Can anybody offer any guidance on migrating inverted film photographs from Lightroom to Darktable. I am migrating inverted film and digital photographs from Lightroom to Darktable and don’t know how best to migrate the film photographs.
I shoot film and digital and for the film photographs, I have been ‘dSLR scanning’ with a copy stand and my Nikon dSLR. I import the RAW files into Lightroom and invert the images using Negative Lab Pro. The combination works well if one is on MacOS or Windows, but not Linux.
I did a test migration for some of my inverted film photos from LR to DT and as I expected the inversion disappeared. Which I had expected.
The three options that I can come up with are:
Export the film photographs as the new Derived DNGs and import the Derived DNGs into Darktable
Export the film photographs as fairly small JPGs and import the JPGs and RAW files into Darktable. The JPGs would serve as a thumbnail and if I need a larger inverted image, I could reinvert using Negadoctor.
Do not migrate the existing catalog. Stop importing into Lightroom and start importing new photographs into Darktable. Once the Lightroom subscription expires, I would loose access to the Develop module, but could still export as needed. And if something needed reediting, I could import the RAW file into Darktable and edit.
Thank you for taking the time to read this posting and for any and all suggestions. I cannot be the first person to be in this situation.
I can’t offer any valid suggestion except trying all three methods you have proposed and seeing how it pans out. I would be interested in how negadoctor compares to the lightroom method of inverting.
I have no experience with your situation. If - per image - you’ve put a lot of energy into the inversion with Negative Lab Pro I would export the result in a high quality file as you propose under option 1 and import that into darktable.
I - for myself - would not be happy with the third option. Which make you search in two places for a photo…
The second option would be nice when you haven’t spent too much time on inverting individual pictures.
Be careful to test how tags - if used - and specially when using a hierarchy - are migrated.
Not really answering your problem here but when I edit a raw file in any program I export as a high quality finished file such a tiff, png or dng and don’t care about losing my first attempt at editing steps. I figure if I want to return to the image I will start again because I will be better at editing and the software will be better at editing. Maybe exporting your current LR edits as the best file type available, which might be DNG will save all that hard work. Unless you pay for the subscription for the rest of your life the LR access is going to be lost anyway so why are the LR editing steps important in that case.
I guess I am suggesting crystalizing all the effort you have put into your images in LR by exporting as an archival format that can be read by Darktable and other non-Adobe programs.
I don’t put a lot of energy into scanning film with Negative Lab Pro, it makes the process rather painless.
Tags have migrated to Darktable from Lightroom, so that is not a worry.
Thanks for commenting.
The latest version of Lightroom has included an ‘Export as Derived DNG’. I tested it and the exported file is much larger than the original raw file. I may do that for a few specific images, but I don’t see that being feasible for all of my film photographs. As you mention, if I need to return to the image, I will reedit from the preserved raw file.
Thanks for commenting.
Then it seems the only difficult question remaining if your pictures are tagged in LR and how the export/import process treats your tags…
I would from LR export the pictures in the state as is - to f.i. jpeg’s. And rework only when needed in dt. No need to import both raw’s and jpegs. Though there is not much against it either. But do check weather you can find back the pictures as you wish.
It sounds like importing a jpg (or other compressed file) into dt for library purposes is all you really need. I might make tiff/dng exports from LR to a backup folder (not part of dt library) just in case they ever decide to take away your export/print ability w/o a subscription.
If all your new edits will be in dt, and any re-editing of older RAWs start from scratch anyway…I would think some images for library purposes should be sufficient.
I tested and tags come over from LR to DT.
If I import both raw’s and jpegs into DT, I have all of my images in one location and won’t have to search another location and removes the need to ‘find back the pictures’.
Good points, thank you.
In my view my editing job is not done until I do an export. I export a 16 bit tiff file which I consider archival storage of my edited image. I then don’t need the original program again because it may not be available in the future. This is obviously the case if you stop a lightroom subscription.
I only use JPG exports for sharing as they are not very good for further edits.
Good luck with your endeavors of moving photos to Darktable.