Create a RAW Therapee Processing Profile

Create a custom Raw Therapee processing profile to designate a set of functions performed every time you take a photo into the editor. It is a big time saver and speeds my workflow. You can create and apply separate processing profiles for JPG and RAW files.

Raw Therapee is my favorite of the options for raw image conversion and editing along with the GIMP. Getting going with the GIMP outlines how to set up Raw Therapee and the GIMP and connect them to work together, as described in The photo processing tools on my belt.

Raw Therapee has become a key element of my go-to method for preparing photos to upload to blogs and other platforms. The reason for this is that it works seamlessly with both the folder structure containing my photos and the GIMP. This post explains how to have Raw Therapee pre-apply the processes I use most often upon opening a photo in the Editor.

If you are just starting to use Raw Therapee and uncomfortable creating a custom processing profile, you can select from a set of profiles that come bundled with Raw Therapee. You can find the profiles in the Editor mode, at the upper right side of the screen. The screen shot by step 2 below shows how to locate them.

Step-by-step instructions to create a custom processing profile

1. Open RAW Therapee and select a photo by clicking on it, then open the editor (hit enter, click on the editor tab, or double click on the image).
   
2. At the upper right there is a symbol that looks like a list, press the down arrow and select “neutral”.
   
3. Select and turn on the options that you find yourself applying most frequently. My choices are listed below, tab-by-tab.
   
   1. In the Exposure tab check the Highlight reconstruction box
   2. For the Details tab turn on the following processes:
      1. Local Contrast
      2. Impulse Noise Reduction
      3. Noise Reduction
      4. Defringe
   3. Colors tab-White Balance will be on and you want to leave it on.
   4. Advanced tab-nothing
   5. Transform tab
      1. In Profiled Lens Correction choose Automatically selected for Lens Profile.
   6. Raw tab
      1. In Chromatic Aberration Correction check the box for Auto-correction.
      2. In the second Preprocessing area (the one below the Raw White Points) check the boxes for Hot pixel filter and dead pixel filter.
      3. Turn on Capture Sharpening
4. After you have made the selections, save this file by clicking on the icon in the upper right that looks like an old-school floppy disc with a down arrow. Name it what you will. Mine is called RAWBase.
   
5. To use this file: select the preferences icon (it is a square with slides located in the lower left). Choose the Image processing tab. In the Navigate to your file by clicking on the down arrow, MyProfiles and select it then save the changes.

The images below illustrate the setting described for each tab.

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Processing Profile for other file formats

You can also create and designate a Raw Therapee processing profile for non-raw file types. Since the only other file format I use is JPG and JPG files come from the camera processed, I don’t bother. You can either just pull them in and tweak them on a case by case basis.

If you find that you always making the same changes you might want to create a profile for other files. The process is the same. For non-raw files the Raw tab doesn’t work and there are a few other items that do not apply as well.