The RawTherapee Integration Is Gone, On Purpose
Earlier versions of imagic could hand culled RAW files off to a separate installation of RawTherapee for demosaicing and development. From version 1.3 onward, that handoff no longer exists, because it is no longer needed. imagic decodes RAW files with LibRaw and renders them through its own processing pipeline, entirely in-process. There is nothing else to install, configure, or point imagic at.
One Installer, Nothing Else to Download
Download imagic:
Get it from imagic.ink/desktop
That is the only download. The Windows and macOS installers carry imagic's own RAW engine inside them, so there is no second application to fetch from a separate site, no PATH variable to configure, and no CLI binary to locate before batch processing works.
No Settings Path to Configure
The old setup guide walked through pointing imagic's settings at a RawTherapee install or a rawtherapee-cli binary. That settings page is gone. Import, cull, and export all run through the same built-in engine with zero configuration, so there is no path to get wrong and no missing binary to troubleshoot.
Consistent Results Without Profile Files
Where the old workflow meant hand-building a PP3 profile in RawTherapee (white balance, exposure, noise reduction, sharpening, and output color space set one field at a time), imagic now applies its processing pipeline directly. Batch-apply one look across a shoot's keepers, and export straight to JPEG or TIFF at full resolution, without a separate profile file to create, save, or keep in sync between projects.
Accurate Color, Camera by Camera
Camera-specific color science, previously handled by loading a DCP profile into RawTherapee, is now part of imagic's own pipeline. This matters most for sensors with less common color filter arrays, such as Fujifilm X-Trans, where accurate demosaicing makes a visible difference in fine detail and color rendering.
The Batch Workflow Now
The workflow this guide used to describe as a multi-step handoff is now a single pass:
- Complete your cull in imagic
- Select the keepers and choose batch export
- imagic's built-in RAW engine develops every file using your chosen look
- Output files (JPEG or TIFF) are saved to your specified output folder
- Review outputs and make per-image adjustments where needed, inside imagic
Supported Camera Formats
imagic supports CR2, CR3, NEF, ARW, RAF, ORF, RW2, DNG, and PEF, decoded and demosaiced by the built-in engine described above. For cameras like Fujifilm (RAF with an X-Trans sensor) and others with unusual color filter arrays, the same engine handles the format without any extra setup.
If You Still Have RawTherapee Installed
Nothing breaks. RawTherapee remains a capable, free, open-source RAW processor in its own right, and you are welcome to keep using it for anything imagic does not cover. It simply is not required for imagic to work: every RAW file imagic opens is fully processed by imagic's own engine from import through export.
Summary
imagic's RAW processing used to depend on a separate RawTherapee installation. As of version 1.3, that dependency is gone: RAW decoding and rendering are built into imagic itself, with nothing extra to install, configure, or troubleshoot. The result is the same one-installer simplicity as the rest of imagic, now covering RAW processing too.