mini-film
mini-film is a complete RAW-to-review-to-publish workflow for photographers
who want film-emulation output without opening Lightroom. It watches an inbox of
RAW files, develops them through RawTherapee, applies user-supplied film profiles
and grain, serves a live review UI, records ratings/tags/notes, and publishes the
final selection with metadata preserved.
The fastest way in is the desktop app:
With no command, mini-film opens the native app wizard for the usual
daemon/review settings, profile selection, Nikon WTU ingest, lens corrections,
output folders, and publishing defaults. The app remembers the last successful
setup, starts the same daemon pipeline used by the CLI, waits for the embedded
review server, and then opens the review UI in a webview. Terminal output is
still kept when launched from a shell, so long-running processing stays
inspectable. mini-film app remains available as the explicit command form.
For scripted use, every part of the workflow is still available as CLI commands:
apply, batch, daemon, sampler, pp3, info, nikon, and update.
Top Features
- Single-binary desktop workflow:
mini-filmprovides a Tauri launcher with native directory pickers, a structured profile tree, saved options, network sharing toggle, Nikon WTU IP input, and system light/dark theme. - Live review and publish workflow: run
daemonon an inbox folder, open the browser UI, review new pictures as they arrive, rate/tag/label them in multiple passes, compare profile variants, and publish the final selection with live job progress. - Optional Codex review assist: let Codex analyze small embedded RAW previews after rendering finishes and fill tags, notes, or initial ratings while the live review UI shows the same queued/processing status indicators.
- Film emulation from user-supplied profiles: apply XMP emulation presets,
Hald CLUT PNGs, or RawTherapee
.pp3files; convert Adobe Camera Raw / Lightroomcrs:RGBTableprofile XMPs into cached 16-bit Hald PNGs. - Nikon WTU ingest: pair with Nikon Connect-to-PC / Wireless Transmitter Utility mode over built-in camera Wi-Fi and feed transferred RAWs directly into the daemon inbox.
- Batch, sampler, and gallery output: process whole folders, render profile sampler sheets, and generate modern static HTML galleries.
- RAW pipeline extras: deterministic film grain, optional high-ISO color
denoise, optional RawTherapee lens corrections, metadata copyback with
exiftool, 8-bit JPEG output, and 16-bit Zip-compressed TIFF output.
Profile Library
mini-film does not include film profiles or emulations. It works with XMP, Hald, and PP3 profiles already present on disk, including profiles created by the user or obtained from commercial film-emulation products.
For XMP preset libraries, point --profiles-root at a directory with:
profiles/ # internal RGBTable profile XMPs
emulations/ # user-facing emulation preset XMPs
Quick Start
Apply one profile to one RAW:
Batch-process a folder:
Run the live review workflow:
Then open http://localhost:8090, review pictures as they are processed, and use
the publish wizard to export the final album.
Run the desktop wizard instead of writing the daemon command manually:
The app wizard defaults to ~/Pictures/Scratch/Inbox for input,
~/Pictures/mini-film for output, and MINI_FILM_PROFILES_ROOT or the selected
profiles root for profile lookup. It remembers the last successful setup in
~/.cache/mini-film/app-settings.json.
Use Nikon WTU ingest with the same daemon:
Build
The default build includes the Tauri desktop app so cargo run --release opens
the app from the normal binary. On Linux this requires the WebKitGTK development
packages used by Tauri. On Debian/Ubuntu/Linux Mint:
To build the command-line binary without desktop GUI dependencies:
GitHub releases publish both CLI artifacts and GUI artifacts. GUI artifact names
end in -gui before the platform extension, and GUI builds update from matching
-gui release assets.
Required external dependencies at startup for image-generation commands:
rawtherapee-cliconvert(ImageMagick/GraphicsMagick)exiftoolcodexonly when daemon review analysis is enabled with--codex
The update command also requires curl for downloading the Lensfun database.
Coverage
Generate LCOV coverage locally (requires cargo-llvm-cov):
The script writes:
CI runs the same coverage step on every push/PR and uploads coverage-lcov as an artifact.
Update
Use update to manually refresh the mini-film executable from
https://github.com/alfanick/mini-film/releases and rebuild/update the local
Lensfun profile database in ~/.cache/mini-film/lensfun.
The command also mirrors Lensfun DB files into the platform default location used by RawTherapee.
Update behavior is not automatic. Run it explicitly when a new release is
expected or before long sessions. The binary refresh still requires this crate to
be built with --features github-update; the Lensfun database refresh does not.
Convert XMP Profiles To Hald
Convert one profile XMP:
Convert all profile XMPs under the parent directory:
Ordinary emulation preset XMPs usually only reference a profile UUID and do not
contain the table payload; hald skips those in directory mode.
When -o/--output is omitted, hald writes generated Hald PNGs under
$HOME/.cache/mini-film/hald. Hald PNGs contain only the decoded RGBTable
lookup. Profile XMPs that include extra Camera Raw settings print
adjustments=pp3 or sharpening=pp3; those settings are handled through
generated RawTherapee profiles during apply, batch, and sampler.
Apply A Complete Film Recipe
Use a Lightroom emulation XMP that references an internal profile and defines grain:
If --profile is an emulation name, set --profiles-root to a folder that
contains emulations/ and profiles/:
output.tif / output.tiff is exported as 16-bit Zip-compressed TIFF.
output.jpg / output.jpeg is exported as 8-bit JPEG.
Use a human-edited RawTherapee profile directly:
When --profile points at a .pp3, mini-film passes that PP3 directly to RawTherapee. If the PP3 contains a [Film Simulation] section, RawTherapee applies its referenced Hald during RAW development. PP3-only profiles do not carry mini-film grain metadata.
Output metadata behavior for apply, batch, daemon, and sampler:
- source EXIF/IPTC fields are copied from the input RAW to the output file using
exiftool(unless--strip-metadatais set) - an EXIF comment is written as
mini-film <version> usage=<command> profile=<profile-or-emulation>
Batch Apply
Process every supported RAW file (.dng, .nef, .cr2, .cr3, .arw, .raf, .orf, .rw2, etc.) under an input directory and write JPGs or 16-bit TIFFs under an output directory:
The output directory is created if it does not exist. Nested input folders are preserved, and each RAW output uses the same relative path with a .jpg extension by default. Use --output-format tiff to write .tif files through the 16-bit Zip-compressed TIFF path.
By default, batch processes half of the detected CPU threads at once. On a 16-thread CPU that means 8 files in parallel. Override it with --jobs N when tuning for a different machine, output format, or memory budget.
batch shows two progress bars:
- total batch progress across files
- current file progress across RAW decode, Hald, grain, and final export steps
Batch Gallery
Pass --gallery to generate a gallery HTML from all successful batch outputs:
--gallery accepts one of modern, soft, compact, hero, phone, or all.
Template intent:
modern: masonry-like variable-cards layout with generous spacing and hero-like first-look cadencesoft: editorial light look with warm spacing and caption emphasiscompact: dense compact grid for quick scanninghero: story-focused layout with a large leading tile and balanced follow-upsphone: iOS/iPadOS photos style, dense square tilesall: render all five templates
Batch gallery options are folder-friendly and reuse the existing batch output tree
(including subdirectories). For a single template, the gallery is written as
<output>/index.html and uses <output>/thumbnails/.
--gallery all renders all five gallery templates into:
<output>/modern/index.html<output>/soft/index.html<output>/compact/index.html<output>/hero/index.html<output>/phone/index.html
The template run reuses one shared thumbnail cache at
<output>/.mini-film-gallery-thumbnails/ so switching layouts does not reprocess
or regenerate thumbnails.
Daemon
Run a long-lived watcher that applies one or more profiles whenever new RAW files arrive in an input folder.
The command validates all profiles on startup, so mistyped --profile values fail
immediately. It watches the input directory recursively, waits for the file to
be reported as completed by the watcher (or a short fallback window when that
signal is not available), and writes each
result into:
<raw relative structure>/<profile stem>/<raw stem>.<ext>
For example, /in/2026/05/03/DSC_1864-14.dng with profiles Foil and Classic
becomes:
/out/2026/05/03/Foil/DSC_1864-14.jpg/out/2026/05/03/Classic/DSC_1864-14.jpg
If profile resolution fails for any selector, startup stops with a clear error.
daemon processes raw files in parallel and defaults to half the available
CPU threads unless --jobs is set.
Live Review
Add --review-address to expose a browser-based review UI while the daemon is
running:
The review server assets are compiled into the binary, so a release executable
does not need HTML/CSS/JS files next to it. The UI is live: the daemon records
new RAW files immediately, extracts an embedded camera preview when available,
then updates the browser over server-sent events as each profile render moves
from queued to processing to done. The first --profile is the default selected
look. All configured profile variants are selected for publish by default; use
the checkbox on each profile thumbnail to exclude or re-include a variant while
reviewing.
Multiple browsers can use the review page at the same time. The current picture and minimum rating filter are server-owned shared state, so every browser shows the same review position. Navigation, filter changes, keyboard ratings, and rating-button clicks update that shared state and are replicated to every connected browser through the server-sent event stream. At the end of a pass, the shared filter moves to the next rating level.
Review data and the shared browser position are persisted in
<output>/mini-film-review.json. A human-readable audit trail of review, render,
and publish state changes is appended to <output>/history.txt. Together those
files make it possible to restart the daemon, reopen the browser, and continue
the multi-pass culling flow where it stopped. A typical pass is to rate
everything 0 or 1, filter to >= 1, rate the
survivors higher, and repeat until the final subset is ready.
Keyboard shortcuts are available in the browser UI; press ? to show the
shortcuts overlay. 1-5 rates and advances, arrow up/down changes the rating
and advances, left/right or h/l navigates without rating, PageUp/PageDown
cycles the profile preview for the current picture, and Space includes or skips
the selected profile for publish. 6, 7, 8, 9, and 0 toggle red,
yellow, green, blue, and purple labels without advancing; r, y, g, b,
and p provide the same mnemonic label toggles. c copies the current retouch
slider adjustments, and v pastes them onto another picture.
The review UI stores rating, label, tags, notes, active preview profile, and the set of profile variants selected for publish. It also supports per-picture retouch controls for exposure, highlights, shadows, whites, blacks, relative color temperature, clarity, rotation, and crop. The browser applies a fast draft preview while edits are being made, then queues a high-quality RawTherapee/mini-film render and swaps in the finished output when it is ready. Crop and rotation are persisted with the review state and are used by publish rerenders.
Optional Codex analysis can run after each RAW has a camera preview and its configured profile renders have finished:
--codex without a value defaults to tags only. Explicit values are
comma-separated: tags, note, rating, or all. Tags are normalized into the
same tag field used by manual review. Notes are one-sentence descriptions.
Ratings use a conservative 0 to 3 scale where 0 means technically
unusable, 1 technically correct, 2 interesting, and 3 truly good. Manual
edits always win: once a user changes tags, notes, or rating, later Codex
results do not overwrite that field. While analysis is queued or running, the
existing review sidebar status dot/text and the main profile status line show
the Codex state.
The default model is gpt-5.4-mini; override it or the binary path with:
Publishing opens a wizard that acts as a browser frontend for a spawned
mini-film review-publish job. The wizard can filter by rating, color label,
and tags; choose a relative album folder inside the daemon output directory;
select JPG/TIFF output, original size or resize options, JPEG
quality/subsampling/progressive mode, and an optional gallery template.
Publish jobs run in parallel with the daemon job count, which defaults to half
the available CPU threads, and stream live progress back to every open review
browser.
The default publish settings match the daemon render settings, so publishing
uses hardlinks to the already-reviewed outputs when possible and falls back to
symlinks if hardlinks are not available. If output settings differ, mini-film
rerenders the selected pictures from the original RAW files through the normal
apply pipeline before building the gallery.
Published outputs are flat under the chosen album folder:
<output>/<album>/<raw stem>.<ext>
<output>/<album>/<raw stem>-<profile stem>.<ext>
The first daemon --profile is treated as the default profile and does not add a
profile suffix. Additional selected profiles add -<profile stem>. If a gallery
template is chosen in the wizard, publish renders an index.html gallery in the
album folder using the same templates as batch. Supported templates are
modern, soft, compact, hero, phone, and all.
Published JPGs are annotated with review metadata through exiftool: rating,
label, tags, published profile, notes, and a mini-film version/comment marker.
The source RAW metadata copied during normal output generation is preserved
unless --strip-metadata is used.
The same publish operation can be run directly from the CLI:
Daemon can also ingest files from a Nikon camera configured for Connect-to-PC / Wireless Transmitter Utility style transfer. Start the camera's connection wizard, make sure the computer can reach the camera address, then point mini-film at that address. mini-film drives the Nikon pairing/auth step, downloads RAWs into the watched inbox, and processes them with the normal daemon queue:
The Nikon WTU receiver is native PTP/IP over TCP port 15740; it does not use
external camera-control tools. During first-time setup it requests the camera's
pairing code, accepts the wizard, completes pairing, reconnects, and then waits
for transferred RAW objects. Non-RAW transfer objects are consumed silently so
they do not block the camera's transfer queue. mini-film persists a stable
initiator GUID in $HOME/.cache/mini-film/nikon-wtu-guid unless
--nikon-wtu-guid is provided, and records successful camera pairings in
$HOME/.cache/mini-film/nikon-wtu-pairings.json. Later daemon runs reuse the
cached camera/name/GUID identity and go straight to transfer mode. If a camera
was previously paired to a different identity, remove that pairing on the camera
or reuse the same computer name/GUID with --nikon-wtu-name and
--nikon-wtu-guid.
Profile Sampler Contact Sheet
sampler renders one thumbnail per XMP file from emulations/ and builds a structured contact sheet grouped by shared profile-name prefixes. For example, Kodak profiles are shown under progressively deeper headings like Kodak, Kodak Portra, Kodak Portra 400, and Kodak Portra 400 Grainy; indentation makes the level visible. Each thumbnail is developed with its profile-specific generated RawTherapee .pp3 files, including Film Simulation for the Hald, which applies the LUT during RAW development, before the grain stage. Like batch, sampler renders half of the detected CPU threads in parallel by default; override with --jobs N. Thumbnail longest edge defaults to 512 px:
Use a non-default convert binary or write a progressive sampler JPEG with:
JPEG Export Options
apply, batch, and daemon support the same final JPG controls. batch and daemon also accept
--output-format jpg|tiff; TIFF batch output is written as 16-bit Zip-compressed .tif.
sampler supports --jpg-quality, --jpeg-subsampling, --strip-metadata, and
--progressive for generated sampler JPEGs, and accepts .jpg/.jpeg or .html
outputs (HTML mode produces a clickable gallery with lazy thumbnails).
Resize options:
--resize 3000x3000>passes explicit GraphicsMagick resize geometry.--long-edge 3000constrains the longest edge to 3000 px.--max-width 3000constrains width only.--max-height 2000constrains height only.--max-width 3000 --max-height 2000constrains both dimensions.
Use one resize mode at a time: --resize, --long-edge, or --max-width/--max-height.
JPEG subsampling values:
s444: best quality, no chroma subsamplings422: balanced horizontal chroma subsamplings420: smaller files with horizontal and vertical chroma subsampling
Profile Selection
--profile accepts:
- a Hald PNG path
- a RawTherapee
.pp3path - an emulation XMP path containing
crs:Lookplus optional grain settings - an emulation name, searched under
emulations/using case-insensitive fuzzy matching - a generated Hald name, searched under
--hald-dir, which defaults to$HOME/.cache/mini-film/hald
RGBTable XMPs under profiles/ are internal lookup tables. apply, batch, and sampler do not use them as user-facing emulations; they are only used to resolve linked crs:Look UUID/name references from emulation XMPs. mini-film generates or reuses a cached Hald from the linked profile under $HOME/.cache/mini-film/hald, generates temporary RawTherapee .pp3 files for supported XMP adjustments and Film Simulation, lets RawTherapee apply the Hald, then applies the emulation grain settings.
Profile Info
Print parsed details for a user-facing emulation or an internal RGBTable profile:
info resolves emulation names under emulations/, direct emulation XMP paths, direct internal profile XMP paths, internal profile names under profiles/, and cached Hald PNGs under --hald-dir. For emulations, it prints the preset identity, linked Look, linked internal RGBTable profile, cached Hald path, profile-side tone/color/sharpening adjustments, and emulation-side grain/adjustments.
RawTherapee PP3 Output
Print the generated RawTherapee PP3 for a profile:
pp3 uses the same profile/emulation resolver as info. It writes to /dev/stdout by default, or to --output. The output contains the RawTherapee adjustment profile sections that mini-film would pass to rawtherapee-cli, followed by the Film Simulation section pointing at the cached Hald PNG.
Nikon Picture Control Output
Fit an emulation XMP, internal RGBTable XMP, or Hald PNG into a Nikon classic .NCP Picture Control:
The nikon command writes a real classic NCP file using a neutral base Picture Control plus a fitted 257-point user-defined luminosity curve. It also estimates coarse saturation, hue, and sharpening fields from the profile. Use --name 'Short Name' to set the in-camera Picture Control name; NCP names are ASCII and short, so mini-film sanitizes and truncates them.
This is necessarily lossy. Nikon classic NCP does not store a full 3D LUT, RGBTable, Hald CLUT, or grain model. Color-specific film behavior is compressed into a 1D luma curve plus coarse sliders. Use the optional report to inspect mean/max luma and color error before trusting the result.
Processing Split
RawTherapee handles:
- RAW development and Hald CLUT application through Film Simulation
Exposure2012,Contrast2012,Highlights2012,Shadows2012,Whites2012,Blacks2012Saturation,VibranceToneCurvePV2012and per-channelToneCurvePV2012Red/Green/BlueParametricShadows/Darks/Lights/Highlightsand split points- HSL
HueAdjustment*,SaturationAdjustment*,LuminanceAdjustment* - calibration-style
RedHue/RedSaturation,GreenHue/GreenSaturation,BlueHue/BlueSaturation Clarity2012as a RawTherapee luminance-contrast approximation- profile sharpening fields in generated
.pp3files:Sharpness,SharpenRadius,SharpenDetail,SharpenEdgeMasking
mini-film internally handles:
- resolving emulation XMPs to internal RGBTable XMPs under
profiles/ - decoding RGBTable payloads and generating RGBTable-only Hald PNGs
- procedural grain from Lightroom grain fields
ImageMagick/GraphicsMagick convert handles:
- final resize, bit depth, metadata stripping, JPEG quality/subsampling, progressive JPEG, TIFF Zip compression, and TIFF/JPEG encoding
- structured sampler contact sheet rendering from mini-film's generated SVG layout
RAW Development
mini-film uses RawTherapee as its only RAW engine. TIFF outputs and explicit --keep-intermediate runs render a 16-bit TIFF intermediate with:
JPEG-bound apply, batch, and sampler runs ask RawTherapee for an 8-bit JPEG intermediate instead:
Sampler also adds a temporary RawTherapee resize profile so each RAW development produces a thumbnail-sized JPEG instead of a full-size TIFF.
Use a non-default RawTherapee binary path with:
Grain
Lightroom grain fields are read from preset XMPs:
crs:GrainAmountcrs:GrainSizecrs:GrainFrequency
Grain is rendered internally after RawTherapee. TIFF outputs use the 16-bit grain path; JPEG outputs use the optimized 8-bit grain path. Disable it with:
Set deterministic variation with:
When using a Hald PNG directly, pass grain manually:
or use a preset:
Color Noise Reduction
Since v3.1, mini-film can generate a short temporary RawTherapee pp3 block for
directional pyramid color denoising when source EXIF ISO is above a threshold.
- Controlled by
--color-noise-iso-thresholdonapply,batch,daemon, andsampler. - Default threshold is
1600. - Set to
0to disable color-noise processing. - The ISO is read from raw EXIF; when no ISO is available, the step is skipped.
The thresholds use stepped levels:
ISO >= 25_600: very strong color-denoiseISO >= 6_400: strongISO >= 1_600: moderate (default threshold)- below threshold: skipped
The denoise block is appended as an extra generated [Directional Pyramid Denoising]
section in the RawTherapee profile chain, after emulation/RAW adjustments and film
simulation and before mini-film procedural grain.
Example:
RawTherapee Lens Corrections
Mini-film can optionally enable RawTherapee lens-correction controls. This is
off by default and available on apply, batch, sampler, and daemon via:
When no value is provided, --lens-corrections enables all supported items.
You can also pass any subset of:
distortioncaorchromatic-aberrationvignetting/vignetteall
The generated section is inserted into the temporary pp3 stack as:
[LensProfile]
LcMode=lfauto
UseDistortion=<true|false>
UseVignette=<true|false>
UseCA=<true|false>
Caveat
This does not fully clone Adobe Camera Raw. It decodes and applies the profile RGB table, maps supported profile tone/color/sharpening fields into generated RawTherapee .pp3 files, uses RawTherapee for RAW development, and emulates Lightroom grain. Adobe-specific tone mapping, local contrast, sharpening, and camera matching may still differ.