Why imagic and RawTherapee Together?
imagic and RawTherapee are complementary tools. imagic handles the culling stage — AI scoring, burst detection, and selection — while RawTherapee handles the RAW development stage: demosaicing, tone mapping, color grading, and export. Together, they form a complete free RAW workflow from import to finished file. This guide covers how to set up and use the integration effectively.
Installing Both Tools
Install imagic via pip:
pip install imagic
Download RawTherapee from rawtherapee.com. It's available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. No installation complexity — just download and run. For headless/CLI use, ensure the rawtherapee-cli binary is accessible in your system PATH.
Configuring the imagic-RawTherapee Connection
In imagic's settings, specify the path to your RawTherapee installation (or rawtherapee-cli for headless use). Once configured, the Export button in imagic's cull stage can send selected files directly to RawTherapee — either opening them in the RawTherapee GUI for interactive editing, or passing them to rawtherapee-cli for batch processing with a specified profile.
Creating a Base Processing Profile
RawTherapee uses PP3 files as processing profiles. Create a base profile that matches your most common output requirements:
- Set white balance to Camera (reads in-camera white balance from RAW metadata)
- Enable Auto Levels for exposure as a starting point
- Set noise reduction to a moderate level appropriate for your typical ISO range
- Add slight output sharpening (Unsharp Mask, radius 0.5, amount 80)
- Set output color space to sRGB for web delivery or AdobeRGB for print
Save this as your default profile in RawTherapee's Preferences. imagic will pass this profile to rawtherapee-cli for batch jobs.
Camera-Specific Profiles
RawTherapee's color management includes DCP (DNG Camera Profile) support. High-quality camera profiles are available from Adobe (the DNG Converter includes camera profiles for major brands) and from community contributors. Loading a camera-specific DCP into RawTherapee gives more accurate color rendition than the generic matrix, especially important for cameras with unusual color science like Fujifilm X-Trans.
Batch Processing Workflow
The most efficient way to use the integration:
- Complete your cull in imagic
- Select all keepers and choose Export to RawTherapee
- imagic passes the file paths and your base profile to rawtherapee-cli
- RawTherapee processes all files in the batch queue, applying the base profile
- Output files (JPEG or TIFF) are saved to your specified output folder
- Review outputs and make per-image adjustments where needed in RawTherapee GUI
Processing Different Camera Formats
imagic supports CR2, CR3, NEF, ARW, RAF, ORF, RW2, DNG, and PEF. RawTherapee supports all of these plus many more camera-specific formats. For cameras like Fujifilm (RAF with X-Trans sensor) and Sigma (X3F with Foveon sensor), RawTherapee has specific demosaicing algorithms that outperform generic processors.
Troubleshooting the Integration
Common issues and solutions:
- RawTherapee not found: Verify the path in imagic settings matches the actual RawTherapee executable location.
- Profile not applying: Ensure the PP3 file path in imagic's settings is the absolute path to the profile file.
- Slow batch processing: RawTherapee is CPU-intensive. Enable multi-threading in RawTherapee's preferences (Preferences > Performance > Threads).
Summary
The imagic-RawTherapee integration creates a powerful, completely free RAW workflow. imagic's AI culling handles the selection stage efficiently; RawTherapee's processing engine handles the development stage with professional-quality output. Both tools are free and open-source, and the integration requires only a few minutes to configure.