Welp, I am finally upgrading my old analog Canon EOS SLR camera body and going digital with my photography.
Any suggestions to some decent RAW photo processing applications? Linux platform of course 
On Tue, 30 Jun 2009 04:36:01 +0000, Penel wrote:
> Welp, I am finally upgrading my old analog Canon EOS SLR camera body and
> going digital with my photography.
>
> Any suggestions to some decent RAW photo processing applications? Linux
> platform of course
Gimp + Ufraw is what I use. There was a good roundup of tools also in an
issue of Linux Format some time ago - I’ll have to see if I can find it
when I have a spare minute.
Jim
Isn’t there a plugin for Digikam?
On Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:16:01 +0000, dragonbite wrote:
> Isn’t there a plugin for Digikam?
Probably. Rawstudio is the other one I was thinking of (thanks, Caf!)
Jim
Awesome, thanks for some suggestions guys! I will be getting my new camera in a few weeks or so. I will be sure to try both programs and see which one would suit my work flow.
And post your thoughts/findings/review here for people interested in which one(s) you like and end up using?
dragonbite - Of course Sharing is caring hehe
The free RAW converer of Linux, ufraw, works badly. The author complains that Canon (and perhaps all others) neither obey a standard nor publish their RAW format, and he has to guess.
The conversion from RAW to jpg looks worse than a jpg photo taken by the camera. I suggest that you don’t use Linux’s RAW conversion with Canon.
On Fri, 03 Jul 2009 06:06:02 +0000, ZStefan wrote:
> The free RAW converer of Linux, ufraw, works badly. The author complains
> that Canon (and perhaps all others) neither obey a standard nor publish
> their RAW format, and he has to guess.
>
> The conversion from RAW to jpg looks worse than a jpg photo taken by the
> camera. I suggest that you don’t use Linux’s RAW conversion with Canon.
I would disagree. I have a Canon S50 camera and use ufraw and the
results look very good.
The problem is that RAW isn’t standardized nor published…
Jim
With my camera, Canon EOS 350D, the conversion from RAW with ufraw (and plugin) yields a picture with slightly less resolution and slightly more foggy than the jpg taken in-camera. Especially dark areas suffer.
On Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:16:01 +0000, ZStefan wrote:
> With my camera, Canon EOS 350D, the conversion from RAW with ufraw (and
> plugin) yields a picture with slightly less resolution and slightly more
> foggy than the jpg taken in-camera. Especially dark areas suffer.
Very strange…I always get good resolution from the conversion process
myself. What settings to you use in ufraw?
Jim
I don’t remember now but I have tried all of them.
On Fri, 03 Jul 2009 21:26:01 +0000, ZStefan wrote:
> I don’t remember now but I have tried all of them.
“All of them”? There are several sliders with a great variety of
selections, and curves to adjust the colours and such - I can make ufraw
take a raw image from my camera and make it look awful (in particular, I
find that the exposure setting set to “auto” generally work well, but
sometimes comes out a little dark; the auto adjust settings for
luminosity and saturation usually don’t work well at all for me.
I also usually increase the saturation to about 1.50.
I also find that to reduce graininess, I have to increase the bayer
pattern threshold from the default “0” value (which disables it) but
turning it too high does tend to cause problems with finer detail.
I also find that leaving “Use color matrix” enabled generally results in
a better picture.
But it also helps to take the pictures in full manual mode on my camera -
I adjust the f-stop and exposure so that the EV output on the camera
reads between +0 and -1/3 usually - I find that taking the pictures so
they’re a little dark and then using ufraw to brighten them brings out a
bit more detail. That does mean it’s necessary to actually set the shot
up rather than just point-and-shoot.
The thing about ufraw (and taking photos that you’re going to process
afterward) is to remember the old “garbage in, garbage out” saying. I’m
not a “pro” photographer, but I’ve experimented with a lot of different
settings on both the camera and in the conversion process to come out
with good results. Sometimes I get something that looks quite
outstanding, and other times the images just can’t be adjusted to look
good at all because of a poor exposure, film speed, white balance, or
other setting on the camera.
Jim
hendersj - The actually camera I will be picking up is the Canon T1i as an entery level DSLR. From the sound of it, you seem very experience with the raw processing programs.
I will be sure to give all the programs everyone suggested a try and play around with them all and see which one suits my workflow best 