darktable ep 008 - Working with local copies

[@charleshacker765]

Bruce, you are awesome and we thank you so much for the time on these videos! You presented this feature as a travel use, but I am seeing another likely use of it. A lot of people don't like storing their 50,000 photos on their computer, but feel safer putting them on an external one instead. This drive would have less activity so less likely to fail, or possibly newer computers with their much smaller solid state drives prevent due to size. Then when they want to edit one they will go on this drive and retrieve it for editing. It is interesting that Darktable stores the catalogs on external drives like nothing has happened. It is not until you try to open it that it says it is not available for editing. One could do a lot of looking around in the "lighttable" tab while not having the drive attached, not having access to the photo itself, but only working with the thumbnail data Darktable has on it.

[@audio2u]

Interesting thought!

[@JamesMcCann1]

This is a surprisingly useful feature that I didn't realize existed or how it worked. Thanks for the step-by-step on it! It's really helpful to see where Darktable creates the local copies and how it handles syncing. I'll be using this feature from now on, since I store my images on a NAS and sometimes working off of the NAS over my WiFi is very slow. This would be a good way to perform a local copy of a particular shoot, complete edits, and then sync it back to the NAS without needing to worry about tracking those files manually.

[@audio2u]

Thanks James, glad you found it helpful.

[@srsrikkanth]

Am on the 8th video in the series. This is awesome. Thank you!

[@audio2u]

No worries! 😃

[@SreelakshmiPrabhakar]

I am learning a lot about darktable from your videos. Your videos make it so much easier to understand. I have subscribed to your channel.

[@audio2u]

Thanks!

[@andrewgreig1197]

Wow, Bruce, what a stunning feature, so clearly explained. I often need this, and particularly in our Melbourne summer, when my office turns to an oven. I set up a card table and laptop under the aircon unit. I know that as a Linux user I should have my laptop running over the network, but this is simple, and so much better when I need to travel. Our Melbourne Camera Club runs an Introduction course for people new to Digital photography, and then a Lightroom Course is offered. Your massive contribution to understanding Darktable means that we can offer the Alternative. Kind regards Andrew Greig

[@audio2u]

Glad to hear you're finding the videos helpful! And awesome that you can spread the word through the camera club!

[@ajithabeysekara9105]

Very clear, simple and informative videos. Waiting to go further with you. Thank you very much. Ajith

[@audio2u]

Ajith Abeysekara thank you so much for the kind words! Much appreciated.

[@domi84]

Thanks

[@audio2u]

Thank you!

[@lordoftheflings]

Wow, these vids are awesome. Thank you so much for these!

[@audio2u]

Thanks! 😀

[@pedromonteiro2353]

Fantastic work

[@audio2u]

Thanks!

[@DaveJones]

Never used this feature. That was a great walk through.

[@audio2u]

Dave Jones Thanks Dave, I hope you can put it to good use at some point!

[@svnissen]

Thank a lot for this detailed explanation of this feature. A small but very helpfull feature. If I only had seen this video BEFORE my trip now I could had done some work here ;-)

[@audio2u]

Oh well, there's always next time! 😃

[@alangaughran]

I have tried this after looking at your excellent video. I am a little confused at what I see though - perhaps you can help. Firstly, it all works exactly as your demo. The concern comes when I try to re-process some images. When doing so, I expected the image files and the xmp files to arrive in pairs at my laptop. I only get the images. However, the images are cropped etc as previously processed. This is not just a 'light table' quirk - the processed image is there in darkroom mode as well. As I cannot see any xmp files anywhere, I have to assume they are 'rolled in' with the ARW files (Sony). Does this make sense to you? The new xmp files created when I start editing does get copied back to the store but once again it all seems to be in the xmp file and no longer 'rolled in'. It could be me, but I'd be interested in a sanity check here.

[@audio2u]

Alan, sorry, I'm not near my machine right now, so am unable to explore. And to be honest, I have never used this feature of darktable since recording the video! I'd need to brush up on the procedure myself. I'll try and find some time this week.

[@euanclouston1841]

I am loving going through your videos, but keep getting a problem where instead of seeing the picture I see a skull symbol. Do you have any idea whats going on. Thanks.

[@audio2u]

It means either a) the location where the image file is stored is not currently available, or b) the image file itself is not present in the folder where it should be.

[@euanclouston1841]

@@audio2u Thanks,

[@janderboven4711]

Hello, I am learning to use Darktable 2.6.2 under Xubuntu 18.04. Made local copies of some files, but I don't find a Darktable folder in my .cache folder. Has there been a change?

[@audio2u]

Jan, not that I'm aware of. Check the online help just to be sure. Sorry, I'm on holiday in Sri Lanka right now... Can't help more.

[@cosmo0080]

learning a lot from u thanks

[@yaqxs]

Maybe that's a solution for me, I've got my photos on a NAS server which is connected to my computer via WiFi and often that is slowing down my workflow. With local copies on my laptop I could work much more fluently. I will definitely try that.

[@audio2u]

Excellent! Best of luck!

[@bernym4047]

👍

[@armandaberlin2156]

my linux is in the shop. What's the path for finding locally copied images on a Mac? Anyone, thanks.

[@audio2u]

Hmm, sorry I can't help with that one. Not a Mac guy.

[@photomoods-mariobolz8801]

Thank you very much for this s video, I have learned something again. Mario

[@audio2u]

Mario Bolz thanks! I'm glad it's useful to you.

[@cosmo0080]

i have ubuntu i am wondering how did you split your screen such that on our left there was showing the files from your laptop and on right there was showing files from your usb drive ?

[@SreelakshmiPrabhakar]

on mint when you click on files and go to the files folder, click on view and then click on extra pane. you get the split screen

[@andrewgreig1197]

That split screen is not available in Nautilus, only in Dolphin, the KDE file manager. sudo apt-get install dolphin