Now in Digikam I have made '1' as 'open with default application' (which has been set to gimp) and in DT '1' is quit. My Gimp shortcuts have been customised for my purposes long ago. Just been tinkering with the shortcut keys. Where I think it won't work is when I want to compare say a bunch of shots that are underexposed to find the best one. I have figured that the tiff from DT was a useful backup but maybe the simpler workflow from this setup is worth it. The essence of my workflow is that each stage in development is driven from, and launched from, my library management tool.Yes that is exactly how I have been doing it.

It might seem a little long-winded, but it's really not.

Back in digiKam, I ' open with' GIMP the image I want to process further, and export to JPEG when done. When I want to process a raw file, I ' open with' Darktable from digiKam, then - when my image is ready - I export to TIFF from Darktable into dedicated export folders. I use digiKam for my image library management.

Darktable export problem