(TIFF files may have both 8 and 16 bits) So I guess that when I export 14 bits to 8 bits, I lose information, but when I export them into 16 bits TIFF files, I have useless information. JPEG files have only the option of 8 bits.

Should I bother exporting my RAW files into TIFF files or directly export them as JPEGs? Even though I have used a compression of something like 30%, my TIFF files and JPEGs were alike in a 100% crop. Recently I emailed some pictures and I exported my TIFF files to JPEGs. I transfer my RAW files on my computer and then edit and export them as TIFF files. I've written some scripts to automate some complex things, like creating a folding greeting card on an unsupported paper size but it ends up being pretty manual still.I shoot RAW on my camera (CR2 files). Typically I choose full page borderless print and manage any margins I want myself.įor some paper types it's more complicated, either they don't exist or you can't do borderless printing so I have other ways to work around that.īut anyway it works well enough but it's kind of a hassle. Then I save that and use the windows 7 photo viewer print tool, and do all the color management from the driver's options. Then I make any additional edits in GIMP, to control margin and page size, always making sure the final image is exactly the size/ratio of the paper I want to use, including whitespace if I don't want it to go all the way to the edge. I have moderate success via exporting from darktable as 16bit TIFFs to a network share I have mapped in the VM. I use Linux on my desktop but my printer isn't supported (pixma pro 100) so I use a windows VM to print. Gimp uses a gtkprint library and can't change the page size which is basically a nonstarter for printing photos. Open source printing options on windows are pretty much all shit.

Darktable export dimensions