I noticed that the new version 4.6.1 generates a jpg that is looking different to the jpg generated by the old version 3.8.1, although there were no changes to ‘my_darktable_settings.xmp’.
Can you explain that? Do you have a recommendation how to generate identical jpg’s with different versions of darktable-cli?
Your XMP file only contains some extra modules that come on top of the default one.
In between 3.8 and 4.6, there where some rework in the white balance area that could cause that problem. Since the white balance is part of the default modules, you get that result.
I suppose to solve the problem, the best would be to have a XMP that does not rely on the default modules.
I think a bug report should be raised. The XMP migration should take care of defaults (may not be feasible in all cases, though; I’m not a darktable dev, but they would know).
It’s not really an XMP migration problem in the sense that it’s a not the development XMP stored alongside an image. In that case, yes, the migration should apply and there shouldn’t be any difference.
The posted XMP file only contains a subset of modules (like a style in DT) that adds on top of the existing development:
lens correction
color balance RGB
bilateral filter
exposure correction
highlights reconstruction
denoise profiles
sharpen
haze removal
crop
As you can see, no demosaic, or white balance is set by this module. There is no way for the system to know it should apply another basic development than the default one.
Forgive my noise if my suggestion is way off the mark. If I remember correctly and I may not, early version of the color calibration module default were not set to as shot in camera but now they are. Could this be the issue?
if the style doesn’t contain explicitly set parameters then the defaults are applied - these can be different with different releases of darktable.
That differs from the xmp sidecar files: these contains the specific parameters set while editing to give same results (backward compatibility of edits)
Others have already pointed out the problem (incomplete XMP file, so darktable applies defaults, and yes, those can change between versions). Your XMP file does not provide all processing steps – but you should be aware of that, as you’ve manually commented its contents. Since there are no settings, there is nothing to migrate.
no, it’s not an incomplete xmp - using styles just to enable default settings is a valid approach - and in newer darktable release you can explicitly set this behaviour while creating a style.
you simply get what you defined
The solution that I derive from your comments is to include ALL modules and the corresponding settings in my XMP file - correct?
If so, how do I determine the missing modules? Are they the ones listed above from debug mode: rawprepare, temperature, demosaic, flip, colorin, colorout and gamma?
And how can I determine the respective settings / params of V 3.8 for my XMP file?