rawformat

Comparing RAW converters

For those of you looking about trying to pick a RAW conversion tool, there's a wonderfully detailed comparison article hosted by Steve Hoffmann's Nature and Landscape Photography. It compares Adobe's ACR 3, Bibble Pro 4.6, BreezeBrowser Pro 1.3, Capture One 3.7, Canon's Digital Photo Pro 2 and RawShooter premium 2006.

Hoffmann cautions:

This article is not an in-depth analysis of these six programs.  My goal in putting up this document was to give the reader an overview of each program's features and capabilities and to provide reasonably accurate image comparisons.

I will take the liberty of expressing my opinions now and then.  When considering my opinions you might like to know what I look for first in a RAW converter - Reasonably accurate color and tonal range in the application's default  conversion settings - Speed of conversion - Adequate tools with easy and intuitive workflow for those images that did not turn out as I wanted them to look with the application's default conversion.

Regardless, if you're looking for a good, detailed comparison between the available products, this is a solid guide incuding example images. Check it out.

Another RAW tool

Striclty speaking, Pixort isn't designed to do anything particular to RAW files. According to their web site:

Pixort is an affordable/free tool for reviewing, comparing, sorting and culling photographic image files. It is not yet another photo archiving and organizing tool: it is dedicated to the initiation of a digital photography workflow where a photographer reviews his or her 2000 photos from the vacation or latest wedding assignment.

I'm notorious for not using any real utilities in my workflow - usually I just grab my files with an SD-card reader and windows explorer (especially since windows now lets you thumbnail RAW files), and open them directly with Photoshop or RSE or whatever's appropriate.

That doesn't mean, however, that it's the best option by any means. Especially since I have a habit of taking at least five shots of every picture I want, I should probably look into a good way to browse through my images before jumping into my editing. This app (especially the free version) may be a good choice.

Adobe or Microsoft?

As I've mentioned here before, Adobe is being pretty lazy about bringing out a MacTel version of Photoshop, especially given the relatively poor PS performance with the emulation as things are now (or maybe they've gotten better...anyone know?)

Regardless, Adobe has confirmed that there will be to MacTel version of Photoshop until 2007:

During a March 22 conferece call discussing Q1 2006 earnings, Adobe executives confirmed that there won't be Universal versions of Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, or GoLive until Creative Suite 3. (The suite is currently at version 2.) Company officials said they don't expect to release CS3 until spring 2007.

Unofficial Photoshop Support for Canon 30D Raw

Photoshop hack to support Canon 30D raw:

Antoine Khater tweaks the 20D script created by Thomas Fors. Photshop CS2 doesn't yet support the 30D RAW format, but this hack will allow to open 30D raw files.

Watch That EXIF Data: It Can Reveal Retouching

From the post Fun with EXIF thumbnails by Robert Peloschek.

Peloschek shows how to detect modifications to an edited photo by salvaging the embedded EXIF thumbnail. Particularly a problem for those using "a stupid program like Microsoft Paint for cropping your images."

Spanner: not for your car

Complete Digital Photography has an app called the "Aperture Library Spanner" that lets you tweak the way Aperture stores its library of images.

By default, Apple's Aperture constrains its internal library to a single volume. However, with a little under-the-hood tinkering you can span your library across multiple drives, providing you with far more storage for your Aperture images. The Aperture Library Spanner is a simple app that automatically configures your Aperture library to span multiple volumes.

"Zen and the Art of Aperture"

Creativepro.com has a feature up (has had since early March, actually) about how Aperture has some benefits that have been largely overlooked by the photo editing community:

Many users and reviewers have complained that this library architecture makes Aperture inflexible when working with other apps in a more complicated workflow. I recently had an epiphany that made me believe those complaints aren't just invalid, they're born of ignorance.

It's a fairly long and complete feature that deals with some of the percieved shortcomings in Aperture and how the author Ben Long thinks they might not be disadvantages after all.

Personally, I think his defense of Aperture's "appliance" style photo management is a little off:

Right out of the box, Aperture provides an excellent import facility and good backup and archiving tools. These tools handle the bulk of your housekeeping chores. Many people are paranoid about the long-term implications of putting things in Aperture's library, but it's actually a very open system that lets you extract original images at any time, so there's no need for extra archiving or backup tasks. If you want to back up your images, just tell Aperture to do it.

He's right; I'm paranoid about the long-term implications of putting things in Aperture's library. It's a great system so long as I'm using Aperture, but no matter how you paint it, a setup like that is a clever tool to lock the user in to a certain system.

Yes, you can export original images, but I wonder if that's kind of like the way you can burn CDs with the music you buy fron the iTunes store if you don't like the DRM.

Regardless, it's a good feature, especially if you're looking for ways to expand or refine your Aperture workflow.

Using Actions and Droplets with Adobe Bridge & the Adobe Camera Raw Plug-In

Craigs Actions site provides a step by step overview that walks readers through handling images In Adobe Brige and in making use of the Adobe Camera Raw (ACR)plug-in.

In my experience, Actions are one of the most time-saving and under-appreciated Photoshop features. IMHO, all pro photographers using PS should take the time to become comfortable with automating Photoshop with Actions.

RAW Developer 1.4.6 available

This from the Iridient Digital site. Thanks to Digital Outback Photo for the heads up.

Download the RAW Developer 1.4.6 Demo

The RAW Developer 1.4.6 demo is fully functional and is not time or usage limited, however all exported images will be watermarked. This release is a free update for all currently registered users and should automatically recognized your existing registration information.

New licenses can be purchased for $99.95US securely using RAW Developer itself by selecting "Purchase..." from the File menu or securely online through our web store. All purchases of RAW Developer include at least 15 months of free upgrades, including both major and minor updates. Our official product upgrade policy is now available online here.
System Requirements:

* PowerPC G4 or G5 processor
* Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later
* QuickTime 6.4 or later

System Recommendations:

* Mac OS X 10.4 or later
* 1.0GHz or faster G4 or any G5 processor
* 256MB or more of free system memory, very large images could use more

Release Date: March 10, 2006

RawShooter Essentials 2006 Announced: Still Free-Of-Charge

Pixmantec Announces RawShooter | essentials 2006: Still Free-Of-Charge:

Source: Pixmantec Press Release

Pixmantec Announces RawShooter | essentials 2006: Still Free-Of-Charge

• RSE 2006 Features Faster Workflow, Additional RAW Formats and Now Supports RawShooter | Color Engine
• RawShooter | premium 2006 Free Update is Optimized to Offer Faster Preview and Conversion Speeds using less memory and Supports New Nikon D200 Camera
• RawShooter | Color Engine Upgrade supports Nikon D200, KM-5/7D and Other RAW Camera Formats

Orlando, FL. February 25, 2006 Pixmantec, a leading manufacturer of digital imaging software, continues to provide photographers at all levels of experience and expertise with the latest in RAW Workflow management technology with the introduction of RawShooter | essentials 2006, RawShooter | premium 2006 V1.02 and RawShooter | Color Engine V1.1, all being FREE updates. The software offers many new features, upgrades and is compatible with the most popular digital SLR camera models on the market including newly introduced models such as the Nikon D200, Canon EOS 5D, 1Ds Mark II, and 1D Mark II N, Sony R1 and several other brands and models. RawShooter | essentials 2006 continues to be offered as a forever FREE download via Pixmantecs Website and has set the standard in the industry for quality, speed and certainly affordability.

Raw Conversion: Shutterbug Compares Adobe, LaserSoft, Bibble Labs, & DxO Labs

David B. Brooks takes the converters through their paces:

"Files from the Canon EOS Digital Rebel, Nikon D70, and Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D were processed with four different applications: Adobe’s Photoshop CS2 Camera Raw, Bibble Labs’ BibblePro 4.3, DxO Labs’ Optics Pro Elite 3.0, and LaserSoft’s SilverFast DC VLT." More here.

Rob Galbraith Outlines Aperture 1.1 Raw Management Improvements

If you're an Aperture user, we urge you to read the complete article here.

Here is a summary that Galbraith provides:

• Improved RAW processing
• Raw Fine Tuning Adjustment HUD for control of image contrast, and either the tailoring or disabling of sharpening and noise reduction
• Support for NEFs from the Nikon D200
• Numerous performance enhancements: searching and performing Lift and Stamp operations is described as being about 2x quicker, while the responsiveness of adjustment sliders that affect the appearance of a photo has been noticeably improved
• A Color Meter for measuring colour values selectively
• Photoshop (PSD) documents with layers that exist as Masters in an Aperture Library will not be flattened when the program creates a version to export to Photoshop
• A dpi setting has been added to the Export Version dialog, to make it simpler to export a file with specific height x width x resolution requirements. Similarly, a dpi setting has been added to the External Editor section of Preferences, to enable photos sent to Photoshop from Aperture to arrive with a specific resolution value (this doesn’t change the total number of pixels in the file)
• The maximum thumbnail size in the Viewer has been bumped up from 256 pixels to 512 pixels
• An option to turn off the display of image labels in web galleries
• When magnification is set higher than 100% in the loupe, pixel data is no longer smoothed, thereby improved the clarity of individual pixels
• Native code for both PowerPC and Intel Macs; v1.1 will ship as a Universal Binary. Overall program peppiness and speed of RAW file decoding to the screen looked decent in Schorr’s demonstrations on a MacBook Pro and an iMac, both with Intel Core Duo processors
• Improvements to the histogram, soft-proofing, cropping and printing

Thanks to www.robgalbraith.com

O'Reilly Releases "Photoshop CS2 RAW"

O'Reilly Releases "Photoshop CS2 RAW":

Source: O'Reilly Press Release

Sebastopol, CA--"RAW data is the holy grail of digital photography," says photographer Mikkel Aaland, a pioneer of digital photography and author of nine books, including O'Reilly's "Photoshop for the Web" and the award-winning "Shooting Digital." "Anyone who is serious about digital photography and wants to produce the best possible picture needs to shoot and process RAW." And anyone who intends to do that needs Aaland's new "Photoshop CS2 RAW" (O'Reilly, US $34.99).

The RAW format is becoming more and more popular with professional and amateur digital photographers, because it affords unparalleled flexibility and control during the editing process. Adobe Photoshop is the most popular and widely-used digital image editing tool in the world, and its latest version, Adobe Photoshop CS2, is quickly emerging as the best place to edit RAW images. "RAW data must be touched, molded, and shaped before it takes form. It takes time and skill to do this right," says Aaland, "and that is where this book comes in." More...

Michael Reichmann's Report from PMA 2006: Raw and DNG specifics

Full report here. Highly recommended. Here are a few excerpts that are Raw-specific:

Raw processing in Aperture has been completely revamped, with reportedly greater image quality as well as the ability for the user to fine tune processing parameters. Finally, the metadata Export bugs which many people have complained about have reportedly all been fixed.

Pixmantec has announced that there are new versions of both Rawshooter Essentials and Rawshooter Premium, with support for numerous new cameras, including the Nikon D200.

Bibble Labs has updated its popular raw processor to version 4.6. Available for Windows, Mac and Linux, Bibble now adds native mode support for Intel based Macs. And, as announced previously, Bibble now integrates Noise Ninja technology directly within the raw conversion program itself.

But Jobo appears ready to challenge that dominance with its GigaVu Pro. This updated version now comes with hard drives up to 120GB, USB 2.0 interface, and 4" LCD. It claims to offer both capacity and speed along with a few unique features. The direct reading of raw files is one of these. Rather than simply displaying the raw file's embedded JPG, Jobo claims to read raw files directly. Which ones and how quickly remain to be seen. So does the issue of new file formats and upgradability. (Where is DNG when you really need it?)

Introduction to Adobe Camera Raw: Adobe PDF from Julieanne Kost & Daniel Brown

PDF is titled: Adobe Camera Raw - It’s all about having control over processing your image!

Covers:

• What is a Raw format?
• What do Raw files look like?
• What else is in the raw file?
• Benefits of shooting raw files
• The Digital Negative Specification
• Photoshop CS2 Camera Raw: The Tools, Display Options, Workflow Options, The Adjust Tab, The Detail tab, The Lens tab, The Curve tab, The Calibrate tab, Opening and/or Saving Files and Setting, Working with multiple images, Settings Presets, Saving Custom Settings, Applying/Removing Settings from the Bridge

Good overview for those new to ACR.

Aperture gets a boost

A few days ago Apple announced that the new Aperture release will, in addition to bringing support for Intel Macs (like, perhaps, the new Mac Mini - although I don't know who is going to buy a Mac Mini for digital photogrpahy work), they are improving the RAW file processing. Grabbed this from Rob Galbraith:

During a press briefing yesterday at the PMA 2006 trade show in Orlando, Florida, Aperture product manager Joe Schorr showed off numerous refinements in the upcoming v1.1, including what appears to be much-improved processing of RAW files, as well as greater control over contrast, sharpening and noise reduction during the RAW conversion.

You can also find the complete update notes on the Apple website.