RAW editing

[Dr. Martin Senftleben]

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Hi,

After the long discussion about jpg lossiness, I have tried some
editing on the raw files, but I do not seem to be the person for that ;-)
Ijust can't find the settings which are best to work on, or most
helpful to improve an image. Is there some place where a workflow
description can be found on improving an image based on the RAW data?
I believe that would help me a lot.

Regards
Martin
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[Martin (KDE)]

Am 20.01.2012 07:02, schrieb Dr. Martin Senftleben:
> Hi,
>
> After the long discussion about jpg lossiness, I have tried some
> editing on the raw files, but I do not seem to be the person for that ;-)
> Ijust can't find the settings which are best to work on, or most
> helpful to improve an image. Is there some place where a workflow
> description can be found on improving an image based on the RAW data?
> I believe that would help me a lot.

May be it is a good idea to tell us what went wrong with your settings.
Is the result to dark? is the contrast to low/high? Are the colours wrong?

If you want to edit your raw files in a more detailed way, may be you
want to try a dedicated raw development tool like darktable (or
rawtherapee - runs on linux and widows). At least I had some photos
digikam was not able to develop in a way that fit my needs.

Regards
Martin

>
> Regards
> Martin
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[Dr. Martin Senftleben]

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Hi Martin,

Am 20.01.2012 07:25, schrieb Martin (KDE):

> Am 20.01.2012 07:02, schrieb Dr. Martin Senftleben:
>> Hi,
>>
>> After the long discussion about jpg lossiness, I have tried some
>> editing on the raw files, but I do not seem to be the person for
>> that ;-) Ijust can't find the settings which are best to work on,
>> or most helpful to improve an image. Is there some place where a
>> workflow description can be found on improving an image based on
>> the RAW data? I believe that would help me a lot.
>
> May be it is a good idea to tell us what went wrong with your
> settings. Is the result to dark? is the contrast to low/high? Are
> the colours wrong?

Well, I can't really say - it's just not satisfactory. I want an image
with more vivid colours, but I really don't know how to go about it or
what to adjust (brightness, contrast, ...)

> If you want to edit your raw files in a more detailed way, may be
> you want to try a dedicated raw development tool like darktable
> (or rawtherapee - runs on linux and widows). At least I had some
> photos digikam was not able to develop in a way that fit my needs.

What about the tags, descriptions etc, when I save an image in a
different format using those softwares?

Kind regards

Martin
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[Martin (KDE)]

Am 20.01.2012 08:36, schrieb Dr. Martin Senftleben:

> Hi Martin,
>
> Am 20.01.2012 07:25, schrieb Martin (KDE):
>> Am 20.01.2012 07:02, schrieb Dr. Martin Senftleben:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> After the long discussion about jpg lossiness, I have tried some
>>> editing on the raw files, but I do not seem to be the person for
>>> that ;-) Ijust can't find the settings which are best to work on,
>>> or most helpful to improve an image. Is there some place where a
>>> workflow description can be found on improving an image based on
>>> the RAW data? I believe that would help me a lot.
>
>> May be it is a good idea to tell us what went wrong with your
>> settings. Is the result to dark? is the contrast to low/high? Are
>> the colours wrong?
>
> Well, I can't really say - it's just not satisfactory. I want an image
> with more vivid colours, but I really don't know how to go about it or
> what to adjust (brightness, contrast, ...)

I had this problem a few years ago. At this time I used ufraw for
developing my raw files. As this tool can produce very good results you
have to know what you are doing. And it took me some time to get there.

But darktable has very good default settings (similar to the jpeg out of
camera - at least for my EOS30D). And since about one year I am using
darktable with very pleasing results. And darktables mailing list is
similar to this one (but sometimes a little technical).

IMHO the main "problem" in digikams raw development is the missing
receipt handling. If you work on a raw photo and finally import it with
special settings you can not rework these settings a few days later
(lets say a little less contrast or a slightly different white balance
setting).

>
>> If you want to edit your raw files in a more detailed way, may be
>> you want to try a dedicated raw development tool like darktable
>> (or rawtherapee - runs on linux and widows). At least I had some
>> photos digikam was not able to develop in a way that fit my needs.
>
> What about the tags, descriptions etc, when I save an image in a
> different format using those softwares?

Darktable stores metadata in xmp sidecar files. On export these metadata
are written in the exported file. I don't know RawTherapee.

Currently darktable sidecar files are not compatible with digikam
sidecar files.

But in my current workflow I don't use darktables metadata editor. I set
all tags and descriptions in digikam. To avoid tagging twice I usually
first develop my raw photos and tag afterwards (both files, raw and
jpeg/png). If I have to rework my raw settings darktable stores the new
exported file with an index (attaches _01 for the first copy, _02 for
second ...) I then copy the metadata from the previous export to the new
one and replace the old exported file with the new one. I usually don't
need a history of one file.

So initial tagging may be a little bit more work, and in general you
have to take care that you have raw and jpeg/png selected on tagging.
But if you are used to it is not that hard. I hope that the grouping
stuff in digikam will help me out of this in the future.

Regards
Martin

>
> Kind regards
>
> Martin
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[Wilkins, Vern W]

This issue comes up repeatedly and I think that does say something about Digikam's raw processing.  There are often responses indicating that Digikam 'can' work well for editing raw files.  I love the program and appreciate all the work of the developers, but I have never found it suitable for my needs when it comes to raw processing.  I can get a reasonable conversion if I tweak different settings for every individual image, but there just doesn't seem to be much consistency and the settings I need to tweak to get a decent image are not at all similar to settings I'd tweak in other programs.  It just seems the initial conversion is so far off that there might be half a dozen different things I have to do to the image to make it look even remotely like the camera jpeg.  It has always been just easier for me to use Ufraw to do the initial conversion from raw to png, and then do sharpening, tagging, etc., in Digikam.

Vern


-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Martin (KDE)
Sent: Friday, January 20, 2012 3:07 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [Digikam-users] RAW editing

Am 20.01.2012 08:36, schrieb Dr. Martin Senftleben:

> Hi Martin,
>
> Am 20.01.2012 07:25, schrieb Martin (KDE):
>> Am 20.01.2012 07:02, schrieb Dr. Martin Senftleben:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> After the long discussion about jpg lossiness, I have tried some
>>> editing on the raw files, but I do not seem to be the person for
>>> that ;-) Ijust can't find the settings which are best to work on, or
>>> most helpful to improve an image. Is there some place where a
>>> workflow description can be found on improving an image based on the
>>> RAW data? I believe that would help me a lot.
>
>> May be it is a good idea to tell us what went wrong with your
>> settings. Is the result to dark? is the contrast to low/high? Are the
>> colours wrong?
>
> Well, I can't really say - it's just not satisfactory. I want an image
> with more vivid colours, but I really don't know how to go about it or
> what to adjust (brightness, contrast, ...)

I had this problem a few years ago. At this time I used ufraw for developing my raw files. As this tool can produce very good results you have to know what you are doing. And it took me some time to get there.

But darktable has very good default settings (similar to the jpeg out of camera - at least for my EOS30D). And since about one year I am using darktable with very pleasing results. And darktables mailing list is similar to this one (but sometimes a little technical).

IMHO the main "problem" in digikams raw development is the missing receipt handling. If you work on a raw photo and finally import it with special settings you can not rework these settings a few days later (lets say a little less contrast or a slightly different white balance setting).

>
>> If you want to edit your raw files in a more detailed way, may be you
>> want to try a dedicated raw development tool like darktable (or
>> rawtherapee - runs on linux and widows). At least I had some photos
>> digikam was not able to develop in a way that fit my needs.
>
> What about the tags, descriptions etc, when I save an image in a
> different format using those softwares?

Darktable stores metadata in xmp sidecar files. On export these metadata are written in the exported file. I don't know RawTherapee.

Currently darktable sidecar files are not compatible with digikam sidecar files.

But in my current workflow I don't use darktables metadata editor. I set all tags and descriptions in digikam. To avoid tagging twice I usually first develop my raw photos and tag afterwards (both files, raw and jpeg/png). If I have to rework my raw settings darktable stores the new exported file with an index (attaches _01 for the first copy, _02 for second ...) I then copy the metadata from the previous export to the new one and replace the old exported file with the new one. I usually don't need a history of one file.

So initial tagging may be a little bit more work, and in general you have to take care that you have raw and jpeg/png selected on tagging.
But if you are used to it is not that hard. I hope that the grouping stuff in digikam will help me out of this in the future.

Regards
Martin

>
> Kind regards
>
> Martin
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[Anders Lund]

On Fredag den 20. januar 2012, Dr. Martin Senftleben wrote:

> Hi,
>
> After the long discussion about jpg lossiness, I have tried some
> editing on the raw files, but I do not seem to be the person for that ;-)
> Ijust can't find the settings which are best to work on, or most
> helpful to improve an image. Is there some place where a workflow
> description can be found on improving an image based on the RAW data?
> I believe that would help me a lot.
>
> Regards
> Martin

Hi Martin,

I use digikam for raw processing. My workflow at this point - meaning I have
decided to process a particular image - is:

* Press F4 to launch the editor. I have configure that so it will display the
editors raw converter.

* Since I will do most of the post processing in the editor, I do little at
this step, but sometimes it is good to change the white balance at this step
(in the raw converting tab). If there are problems with the exposure, I also
try to adjust in the conversion tab for that. But in most cases - when images
are resonably exposed - I do that in the post processing tab.

* In general, it is easier to experiment when in the editor, but as you can
import more pictures with settings in the conversion tool, fixing some things
there can be convenient. It is possible to save presets for later use.

* Once happy, I hit Return, and starts postprocessing using the editor. Some
of my favorites are
- Ctrl + Shift + B brings up a autocorrection tool, which is contains
automatic levels and exposure, which can often be very handy.
- Ctrl + Shift + M brings up the curve tool, which is probably the most
powerful color adjustment tool.
- Whitebalance tool in the Color menu
- Local contrast from the Improve menu
- sharpen in the improve menu has the "refocus" tool which is the best
sharpener I have ever met. (Thank you CImg!)
- Free rotation from Transform menu (because I often shoot while sailing)
- Aspect crop from Transform menu

Once happy, I save a new version of the image (Usually jpeg with a high
quality, depending on how the image is going to be used).

This workflow means manually processing each image, and fits my normal work
mode well - take many photos, process few. Once in a while, I do need to
process a lot of images, then I use the batch raw processor.

My most missed feature is to be able to apply a set of operations to other
images, or to the same one again, reimporting the raw file. (*hint *hint).

--
Anders
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[S. Burmeister]

Am Freitag, 20. Januar 2012, 08:36:00 schrieb Dr. Martin Senftleben:
> > May be it is a good idea to tell us what went wrong with your
> > settings. Is the result to dark? is the contrast to low/high? Are
> > the colours wrong?
>
> Well, I can't really say - it's just not satisfactory. I want an image
> with more vivid colours, but I really don't know how to go about it or
> what to adjust (brightness, contrast, ...)

http://kdeatopensuse.wordpress.com/2011/08/06/raw-image-processing-with-
digikam/

might help.

Sven
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[S. Burmeister]

Am Freitag, 20. Januar 2012, 14:57:26 schrieb Wilkins, Vern W:

> This issue comes up repeatedly and I think that does say something about
> Digikam's raw processing.  There are often responses indicating that
> Digikam 'can' work well for editing raw files.  I love the program and
> appreciate all the work of the developers, but I have never found it
> suitable for my needs when it comes to raw processing.  I can get a
> reasonable conversion if I tweak different settings for every individual
> image, but there just doesn't seem to be much consistency and the settings
> I need to tweak to get a decent image are not at all similar to settings
> I'd tweak in other programs.  It just seems the initial conversion is so
> far off that there might be half a dozen different things I have to do to
> the image to make it look even remotely like the camera jpeg.  It has
> always been just easier for me to use Ufraw to do the initial conversion
> from raw to png, and then do sharpening, tagging, etc., in Digikam.

We need a functionality to apply luminosity curves. They work quite nicely for
most pictures.

See

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=276415
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=276417
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=276418
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=276439

Sven
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[Anders Lund]

On Fredag den 20. januar 2012, Sven Burmeister wrote:

> Am Freitag, 20. Januar 2012, 14:57:26 schrieb Wilkins, Vern W:
> > This issue comes up repeatedly and I think that does say something about
> > Digikam's raw processing.  There are often responses indicating that
> > Digikam 'can' work well for editing raw files.  I love the program and
> > appreciate all the work of the developers, but I have never found it
> > suitable for my needs when it comes to raw processing.  I can get a
> > reasonable conversion if I tweak different settings for every individual
> > image, but there just doesn't seem to be much consistency and the
> > settings I need to tweak to get a decent image are not at all similar to
> > settings I'd tweak in other programs.  It just seems the initial
> > conversion is so far off that there might be half a dozen different
> > things I have to do to the image to make it look even remotely like the
> > camera jpeg.  It has always been just easier for me to use Ufraw to do
> > the initial conversion from raw to png, and then do sharpening, tagging,
> > etc., in Digikam.

I find I get better results when doing the conversion from raw in the digikam
editor, in the same session as additional postprocessing, when saving to jpeg,
due to the lossyness of that format.

> We need a functionality to apply luminosity curves. They work quite nicely
> for most pictures.
>
> See
>
> https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=276415
> https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=276417
> https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=276418
> https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=276439
>
> Sven

Presets would be nice, but I don't understand the desire to make it look like
the preview jpeg in the raw file - that is very often suboptimal!

One question I have is, what is it that the other utilities does different? I
haven't tried ufraw, but darktable a little bit but I could not get that to
make a lot of sense easily. But, do those tools provide better defaults, or
more true to the jpeg preview defaults?

--
Anders
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[S. Burmeister]

Am Freitag, 20. Januar 2012, 23:33:17 schrieb Anders Lund:
> Presets would be nice, but I don't understand the desire to make it look
> like the preview jpeg in the raw file - that is very often suboptimal!

The average user does not want to start from zero for every picture. Moreover
the jpeg is a good start for most pictures. So if the user cannot get close to
the jpeg and start from there with digikam he will give-up or use another tool
instead of starting to read manuals. So the jpeg is simply a most common
target for a tutorial and a starting point for trying to tweak the RAW image
even further.

Or to put it differently. What the user gets with digikam's default is a lot
more sub-optimal than any jpeg preview. So instead of getting an improved
image the user has to start fighting digikam before he gets to the sub-optimal
level a jpeg offers without any work.

> One question I have is, what is it that the other utilities does different?

(Better) defaults, (better) assistants, (better) profiles. Digikam does not
feature any for RAW.

> I haven't tried ufraw, but darktable a little bit but I could not get that
> to make a lot of sense easily. But, do those tools provide better defaults,
> or more true to the jpeg preview defaults?

Yes. In darktable, try the base curve tool. It helps the average user and does
not restrict those that want to take RAW further.

Sven
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[tosca]

2012/1/20 Anders Lund <[hidden email]>

... I
haven't tried ufraw, but darktable a little bit but I could not get that to
make a lot of sense easily. But, do those tools provide better defaults, or
more true to the jpeg preview defaults?

--
Anders

Darktable UI is a bit unusual, and doesn't seem very user-friendly at the beginning. But take a little time to look at the videos and browse the user manual that are available on the website, and everything gets clearer and much easier to use. The program is really fantastic.

Marie-Noëlle

--
Mes dernières photos sont dans ma galerie.
Retrouvez-moi aussi sur mon blog.
Et parcourez les Cévennes à ma façon avec Cévennes Plurielles,


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[Philippe Clérié]

On Fri, 20 Jan 2012 23:33:17 +0100
Anders Lund <[hidden email]> wrote:

>
> Presets would be nice, but I don't understand the desire to make it
> look like the preview jpeg in the raw file - that is very often
> suboptimal!
>

Maybe so! I shoot RAW+JPEG and, honest, I can't develop the RAW files
to anything like the JPEGs.

If you don't know anything about processing raw files
the first goal would be to get something that looks at least as good as
the jpeg from the camera. It's so much easier to do worse.

I've been trying on and off and I still can't match the jpegs from my
Olympus E-510. I suffer from the same problems as the good doctor's.

Deciding on a workflow is very important. I find ( so far )
that starting with White Balance is the best move. I'm still not sure
about the next one.

I don't want to exaggerate but each tool is so different that even on
that first step they don't necessarily produce the same thing. Even if
one takes into account subjectivity.

Truth is, it's a learning process that is made more difficult because
there so much subjectivity in evaluating what looks good.

Doc, just keep trying!

:-) And let us know the shortcuts! :-)

Regards
Philippe
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[gerlos]

Il giorno 20/gen/2012, alle ore 23.33, Anders Lund ha scritto:

> On Fredag den 20. januar 2012, Sven Burmeister wrote:
>
> Presets would be nice, but I don't understand the desire to make it look like
> the preview jpeg in the raw file - that is very often suboptimal!


Some times you are so good at photography that you get almost perfect images right out of your camera, and open your RAW image just to change the exposition to +0.3 EV and to give a little tweak to white balance.
So matching again ("from zero") white balance, exposition etc in Digikam would be a lot of duplicate work, since you're supposed to already do it in your camera at the moment of the shot.

So, yeah, I agree, at start my RAW picture *should* look like my JPEG, since is what I know I've shot, it's my starting point and it's what I want to tweak most of the time (exception for me: night photography).

Good defaults that make *initially* look the RAW like the JPEG would be very welcome, imho (it's also what other software -Aperture, Lightroom- actually do, for what it matters).

regards
gerlos goes back lurking :-)

--
"Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more
of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something
else. The trick is the doing something else."
           < http://gerlos.altervista.org >
 gerlos  +- - - >  gnu/linux registred user #311588

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[gerlos]

Il giorno 20/gen/2012, alle ore 18.50, Anders Lund ha scritto:

> On Fredag den 20. januar 2012, Dr. Martin Senftleben wrote:
> My most missed feature is to be able to apply a set of operations to other
> images, or to the same one again, reimporting the raw file. (*hint *hint).


Something like "Lift/Stamp metadata and Adjustments" commands in Apple Aperture, I guess...

It would be nice to have them, indeed.

regards
gerlos

--
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but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten."
                                        G. K. Chesterton
       <http://gerlos.altervista.org>
gerlos +- - - > gnu/linux registred user #311588

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[S. Burmeister]

Am Samstag, 21. Januar 2012, 10:14:32 schrieb gerlos:
> Il giorno 20/gen/2012, alle ore 18.50, Anders Lund ha scritto:
> > On Fredag den 20. januar 2012, Dr. Martin Senftleben wrote:
> > My most missed feature is to be able to apply a set of operations to other
> > images, or to the same one again, reimporting the raw file. (*hint *hint).
>
> Something like "Lift/Stamp metadata and Adjustments" commands in Apple
> Aperture, I guess...
>
> It would be nice to have them, indeed.

It would be nice indeed to have the possibility of saving tool-chains from the
editor and apply them to other pictures or at least batch queue manager tool-
chains.

The latter has been long requested.

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=251126

But I think digikam simply does not want to be a raw utility and leaves this
to other apps specialising in that area. AFAIK it's not even possible  to have
the demosaicing tool in bqm and apply the default settings, because they
ignore the luminosity curve and all post-processing parameters.

Sven
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[Anders Lund]

On Lørdag den 21. januar 2012, gerlos wrote:

> Il giorno 20/gen/2012, alle ore 23.33, Anders Lund ha scritto:
> > On Fredag den 20. januar 2012, Sven Burmeister wrote:
> >
> > Presets would be nice, but I don't understand the desire to make it look
> > like the preview jpeg in the raw file - that is very often suboptimal!
>
> Some times you are so good at photography that you get almost perfect
> images right out of your camera, and open your RAW image just to change
> the exposition to +0.3 EV and to give a little tweak to white balance. So
> matching again ("from zero") white balance, exposition etc in Digikam
> would be a lot of duplicate work, since you're supposed to already do it
> in your camera at the moment of the shot.
>
> So, yeah, I agree, at start my RAW picture *should* look like my JPEG,
> since is what I know I've shot, it's my starting point and it's what I
> want to tweak most of the time (exception for me: night photography).
>
> Good defaults that make *initially* look the RAW like the JPEG would be
> very welcome, imho (it's also what other software -Aperture, Lightroom-
> actually do, for what it matters).

That is absolutely right. But I don't see darktable doing a better job than
digikam, albeit a different one. So far, I see darktable images being a bit
more saturated/vivid than the preview, while digikam goes a bit the other way.
(I use a canon EOS 30D)

The problem must relate to knowing how the camera jpeg is created, maybe that
knowledge is part of what you pay for using a commercial tool?

--
Anders
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[S. Burmeister]

Am Samstag, 21. Januar 2012, 11:10:54 schrieb Anders Lund:
> That is absolutely right. But I don't see darktable doing a better job than
> digikam, albeit a different one. So far, I see darktable images being a bit
> more saturated/vivid than the preview, while digikam goes a bit the other
> way. (I use a canon EOS 30D)
>
> The problem must relate to knowing how the camera jpeg is created, maybe
> that knowledge is part of what you pay for using a commercial tool?

http://www.darktable.org/usermanual/ch03s04s13.html.php has defaults that work
a lot better than the digikam defaults which do not apply any base curve.

Another example, set digikam to reconstruct the highlights and then do the
same in darktable. Digikam produces a dark image while darktable does not.

Sven
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[Martin (KDE)]

Am 21.01.2012 11:10, schrieb Anders Lund:
> On Lørdag den 21. januar 2012, gerlos wrote:

[...]

>
> That is absolutely right. But I don't see darktable doing a better job than
> digikam, albeit a different one. So far, I see darktable images being a bit
> more saturated/vivid than the preview, while digikam goes a bit the other way.
> (I use a canon EOS 30D)

For me the main difference here is that darktable does a constant job.
If I have a series of pictures the results are predictable (more than
with digikams raw processing). Esp. if you enables some of the automatic
tools the results are sometimes very good but sometimes next to useless.
And then it is very hard to get a pleasing result with digikam's
available settings.

Martin

>
> The problem must relate to knowing how the camera jpeg is created, maybe that
> knowledge is part of what you pay for using a commercial tool?
>

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[Anders Lund]

On Lørdag den 21. januar 2012, Sven Burmeister wrote:

> Am Samstag, 21. Januar 2012, 11:10:54 schrieb Anders Lund:
> > That is absolutely right. But I don't see darktable doing a better job
> > than digikam, albeit a different one. So far, I see darktable images
> > being a bit more saturated/vivid than the preview, while digikam goes a
> > bit the other way. (I use a canon EOS 30D)
> >
> > The problem must relate to knowing how the camera jpeg is created, maybe
> > that knowledge is part of what you pay for using a commercial tool?
>
> http://www.darktable.org/usermanual/ch03s04s13.html.php has defaults that
> work a lot better than the digikam defaults which do not apply any base
> curve.

Yes, and maybe darktable applies a few more corrections?

>
> Another example, set digikam to reconstruct the highlights and then do the
> same in darktable. Digikam produces a dark image while darktable does not.

I guess darktable have a curve to compensate -  at least that is what I do
using digikam. I had to figure that out, of course, and create some presets.

Maybe we can agree that digikam is missing some pr camera defaults to apply,
and compensation for highlight rebuilding.

It is interresting to identify how digikam could/should be improved, as I
prefer digikams UI to darktable.

--
Anders
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[Remco Viëtor]

On Saturday 21 January 2012 11:29:06 Martin wrote:

> Am 21.01.2012 11:10, schrieb Anders Lund:
> > On Lørdag den 21. januar 2012, gerlos wrote:
> [...]
>
> > That is absolutely right. But I don't see darktable doing a better job
> > than digikam, albeit a different one. So far, I see darktable images
> > being a bit more saturated/vivid than the preview, while digikam goes a
> > bit the other way. (I use a canon EOS 30D)
>
> For me the main difference here is that darktable does a constant job.
> If I have a series of pictures the results are predictable (more than
> with digikams raw processing). Esp. if you enables some of the automatic
> tools the results are sometimes very good but sometimes next to useless.
> And then it is very hard to get a pleasing result with digikam's
> available settings.

What settings do you use for the raw import (from 'settings', then 'Raw
decoding tab')? I tell it to always use the last option: 'Always open the Raw
Import tool...'). This, like other tools, keeps the settings from the previous
use.

And, click the 'Update' button after a change to apply the changes. Don't use
the 'Use default' button, as it applies the defaults defined in the settings
dialog, and imports straight away.

And I agree that raw decoding seems slow in Digikam, compared to e.g.
darktable; otoh, once you have a good preview, importing it is virtually
instantanuous.

Also, don't forget that Digikam's RAW import tool is exactly that, RAW import.
This means that a lot of the processing that is done on the developed image is
NOT in the RAW import tool (sharpening, saturation, local contrast etc.). From
what I've seen, darktable and others don't have this sharp separation between
RAW development and editing. So, what you think of as RAW development in
darktable is RAW development + editing in DK...
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