Importing from camera

Upstream darktable has a tethering view and a way to mount camera file system (SD or CF memory cards) through USB, using the library GPhoto2.

But the desktop environment is also be able to mount the camera as a local hard drive using PTP and/or MTP protocol, possibly also through Gphoto2.

The problem in upstream darktable is then that the desktop environment and darktable may compete to access the camera file system through GPhoto2, leading to inconsistencies and weird behaviours. The simplest way (that also works on Windows) is to let the operating system or desktop environment mount the camera file system as a storage media, and then access it in darktable as just another directory.

For this reason, the support of GPhoto2 has been entirely removed from R&Darktable.

How to import photos from a camera ?

Easy and fast

The most straightforward way is simply to plug your SD card into the SD reader of your computer, if any. This removes the need to use any intermediate driver and software stack that has many opportunities to fail, but also provides typically the best transfer rates.

Possibly difficult

If you don't have an SD card reader, or if your camera is using other types of memory cards (CF, XQD), you need to plug in your camera to your computer using an USB cable. To read the content of the memory card, your computer will need to have the proper drivers installed. On Linux, you may need to install one or more of the following packages :

• libmtp,
• linuxptp/libptp,
• libgphoto2,
• kio-mtp + kio-extras on KDE environment, or gvfs-mtp + gvfs-gphoto2 on Gnome environment.