Image formats supported on default Mac build

Software darktable
1

Hello,

I’ve been a Darktable user for ages, first on Linux and for the last 10 years mostly on MacOS.

My image library includes a bunch on old film scans as BMP files. I don’t recall having any trouble with them, though they don’t always come up in my activities.

Now with Darktable 5.2.1 (Mac default build, upgrade from earlier versions) I see “image could not be loaded” errors and an exclamation mark thumb both on lighttable and in the darkroom (I think the darkroom view only opens once after a restart). The darkroom has also shown an error that the camera is not supported.

There is nothing very useful output using ‘-d all -d verbose’ that I can spot, only things like this:

  509.1491 [noiseprofile] looking for maker `', model `'
   509.1491 [noiseprofile] found 19 makers

...

   509.1525 [sql] /Users/runner/work/darktable/darktable/src/src/common/image.c:3315, function dt_image_get_camera_id(): prepare "SELECT id  FROM main.cameras  WHERE maker = ''    AND model = ''"

...

   509.1537 [mipmap cache get] got a zero-sized ID=907 mip 10!
   509.1537 [dt_mipmap_cache_get] DT_MIPMAP_BLOCKING for ID=907 mip=10 mode=r at 0x0
   509.1537 [dt_imageio_export_with_flags] mipmap allocation for `unused' failed (status 2)
   509.1537 [mipmap init 8] export ID=907 finished (sizes 720 450 => 907 0)
   509.1538 [mipmap_cache] could not process thumbnail!

The manual says BMP is supported on a build with GraphicsMagick. The Mac build is built with ImageMagick - is there a distinction what functions are used from which library?

2

you might check the macOS >=13.5 build: https://github.com/darktable-org/darktable/releases/download/release-5.2.1/darktable-5.2.1-arm64-13.5.dmg
or the builds in current OSX Build - #913 by MStraeten - these are using GraphicsMagick

2 Likes
3

Thanks, the 13.5 version does indeed work!

So, the 5.3 release will use GraphicsMagick for all macOS versions, as I understand?

4

unless that behaviour is filed as an issue at github (Sign in to GitHub · GitHub) and the homebrew based build pipeline is changed the official build will keep using Imagemagick.

Just the versions built with macports for older macOS versions are based on GraphicsMagick.

5
6

Just as work around… Converting BMP to TIFF… isn’t that an option?

1 Like
7

GraphicsMagick is now the default for homebrew based builds as well.
Next nightly build (starting from 2025-11-23) will do.