Hello @martbetz
Just an idea…
Even linking your web-page to some YouTube tutorials might be useful.
For instance, as regards “quick edit examples” with RawTherapee:
https://www.youtube.com/@FOSSedits/search?query=rawtherapee
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How about something like this?
I could create a homepage as well as an easy way to access both the news page and the links page - sort of a mini website within my main website.
yep. It looks promising 
The difficult bit will be finding the links to individual tutorials, seeing whether they are suitable and then classifying them. Just searching ´tutorial’ in the RawTherapee category on this forum brings up quite a few hits but there aren’t that many actual tutorials as such. There are also useful links like the 3-click edit that don’t appear with this search.
Maybe it’s best to start with a small selection to see whether it fills an actual need and then build on it progressively.
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Here are 2 tutorials that I have posted in the past. Image licensing is in threads.
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Cool. I’ve got both pages and the homepage ready - now it’s just a case of adding the relevant info to each. I’ve included the links to the tutorials and channels mentioned thus far - when you find any others you’d like me to add, just send them via a PM. In the meantime I’ll add stuff as and when I come across it. 
I have a feeling the RawIndex page will get very large very soon — there’s A LOT of great content out there. Hopefully the page will help serve as a hub to easily find and access it all.
@chaimav: nice tutorials, bye the way! 
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Side note, regarding this, there was a discussion about moving to a solution similar to darktable’s docs using a static site generator such as Hugo.
That partly comes down to reorganizing RT’s github repos to be set up as an organization instead of in M’s personal Github namespace, something that was discussed around the 5.9 release, but just kinda fizzled out.
I did a bit of experimentation at Hugo before I left my previous job, and am happy to try and start pitching in here. Currently I have a lot of free time, but I’m still recovering from mental health issues caused by that job so I tend to work in spurts…
Once that’s done, anyone can submit a documentation change. The rawpedia issue was one of the main contributing factors to WIP: Bundled profile for reference image by Entropy512 · Pull Request #6646 · Beep6581/RawTherapee · GitHub getting stuck - I really would have preferred working on fixing the root cause of rawpedia’s problems than to engage in further workarounds to kick the can down the road (again).
A move to Hugo would align well with some of the stuff @martbetz has prototyped too IMO.
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Is there a plan for HDR merging stacked images in Rawtherapee somewhere in the development timeline?
There are no plans for stacking arbitrary images together. Multi-frame images like Fujifilm or Pentax HDR, perhaps, but I remember a discussion saying other kinds of stacking are outside the scope of RawTherapee and is best left to other programs like HDRMerge.
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This is where I’d encourage the community to help — I’m happy to put together and maintain the project, but I’d need the help of those who’ve requested such a project in the first place to make it what they wan’t; that would include suggestions to what content they’d like to see included. Apart from the ones listed in this thread so far, I’m yet to receive any.
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I hope a late comment on this topic is acceptable - I have only just now seen this discussion and want to add my thoughts.
in 2019, after evaluating possible alternatives to LightRoom - both proprietary and FOSS - I decided to move from dt, factoring in the amount of learning support available in the significant portfolio of tutorial-type offerings on YouTube and elsewhere.
This choice caused me to virtually ignore the capability/functionality of RawTherapee, until I looked at it again starting a few months ago. The more I read and watch about RT the more I realise that this is an impressive product, about which far too little is known or referenced on the web in general
However, My earlier qualitative observations of RawTherapee still stand, to a certain extent: there is just not the same level of tutorial material available in the web, especially though YouTube. Granted there is a large amount of YouTube material on dt which has been ‘created’ by people who should never have been allowed access to a camera, a microphone and OBS-Studio, on the basis of their demonstrated inability to make a public presentation suitable for any audience - defined or not.
On the other hand there is a huge range of material on how to use dt created by those who are subject matters experts, and who also understand the art and science of making a video - they don’t give the impression that either their studio is on fire or that there is a desperately urgent need to respond to the call of nature, completing what should be a 20 minute video in 30 seconds.
In contrast RawTherapee doesn’t ‘offer’ either of these scenarios. The largest single source of YouTube videos appears to come from one creator with a pronounced ‘style’, which some students of RT might find somewhat off-putting, irrespective of the educational value in these videos.
So it seems to me that a lot more video (and written) educational material is required to do justice to the product and the efforts of the developers. The apparent comparative weakness of the product in respect to its lack of DAM needs to be addressed by publishing articles which show, in practice, how RT can by connected with other FOSS products so as to address such needs.
In addition the product should be given greater publicity - for example a link to this very Pixls.us topic should appear in the ‘News’ section of the web-site - which appears to be a little ‘thin’ in comparison to all the development work that is going on.
In that regard, the details of ‘what has changed in this release’ reads too much like a list of development line items that a software development manager might have regular nightmares about, rather than an explanation of what the changes can actually do for a non-developer raw processor user to enhance the results of their image editing.
There should be a link in the web-site to this very software category on Pixls.us, so that potential new users can see the reach and range of support and product functionality that is available. Perhaps the question needs to be asked if there is anybody in the wider developer team - including those responsible for tasks other than code creation - who should be looking at the publicity needs of the project, or whether this task should even be considered in a FOSS development environment.
the
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The “Forum” button on the rawtherapee.com website does take you to the RT category here.
We also have the wiki there, which I have helped update from time to time, typically keeping the macOS compilation segment up to date, and assisting others with putting up updates etc.
There’s a lot of text in this topic, so it’s not immediately clear that this topic isn’t news about RawTherapee. It’s actually a discussion about news.
That’s the goal of the list. It gives brief bullet points so that people potentially interested in upgrading can see what the new version has at a glance. For longer explanations, there is RawPedia, and I would prefer overviews and tutorials on new feature to appear in individual news articles. That would make them easier to discover and makes more sense because those features are not tied to a specific version of RawTherapee; They will be around in future versions too.
@HIRAM mentioned the button, but there is also a link in the footer and it’s also in the release notes accessible from the application itself, which I believe is presented to the user the first time the application is opened after a fresh install or upgrade.
I would like to see more tutorials, both officially (in the news?) and from third parties, but it seems there is a very small overlap between people who
- are knowledgeable about RawTherapee or specific features
- have the skills to write good articles or produce informative videos
- are willing to contribute to the project
- and have time
I am missing at least the last one because I dedicate time to development, and more recently, “administrative duties”. I do have some time to lend my knowledge to those who have 2 through 4 but are not confident in 1.
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For me, the new thing in recent weeks (or months) is that we are talking about Rawtherapee.
This was no longer the case. Certainly there was always development (the proof…), but publications and advertising were absent (or very little) to subscribers. We could do a sociological analysis (this was partly one of my old jobs), but what would that bring?.
I agree with @Lawrence37 analysis.
I would add at least three more points:
- the language problem (at least my case). If @Wayne_Sutton had not been there, with his dual skills (English, French), his good will and his talent, nothing would have been done.
- mastery of communication tools and communication techniques. I don’t know how to do it (even less in English)
- and finally, a true coordination of goodwill, talents, skills. Among software producers (Adobe, Microsoft, DxO…) there is a project, a project manager, teams dedicated to development, publication, communication, help, etc. Here, the developers and collaborators melted like snow in the sun (why, see above). We are generally all full of good will (Rawtherapee has features unsuspected by many which are often unique, but not or little known). We must agree on a project, with its purposes and objectives (without losing the spontaneity and creativity of free software), its challenges, its communication and build a plan of action. Not easy, particularly due to scheduling problems (for example USA and France), availability, language… who, when, how, where?
Jacques
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I have to strongly concur with this statement. Almost every day I come across something in RT of which I was not aware and which is of sufficient impact for the me to use some distinctly Anglo-Saxon exclamations - in a very positive way - to express my delight.
Sadly however, this does not point to a way of bringing this uniquely valuable functionality to the attention of a wider public, globally.
Given that FOSS development has to function without many of the organisational structures found in commercial development, how easy, practical and, indeed, desirable, would it be to contact some reviewers? Reviewers who have a track record of producing technically, ethically and stylistically acceptable reviews of software products, in all three operating environments, inviting them to review some of these aspects of RT? That is, try to replicate the coverage of some of the YouTube articles but for the wider web audience.
Specifically, are there procedures for ensuring that the authors of the many ‘technology news’ publications extant on the web are made aware of each new release or update to RT? I can’t recall seeing any mention of RT in my most watched ‘channel’ - The Register - in the last decade at least, while darktable has had quite a few mentions and FOSS in general is regularly featured in a channel which truly does have global reach.
On a more local note, I subscribe to the YouTube channel ‘a dabble in photography’, the creator which has produced a number of outstandingly competent darktable tutorials in both French and English versions, with a fluency in spoken and written French that can usually only be acquired by living from a very young age in that country. It might be worth approaching this author to see if he would use his presentational, linguistic and technology skills in support of RT.
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There is also this YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@Graphiquedesignformation/search?query=rawtherapee
I have purchased his full course on RawTherapee in French (basic - medium level).
Lately, he is producing his videos in English: usually, on sale, for a fair price.
I fully agree with this, and if you look at HDRMerge’s contributors, you’ll see that pretty much all of the RT “old guard” have the same philosophy.
HDRMerge does have some issues with certain scenes at the moment - Extreme dynamic scene loses most details · Issue #113 · jcelaya/hdrmerge · GitHub for example is affecting some of my stacks, although those are some EXTREMELY high dynamic range scenes (capturing a room lit solely by Christmas tree lights, AND capturing the detail of the facets of the lights themselves… 5 exposures with 3 stop diffference). Unfortunately, it seems like every time I poke at this, filebin is either not accepting new uploads for me to provide an example test case to people, or I don’t have my files with me…
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@Entropy512 @Lawrence37 just as a sidenote, in case this is news to anyone, Hugin is another alternative for both multi-image stitching and exposure merging and it supports things from JPG to RAW formats. It really is one of the big not-much-spoken-about OSS projects out there at this time. Hope it helps!