Strange ZereneStacker behavior darktable-cli output

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pittendrigh
Posts: 54
Joined: Tue Oct 16, 2012 11:02 am
Location: Bozeman, MT
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Strange ZereneStacker behavior darktable-cli output

Post by pittendrigh »

I've been using ZereneStacker for quite a few years now.
I stack (mostly) photos of fishing flies and the real insects the flies imitate.

I might shoot a dozen or more exposures with a Cognisys Rail, using Nikon or Sony (NEF or ARW suffix)

I convert the raws to *.tif in a bash loop. Bash scripting works on all three platforms now (Linux, Mac and Windows subshell)

.....beginning of script edited away. $suffix probably set to either nef or arw (nikon or sony) in earlier codes

## shopt nocaseglob would match both nef and NEF
shopt -s nocaseglob

for file in *$suffIx
do
echo $file
opt/darktable/bin/darktable-cli $file tifs/$file.tif 2>/dev/null

## or could use latest github version of darktable
## /opt/darktable/bin/darktable-cli $file tifs/$file.tif 2>/dev/null
done

The loop above can be tweaked to use darktable from latest github sources,
or the version that comes from sudo apt-get install (a Linuxism)

I have some directories of old images (mostly Nikon *.NEF files)
that produce tif files that Zerene likes. A stack all tifs from DMAP produces a single stacked image as expected.
Once the stacked tif is created further editing happens with both darktable and gimp.

But some directories of old *.nef nikon raws produce *.tif images Zerene cannot process.
The tif files in question all look fine when viewed with an image viewer (perhaps geeqie).
But when Zerene tries to stack them with stack DMAP all a blank or severely distorted
collection of oddly shaped and oddly colored areas appear, instead of a stacked image.

I'm not sure how to debug this.
I have tried creating the tif files from Nikon *.nef files with both darktable from /usr/bin/darktable
and from /opt/darktable (which is latest and greatest codes from github).

So, in summary some historically old raw stacks produce *.tif files Zerene likes.
Some historically old raw stacks produce *.tif that Zerene cannot handle. Those tifs show well in an image viewer. Perhaps this is not fixable.

I'm not sure how to try and debug this problem.
Last edited by pittendrigh on Fri May 14, 2021 7:59 am, edited 1 time in total.

pittendrigh
Posts: 54
Joined: Tue Oct 16, 2012 11:02 am
Location: Bozeman, MT
Contact:

Re: Strange ZereneStacker behavior darktable-cli output

Post by pittendrigh »

Perhaps I found it.

In the script loop above the business line ended with 2>/dev/null which suppresses error messages.

When I take that away the loop produces an error message for each iteration of the loop:
beignet-opencl-icd: no supported GPU found, this is probably the wrong opencl-icd package for this hardware

I'm not sure if that error matters. Some *.nef collections stack successfully. Some do not. Intermittent computer behavior is rare. Things usually always work or always break. A little of both is new to me.

rjlittlefield
Site Admin
Posts: 23543
Joined: Tue Aug 01, 2006 8:34 am
Location: Richland, Washington State, USA
Contact:

Re: Strange ZereneStacker behavior darktable-cli output

Post by rjlittlefield »

I am reminded of the old joke, that TIFF actually stands for "Thousands of Incompatible File Formats".

In Zerene Stacker, try changing the setting at Options > Preferences > Preprocessing > Use External TIFF Reader. If it does not have a check mark, add one; if it already has one, remove that.

If you continue to have trouble, please contact me by email to support@zerenesystems.com .

--Rik

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