Workflow for re-importing duplicate files of different file types

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I have a bit of a unique use case that I’m trying to sort out if there’s a solution in place for already or not.

A few years ago I purchased a Canon EOS R, but darktable (windows) did not support the CR3 filetype for quite some time. In the interim I was forced to use DigiKam to convert my CR3 files into DNG. Unfortunately a lot of metadata was lost in that conversion process so I have no info on lens used and things of that nature.

I kept the original .CR3 files around hoping one day I could make use of them and somehow copy over my edits and ratings, tags, etc from the .DNG version of each file. Does anyone know of a simple way to do this?

Essentially, I have a large amount of edited, tagged, and rated images in .DNG. I’d like to import the original .CR3 versions of those files and duplicate the edits, tags, ratings from .DNG over to the .CR3 versions.

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Test this out with one image first. Grab the xmp from your DNG file and apply it to the same CR3 image. It should work.

If it does, then a script might be able to do this in an automated way if the dng filename matches the cr3 filename.

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Sounds like a delicate operation…One thing you might consider is creating a test database with a subset of images to try your solution on… import some of your DNG and then try to edit that.

You can run DT with a commandline to point to this alternate database while testing. If that looks like it works or you find a way that works then you could copy your whole main database and then apply your fix run it on this full copy of your database again with a commandline selection to use that alternate one and confirm that your solution works. If it messes up you can just copy again and try a new approach… If and once it goes smoothly you could just keep using that updated version and still of course keep the old one until you are really sure you have no issues…

Good luck… I am sure someone can clarify if there is a way …

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@BzKevin the lua API now supports image:apply_sidecar(<path to sidecar>) so if you decide to script it that’s available.

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I was thinking of just renaming the filename.dng.xmp to filename.CR3.xmp in the OS and then open dt to add to library.

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I would think that should work just fine.

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Thanks all, some good ideas here and kinda along the lines of what I figured I might need to do. I was guessing a script might be in my future but wasn’t sure if DT had some in-built functionality that may help with this. When i have some time to create some scripts I’ll try a few options out and see what works well.

It has been a long time since I have written any scripts for DT so I’ll need to refresh my memory.

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There’s actually documentation now at darktable lua documentation - Home.