I downloaded a bunch of custom RT presets by forum member @stefan.chirila. A lot of them were nice, but I could not think of any way to decide on a specific preset other than trial-and-error.
Add in the lag time and so much mouse clicking to select a preset and bounce back and forth between them, and this method is almost useless for comparing the overall look on a photo.
So, I paid a dude on Fiverr to write me a bash script. You tell the script what input image you want to use, and the folder where the pp3s are stored. The script will go through that folder and recursively apply and save as jpg all the presets to your starter image. So you wind up with dozens or hundreds of versions of the same image.
Then, I just flip through in my image browser (GWENVIEW, in my case, but could be anything), and delete the ones I don’t want. You can also look at the thumbnails and delete some right away like that. Once I settle on an overall look that I like, then I go back to RT, apply that PP3 to the raw file and tweak it from there.
I still wish there were a more efficient way to decide on a preset. Maybe something will come to me as I use this more.
Anyhow, I would like to open source this in case anyone else finds it useful, and maybe they can improve the code a little bit. I’m also hoping that someone can host this script and make it available for others to find and download. Maybe the RT people want to host it on their site? Maybe Dmitri Popov? I don’t know his user name, but he’s probably on this site.
PS, while proof reading this post, I realized that “open source” is a homonym for “open sores.”
Questions for discussion:
- Anyone else think this script is useful?
- Any ideas on a more efficient way to solve this problem that I described - that of not knowing the effects of a pp3 before applying it?
- Anyone want to host the files?
- What the heck am I doing?
I am one of the less computer-savvy people on this forum. So if this script is worth sharing, I’d need help in getting that done.
rawtherapee_scripts-all output in same directory_pixls.zip (1.6 MB)
rawtherapee_scripts-puts jpgs into subdirectories_pixls.zip (1.6 MB)
There’s two versions of the script. One puts output JPGs all into one directory. I think this is more useful. The other one will create subdirectories to copy the structure of your folder that holds the pp3 files.
