Write sidecar for each RAW image only

Hello,

There is a setting in darktable “Write sidecar for each image”.

I was wondering if there is a way to write sidecar for RAW images only and skip JPEGs. I do import SOOC JPEGs in darktable but I use them for reference only.
I am aware of the manual way to do so (switch off “write sidecar for each image” and then “lighttable - history stack - write sidecar files” but I have forgotten to do so already and have lost some information after removing the pictures from collection.

Please advise.

I’m not aware of an option to do that. Why do you import the jpeg if it is only for reference? The lighttable does a good job thumbnailing and it is fast, at least on my machine.

Let me please add that there is Lua functionality to ignore jpegs during import only if there is a corresponding raw file.

@paperdigits @chris I import SOOC JPEG to darktable to compare my results to what the camera did. Sometimes I get ideas sometimes I see where I screwed up, etc. I am still learning…

I do the same thing in order to compare against the camera-generated images. Fuji spits out some good ones, and I have trouble approximating their film styles from RAW.

One thing that you can do easily is remove the sidecars after the fact with a wildcard, like: rm *JPG.xmp or similar. At least it’s easy to clean up.

It’s not possible.

As reference in lightable mode or in darkroom mode as well?
RAW files usually contain embedded SOOC. So in theory you can use the embedded JPG in RAW as reference, if you haven’t set the option to generate the preview from RAW on import. Just duplicate the RAW and work on the duplicate will preserve this embedded JPG as preview of the origin as long as you don’t open the origin RAW in darkroom.
If you compare images in darkroom mode, then this is not an option.

Besides, it would create a 2nd XMP for the raw file, so you end up with the same amount of clutter in the file system. Just without an easy way to delete the unneeded files later.

That’s true! So it is not an option.

@pk5dark @houz @BattlePope Thank you all for your replies. I will be either importing to darktable DNG only while opening JPG in a viewer or cleaning up by JPG.xmp mask.