Using camera RAW settings by external RAW converter (was: Preview is "better" than RAW conversion?)

[Michael Gerdau-3]

Hi list,

not wishing to hijack an existing thread I created a new one.

> What you see in the preview is the jpeg embedded in the Raw file (which is
> a quarter size).
>
> That preview jpeg has had all the treatments applied to it that a 'normal'
> in camera jpeg would get, including brightness, contrast, and saturation
> adjustments, and noise reduction and sharpening.
>
> If you do your own RAW development, those adjustments are not
> automatically applied (although some RAW developers from the camera
> makers do apply them).

This is an issue I'm facing eversince I started shooting in RAW.

Most of the time the JPG created by the camera (Nikon D700 here) is
just fine and works nicely. Occasionally I need some tweaking though.

When I do this in Digikam I never got results even as good as what the
camera does which as I learned after some searching of the web is due
to me not applying the proper parameters to the RAW converter.

So far so old (w/r to knowledge).

For me this resulted in owning a small Windows Notebook with Capture NX
(Nikon's RAW converter) installed to do the job.

Now my question:
Does anyone of you know of a way to (fairly accurately) use the camera's
RAW parameter as a default to start from with an external (aka running
on Linux) RAW converter ?

Thanks for any suggestion,
Michael
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[Daniel Bauer-2]

Am 31.08.2014 13:29, schrieb Michael Gerdau:

> For me this resulted in owning a small Windows Notebook with Capture NX
> (Nikon's RAW converter) installed to do the job.

Install virutalbox and within that your win (it's easy and free;
virualbox, not win...). Then you can use your manufacturers win software
on your linux box within a normal window and don't have to copy files or
deal with differences in screen displays...

...
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[Daniel Bauer-2]

virtualbox is the name, of course :-)

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[Niels Ott]

Am 31.08.2014 um 13:29 schrieb Michael Gerdau:
> For me this resulted in owning a small Windows Notebook with Capture NX
> (Nikon's RAW converter) installed to do the job.

Thinking about it, it is so surprising that only the original camera
manufacturer's software makes JPEGs like the camera does. After all,
this is part of the camera's "secrets" in making good pictures.

If you've got a Canon, you can probably install CHDK and work around
"secret features" in your camera (by simply losing these features?).

I guess this is very parallel to what I experience in Linux audio: I
want to be a producer/creator, not a programmer. People come around with
their MacBooks and make me envious with the software they run. So I run
audio plugins for Windows on Linux, which is often unstable and not
recommended. But the simple truth is: there are no open source plugins
that can compete. And there are some decent payware plugins for Linux,
but they don't cover all my needs.

I think this is a very basic open source problem: If you're targeting
users in a niche, such as pro photographers, pro audio users, or any
other smaller group of professionals, it is hard to compete with payware
products. (Actually I experienced similar problems with statistics
packages for psychological measures in GNU R.)

Open Source has moved away from the users==developers thing a long time
ago. And if you want to do good photography, you'd rather spend your
time on something else than on coding. Same with music, video,
psychology or whatever demands a high level of competence that you
rather want to focus on.

Still, I'm refusing to switch back to Windows (which I quit using in
1998). Things always worked out somehow in the end and I save loads of
money with open source. (Apple is not an option, simply too expensive.)

> Now my question:
> Does anyone of you know of a way to (fairly accurately) use the camera's
> RAW parameter as a default to start from with an external (aka running
> on Linux) RAW converter ?

I think this is what DigiKam already does. However, as far as I
understand it, the point is in what happens afterwards. Brightness,
contrast, colors etc. can all be tweaked in the DigiKam editor in a
convenient way.

The trick most likely is to automatically find values that give you the
best result. As said above, the camera manufacturers have good reason
not to tell you about these (and hide them in their Windows software and
in the camera).

These values are probably based on heuristics (e.g. how many pixels are
over/underexposed and other statistics) and not stored into any RAW file.

Most of this post is educational guesses. Feel free to correct me.

   Niels

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Niels Ott
Bassist und so bei Delta B
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[Remco Viëtor]

On Sunday 31 August 2014 14:34:57 Niels Ott wrote:
> Am 31.08.2014 um 13:29 schrieb Michael Gerdau:
> > Now my question:
> > Does anyone of you know of a way to (fairly accurately) use the
camera's

> > RAW parameter as a default to start from with an external (aka running
> > on Linux) RAW converter ?
>
> I think this is what DigiKam already does. However, as far as I
> understand it, the point is in what happens afterwards. Brightness,
> contrast, colors etc. can all be tweaked in the DigiKam editor in a
> convenient way.
>
> The trick most likely is to automatically find values that give you the
> best result. As said above, the camera manufacturers have good reason
> not to tell you about these (and hide them in their Windows software and
> in the camera).
>
> These values are probably based on heuristics (e.g. how many pixels are
> over/underexposed and other statistics) and not stored into any RAW file.
>
> Most of this post is educational guesses. Feel free to correct me.
>
>    Niels
>
>

It's usually a mixture of both:
part is heuristics (indeed, the black point and white point settings can
work like this), part is in-camera settings (like white balance contrast,
sharpening, saturation, and all the 'scene' settings, all of wh,ich can be
tweaked on my camera). And part of these settings are in the documented
part of the metadata (white balance!), part are in the (officially)
undocumented maker-notes.

And for things like scene modes, the mode and tweaks selected are in the
EXIF, the exact details in the camera and (closed-source) raw developer
provided by the camera maker, and as such unavailable for Digikam.

Remco.

P.S. One of the nice things about using raw is that there are no 'best'
settings for the development.
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[Martin (KDE)]

Am 31.08.2014 13:29, schrieb Michael Gerdau:
> Hi list,
>
> not wishing to hijack an existing thread I created a new one.
>

> Now my question:
> Does anyone of you know of a way to (fairly accurately) use the camera's
> RAW parameter as a default to start from with an external (aka running
> on Linux) RAW converter ?

Have you ever tried darktable? This software is as good as the
manufacturers or even better (imho).

Regards
Martin

>
> Thanks for any suggestion,
> Michael
>

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[Michael Gerdau-3]

> > Now my question:
> > Does anyone of you know of a way to (fairly accurately) use the camera's
> > RAW parameter as a default to start from with an external (aka running
> > on Linux) RAW converter ?
>
> Have you ever tried darktable? This software is as good as the
> manufacturers or even better (imho).

Not yet, but after your pointer I installed it only to realize, I'm
probably in for some manual reading :)

Thanks for the pointer, I'll give it a try.

Best wishes,
Michael
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[Photonoxx]

Le Mon, 01 Sep 2014 10:02:15 +0200, Michael Gerdau <[hidden email]> a écrit:

>> > Now my question:
>> > Does anyone of you know of a way to (fairly accurately) use the  
>> camera's
>> > RAW parameter as a default to start from with an external (aka running
>> > on Linux) RAW converter ?
>>
>> Have you ever tried darktable? This software is as good as the
>> manufacturers or even better (imho).
>
> Not yet, but after your pointer I installed it only to realize, I'm
> probably in for some manual reading :)
>
> Thanks for the pointer, I'll give it a try.
>
> Best wishes,
> Michael

An other option could be Lightzone which is more intuitive, I found, than  
Darktable, but stay in a same kind of philosphy.

Lightzone is a former commercial software which was freed as an open  
source software last year and development continue now.

Prefer the beta version, as each one bring a new version of dcraw and this  
way, support new camera RAW files.

The only thing is LZ don't play well with metadata and overwrite xmp from  
Digikam or Lightroom, but since beta 10 LZ can be use from Digikam and  
"open with..." function, and opens pictures without adding them to a  
database like Darktable.

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[Michael Gerdau-3]

> An other option could be Lightzone which is more intuitive, I found, than
> Darktable, but stay in a same kind of philosphy.

Thank you for that pointer as well. Installed and my first impression
is I like it. Now I need to play with it.

Thank you all that contributed,
Michael
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