(Feature Request ?) Remember Default Profiles Per Folder

Software RawTherapee
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1

Would it be possible to add folder based default profiles in RawTherapee?

Example:

  • open a folder
  • manually choose a profile once
  • RT remembers that profile for that folder
  • next time the folder is opened, the same profile is automatically applied

This would be very useful for workflows using custom DCP based profiles (Adobe Color, Camera Landscape, etc.), especially under Linux where profiles may live in different locations depending on the installation method:

  • deb/rpm
  • Flatpak
  • Snap
  • AppImage
  • extracted AppImage

At the moment, “Open Profile” works well, but the profile must be manually reloaded every time, while the current default profile system feels mostly focused on camera or EXIF based rules.

I wonder if other RT users would also find this useful, especially those working with custom profile libraries or project based workflows.

2

Maybe you should have a look at dynamic profiles, which don’t work on folder level but on camera, lens, focal length, iso and many more … Dynamic processing profiles - RawPedia

1 Like
3

Agreed, from what I can tell you’re describing Dynamic Processing Profiles, which I use extensively in RT. It’s possible I’m not understanding your question clearly, so let me know if that’s not what you’re looking for. To me, using a profile I’ve created is a trivial matter.

4

@Karlheinz, @Rick, thanks for the explanations and pointers, I understand much better now what you both meant :slightly_smiling_face:

I can also see now that Dynamic Processing Profiles are indeed the intended solution, and honestly, they are far more powerful than I initially realised.

I think my original question was more about usability and accessibility than functionality itself.

As a Linux user, I can manually place .pp3 files into the proper RawTherapee profile directories and make everything work. But RawTherapee is used by many photographers who are not necessarily comfortable dealing with hidden folders, different install methods, sandboxed Flatpaks, AppImage structures, profile paths, etc.

That is why my original idea was more along the lines of a simple option in Preferences to manually add one or more external processing profile folders, similar to how HaldCLUT folders can be added.

So in my case the issue was never really “can this be done?”, because clearly it can. It was more about making custom profile libraries easier and more transparent for less technical users as well.

At the moment, the technical solution exists, but the usability aspect still feels somewhat unresolved to me, especially for people who are less familiar with Linux internals or RawTherapee’s directory structure.

Still, thanks again, both of you definitely pushed me in the right direction, and I probably would never have explored Dynamic Profiles properly otherwise :slightly_smiling_face:

5

profile-rule-mockup
profile-rule-mockup1586Ă—992 67.8 KB

Just to illustrate my idea a bit better, I quickly adapted the Dynamic Profile Rules dialog in the screenshot above as a small mock-up example.

What I had in mind was something like a “Custom (from external folder)” option in the Processing Profile dropdown, combined with a simple browse button to select one or more folders containing .pp3 files.

That way, users could maintain their own profile libraries outside the internal RT directories, without having to manually figure out hidden paths, Flatpak/AppImage locations, or distro-specific folder structures.

To me, that would make the whole system much more accessible and transparent, especially for less technical users, while still fully preserving the power of Dynamic Profiles themselves.

Of course this is just a conceptual mock-up, but it shows more clearly what I originally meant :slightly_smiling_face:

6

If you have raw files in a folder you will automatically have .pp3 files in your folder. How should a program know (without a huge database) which of these many .pp3 should be your default for raw files which don’t have their own adopted profile?

7

@Karlheinz,

I was not referring to the regular .pp3 sidecar files stored next to raw images. I completely agree that scanning those automatically would become unmanageable very quickly.

What I had in mind was a completely separate user-defined profile library folder, explicitly selected by the user, containing only reusable “master” processing profiles, similar to how external HaldCLUT folders are handled.

So for example:

  • sidecar .pp3 files → per-image edits, automatically generated by RT
  • custom profile library → manually curated reusable presets/profiles

In that scenario, RT would not need to guess anything or maintain a huge database. The user would simply point RT to one or more dedicated profile folders, and only the profiles inside those folders would appear as selectable processing profiles in Dynamic Rules.

So the idea was never automatic discovery of all .pp3 files on the system, but rather a more user-friendly way of managing reusable custom profile libraries.

8

If i understand your request correctly, you can do this already:

Put all your presets into any folder, lets say “c:\user\data\myprofiles”

In the RT-editor chose “load profile” (folder icon top right). The dialog box will show the content of the most used preset folder (right side). The trick now is to once add the “c:\user\data\myprofiles” to your main tree on the left side (+ other locations).

Now, whenever you want to apply one of your presets, choose “load profile” click on “c:\user\data\myprofiles” left and see all your presets on the right window.

Not necessary to say, you can define several folders.

9

I think we are mixing up two completely different things here.

I am already a fairly experienced RawTherapee user, so simply opening or loading a profile is not the issue. That part is easy, and RT already offers multiple ways to do that, including via right click menus.

What I am talking about is applying a custom default profile automatically to an entire RAW folder.

At the moment, this only works cleanly with the built in profile structure from the RT config/profile folders, things like the standard ISO based defaults, camera defaults, etc.

The goal is to assign my own custom profiles automatically, either directly or through Dynamic Profiles and Rules, which was also suggested by others here.

But you always hit the same limitation:
custom user made profiles are not easily assignable unless they are manually copied into the RawTherapee system profile folders themselves.

Rick does that, and honestly I can do that as well without any problem. But for a new RT user, or somebody who is not comfortable with computers, that quickly becomes confusing, especially on Linux.

And just to be clear, yes, there are workarounds for this already. For example, inside the RT browser you can copy a profile, select all images, and paste it as a processing profile to the entire folder.

But that is still not the same thing as opening a RAW folder in RT and having a fixed custom profile automatically applied immediately as the default processing profile.

So this is not about “how to open a profile”.

It is about being able to apply custom user profiles automatically as defaults to an entire RAW folder, without requiring users to manually copy files into internal RT profile directories.

10

The answer is that RawTherapee follows the XDG config standard, and the place where RT puts its data is where the standard says to.

The reason why snap and flatpak are different is because of sandboxing, and RT couldn’t over rule those things.

Distro installs and appimage should use the same location.

11

By all means, go over to the RawTherapee Github page and propose a feature request. I’m sure the devs will have questions, but if you articulate this need sufficiently they might be able to put it in a future version. A while ago I requested a global reset button, and it looks like it will be coming out in the next release. Good luck.

12

Please red the chapter “Config” at File Paths - RawPedia … then you will see that you can define the place where all the profiles are. In my case, I created a folder RawTherapee which looks like

image
image660Ă—586 31.7 KB

And in the folder “profiles” I have camera specific partial profiles like
image
image1056Ă—363 15.9 KB

which assigns the .dcp provided by Adobe. And i have such profiles for each camera and each lens and just use dynamic profiles to assign them automatically to each raw with matching arguments. The final profile assigned to any raw file is always a dynamic mix of about 5 partial profiles.

1 Like
13

@Karlheinz Lehmann, @Martin Werner, @Rick, @paperdigits, thanks for all the tips and suggestions !

I’m going to look into whether working with a custom config file could be made doable for non technical users, maybe something they can simply copy from my site and paste onto their system. With the proper folders created, this could perhaps work.

But again, this is probably fine for you guys and for me, but not every photographer or RT user is very technical. On the other hand, Rick may still be right that a proper feature request is needed in the end. Because if some people already find working with RT difficult, what happens when they also need to edit config files or manually manage folders?

I’m trying to promote RT, but I regularly hear that it feels too complicated, and honestly this approach does not really help with that perception.

Still, I’ll first do some testing myself and experiment a bit, then decide which direction makes the most sense.

Thanks again everyone!

Marc

14

Exactly, and that was part of the reason for my feature request. RT had glitched on me, and after a lot of trial and error, I settled on a complete reset as the only workable solution. There wasn’t a reset button anywhere. The problem was, I had to do a lot of research to find the file that needed to be deleted. This is something that might deter the average user.

No question, RT is great software, but there is a learning curve to it. I think the challenge is getting people to work through it to understand how it all works.

15

Absolutely, and that is basically my main concern too. My goal is to make things simpler for everyone, not more complicated. For technical users this may all be manageable, but for many photographers it quickly becomes too much, and that can scare people away from RT.

16

@ Marc_Roovers / Bushcrafter

Please, note that user “karlheinz” =/= user “Karlheinz Lehmann”;
thus, unfortunately, your comments reached me,
but not your intended recipient.
Thanks.

17

I placed the feature request on GitHub.

Honestly, the inability to properly add and manage your own presets or processing profiles directly inside RawTherapee, while being mostly limited to the bundled ones, feels a bit old fashioned today.

Even modern cameras already allow importing and managing custom looks or recipes internally.

For such a modern and incredibly powerful RAW editor, it would be a pity if this side of the workflow remained somewhat prehistoric from a usability perspective.