Separate .htaccess for folder, ignoring previous one - .htaccess

Question

I have this .htaccess in my root folder:
root:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?page=$1&%{QUERY_STRING} [NC,L]
So that incoming GET requests come through http://www.example.com/somethingsomething instead of ?page=somethingsomething. That's all fine.
However, in the root folder I have another folder named /i. Id like this one to handle another type of request, which looks like this: http://www.example.com/i/somethingsomething with the ending actually meaning http://www.example.com/i/index.php?img=somethingsomething. Problem is that the .htaccess in the root folder is still in use. What I need is the following:
/i:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?img=$1&%{QUERY_STRING} [NC,L]
, but somehow exclude the .htaccess in the root folder.
Is this possible?
EDIT:
Tried what I found on this site, for instance using RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(i) and similar in the root .htaccess.

Answer 1

Yes, you can do it like this, using a single rule in the root .htaccess. The root .htaccess is always going to get processed, so you might as well do it there with one rule. Otherwise it would be more complicated and the root would need modifying with an exception for /i anyway.
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(?:i/)?index\.php$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(i/)?(.*)$ /$1index.php?img=$2 [QSA,NC,L]
Using the [QSA] flag which is a better way to pass on any existing query string. RewriteBase is not needed. You perhaps don't need the directory check and it would be better for performance without it. The index.php check is there to improve performance by avoiding another file-system check after a successful rewrite.
Update
Sorry, I hadn't noticed that the parameter you are passing to index.php has a different name in the second case. These rules in root should work for you:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !=/index.php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/i/ [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php?page=$1 [QSA,NC,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(?:i/)?index\.php$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^i/(.*)$ /i/index.php?img=$1 [QSA,NC,L]