Raw Therapee 3 Is Now Free Software

Oh sweet Jesus no by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-18 12:58 · Score: 5, Funny

He opened up the code so other people could work on the GUI? This will end badly.

Re:Oh sweet Jesus no by __aaclcg7560 · 2010-01-18 13:06 · Score: 4, Insightful

Not really. While the Mac and Windows GUI experts get into a pissing match over graphic design, the command line experts will have the interface nailed down. When the project is abandoned, the program will continue to live on forever in Linux distributions.
Re:Oh sweet Jesus no by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-18 13:14 · Score: 0

He opened up the code so other people could work on the GUI? This will end badly.
Pish - posh!
BTW, could someone point me to the original GIMP UI? I think that would be AWESOME for this project!
Thanks.
Re:Oh sweet Jesus no by 0100010001010011 · 2010-01-18 14:56 · Score: 3, Insightful

Exactly the problem with FOSS image programs.
GIMP was written by programmers. They add features that they think everyone wants and implements them the way think think is best.
Photoshop was started by photographers. People that wanted to do stuff digitally. It wasn't until I started going through my dad's old photography books that I understood what 1/2 of the tools were and why they were named.
You FOSS zealots can keep on about GIMP, I'll keep getting work done in Photoshop.
Re:Oh sweet Jesus no by Hurricane78 · 2010-01-18 15:02 · Score: 3, Interesting

When I remember how my PHBs handled GUI interfaces in the past, my guess is:
- MOAR BUTTONZ!!!!!!111one(lim (x->0) (sin(x)/x))
- Highlight this! It is important!
- Oh noes! Now everything is highlighted!... Just make it red!
- My clickiez iz 2 smal! Iz maek it huuuugeee!
- Oh noes! No spaes left on full HD! Let’s splitz, wif 1 button in every modal windowz!
- Nowz too compleecated! We needz MOAR WEEZARDZ!!!!
- Yz ur program so sloow n stoopid! Me no can use! Plz 2 fix ASAP! U SUCK! KTHXBAI!
*Original developer starts crying about... now*
P.S.: Yes, my PHBs were very similar to cats. Their behavior made no sense at all, and they ignored every advice or information you gave them. Except when it was about money. They they were all over you. The rest of the time they were outside the house until late at night, or asleep in their office.

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Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Re:Oh sweet Jesus no by Sir_Lewk · 2010-01-18 15:17 · Score: 1

It wasn't until I started going through my dad's old photography books that I understood what 1/2 of the tools were and why they were named.
Great, so you are saying I have to be a photography expert before I can even start to understand the names of things in photoshop. That seems much better.

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"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
Re:Oh sweet Jesus no by Pulzar · 2010-01-18 15:34 · Score: 4, Insightful

Great, so you are saying I have to be a photography expert before I can even start to understand the names of things in photoshop. That seems much better.
Why is that a bad thing? If you're going to be fine-tuning and editing photos, you should know what you're doing. If you don't, well, there's always "auto levels" or "auto color" menu options to use, and off you go. For those that do know what they're doing, more advanced tools are available and are called what you expect them to be called.

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Re:Oh sweet Jesus no by Hurricane78 · 2010-01-18 16:54 · Score: 1

Hey moderator: WHOOOOSH! ^^

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Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Re:Oh sweet Jesus no by im_thatoneguy · 2010-01-18 17:47 · Score: 4, Insightful

Great, so you are saying I have to be a photography expert before I can even start to understand the names of things in photoshop. That seems much better.
Yes. That's exactly what we're saying. Just like you have to be a "Compute Expert" and understand what "Mouse" or "Keyboard" is and that a "CD-ROM" goes into the "Tray" or that you need to "Double-Click" on an "Icon" in order to run a program.
Every area has its own vocabulary. Often the names for things are throwbacks to decades or centuries earlier. In the case of photography you can take something like "exposure". In Photoshop exposure has no meaning unless you understand the photographic concept. Similarly in Photoshop the word "Dodge" means nothing unless you understand it from the photographic concept of "dodging" which involves blocking the light of the print in an area and reducing the exposure. Similarly "burning" means selectively extending the exposure to a region of your print. Burn means nothing when you're talking about pixels, but it makes perfect sense when you think about it optically. There are many ways to brighten or darken an image. In the case of Dodge and Burn as an example though you're talking about a very specific type of brightening and darkening.
Re:Oh sweet Jesus no by dangitman · 2010-01-18 19:04 · Score: 1

Great, so you are saying I have to be a photography expert before I can even start to understand the names of things in photoshop. That seems much better.
Given that the majority of users of a photo editing application will be photographers and graphic artists, it makes perfect sense. You wouldn't expect a large percentage of the users to be computer programmers.
Plus, if you're a non-photographer learning to use the program, then the naming of things will help teach you photography - which would be a good thing, as you're using an application for photographers!
What's next, are you going to complain about software for nuclear reactor design using terms that are familiar to nuclear engineers?

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... and then they built the supercollider.
Re:Oh sweet Jesus no by node+3 · 2010-01-18 19:15 · Score: 1

Hey moderator: WHOOOOSH! ^^
Well, to be fair, you *are* a hurricane...
Re:Oh sweet Jesus no by mwvdlee · 2010-01-18 19:48 · Score: 1

...And programming tools use terminology like "build" instead of "make it double-clickable" and
"debug" instead of "it doesn't work".
If you want a graphics program for people who aren't familiar with graphics terminology and don't want to get too deep into the matter, use GIMP.
Personally, I'd rather go with any one of the cheap alternatives to PhotoShop. I'd advise Paint Shop Pro, but there are many other valid alternatives.
For OS's other than Windows and OS-X, I've always liked Pixel32, but I haven't used it in quite a while and it's a commercial products so many Linux users will frown upon it.

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Re:Oh sweet Jesus no by JasterBobaMereel · 2010-01-19 01:09 · Score: 1

I am a photographer .... I use a digital camera like most people nowadays
Dodge/Burn etc .. makes no sense whatsoever to me, they are terms in the archaic process of developing, something you do not do with digital photos.....
I am processing photos taken with a digital camera, as digital data, on a computer.... why are terms derived from developing silvered photographs still used!
This would like terms from horse driven carriage driving being used in your car

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Puteulanus fenestra mortis
Re:Oh sweet Jesus no by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-19 02:30 · Score: 0

Photoshop was written by photographers? That explains EVERYTHING.
Re:Oh sweet Jesus no by phfpht · 2010-01-19 02:34 · Score: 1

Well... Sedan, Cabriolet, Coupe amd Limousine were all types of horse-drawn carriages that we still apply to types of cars.

One still flies (or some trains) coach.

Though it's also still technically appropriate, Wireless networking in some sense borrows the name from early radio.

Some (old fogies, undoubtedly) still call mobile phones "Cellular" though in many cases the technology is *not* cellular any more.

And so on. There are many *many* more examples of this. Photography is not unique at all in this respect.

Old terms live for a long time. Not because they're technically correct, but because they name a thing and the ability for a groupd to identify what another means is more important than staying up to date. The new comers must learn the "old" termonology.

Oh, and if you don't know the terms.... you're not a Photographer, you're just some one who takes digital pictures. Not the same thing. :-)
Re:Oh sweet Jesus no by Draek · 2010-01-19 05:12 · Score: 1

Photoshop was started by photographers.
Then taken over by graphic designers and, later, Adobe's marketing department. In fact, they screwed it up so badly Adobe started *ANOTHER* app by-photographers-for-photographers just to keep them happy, Lightroom, because they were already running away from its bloated and nightmarish interface to Apple Aperture and similar programs.
Photoshop is the only piece of software that makes Vista look lean by comparison.

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No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
Re:Oh sweet Jesus no by dangitman · 2010-01-19 11:41 · Score: 1

Dodge/Burn etc .. makes no sense whatsoever to me, they are terms in the archaic process of developing, something you do not do with digital photos..... I am processing photos taken with a digital camera, as digital data, on a computer.... why are terms derived from developing silvered photographs still used!
They are still used because they are effective and well-known. What would you call those tools instead - "selective lightening/darkening tool"? That's a but cumbersome.
The English language is a wonderful thing, and this kind of thing really adds flavor and character. It gives us insight into history. It's also educational, because when someone asks "what is dodging and burning" then they learn about these techniques and technology they have never heard of.
Would you rather just erase history and forget about all of that? There are historical aspects to all corners of our language, and they are wonderful to explore. Not to mention that anyone serious about photography is going to be studying the work of the old masters - people like Ansel Adams when it comes to darkroom technique, and there are many lessons to be learned there which are still relevant today. For a modern digital photographer not to have a basic understanding of the "obsolete" techniques is short sighted, IMO.

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... and then they built the supercollider.
Re:Oh sweet Jesus no by JasterBobaMereel · 2010-01-19 21:09 · Score: 1

Sorry you are an American ..
In the UK Sedan,Cabriolet,and Limousine are American cars ... we have City Cars, Compacts, Executive
We don't have Coach, We have Economy,Business Class
Wireless, is the opposite of Wired
Cellular, is as you say obsolete as a term and is not used (Mobile)
The old terms die when no longer appropriate, they only endure when they still have a use that actually makes sense
Why do I have to learn old non-obvious anachronistic terms for a process, that do not apply to what I am doing?
There are perfectly good words for the process, they are lighten and darken, I don't need to "learn" what they mean ....

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Puteulanus fenestra mortis
Re:Oh sweet Jesus no by dangitman · 2010-01-20 00:42 · Score: 1

In the UK Sedan,Cabriolet,and Limousine are American cars ... we have City Cars, Compacts, Executive
You don't have sedans or limousines in the UK? Bullshit.

The old terms die when no longer appropriate, they only endure when they still have a use that actually makes sense
The irony of saying this and being British at the same time is immense. British English is full of archaic words that haven't died out.

There are perfectly good words for the process, they are lighten and darken, I don't need to "learn" what they mean ....
But this is referring to a very specific form of lightening and darkening, not just the general concept. What do you propose the new name for these tools be?

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... and then they built the supercollider.
Re:Oh sweet Jesus no by JasterBobaMereel · 2010-01-20 20:55 · Score: 1

We have Sedans and Limos they are American cars like a Chevvy is ...
We do not think of them of them as types of cars but names of cars
The archaic words that have died out are still there because they are useful, they encompass a concept that needs a name, they are not kept if they are no longer useful
Lighten Tool, Darken Tool sounds good to me, short descriptive and obvious?

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Puteulanus fenestra mortis
Re:Oh sweet Jesus no by dangitman · 2010-01-20 21:24 · Score: 1

Lighten Tool, Darken Tool sounds good to me, short descriptive and obvious?
But that would imply lightening or darkening the whole image, not selected parts of arbitrary shape. Your name is not descriptive enough.

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... and then they built the supercollider.

dcraw by characterZer0 · 2010-01-18 13:02 · Score: 5, Informative

http://www.cybercom.net/~dcoffin/dcraw/

GPLv2

There is a gimp plugin that provides a very nice front end for it.

They've been in Debian for years.

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Go green: turn off your refrigerator.

Re:dcraw by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-18 13:40 · Score: 0

cat photo.raw | rawtoppm | pnmtojpeg --quality=95 > photo.jpeg
For those of us who don't need a fancy-shmancy GUI.
Re:dcraw by kantier · 2010-01-18 14:16 · Score: 1

It's all right if you want to manage a couple of pictures with gimp, but try 100. or 300. For professional of serious amateur work, you need a GUI that can manage that with decent performance.
Re:dcraw by E+IS+mC(Square) · 2010-01-18 14:37 · Score: 1

Any professional or serious amateur would know that Gimp is not for managing your pictures. It's an editor. There are other photo managers available in Linux world (with limited editing capabilities). Even Picasa - though via wine - can do a pretty good job of managing pictures. Parent was probably pointing out the fact that this is not really the first FOSS program to offer raw support.
Re:dcraw by Gerzel · 2010-01-18 14:55 · Score: 1

Why use wine? Picasa is available native for linux now.
Re:dcraw by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-18 14:58 · Score: 0

True -- also there are different kinds of graphics pros. There's the kind that would be out of work if the GUI vanished, and the kind that actually know how to write scripts to work far more efficiently than the GUI-dependent types.
Re:dcraw by sznupi · 2010-01-18 15:16 · Score: 1

Picasa in not a native Linux app, it ships with & uses Wine libraries under the hood.
And it seems it's being abandoned due to low adoption anyway...

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One that hath name thou can not otter
Re:dcraw by TheQuantumShift · 2010-01-18 19:52 · Score: 2, Informative

Also in the repos is RawStudio. It uses dcraw to do conversions, but inside a lightroom-lite (as in it only has the basic abilities you actually use) interface. Unfortunately the "export to gimp" menu option is broken, but it still opens images faster, makes adjustments faster and exports to jpeg faster than lightroom under windows on the same hardware.

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Shift happens. Fire it up.
Re:dcraw by penguinchris · 2010-01-19 01:04 · Score: 1

as in it only has the basic abilities you actually use
Uh, ok... I'm no professional and while I don't use the slideshow and fancy layout stuff in Lightroom, but I do use almost all of the "developing" and library features it offers. Not everything on every photo, obviously, but I think I've used every feature since I've been using it.
I fully appreciate RawStudio and similar programs that are trying to offer similar functionality, but the key to Lightroom being so great is that it offers all of the "basic abilities you actually use" from Photoshop, which is a ridiculously full-featured program. It's a sub-set of features packaged in a different way such that it is quicker and easier for a specific task, photo manipulation, whereas the full Photoshop offers endless more possibilities, most of which aren't necessary for photography. Even so, occasionally a situation comes up where you need to do something that Lightroom can't handle - and it's integrated perfectly with Photoshop, so it's no problem (if you have Photoshop obviously).
RawStudio and the like offer subsets of the features of Lightroom, and therefore offer sub-sub-sets of the capabilities of Photoshop or Gimp.
I don't want to knock their efforts - I'm an open source guy all the way - but even for amateurs, RawStudio and similar are not good replacements for Lightroom.
It's unfortunate because I want to like open source graphics and photo software. InkScape is pretty good, but my main interest is photography and photography software is severely lacking in comparison to commercial offerings. I'm not saying everyone should pirate Lightroom and Photoshop for really basic stuff - RawStudio, GIMP, etc. are fine if all you really want to do is adjust the white balance and contrast - but if you're starting with a RAW, it *requires* more processing than that for a good result. It's designed that way. If you don't like the extra work, shoot jpg or raw+jpg just in case, and set how you want it to look in-camera.
And I don't suggest anyone pay for Lightroom and Photoshop for non-commercial uses either, because it's so ridiculously expensive (Lightroom at least is not outrageous, but you do sometimes need Photoshop, so...) - but if you're even a little bit serious about it, even just for fun, once you try the industry standard software it's hard to go back because it's just so much better. It helps that this is some of the easiest to find software on piratebay and the like.
Re:dcraw by richlv · 2010-01-19 05:24 · Score: 1

exactly. how do you even "manage" images with gimp ?
one of the best choices seems to be digikam - especially with the gallery export

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Rich

Digikam by thatkid_2002 · 2010-01-18 13:05 · Score: 2, Informative

The only (as far as I know) usable and free (as in beer) program for processing RAW photos outside Windows or OS X... DigiKam was the only one I knew about for AGES before I heard of Raw Therapee.

Re:Digikam by RuBLed · 2010-01-18 13:40 · Score: 1

You had been missing much then :D ... One of my hobbies is photography and I'm using Linux in my home desktop and RawTherapee is GOD-SENT (all caps for awesomeness).

I just hope this would be for the better of RAWTherapee, if you read various reviews from photography websites, this is almost on par and outperforms commercial versions like Lightroom in certain areas. The batch processing is somewhat lacking but I'm hoping someone would now tackle that.
Re:Digikam by kantier · 2010-01-18 14:07 · Score: 1

I wasn't really clear in that sentence.
I do photography for free software related events, and when I have the 300-something RAWs for postprocessing I need something that can let me work with sets of images, not individual images. Currently I use Lightroom because it's the only thing that gets the job done in relaistic time, because of GUI issues. I used RawTherapee before but, despite being the best I could find, it wasn't there yet (I'm talking about 2.3, more or less). With the changes announced for 3.0 I think it may be usable again for that kind of work.
I used digikam before, but with JPEGs, with RAWs it was impossible.
Re:Digikam by mattcsn · 2010-01-18 14:17 · Score: 1

Have you looked at Bibble 5? It was just released in december, and the new interface and featureset is a drastic improvement over version 4. It's now pretty comparable to Lightroom and Aperture, and it runs natively on Linux as well as OSX and Windows. The developers focused heavily on workflow and speed issues, with an eye towards sensible keyboard shortcuts.
I'm not an employee, just a happy customer, even if I do get the evil eye from fellow nerds whenever I fire up a $200 closed-source app on my Slackware machine. :)
Re:Digikam by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-18 15:05 · Score: 0

I will soon be buying bibble 5. Its the best RAW processing software available for linux.
Whoever mentioned digikam has never done any RAW processing. it doesnt process RAW files - it just converts them. All processing is done on the converted file, so it doesn't compare to proper RAW conversion software such as Bibble, Lightroom, Capture One, Nikon Capture NX2, ViewNX etc.
Nikon Capture NX2 is also very good...but unfortunately it runs only on windows and my photo library is on linux. Should I move it all over to windows (NTFS) ? well I upgraded my PC recently (m/b, cpu, ram, v/card). Linux started up on the new hardware without a hitch. Windows (7) had to be completely reinstalled (which means I lose all my settings). Easy choice really. I'm sure there would've been ways to get windows working again, but I dont have that long.
Re:Digikam by hairyfeet · 2010-01-18 18:59 · Score: 1

Actually it would have cost you $20 and 20 minutes to keep all your Windows settings while upgrading to Windows 7, 32 or 64 bit. I used it a couple of times when Windows 7 first came out for clients going from XP to Windows 7 (The Vista clients just want to forget Vista ever existed, thanks) and it was fast and easy. Oh and it will let you upgrade from as far back as Win2K to Windows 7.
Which, as you should know if you have used Windows for any length of time, is par for the course. You pretty much need third party tools for most tasks, because the default tools suck.

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Re:Digikam by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-19 00:00 · Score: 0

I can batch process all RAW photos at once in digiKam. With automatic or custom settings. I shoot almost every day about 8-12 Gb of RAW's, that is about 800 photos every day to go trought and process. The 5% thumbrule applyis here as well. Only about 40 photos are those what really are developed to client and only few of those are used on marketing etc. I can do everything in digiKam and many studios who use only Macs have be very intrested software what I use. Before 0.10 this was much harder but now easy and I have big expections for 1.1 and on the christmas release of 1.0 added nice HDR function as well with automatic stiching etc. First time I have started to enjoy making HDR photos from multiple RAW's. Just selected all wanted RAW photos, apply wanted whitebalance etc and push to sthicing and blending and then you get wanted HDR out.

Only? by Xabraxas · 2010-01-18 13:07 · Score: 5, Informative

What about rawstudio and ufraw? I have used all three and I can say that while I like the features that rawtherapee has I like it the least overall. Everything is so slow that working on a RAW image takes forever. Rawstudio has the least amount of features but is very fast and the SVN version has added a few very important features. It is currently my favorite. UFRaw is nice but the interface isn't as clean as rawstudio and there is no batch processing. Every image has to be opened separately.

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Time makes more converts than reason

Re:Only? by tpwch · 2010-01-18 13:16 · Score: 2, Informative

Thats not entirely accurate. Ufraw has for a long time included a batch tool called ufraw-batch. Try running that command it if you have ufraw installed and see for yourself. The idea is that you process one image in the series in the normal ufraw gui and save the changes you made as a template to a config file (thats what that button in the ufraw gui is for). Then you have ufraw-batch load that config and process as many pictures as you like. I tried rawstudio, but it kept crashing for me. Been using ufraw for two years, and it works great here. I don't think the UI is confusing.
Its command-line only, thats probably why you missed.

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Posted by a Debian GNU/Linux user
Re:Only? by macshit · 2010-01-18 15:27 · Score: 1

I tried rawstudio, but it kept crashing for me. Been using ufraw for two years, and it works great here. I don't think the UI is confusing.
Both ufraw and rawstudio seem generally usable to me. The annoying thing is that while ufraw has a great denoise tool (basically one parameter, and always seems to do a great job), it has no sharpening tool, and while rawstudio has a great sharpening tool, it has no denoising tool!!
Even more odd is that as I understand it, dcraw -- the underlying library both apps use -- is actually where ufraw gets its great denoise from, so it seems a bit peculiar that rawstudio doesn't use it...
[Overall, ufraw seems a bit nicer to me -- it has a lot of very well integrated tweaking knobs that do a good job without being overwhelming -- but rawstudio has more straightforward handling of multiple images, and that great sharpening...]

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Re:Only? by tpgp · 2010-01-18 16:21 · Score: 1

Ufraw has for a long time included a batch tool called ufraw-batch. Try running that command it if you have ufraw installed and see for yourself.
This functionality is also available in a pretty nice GUI fashion via an f-spot extension. Works very well for me.

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My pics.
Re:Only? by deathguppie · 2010-01-18 17:16 · Score: 1

Actually Digikam is currently the leading open source raw conversion utility IMHO. My wife is a photographer (does some pay work but mostly play), and she prefers Digikam to lightroom hands down, and uses it all the time. (yes she owns lightroom and doesn't use it)

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once more into the breach
Re:Only? by beaviz · 2010-01-18 19:23 · Score: 1

Even more odd is that as I understand it, dcraw -- the underlying library both apps use -- is actually where ufraw gets its great denoise from, so it seems a bit peculiar that rawstudio doesn't use it...

This is where UFRaw and Rawstudio is very different. UFRaw uses dcraw for almost everything. Rawstudio only uses dcraw for loading bayer image data.
By the way. Current Rawstudio development tree has both sharpen and denoise. And LOTS of other goodies.
Re:Only? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-18 23:37 · Score: 0

And how about digiKam http://digikam.org/ what use own implentation of dcraw called kdcraw? Different batch jobs, even multiple different batches are possible and even great kipi-plugins support to export/import to wanted place and the photo management part is just awesome.
Re:Only? by tpwch · 2010-01-19 00:36 · Score: 1

That makes sense to me. Denoising can be done much better when you have the data from the raw image than when you have already converted. Sharpening is the same either way, so you could just as well do it in gimp or something, so a raw program doesn't need to include it. Also sharpening should always be the last thing you do, because it doesn't turn out nearly as well if you do it earlier in your workflow (And I mean the last, after doing all modifications, and resizing. The only thing left to do when you've sharpened the image should be to hit the save button and close the program.) And since most people probably do some final touch-ups in an image editor after having the image converted from raw, it makes sense to do the sharpening in the image program, rather than doing it prematurely. For myself I made a small shell script that uses ufraw-batch to convert raw files to images using settings that usually produce good results for my camera. Then it uses imagemagick to do some other things, including applying a small unsharp mask. Works pretty well. I only open ufraw and go trough the whole process manually for images that turned out exceptionally well.

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Posted by a Debian GNU/Linux user
Re:Only? by neurovish · 2010-01-19 03:10 · Score: 1

Thats not entirely accurate. Ufraw has for a long time included a batch tool called ufraw-batch. Try running that command it if you have ufraw installed and see for yourself. The idea is that you process one image in the series in the normal ufraw gui and save the changes you made as a template to a config file (thats what that button in the ufraw gui is for). Then you have ufraw-batch load that config and process as many pictures as you like. I tried rawstudio, but it kept crashing for me. Been using ufraw for two years, and it works great here. I don't think the UI is confusing.
Its command-line only, thats probably why you missed.
ufraw is probably what I use most because of this feature. Setup a general profile for how my raw photos come out, then ufraw-batch the entire 10G directory, and spend the next couple days/weeks going through the results and picking out images that might need some more processing. Those usually just end up sitting around until I forget about them though. I still haven't found anything suitable in linux for editing individual raw photos that need it. LightZone in general works well, but the price for it is absurd since it has no support at all for HDR, and for the same price I could buy a copy of Lightroom.
Re:Only? by Xabraxas · 2010-01-19 03:48 · Score: 1

That's the great thing about the SVN version of rawstudio. It has a denoise tool, LensFun integration, including controls for vignetting and color aberration correction. There is also a channel mixer now.

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Time makes more converts than reason
Re:Only? by Xabraxas · 2010-01-19 03:51 · Score: 1

Wow. Thanks. I never knew that. Now only if you could select photos from a series like rawstudio and prioritize them. It seems kind of funny to have such an advanced gui in UFRaw but with a batch interface that is CLI only.

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Time makes more converts than reason

The only free program for processing RAW? by yankpop · 2010-01-18 13:11 · Score: 1

What does it do that puts it in a different category than Rawstudio or UFRaw?

yp.

Re:The only free program for processing RAW? by The+End+Of+Days · 2010-01-18 13:23 · Score: 3, Informative

Well, it's the only one that calls itself the only one.
Re:The only free program for processing RAW? by kantier · 2010-01-18 14:01 · Score: 2, Informative

No, I called it the only one, thinking I was right (when I wrote that)

RAW conversion for GIMP? by MasterOfGoingFaster · 2010-01-18 13:12 · Score: 4, Informative

Great news. For those who don't know, a digital camera's sensor is actually a monochrome sensor. It is not a true color sensor (except for Sigma cameras). Each seperate sensor cell (sensel) has a colored filter placed over it. So the color is actually calculated by compariing each sensel's value with the adjacent sensels. Thus the demosaic process is very important.

All digital cameras have a built-in processor that processes the raw data the creates a JPEG file. But the JPEG file has less data (8-bit vs. 12 to 14 bit RAW) and suffers when heavy post processing is applied. Thus most pros shoot in raw, as you can image PhotoShop, Lightroom, Aperture and others can do a much better job than the built-in processor.

The availability of a RAW converter for Linux is a big deal. Without it, Linux is very limited it its usefulness to photographers.

Might GIMP soon include RAW conversion? I sure hope so.

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Place nail here >+

Re:RAW conversion for GIMP? by yankpop · 2010-01-18 13:18 · Score: 4, Informative

Might GIMP soon include RAW conversion? I sure hope so.
It already does, via UFRaw and Rawstudio, and maybe others.
Re:RAW conversion for GIMP? by tpwch · 2010-01-18 13:19 · Score: 1

If you read some of the other comments you'll see that linux has had multiple free software raw-processing programs for many years. There are at least two plugins for gimp, one for dcraw and one for ufraw. And there are professional photographers that use them.

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Posted by a Debian GNU/Linux user
Re:RAW conversion for GIMP? by OverlordQ · 2010-01-18 13:34 · Score: 1

Might GIMP soon include RAW conversion? I sure hope so.
You mean a version besides UFRaw plugin that has been out for 5 years? Or do you mean built-in?

--
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Re:RAW conversion for GIMP? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-18 13:35 · Score: 5, Insightful

Thanks for this post! I read the web page, and part of the forums and still never understood that the goddamned program was good for. This is all too common in open source.
Folks- if you're going to put your code out there, then tell the world what the hell it does and what it's good for- not that you've improved the frobulation, and rejiggered the comblastictor.
grumpy
Re:RAW conversion for GIMP? by EvanED · 2010-01-18 13:40 · Score: 5, Informative

Thus most pros shoot in raw, as you can image PhotoShop, Lightroom, Aperture and others can do a much better job than the built-in processor.
IMO, the conversion from RAW -> JPEG being done better than on the camera chip is by far the least compelling reason to shoot RAW, especially with Canons (where the on-camera processor already does a really job). 99% of people would never be able to tell the difference between the two processing options, even on a properly calibrated screen.
The real reason to shoot RAW is the world of post-processing options that shooting RAW presents you. Because of the 12 bits of color depth you have more latitude with playing with the exposure controls; if you make sure that you don't overexpose anything (i.e. you "expose for the highlights") you can compress the dynamic range a bit to bring out more detail in the dark areas. Because white balance hasn't been applied yet, you can change white balance post-processing losslessly. (There's software that will give you white-balance controls over JPEG pictures in a similar manner, but it's lossy.)
Re:RAW conversion for GIMP? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-18 13:41 · Score: 0

Might GIMP soon include RAW conversion? I sure hope so.
Only ever through import plugins that do the colour-space downsampling before giving GIMP the 24-bit colour bitmap data. GIMP's whole architecture is limited to 8-bit per channel, and would take a massive rewrite to support anything higher.
Unfortunately, that means it'll never be suitable for pro photographic work, as you often don't want to do the downsampling until after you've made other changes.
Re:RAW conversion for GIMP? by stephanruby · 2010-01-18 14:19 · Score: 2, Funny

Am I only the one who understood the summary to mean that he lacked interest in like image processing? And that the submitter/slashdot editor must have been like a valley girl?
Re:RAW conversion for GIMP? by yankpop · 2010-01-18 14:32 · Score: 2, Informative

Only ever through import plugins that do the colour-space downsampling before giving GIMP the 24-bit colour bitmap data. GIMP's whole architecture is limited to 8-bit per channel, and would take a massive rewrite to support anything higher.
The massive rewrite is in progress, and 12 (or 16) bits per channel will be fully supported with version 3.0. The current development version is 2.7, with a release version of 2.8 on the (distant) horizon. So, real soon now...
Re:RAW conversion for GIMP? by E+IS+mC(Square) · 2010-01-18 14:41 · Score: 1

Thank you. It's unbelievable that so called professional and serious amateur photographers who also are familiar with linux can not know one single application capable of handling raw format, when they have been available in one form or the other for quite some time.
Re:RAW conversion for GIMP? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-18 14:53 · Score: 1, Informative

rewrite is being done. When GEGL library taking care of non-destructive editing is mature and fully integrated, 16bit channels will be there too. Some stuff in GIMP already works with GEGL, but advanced color spaces should be implemented in v2.8, which is the next stable version after the current 2.6.
Re:RAW conversion for GIMP? by macshit · 2010-01-18 15:40 · Score: 1

... and it looks like the new GEGL core is based on floating-point operators, so it would seem simple to support floating-point image formats (e.g., OpenEXR) as well!
...drool...

--
We live, as we dream -- alone....
Re:RAW conversion for GIMP? by MasterOfGoingFaster · 2010-01-18 17:42 · Score: 1

My hope is that RAW conversion is included with the base package. I've suggested GIMP for beginners on a budget, then watched them dump it because it couldn't read RAW. Not everyone knows how to look for plug-ins, or even know plug-ins exist.

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Place nail here >+
Re:RAW conversion for GIMP? by MasterOfGoingFaster · 2010-01-18 17:53 · Score: 3, Interesting

The real reason to shoot RAW is the world of post-processing options that shooting RAW presents you. Because of the 12 bits of color depth you have more latitude with playing with the exposure controls; if you make sure that you don't overexpose anything (i.e. you "expose for the highlights") you can compress the dynamic range a bit to bring out more detail in the dark areas. Because white balance hasn't been applied yet, you can change white balance post-processing losslessly. (There's software that will give you white-balance controls over JPEG pictures in a similar manner, but it's lossy.)
Agreed. You've added more detail than I did, when I said "the JPEG file has less data (8-bit vs. 12 to 14 bit RAW) and suffers when heavy post processing is applied."
I have a habit of describing how a watch works when people simply want to know the time. Overcompensating, I left out lots of detail. Perhaps I oversimplified.
But 16-bit-per-pixel (actually 3x16bpp=48bpp) editing is not lossless. Generally the loss of quality is not visible, but not in all cases. But as you point out, its WAY better then 24bit (3x8bit) JPEGs.

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Place nail here >+
Re:RAW conversion for GIMP? by dangitman · 2010-01-18 19:10 · Score: 1

Great news. For those who don't know, a digital camera's sensor is actually a monochrome sensor. It is not a true color sensor (except for Sigma cameras). Each seperate sensor cell (sensel) has a colored filter placed over it.
How is it a monochrome sensor if it has colored filters to sense different colors? Don't those filters turn it into a color sensor?

--
... and then they built the supercollider.
Re:RAW conversion for GIMP? by dangitman · 2010-01-18 19:16 · Score: 1

Am I only the one who understood the summary to mean that he lacked interest in like image processing? And that the submitter/slashdot editor must have been like a valley girl?
I didn't get that, but I was wondering why FOSS graphics software has such brutal and disgusting names. First "The Gimp" and now an application name gloating about having raped someone until they were raw?? Ewwww.

--
... and then they built the supercollider.
Re:RAW conversion for GIMP? by jonaskoelker · 2010-01-18 19:36 · Score: 1

Folks- if you're going to put your code out there, then tell the world what the hell it does and what it's good for- not that you've improved the frobulation, and rejiggered the comblastictor.
But this new rejiggerment is ALPHABETSOUP-2010 comblastictor(TM) compatible!
Re:RAW conversion for GIMP? by clickclickdrone · 2010-01-18 21:24 · Score: 2, Informative

>How is it a monochrome sensor if it has colored filters to sense different colors?
The sensor itself is monochrome - it just detects brightness. Overlaying it is a mosaic of coloured filters set in a pattern. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demosaicing for a good explanation

--
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
Re:RAW conversion for GIMP? by charlyw · 2010-01-18 22:00 · Score: 1

Might GIMP soon include RAW conversion? I sure hope so.
For that to be really useful the GIMP needs to finally get 16 bit colour depth support. Without that you might as well use an application such as digikam or lightroom or rawtherapee for all your editing needs, the GIMP doesn't cut it currently. rawtherapee is a nice one though and might prove the best for linux yet, the foundations for that are there...
Re:RAW conversion for GIMP? by mkuki · 2010-01-19 01:11 · Score: 1

Yes, yes and yes. I'm an amateur photographer and I always shoot in .NEF (Nikon's RAW) due to the latitude availed. Also, computer processing is always better than in-camera processing. However, I am not happy about the proprietary nature of NEF (and lets not even get into Nikon encrypting the white balance issue). I have about 100GB of photos that I intend to run through a batch process to convert to Adobe's DNG (Digital Negative), which they are trying to turn into a standard. I don't want to be stuck 10 years down the line when CaptureNX2 doesn't run on a new O.S.
Re:RAW conversion for GIMP? by Eponymous+Bastard · 2010-01-19 02:00 · Score: 1

The massive rewrite is not in progress yet.
Currently the projects being worked on git are:
-Single window interface (Their own private kind of MDI, not anything standard)
-Integrating the brush dynamic GSoC project
-Adding a test suite
-Including code to work on a XMP model (?)
-Real dynamic hardness support for both generated and pixmap brushes
-Some work on file format. It seems new features in 2.8 might require 2.8 to read, but that code isn't there yet
They also added simple layer groups so far, plus the usual bugfixes and improvements. I can't say I understand all the git comments though.
GEGL integration is not actually happening yet, and it'll take a year or two at least. Internal representatiuon when rendering will be floating point RGB but I remember hearing the buffers will be able to store (or Gimp will be able to read) any pixel format understood by babl.
Personally I don't much care for GEGL. It's Pulseaudio for graphics, and way too alpha to make it an integral part of Gimp.
Anyway don't hold your breath for more than 8-bits on Gimp. It'll be at least 2012 before it can be used for anything more than what you can do now.
Re:RAW conversion for GIMP? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-19 03:48 · Score: 0

Fail! your both only half right... I cannot believe you two are photographers
the reason to shoot in raw, is that you are harnessing the power of the photon to give you 5 levels of fstop information so that you can darken an area of the image and have detail come back, rather than just the same burnt out object that that you were originally looking at.
now go and visit www.modelmayhem.com read the forums, and enjoy your afternoon.
Re:RAW conversion for GIMP? by schon · 2010-01-19 04:15 · Score: 1

The massive rewrite is in progress, and 12 (or 16) bits per channel will be fully supported with version 3.0.
What about 32-bit floating point? It would be nice to be able to do editing of OpenEXR images before tone-mapping takes place. Cinepaint is pretty crude for this - I'd like to be able to use GIMP.
Re:RAW conversion for GIMP? by dangitman · 2010-01-19 11:32 · Score: 1

The sensor itself is monochrome - it just detects brightness. Overlaying it is a mosaic of coloured filters set in a pattern.
And that mosaic of filters is a part of the sensor's design, an integrated part of the sensor.

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... and then they built the supercollider.
Re:RAW conversion for GIMP? by clickclickdrone · 2010-01-19 22:04 · Score: 1

>And that mosaic of filters is a part of the sensor's design, an integrated part of the sensor.
But the point is that what comes out of the sensor isn't a colour image, it's a mono one which is then interpreted afterwards by demosaicing. The RAW file is just a data dump with a bit of header info that then need to be interpreted. The demosaicing isn't a precise process hence different software tools doing a better job than others.

--
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
Re:RAW conversion for GIMP? by dangitman · 2010-01-20 00:35 · Score: 1

But the point is that what comes out of the sensor isn't a colour image, it's a mono one which is then interpreted afterwards by demosaicing.

But color information is "encoded" into that data because of the color filter. Calling it a monochrome sensor makes about as much sense as saying that a color CRT TV is actually monochrome because the electron gun emits "monochrome" electrons, only to become color when they hit different phosphors for each color.
If the signal from the sensor was "monochrome" then it would never be able to be decoded into color by demosaicing. The process requires different signals for each color.

--
... and then they built the supercollider.

Free as in 'Freedom' by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-18 13:14 · Score: 0

Stallman's version is a proper noun because it's nothing like the dictionary definition.

Obviously... by schon · 2010-01-18 13:31 · Score: 1

It doesn't say it's the only one, it says it's the only usable one.

As any True Scotsman could tell you, that's a highly significant difference.

(seriously though, I'm a die-hard UFRaw user - it does everything I need it to, although it is a little slow... I've never tried RAWStudio, and I can't as it doesn't support my camera.)

RAWTherapee is a frontend for dcraw by syousef · 2010-01-18 13:42 · Score: 2, Informative

RAWTherapee uses dcraw under the hood.

Changes to the underlying version of dcraw are referenced in the version history on the project website's front page
http://www.rawtherapee.com/

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These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer

Re:RAWTherapee is a frontend for dcraw by maxume · 2010-01-18 13:56 · Score: 1

The author says it is more than a front end:
http://www.rawtherapee.com/?mitem=4&faqid=17

--
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Re:RAWTherapee is a frontend for dcraw by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-18 16:39 · Score: 0

I'm sorry, I just can't read that as anything but, "Raw-the-rapee."

Developer in for a shock by syousef · 2010-01-18 13:48 · Score: 0, Flamebait

License changes:

I decided to change the license to GPL and thus offer the source code to the open source community. This does not mean that I stop developing RawTherapee. I will invest as much time into the development as till now. I have three motivations for this decision: first, I love playing with image processing algorithms but I'm not keen on GUI development. Recently a huge amount of work had to be invested to develop a usable GUI and I had no time left to play with new algorithms. I hope to involve some new developers who help me to maintain and enhance the GUI. The second reason of licence change was that I am very frustrated by the huge amount of bug reports I can not reproduce (believe it or not, RT is stable on my PC). I hope that with the open source model some talented users can identify the problems and fix the bugs. The third (but maybe the most important) reason of switching to GPL is that our baby reached the age (10 month old) when he needs his father more and more. I dont want to disappoint him :). With more developers involved the development process will hopefully more smooth and wont stop when I am busy.

Such naivety!

1. Author is very lucky he's had so much time on his hands up to the 10 month mark with his son. I've had very little time to myself since mine was born (almost 18 months). I think he's about to learn how much time and effort raising a child takes.

2. I can't believe the author of such a mature and well known product has come up with the line "believe it or not, RT is stable on my PC". Or that he believes the first thing any other programmer is going to want to do is reproduce bugs they aren't experiencing themselves. Epic fail.

--
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer

Re:Developer in for a shock by syousef · 2010-01-18 15:29 · Score: 0

How exactly can this every be construed as flamebait? People need to understand the difference between a flame and an observation or argument they don't like.

--
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Re:Developer in for a shock by th3rmite · 2010-01-18 16:24 · Score: 2, Insightful

Epic fail? This guy GPLs his software and you say "Epic fail"? I don't think it should matter what his reasons are, we should be happy that a formerly closed source application has embraced open source.
Re:Developer in for a shock by stephanruby · 2010-01-18 16:53 · Score: 1

You need to re-read his words again. The baby *is* the software project. The baby has just been GPL'd. His words make that pretty clear.

The third (but maybe the most important) reason of switching to GPL is that our baby reached the age (10 month old) when he needs his father more and more. I dont want to disappoint him :). With more developers involved the development process will hopefully more smooth and wont stop when I am busy.
Re:Developer in for a shock by madpansy · 2010-01-18 18:53 · Score: 1

Perhaps it's the way you decided to criticize him. Especially considering that in the text you quoted he shows he's nothing but naive when he states his baby, "needs his father more and more." You also don't realize that opening the source allows people who are experiencing problems to sift through the code and fix it for themselves.
Re:Developer in for a shock by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-18 21:08 · Score: 0

No, you need to do research. Rawtherapee has been around since before September 2006. No matter how improbable this sounds, I believe a nerd has actually managed to produce an offspring.

You need to re-read his words again. The baby *is* the software project. The baby has just been GPL'd. His words make that pretty clear.

The third (but maybe the most important) reason of switching to GPL is that our baby reached the age (10 month old) when he needs his father more and more. I dont want to disappoint him :). With more developers involved the development process will hopefully more smooth and wont stop when I am busy.
Re:Developer in for a shock by jareth-0205 · 2010-01-18 22:12 · Score: 1

Such naivety!
1. Author is very lucky he's had so much time on his hands up to the 10 month mark with his son. I've had very little time to myself since mine was born (almost 18 months). I think he's about to learn how much time and effort raising a child takes.
What? You don't know anything about the guy, what his setup is, who he's living with, who else is involved with the child. And yet you're judging him based on a throwaway comment that basically is only there to say: "there's other stuff in my life".

2. I can't believe the author of such a mature and well known product has come up with the line "believe it or not, RT is stable on my PC". Or that he believes the first thing any other programmer is going to want to do is reproduce bugs they aren't experiencing themselves. Epic fail.
Or... he might be talking about the people who are experiencing bugs but who are also developers? What's your point anyway? Do you think he shouldn't even offer the source because obviously nobody else is interested? Or that he should have killed off the project in favour of his son when he was born? His message sounds an entirely reasonable response to the situation to me. "Epic fail" my arse.
Re:Developer in for a shock by vipw · 2010-01-18 22:35 · Score: 1

Developers do like reproducing bugs. That makes them much easier to fix.
Some people just like to help make something better. You'll find such people working on OSS projects.
Re:Developer in for a shock by syousef · 2010-01-19 07:15 · Score: 1

Or perhaps slashdot is full of idiots who can't handle a point of view that doesn't coincide exactly with theirs. The author is being naive, and has made a couple of very silly comments. Pointing that out doesn't take anything away from his work.

--
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer

Not a frontend by Mprx · 2010-01-18 13:53 · Score: 2, Informative

http://www.rawtherapee.com/?mitem=4&faqid=17

Is RawTherapee an interface for dcraw?
No. RawTherapee uses dcraw only for decoding of the raw files. It is not commonly known, but dcraw is the basis of the decoding engines of almost all raw converter software (including Photoshop, LightZone, RawShooter, etc.).
All the algorithms of the image processing steps (including the demosaicing) are RawTherapee's own methods.

Uppercase "raw"??? by 5pp000 · 2010-01-18 14:00 · Score: 1

Why do people persist in uppercasing "raw" as if it were an acronym??? I suppose if you wanted to be sure people realized you were using a technical term, you could capitalize it: "The file is in Raw Format". But uppercase???

--
Your god may be dead, but mine aren't!

Re:Uppercase "raw"??? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-18 14:22 · Score: 0

It's one convention for any term that can be expected to be seen as a file extension.
If you found a file extension that was a contraction of two words, then it would probably be written in all capital letters. For example:
Foo Corp's imaging program makes '.foo files', which would also be referred to as 'FOO files'.
If they made .ffo (Foo Format files), they'd also be known as 'FOF files', not 'FFo files'.
Re:Uppercase "raw"??? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-18 14:27 · Score: 0

Strange. People do this with MAC too, of the Apple variety. I don't get it.
Re:Uppercase "raw"??? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-18 14:33 · Score: 0

Please excuse me, I meant to say: FFO files, not FFo files.
Re:Uppercase "raw"??? by 5pp000 · 2010-01-18 15:27 · Score: 1

Yes, I've seen that. (But then there's the phrase "MAC address", where it stands for Media Access Control.)
Come to think of it, I see "SPAM" a lot these days as well.

--
Your god may be dead, but mine aren't!
Re:Uppercase "raw"??? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-18 17:04 · Score: 0

Because it's a file format. Some people do 'PDF', others go '.pdf' and still others '.PDF'. This is common practice whether the file format/extension is an acronym, an initialism, or just a string of letters. For example, see 'IMG file' in all kinds of open source documentation. People are accustomed to seeing JPG (not strictly an acronym--that would be JPEG), PNG, TIFF, BMP (again, not an acronym), DOC (not an acronym), etc.
Instead of an insipid sentence ("this file is in raw format"), you could just say "RAW file" and it would be quite clear to everyone what you meant. Moreover, in this particular case, "raw file" and "raw file" presents a disambiguation issue--do you mean the "raw file" as opposed to e.g. a finished or composited file or "raw file" as opposed to a JPEG? While personally I prefer to say '.raw', RAW is just as effective.
What's more curious is why you chose to capitalize "format" in a post alleging curious capitalization.
Re:Uppercase "raw"??? by im_thatoneguy · 2010-01-18 18:36 · Score: 2, Insightful

We persist because every similar word is also capitalized (even though most of them actually are acronyms) so it seems sensible to stay within conventions.
File formats are all capitalized:
TIFF
EXR
PNG
JPG
DPX
etc...
Colorspaces and gamma definitions are also often all caps as well:
sRGB
LOG
LIN
Since RGB is all caps it's just common practice to use RAW in all caps to make the distinction that you're referring to a bayer pattern image and not the raw unprocessed data.

Re:Hey, Libertarians! by selven · 2010-01-18 14:18 · Score: 3, Funny

Yeah, the free software troll generator is still inferior to the proprietary solutions. Sorry about that.

It's a frontend to dcraw by SuperBanana · 2010-01-18 14:25 · Score: 2, Insightful

Raw Therapee is a frontend to DCraw, which has been around for at least 5 years.

http://www.cybercom.net/~dcoffin/dcraw/

The challenge isn't demosaicing the images, nor is there a need for the user to have control over it, assuming it works properly. It's reading the file format; Nikon encrypts theirs, and everyone else changes their formats seemingly with every new model/model year. Makes for an annoying moving target for most of the programs which support raw images, and the entire reason Adobe created an open raw image format, which few companies have moved to support.

--
Please help metamoderate.

Re:It's a frontend to dcraw by maxume · 2010-01-18 15:10 · Score: 1

That may not be a good assumption to make:
http://www.rawtherapee.com/RAW_Compare/

--
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Re:It's a frontend to dcraw by beaviz · 2010-01-18 19:28 · Score: 1

The challenge isn't demosaicing the images, nor is there a need for the user to have control over it, assuming it works properly. It's reading the file format; Nikon encrypts theirs, and everyone else changes their formats seemingly with every new model/model year.
Nikon only encrypts very specific metadata. As for other manufacturers, often it's just minor tweaks to support new camera features. Nothing you can't keep up with.

Command line experts by ClosedSource · 2010-01-18 14:30 · Score: 1

Yes, because creating a command line interface requires such advanced design skills.

Re:Command line experts by Sir_Lewk · 2010-01-18 15:15 · Score: 2, Interesting

No, and yet it seems only open source programs get it right 99% of the time.

--
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
Re:Command line experts by AmberBlackCat · 2010-01-18 15:49 · Score: 1

They're getting it right because they're doing what's easy. It doesn't mean they're good.
Re:Command line experts by FooAtWFU · 2010-01-18 15:56 · Score: 1

I blame the fact that Windows has a lousy terminal. The shell isn't irredeemably bad - definitely no Bash, but it certainly sufficed for me in my pre-Windows days - but if it were just more like PuTTY it'd be almost usable for random tasks.

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The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Re:Command line experts by Eudial · 2010-01-18 16:00 · Score: 1

It may be easier, but creating a good CLI interface does require some degree of thought. If you, for example, compare a Linux console to the dismal Windows terminal and what a pain in the rear that is to use, the difference is blatantly obvious. The UNIX philosophy makes a world of difference.

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GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
Re:Command line experts by Sir_Lewk · 2010-01-18 16:07 · Score: 2, Funny

The windows terminal emulator software sucking hard (and it most certainly does) doesn't really have much to do with windows not having a rich, powerful, and universal set of command line utilities, with properly designed and useful flags and options. Implementing such a pathetic system years after Unix was designed is laughable.
Also, it's shell is woefully underfeatured, compared to something like zsh, or even bash. I could never see myself actually attempting to do real work with it.

--
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
Re:Command line experts by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-18 17:31 · Score: 2, Insightful

It may be easier, but creating a good CLI interface does require some degree of thought. If you, for example, compare a Linux console to the dismal Windows terminal and what a pain in the rear that is to use, the difference is blatantly obvious. The UNIX philosophy makes a world of difference.
Yes the difference is blatantly obvious. 10 people on earth can use Unix and Windows has engulfed the world.
Re:Command line experts by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-18 17:33 · Score: 0

They're getting it right because they're doing what's easy. It doesn't mean they're good.
really. you have no idea what you are talking about.
Re:Command line experts by im_thatoneguy · 2010-01-18 18:39 · Score: 4, Insightful

Not too much of a surprise since the reason most closed source applications have poor CLI is because they just don't care about it.
When all you have is a CLI it better work. When a CLI is just a bonus feature to enable specific workflows and batch operations then the CLI is usually minimal.
Re:Command line experts by AniVisual · 2010-01-18 20:33 · Score: 1

What? Never forget that Grecian Unix lost out because its copyright owners got into a civil war, allowing the Romans to invade them.
X/Open vs. OSF; Achaean vs. Aetolian
Actually, that's a poor allusion. Linux more parallels the Romans than the Closed Source OSes.
Re:Command line experts by HeronBlademaster · 2010-01-18 20:51 · Score: 1

Cygwin comes to the rescue (if you find yourself forced to use Windows)...
Granted, Cygwin isn't perfect, but it's worlds better than Windows' built-in command-line crap.
Re:Command line experts by Eudial · 2010-01-19 01:47 · Score: 3, Funny

Yes the difference is blatantly obvious. 10 people on earth can use Unix and Windows has engulfed the world.
So you're saying because a million lemmings run off a cliff, that's the best thing to do?

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GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
Re:Command line experts by Lunix+Nutcase · 2010-01-19 03:09 · Score: 1

Is this ignoring the fact that lemmings don't run off cliffs?
Re:Command line experts by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-19 03:24 · Score: 0

They don't? Then you must have played a different game that I did.
Re:Command line experts by richlv · 2010-01-19 05:16 · Score: 1

it's late... and i'm tired... but i really missed the space before "it" when reading this the first time.

When all you have is a CLI it better work.

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Rich
Re:Command line experts by Eudial · 2010-01-19 14:50 · Score: 1

Metaphorical lemmings do.

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GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!

Fotoxxx by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-18 14:40 · Score: 0

don't forget Fotoxx, frequently updated
http://kornelix.squarespace.com/fotoxx

Re:Fotoxxx by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-19 01:08 · Score: 0

28000 lines of code in two files (and a self-made configure system). Can't imagine him getting too many patches :)

Just plain wrong by syousef · 2010-01-18 14:40 · Score: 3, Informative

. It is not commonly known, but dcraw is the basis of the decoding engines of almost all raw converter software (including Photoshop, LightZone, RawShooter, etc.).

It's not commonly known because it is just plain wrong. Photoshop and Lightroom use Adobe Camera RAW.

--
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer

Re:Just plain wrong by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-18 20:22 · Score: 0

Which part of "almost" you don't understand?
Re:Just plain wrong by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-18 22:15 · Score: 0

Someone please mod parent down. +5 Informative for totally inaccurate BS? Please.

Therapee seems to be working by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-18 14:46 · Score: 0

for the developer, he seems to be completely cured of the idea that he can become rich writing closed source software. I just hope he's not suffering from MoWiGRiQiS (Monty Widenius Get Rich Quick Syndrome) because then we'd have to make rawhide out of his sorry ass.

Re:Therapee seems to be working by Toonol · 2010-01-18 22:14 · Score: 1

or the developer, he seems to be completely cured of the idea that he can become rich writing closed source software. I just hope he's not suffering from MoWiGRiQiS (Monty Widenius Get Rich Quick Syndrome) because then we'd have to make rawhide out of his sorry ass.

What I'm getting from that is that developers need to just get rid of the idea that they'll get rich, ever, doing anything.

Re:Hey, Libertarians! by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-18 14:47 · Score: 0

Erm, while some people attribute open source software to some sort of political belief, sometimes people just want to release crap for free. I've done it. Chill.

RAW = Really Awkward Workflow by syousef · 2010-01-18 15:15 · Score: 2, Funny

Why do people persist in uppercasing "raw" as if it were an acronym???

It is an acronymn. RAW = Really Awkward Workflow ;-)

Actually when I use an SLR I almost strictly shoot RAW these days, because while it can be a pain it's worth it.

--
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer

Plug for Bibblepro by swillden · 2010-01-18 15:34 · Score: 4, Informative

Bibblepro is a great commercial RAW converter that runs quite well on Linux. I've been using it for several years and really like both the job it does and the options it gives for structuring your workflow.

Not to detract from this new open source tool (which I look forward to trying out), but I like to point out that there is at least one really high quality tool for Linux users already.

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Re:Plug for Bibblepro by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-18 22:15 · Score: 0

Another vote for Bibble from me - it's been a bit painful for them getting version 5 finished and out, but it is a fantastic product. I'd been using ufraw and had tried RawTherapee before Bibble (version 4 at the time) and Bibble was loads nicer to use. Bibble 5 is even better.
Bibble doesn't use dcraw though, which does mean the camera support isn't quite as comprehensive.
Re:Plug for Bibblepro by castironpigeon · 2010-01-19 02:42 · Score: 1

As far as I can recall from when I tried version 4 a long while ago, Bibble doesn't allow for much pixel pushing. Has this changed in 5? Was it always there and I had just missed it? Without these fine adjustments it doesn't matter how well Bibble handles the raw file because you still have to use another image editor in the end and that leads you to GIMP and loss of nearly half your bits.

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mmmm...forbidden donut
Re:Plug for Bibblepro by mattcsn · 2010-01-19 07:50 · Score: 1

Bibble 5 allows for selective area editing and multiple layers, all of which is non-destructive. It's nowhere near full-scale Photoshop, but there is much more than in version 4. There's a fully-functional trial version available. It's worth trying out for oneself.
That said, I agree about Gimp. The 8-bit-channel problem renders it almost useless for any kind of professional or advanced amateur work. GEGL is to Gimp what WinG was to Windows 3.1: a deeply ugly and flawed attempt to shoehorn much-needed features into something old and obsolete, instead of doing the needed total rewrite. I've considered Gimp a lost cause for years. KDE's Krita may lack some features right now, but is a far more modern design.
Re:Plug for Bibblepro by swillden · 2010-01-19 08:16 · Score: 1

Bibble 5 allows for selective area editing and multiple layers, all of which is non-destructive.
I just downloaded my update to 5 a couple of days ago... I haven't found the time to start playing with it though. I'm looking forward to it.

The 8-bit-channel problem renders it almost useless for any kind of professional or advanced amateur work.
I disagree with this. I'm in the advanced amateur camp, and I find GIMP to be perfectly adequate. None of the printers I use support more than 8 bpp anyway, so I always have to reduce it to that before printing. I use Bibble to do the work that requires the full dynamic range, then when I've got that done I go to GIMP for editing the details (cloning out distractions, smoothing skin, emphasizing regions, etc.).
The only time I really find GIMP's color depth to be a problem is when I want to work on HDR images. Not that it wouldn't be convenient for other uses, but saying that the limited color depth "renders it almost useless" goes way too far, IMO.

GEGL is to Gimp what WinG was to Windows 3.1: a deeply ugly and flawed attempt to shoehorn much-needed features into something old and obsolete, instead of doing the needed total rewrite.
And this is just incorrect. GEGL is a total rewrite of the graphics engine. Right now the two engines coexist side by side, with the old engine being used for most everything and GEGL being used for a handful of things, but assuming GEGL development ever gets to the point where GEGL can replicate all (or even most) of the features of the old engine, then the old one will be removed in favor of GEGL.

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Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Re:Plug for Bibblepro by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-19 16:14 · Score: 0

That should read "there is at least one really high quality *proprietary* tool for Linux users already"

Re:Hey, Libertarians! by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-18 16:29 · Score: 0

New York, London, and San Francisco are a "success" for reasons that are unrelated to their government. But if you look at the liberal laboratories of New York and California, you'll note that they're on the verge of failing. Somolia? They lack strong property rights and an equal rule of law, both of which provide the foundation of capitalism and libertarianism.

dcraw is used by almost all raw converters by SuperBanana · 2010-01-18 16:48 · Score: 3, Interesting

It's not commonly known because it is just plain wrong. Photoshop and Lightroom use Adobe Camera RAW.

Adobe Camera Raw, as well as most of the other commercial software which decodes raw images, used dcraw source and probably still uses much of that code. The license for dcraw permits it, and Dave Coffin is pretty proud of that. He should be- his code is used worldwide by millions of photographers.

Google around, bud. You can find dozens of articles, as well as Dave's resume, talking about this. He lists the dozens of programs which use dcraw, too, on the dcraw homepage.

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Re:dcraw is used by almost all raw converters by tlhIngan · 2010-01-18 16:58 · Score: 5, Interesting

Adobe Camera Raw, as well as most of the other commercial software which decodes raw images, used dcraw source and probably still uses much of that code. The license for dcraw permits it, and Dave Coffin is pretty proud of that. He should be- his code is used worldwide by millions of photographers.

No big surprise - dcraw has reverse-engineered *every* RAW file format out there, and new cameras are being added pretty quickly. (The dirty little secret of RAW files is many manufacturers make RAW file formats proprietary so there's no generic RAW file opener. That is, until dcraw came around. Hopefully things will change with the digital negative format (DNF) format which is a standardized RAW file format).
If you want to open a RAW file, dcraw will understand it. He's got a right to be proud of it. Imagine trying to create a workflow if you have a bunch of different equipment and RAW files, and have to use Nikon's tool for once, Canon's for another, Sony's for a third, etc...
Re:dcraw is used by almost all raw converters by E-Lad · 2010-01-18 18:15 · Score: 4, Interesting

I wouldn't be so generous in your detraction.

ACR, as it stands today, does not appear to be built around dcraw as you imply. It may at some point in the past used snippets or knowledge gleaned from dcraw and just might still today, but ACR is very much Adobe's own creation. In fact, one of the very articles you sort of point to by urging the OP to "google around" talks about this, with Thomas Knoll of Adobe essentially saying "Thanks but no thanks" W.R.T. Mr. Coffin reverse engineering the encryption in Nikon's RAW format.

I use Lightroom and PS CS4 on a daily basis, so I have ACR available and did some snooping. One thing that jumps out at me:

[daleg@iridium]/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Plug-Ins/CS4/File Formats/Camera Raw.plugin/Contents/MacOS$ strings Camera\ Raw | grep -i copyright Copyright 2009 Adobe Systems, Inc. Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems, Inc. 17CCopyrightMLUCTag Copyright %4d Adobe Systems Incorporated $$$/Private/CRaw/About/Copyright=^C ^0 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. copyright xmpDM:copyright COPYRIGHT : Copyright (c) 2002-2007, Adobe Systems Incorporated Adobe XMP Core Copyright (c) 2002-2007, Adobe Systems Incorporated Copyright tiff:Copyright Copyright (c) 1998 Hewlett-Packard Company Copyright 1999 Adobe Systems Incorporated Copyright 1999 Adobe Systems Incorporated Copyright (c) Eastman Kodak Company, 1999, all rights reserved. Copyright 1999 Adobe Systems Incorporated Copyright 1999 Adobe Systems Incorporated Copyright 2005 Adobe Systems Incorporated Copyright 2006 Adobe Systems Incorporated Copyright 1999 Adobe Systems Incorporated Copyright 1999 Adobe Systems Incorporated Copyright 1999 Adobe Systems Incorporated Copyright 1999 Adobe Systems Incorporated Copyright 1999 Adobe Systems Incorporated Copyright (c) 1998 Hewlett-Packard Company Copyright 2000 Adobe Systems, Inc. 13CCopyrightTag

While probably not definitive, I would expect to see a salutation to Mr. Coffin and dcraw in there if there were dcraw bits present. There is one other binary installed with ACR, a library by the name of NkMiniLib.dylib. Given the name I would suppose this is a library containing the properly-licensed smarts required for ACR to decrypt Nikon NEF files. I admit that this is a hunch on my part, but I think it's a good one given the known circumstances around Nikon as a company and its RAW format - Nikon would rather you buy their Capture NX 2 software for RAW file manipulation. I can only imagine how much Adobe paid or pays for licensing the ability to do this in ACR (and by extension - in Lightroom and Photoshop.)

It is also well-known that Adobe's ACR team creates the profiles that plug into ACR for each camera, they don't lift them from dcraw. It's likely they get samples from manufacturers in advance or soon after a camera's release to divine the profile themselves for release in a future version of ACR.

So color me not convinced, regardless of what Mr. Coffin might put on his resume. In the course of "googling around" I cannot find one authoritative bit of info linking ACR to dcraw. ACR as it stands today doesn't appear to have a whiff of dcraw in it judging from some minor binary snooping... so until proven otherwise, I'd say that millions of photographers wordwide do not use his code as you might claim.
Re:dcraw is used by almost all raw converters by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-18 20:54 · Score: 0

Hopefully things will change with the digital negative format (DNF) format which is a standardized RAW file format).
Oh, like that'll ever come out :eyeroll:
Re:dcraw is used by almost all raw converters by Skrapion · 2010-01-18 23:52 · Score: 2, Informative

For the record, it's DNG, not DNF.

--
The details are trivial and useless; The reasons, as always, purely human ones.
Re:dcraw is used by almost all raw converters by syousef · 2010-01-19 00:27 · Score: 1

Please point me to something that clearly states that Adobe Camera RAW is based on dcraw.
"Thanks to dcraw source code, Adobe Photoshop and dozens of other image tools now have built-in support for raw photos, and the popularity of raw photography has grown enormously." is the only line I could find on Dave's resume and you'll forgive me if I'm skeptical since I found NOTHING else with a quick google.

--
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Re:dcraw is used by almost all raw converters by beaviz · 2010-01-19 05:50 · Score: 1

It is also well-known that Adobe's ACR team creates the profiles that plug into ACR for each camera, they don't lift them from dcraw.
In fact the reverse is true. dcraw "borrows" basic transformation matrices from Adobe.

Ufraw *does* exist by arose · 2010-01-18 17:18 · Score: 1

The only (as far as I know) usable and free (as in beer) program for processing RAW photos outside Windows or OS X [..]

You might dislike the workflow of Ufraw, but there is no question about it being usable.

--
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.

GIMP plugins not well known to photographers by MasterOfGoingFaster · 2010-01-18 17:40 · Score: 1

Unbelievable? You don't know many photographers, I take it. Open source is nearly invisible to that group.

Most of the attention is focused on Photoshop, followed by LightRoom and Aperture. The OEM products (like Nikon's Capture NX) fit into the also-ran category, with all the other products finding it hard to gain any attention at all.

I run Linux and BSD servers, yet I had no idea GIMP had RAW plugins. I only use GIMP (actually GimpShop) on occasion. But professional photographers (and I am one) need a complete workflow package, and that doesn't exist on Linux (as far as I know). That includes RAW conversion, editing, asset management, and print control and accounting. There's a reason most pros use Macs for that stuff. When you pay US$1000 for a set of ink cartridges and by paper in 100 ft rolls, you look for ways to control your costs and account for product usage.

But I want to be able to point beginners at open source software, and was hoping GIMP would be able to support RAW conversion. Frankly, I wasn't paying much attention to where it all stood, so the responses have been helpful.

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Place nail here >+

Re:GIMP plugins not well known to photographers by Slayer · 2010-01-18 23:01 · Score: 1

While GIMP can indeed do RAW conversions, its main limitation for photographic purposes comes from its 8 bit color space, which makes color corrections next to impossible, at least in useful quality. If you want to steer newcomers towards open source, my recommendation is you show them digiKam for RAW conversion and color correction, and have them use GIMP only for pixel manipulation (healing/cloning, merging, ...)
Re:GIMP plugins not well known to photographers by uassholes · 2010-01-19 02:29 · Score: 1

Cinepaint is a fork of gimp that supports 16 bit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CinePaint

Re:Hey, Libertarians! by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-18 18:27 · Score: 2, Funny

No "failing" just means something different in New York and California. In California if we have to reduce the quality of our schools and public services to that of good 'ol Red State like Alabama we consider ourselves Bankrupt. In Alabama they consider it a boom year.

Re:Hey, Libertarians! by promythyus · 2010-01-18 23:35 · Score: 0

Please don't feed the Trolls.

Colour management by Geeky · 2010-01-19 00:22 · Score: 1

Raw conversion tool for Linux is good news, but the thing that really seems to be lacking is colour management. I'm a serious hobby photographer (exhibited and published), and I use Photoshop on Windows. Heresy on here? Well, it does colour management properly and supports profiling hardware. The Gimp is a great piece of software, and probably beats Photoshop Elements, but I need the pro features of Photoshop (mainly back to colour profiles again).

I'm a couple of years out of date on the state of the art under Linux, so await correction if things have changed recently.

And before anyone suggests a Mac would be a better option, I just can't justify the price premium.

Incidentally, since I returned to Windows out of need, for the photography, I've found everything else I need - I use WAMP for my web development, I've got Perl, there's cygwin if I really need it; at this point, the actual OS is pretty much irrelevant as long as I can get the userspace tools I need.

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Sigs are so 1990s. No way would I be seen dead with one.

Re:Colour management by uassholes · 2010-01-19 02:38 · Score: 1

ufraw allows you to speicify color profiles.
http://ufraw.sourceforge.net/Colors.html
Re:Colour management by Ltap · 2010-01-19 03:44 · Score: 1

You've outlined the one undeniable advantage of Windows - in the days when most OSs had very few third-party tools, its entire codebase WAS third-party tools. This is the main challenge of F/OSS and Linux - to create more and better tools, a constant process I think it gaining on the proprietary group every day.

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(but so much more, including game and movie reviews)
http://yanteb.peasantoid.org
Re:Colour management by neurovish · 2010-01-19 04:04 · Score: 1

Raw conversion tool for Linux is good news, but the thing that really seems to be lacking is colour management. I'm a serious hobby photographer (exhibited and published), and I use Photoshop on Windows
Tried cinepaint?

Good Advice by MasterOfGoingFaster · 2010-01-19 01:34 · Score: 1

I've never looked at digiKam. Looks pretty cool. Thanks for pointing me in that direction.

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Place nail here >+

Re:Good Advice by Slayer · 2010-01-19 08:41 · Score: 1

Good thing about digiKam is that they use ImageMagick as their backend, so they have full 16 bit color and multithreading support and don't have to reinvent the wheel for every image manipulation task. Despite the beta sounding version number it is very stable and can handle huge image data (say 120 MB TIFFs) without any problems.

Freedom... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-19 02:34 · Score: 0

is NOT free.

"... now also free as in freedom."

Free as in ______? What? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-19 06:45 · Score: 0

Free as in beer. What?
Free as in freedom. What?

I'm no closer to understand what "free as in beer" means now as when I first heard it.
Can we bury this stupid saying already? Oh, my bad it's already a fail.

a what? a FAILURE... a FAILure. not a fail... a failure. It has FAILed. Get it?

good god. I mean, jeepers creepers... wtf and cut it out already, ok?

Re:Free as in ______? What? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-19 06:53 · Score: 0

er, I mean... understanding. Jeese. I am a fail... er, I mean... I failed.
I am a failure. Get it?

ps: Stupid post timing restrictions here won't let me update this quickly.
SITE FAIL. fvck, I mean, site failure.

jesus fvcking christ... how god damn 1ong do I have to wait to submit?

no wonder I hate this site. first the ui gets updated to be completely unintelligible and now
you have no clue now many times you have to mash submit and type in a captcha to get a second
post. Why have a captcha if I still have to f'n wait? /me applies the ClueBy4(tm) to slashdot.

3 minutes and still not able to post a second post. 3 MINUTES.

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Raw Therapee 3 Is Now Free Software

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