Is cr3 a raw format for Canon cameras? That shows up in the list of supported file types in File -> Open on the version of GIMP I have installed (2.10.36).
Do you get an error or something if you try to open the file?
this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2026
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It doesn't open in version 3.0.8 that I have. Is there a plugin or something I need to install? If yes how do I do it? Is it in the repos?
Hmm. On my system (running Linux Mint), I get an error if I try to open an RW2 (don't have a CR3 file handy) indicating that darktable or rawtherapee needs to be installed. If I install darktable from the package manager, it just opens darktable when I try to open the file, and after closing darktable, GIMP loads the image.
How did you install GIMP and darktable? Are they both from the system package manager?
Worst case, if you're already using darktable, I guess you could just export the images after you develop the raws and then load them into GIMP from XCF/JPEG/TIFF/whatever files instead.
Hang on. This gives me an idea. I'll start again and reinstall them. So in your case no plugins were needed? Only darktable and gimp from the package manager?
I'm just running GIMP and Darktable from my distro's package manager, yeah. I haven't had to manually install any plugins as far as I can recall. (Some might be automatically installed by my distro through?)
alright! it works now just like you said. but i have another question now. why does it need to open the cr3 (or raw image) in darktable first?
I don't know. Could be the developers didn't want to reimplement raw-specific handling that other software already implemented, or maybe some other software has a similar workflow they copied? (Does Photoshop do something like this with Lightroom, perhaps?) Just guessing.
Anyway, glad that you've got it working. What was wrong?
No idea! Just worked like you said after I reinstalled both of them... Photoshop doesn't do that, it opens the raw file directly but it is too expensive and too windows. Anyway now I need to find tutorials to relearn how to edit my photos