?
I created a preset for Export that makes copies of my ORF files and puts them in a directory that Luminar Neo monitors, and they show up in Neo’s catalog automatically after export. It is a beautiful combination because I can catalog and index all my ORF originals in Darktable and edit copies in Neo.
