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Vixlo 0.1

A RAW file that ignores your edits

A RAW take can show only the camera's JPEG, or look the same however far you move a slider. There are three causes: a frame that has no adjustment yet, a library that cannot store adjustments, and a RAW file this Mac cannot decode. This page tells them apart and says what to do about the last, which announces itself with an orange line on the edit page.

The three causes​

  • The frame has no adjustment yet. An undeveloped RAW file shows the camera's own JPEG in Frames, the strip, Single and the edit canvas, because that is quick and is exactly what you saw on the back of the camera. Nothing is wrong. Once you adjust anything, every view is drawn from the sensor data and may look a little different. The one exception is looking closer: zooming in on an undeveloped frame in Single, or holding Z for the loupe in Frames, reads the sensor data even so. The RAW stage has the reason.
  • The develop panel is dimmed, with a notice above its tools. That is a lock, not a decoder. See Earlier libraries that will not open or develop for an Earlier library, and Read-only, and why for an account that has lapsed.
  • An orange line along the bottom of the canvas on the edit page reads This Mac cannot develop this RAW file — showing the camera JPEG. The rest of this page is about that.

What the line means​

The line sits on the canvas's bottom edge, in orange, to the left of the figures that say what your sliders add, such as Exposure +0.60 EV · Contrast −18.

The bottom edge of the edit canvas: the capture time, then in orange This Mac cannot develop this RAW file — showing the camera JPEG, then the figures for the sliders.

It is about the Mac, not about the file. macOS has no RAW decoder for this camera's files, most often because the camera is newer than your version of macOS, and the file itself is fine. Without a decoder Vixlo cannot render your adjustments. Rather than leave the frame blank, or show a picture that quietly ignores what you did, it shows the JPEG the camera embedded in the file, with none of your adjustments applied, and says so.

The line appears the first time Vixlo has to develop the frame, which means once the frame carries any setting at all: a slider, a film simulation or look, a crop, a curve. Before that the picture on screen is the camera's JPEG, which needs no decoder, so a take from a new camera looks perfectly normal until you edit it. If your older cameras' RAW files develop and one camera's do not, the camera is the cause.

What still works​

  • Culling. Take, Hold, Reject, ratings, labels, keywords and notes are written to the library as they are for any frame.
  • Adjustments are stored. They go into the frame's XMP file as usual, and they render once the Mac can decode the camera.
  • Hand off takes… writes XMP files and a decisions.json and renders no images, so it does not need the decoder. See Hand off takes to another editor.

What does not​

Export with the Fast engine. Fast always renders from the sensor data, edited or not, so every take from that camera fails. The others are written. The dialog ends Export complete — with gaps, counts the frames that could not be rendered — see export-manifest.json for why, and export-manifest.json in the destination folder names each frame and its reason. For a file this Mac has no decoder for, the reason typically reads This Mac has no RAW decoder for and the file's name.

Max quality hands the RAW files to darktable, which does its own decoding, so it may read a camera macOS does not. That depends on darktable's own list of cameras. It also refuses the whole export if any take carries an adjustment, so reset those frames first. See Max quality needs darktable.

What to do​

  1. Update macOS. Support for a new camera arrives with the operating system. Open System Settings ▸ General ▸ Software Update, install what it offers, then quit and reopen Vixlo and look at the frame again. If the line is gone, the edits you made are already on the picture.
  2. Keep culling meanwhile. The camera's JPEG is the picture the camera showed you, and every decision is written as normal. Adjusting these frames now is blind work: the sliders move and their values are stored, but the picture does not change, so wait for the update before you judge anything.
  3. Develop elsewhere if you cannot wait. Hand off the takes to an editor that reads your camera's files.
In Vixlo 0.1

The line is narrower than the problem. It appears on the edit page only, and only once the frame has a setting. Everywhere else, the cull page included, the same frame shows the camera's JPEG with no adjustments and says nothing, and Export is the next place the problem shows. If a RAW take from a new camera looks unaffected by an edit, open it on the edit page and read the bottom of the canvas before you trust it.