Thanks, again. I tried that, too. I just tried it again, just to make sure. I double click a folder. It turns white and the little arrow disappears. Clicking on another folder does the same thing but the little arrow never returns to the previous folder(s). Besides, double clicking on any of the folders does nothing other than highlight them and lose the little arrow. I still can’t navigate to open any photos to try to work with them. I also tried closing and restarting it again several times before i wrote my first question so, while that was also a good suggestion, unfortunately, it doesn’t help to solve the problem.
I can’t find anything in search that relates to your specific issue. I don’t use the exe files, but rather the RT zip’s for my cpu found here. . . RTW64NightlyBuilds/ – Keybase.pub. Never had an issue with these builds. I create a shortcut of the rawtherapee.exe to my taskbar from the extracted folder. I use the Skylake build for my Coffee Lake cpu.
Are you on Windows or Mac?
Wish I could help you more
What kind of files are you trying to open? Have you gone into the preferences and made sure the correct file extensions are checked?
This is the most important question.
Another is: which version of RawTherapee did you download and from where?
Hi Paperdigits and Thanatomanic!
I downloaded the latest version of RAW Therapee (Version 5.8) 64bit Mac from the RAW Therapee website, so I assume that is the most up to date, proper version. As to setting preferences:
1.) There is no “Preferences” in a pull-down at the top underneath the “RAW Therapee-bin” next to the apple in the top left of the toolbar. Where else might I go to set Preferences?
All I am trying to do is open ANY photo file I have. I have RAW files, I have Tiff files, I have DNG files, Jpeg files, PNG files, and PSD files. I cannot navigate to any of the places where any of those are kept since nothing will open. All I can do is highlight the various folders and sometimes navigate into the various sub-folders but when I get to anywhere that photo files are kept, those sub-folders won’t open.
One of the recommended uses for RAW Therapee is to do interpolation from smaller files. I head about RAW Therapee from Mark Metternich who says it is by far the best interpolation software for enlarging fine-art photos for big prints. All I want to do is navigate to a 16 bit Tiff file, open it and make it bigger.
Thanks for your kind interest,
Endre
Is it about your RT instance’s access rights to your image files?
I copied some raw files to a new folder (Linux), changed owner to root
and set access mask to 0700 (meaning owner exclusive). RT showed the folder and the triangle “arrow”. Clicking marked the folder name white and removed the arrow.
Probably a recent macos version that needs to be told programs are allowed access to your files.
So, it’d the os not allowing Rawtherapee access to those folders. Somewhere in your system settings there should be something to allow it or turn this behavior of for Rawtherapee.
I’m not going into if this is a good feature or not - because I sort of get it - but macos doesn’t allow ‘unknown’ programs access to certain parts of the file system in recent versions. Software made at home or in spare time - like most open source stuff - will fall in this unknown category pretty quickly, because it is not downloaded from an apple approved source and/or the executable is not signed and approved by Apple.
Thanks, Odds and Jorismak.
I thought you might be right so I checked into whether or not my Mac had disallowed RT from access to my photos. I am familiar with that problem from other applications. Unfortunately, RT was not listed among the apps that were in the list available to turn on or off, so that can’t be the problem.
Meanwhile, I discovered that there are two main folders that RT has access to. One is the one with my name and it is from that main folder that I have been following the path through all the subfolders, trying to access my Desktop or the external Photos drive. I checked the path through all the folders to make sure I was following it the same way as I would were I trying to access photos from Lightroom. So, I know I was following the correct path to get there. In Lightroom my Desktop photos will open but not in RT. That said, I also found that the other main folder is also called “Photos”. That is NOT my external Photos drive but something within my Mac. I didn’t know I had this “Photos” main folder on my Mac and it is full of hundreds of all sorts of old Tiff, Jpeg, and DNG files - some going back as far as 20 years. RT is able to open photos from that folder. I cleaned out all that excess junk from that Photos main folder and pasted in a Tiff photo from my Desktop. RT was able to access that photo. 
Although I would prefer to open things via the normal path that is like Lightroom or Photoshop, as a workaround, now that I have found it, I suppose I can use that “Photos” folder as a way to access the photos that I want to work on with RT. So, I am making progress.
Thanks for your help. If you have any further ideas on how I can get my photos to open more easily, I would appreciate it. In one sense, though, at least is working, so that is good.
All the best,
Endre
Mac is not my cup of tea, so I am not the right person to advice you on this. If you post the access rights set on the Photos folders (the folder that works and the one that doesn’t) as well as the access rights on the file you copy/pasted, both the source file and the target file, that information may trigger a Mac savvy forum member to help you.
Thanks OddS,
I appreciate your suggestion but, unfortunately, i have no idea what you are referring to when you write about posting the “access rights set” of the folders and the photo. Sadly, I suspect that sort of thing is way beyond my ken.
All the best,
Endre
My bad, I should probably have referred to permissions, as in “folder permissions” and “file permissions”. The main point is to make sure that the user account that runs the RT has the folder and file permissions it takes to operate on your image files.
Thanks OddS,
Not being a tech person, even a discussion of “folder permissions” and such are somewhat mystifying to me. I’ve heard of such tjhings before so I will take your advice and investigate along those lines further.
After I wrote that above, I went back to RT and see that it has no “Preferences”. Presumably, there has to be a way to access someplace to make the recommended changes. How can I change the folder or file permissions it I don’t know where they are kept?
Further update: After researching “Permissions” I see how it could be done but when I open the “Permissions” are of either the “Photos” drive or of RT, there appears to be no option to add one to the other. More reserch needed…
All best wishes,
Endre
The preferences button is shown in a post easier in this thread.
If you can find this icon on the RT file browser or editing window it will take you to preferences
Thanks Paperdigits and Stuntflyer,
That ewas very helpful. However now that I am able to find the Preferences, I searched through the most likely places - “General”, “Image Processing”, and “File Browser” and can find no place that I can add the folder that contains everything on my computer to what RT is looking for. As I wrote above, I am able to open photos that are in a file called “Photos” but nothing else that is inside the folder with my name on it. Inside that is my Desktop (where, occasionally, I keep photos I am working on) and also the external “Photos” drive where I keep everything. As a workaround, it is fairly easy to transfer a photo I might want to work on into that strange “Photos” file (which I had never even realized existed before this), but that adds and extra step that I would prefer to skip, if I can. I think RT ought to be able to open files from anywhere on my computer.
Anyway, it seems I am making progress thanks to everyone’s kind assistance.
All the best,
Endre
You may also want to check:
Change Privacy preferences on Mac – Apple Support (UK) (you can set your OS version to something else on that page, too)
Photos
Shows the apps that have requested access to your photos. Deselect an app if you want to prevent it from accessing this information.
Note: If you have items that are stored outside the Photos Library, other apps may still have access to them.
…
Full Disk Access
Shows apps that can access all files on your computer, including data from other apps (for example, Mail, Messages, Safari and Home), data from Time Machine backups and certain administrative settings for all users on this Mac. Deselect an app if you want to prevent it from having access to your files.
To add an app, click the Add button, select the app in the list, then click Open.Files and Folders
Shows apps that can access files and folders in different locations on this Mac. Deselect an app if you want to prevent it from accessing files and folders.
…
Media & Apple Music
Shows apps that have requested access to Apple Music, your music and video activity, and your media library on this Mac. Deselect an app if you want to prevent it from recording your screen. (Edit: I’m not sure your photos are part of the ‘media library’, maybe that’s only content you have purchased?)HomeKit
Shows apps that have requested access to your home data on this Mac. Deselect an app if you want to prevent it from recording your screen. (Edit: sorry, I’m not a Mac guy; this seems to be related to home automation, not to your home directory, if there’s such a thing under MacOS.)
Köszönöm, István,
Again, your advice is very helpful in moving me toward fixing the problem. It wold be easy to go to the “File and Folders” section of my System and turn RT on if it had requested to be listed there. It seems, though, that RT never asked for permission to be able to access the “Files and Folders”. That is the place in my System where all my other Photoshop and Adobe permissions are kept so if RT had asked to be included, it should have shown up there.
I’ll keep working on it…
Minden jót,
Endre
Please run RT directly and not from the file browser from the operating system. Then you should see the preferences. All people mentioned that you should double click in the browser always meant the RT embedded browser.