Req: Save settings in sidecar for later batch editing with command-line options or utility

[xiota]

Would be nice to be able to save settings into a sidecar file that can be used later for batch processing with command-line options or utility.

To what extent would settings from filmulator-gui be compatible with the old command-line filmulator? What would be involved in backporting changes to the core algorithm to allow compatibility? As opposed to stripping out the Qt portions to create a separate CLI, batch processing version?

[CarVac]

The old CLI filmulator only consists of the Filmulation steps between the second and third mini histograms, and it had fixed settings only (the current defaults).

Personally, I don't like sidecar files but I understand that people may want to share settings, so that is something I'll eventually get to.

[xiota]

Suppose someone else were to take the current code and attempt to strip out the GUI. How difficult would it be? How closely tied is the filmulator algorithm to the GUI?

[CarVac]

It would not be unduly difficult. It still has a few Qt dependencies for lensfun, but it doesn't require a GUI.

All the image processing code is in the filmulator-gui/core directory.

[feklee]

Just a remark: IMHO even better would be storing settings in DNG files. Then renaming and moving files does not require thinking about any dependent files. ACR does this, and it is the major reason why it’s my preferred RAW editor so far. It’s the most light weight one I know. It does not dictate a particular workflow. It just stays out of the way.

[CarVac]

Filmulator is definitely not going to support writing to raw files in any manner. That's just asking for trouble, data integrity-wise. Plus raw files are identified by the hashes of their contents.

I'm eventually going to offer sidecars because it plays nicely with backups, but I'm also going to let you not have sidecars since personally I find them irritating.