I have this use case to copy several photos from different folders to one destination. In the Collections panel I set the filter to Folder, as it’s easier for me to navigate my tree. When I select some photos and hit the Copy button (in selected image panel), I’m asked to select the destination panel, and click on “Select as destination”.
Copy being done, Darktable displays the destination folder with the copied images, and the Collections panel displays the filmroll filter.
I have multiple images to copy, how can I go quickly to the source folder and continue my selection, and get the folder filter again. I currently need several click to get back to where I was. Is there a quicker way ? May be a keyboard shortcut, or a button or a parameter in the settings avoiding switching to destination folder that I missed ?
DT is not really the best file manager. If the photos have not been edited yet I would say do this outside DT and then import the folder. Doing this with photos that have been edited will break the links in your database so it is best to try and do file moves etc in DT but it will be less flexible than doing it with another tool…Maybe if the files are in folders of the same tree and you have it set with recursive it will just show all the files so then you can select them all at the same time for the copy
I’d actually suggest a defect report, if indeed after the copy dt switches back to the “filmroll” view. Once I select “folder” view, I’d like the program to stay there until I tell it otherwise… Which directory should be selected in the folder view after a copy is open for discussion, both switching to the destination folder, and staying in the last selected folder have merits.
Why you want to do a copy from within dt is another question. Then again, I don’t keep exported edits in my dt collection, but just export as needed (not slow enough to be a problem if I decide I need a second copy).
For what it’s worth, I think copying a file that has been edited or is to be edited is a bad idea: dt doesn’t modify the source image, all edits are in the sidecar and/or database. So a copy to another directory means copying the raw file and the associated sidecar. And it breaks the link between the two versions of the image…
If I want to try another edit, I use the “duplicate manager” in the darkroom. Any “duplicate” only duplicates the sidecar file and the database entries, not the original image file. That avoids having several copies of (large) raw files polluting my hard disk, and it means I have all copies handy in case I have to rework an image. That can happen, either because I have learned more tricks, or dt has (filmic, tone equaliser, …).
As the image are already imported, I thought it would be easier / simpler (?) to make a copy of the image as I browse them. I could use the Finder indeed to make the copy, but I would have to preview each cr2 or dng which can take 2s to display. Them I would need to import the foldr with the copies.
This folder of copies is made to demo Darktable withe that selection of images. Depending of what I’ll demo, image can come from very different folders (however all 2 to 3 folders below Pictures/ )
Thanks for the suggestion
I’m browsing my catalog for images I can use for my darktable demo. So I’m coyping them to a specific folder, so I don’t have to look for them
I’m copying the raw file, not the edits.
Or my be there is a functionality to “group” multiple photos together like in a virtual folder, so I only access this selection during my demo ? I don’t really care of the edit history after these demo, and usually delete the folder content.
I personally would use Geeqie for moving files, but that’s because I am familiar with it. I use it for culling, sometimes I want to break down the images into parts of a day/event etc, so go like this:
flick through the images, marking the ones to move with 1
Ctrl+1 to select all images marked with a 1
Ctrl+M to move selected images to another folder (edit: forgot you want to copy, use Ctrl+C instead)
repeat for any other images to move to any other folder
Geeqie views images one at a time, but loads the jpeg preview from the raw so is super fast to flick through. I do this before loading into darktable; is far faster for me to sort them first.
I feel like you opening another folder in darktable might be fine though, as I feel this would be faster possibly than moving within dt.
Thank you all of you for your advice for moving or gouping files. Look like Darkatble lightable is not the best to manage images. As I’m on MacOS, I think I’ll stay with either the Finder or ForkLift, or Adobe Bridge.
I think you can use the “recently used collection” module to do what you described: you just have to click on the last entry (it should be your source folder in folder mode, if that’s what you used last before moving files). So it should be a single click.
But if I understand correctly, you are copying all files to the same destination folder. You could use a tag (or color label) to chose the ones you want (in the different source folders), collect these files with a collection from that tag, and do a single copy with all files at the end.
(Or just use duplicates + tag as paperdigits said, without duplicating the raw files, that’s what I would do, but maybe you need to duplicate the files to be able to share them?)
