 |
 | Home | Contact Us | FAQ | Search & Site Map | Link to Us |
 | Sign In | Join | Other 45 Sites in Network |
| PhotoKB HomeDiscussion Groups Digital Photography Digital PhotoDSLR CamerasZLR CamerasPoint & Shoot CamerasFilm Photography 35 mmLarge FormatMedium formatDarkroomFilm and LabsOther EquipmentPhoto Technique Nature PhotographyPeople PhotographyTechnique GeneralGeneral Photo Topics General TopicsAustralian PhotographyUK PhotographyDirectoryPhoto Clubs |
Photo Forum / General Photo Topics / General Topics / January 2008RAW converter
I'm currently using the RAW fiel converter plugin for my camera in Photoshop, but it's not everything it could be in my opinion. Can anyone recommend a good (either free or else easily affordable on a low budget) RAW converter that will work for Fuji RAF format files? Muchos Grazias. Sam. On Jan 22, 1:56 pm, "\(not quite so\) Fat Sam" <samandja...@knox.orangehome.co.uk> wrote: > I'm currently using the RAW fiel converter plugin for my camera in > Photoshop, but it's not everything it could be in my opinion. > Can anyone recommend a good (either free or else easily affordable on a low > budget) RAW converter that will work for Fuji RAF format files? > Muchos Grazias. > Sam. Have you made sure you have the latest version? I upgraded the one I use with Elements and got a lot more buttons & slides to play with (not that I know what to do with most of them!) Also, in what way does it fall short? One thing I've done is make sure the defaults don't contain any sharpening. > On Jan 22, 1:56 pm, "\(not quite so\) Fat Sam" > <samandja...@knox.orangehome.co.uk> wrote: [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > Also, in what way does it fall short? One thing I've done is make sure > the defaults don't contain any sharpening. Well, a mate of mine who I visit from time to time is using Lightroom (which I can't afford at the moment), and he has loads of options and a shed load sliders for all sorts of weird and wonderfull things to lift detail in shadows or highlights without affecting everything else among other things. When I fired up my RAW converter after seeing his, I was struck by how limited it appeared to be. Perhaps I am just using an old version. I've heard that S7RAW and RawTherapee are both very good, as well as affordable. Have you any experience with either of these? >> On Jan 22, 1:56 pm, "\(not quite so\) Fat Sam" >> <samandja...@knox.orangehome.co.uk> wrote: [quoted text clipped - 23 lines] > I've heard that S7RAW and RawTherapee are both very good, as well as > affordable. Have you any experience with either of these? Hi Not quite..! To my knowledge, Raw conversion offers many ways of tweaking a photo, but for specialised tweaking, you usual end-up in Photoshop. I only use Raw conversion for white balance (temperature) / exposure. The rest I do in Photoshop CS2 if need be. I could adjust contrast, brightness, saturation, vignetting, do curves and even calibrate... but I don't. I find Photoshop far superio for these. Marcel <snip> > > Well, a mate of mine who I visit from time to time is using Lightroom > > (which I can't afford at the moment), and he has loads of options and a [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > far superio for these. > Marcel CS2 has Temperature, Exposure etc. but many of them are hidden deeper in some sub-menu's, so RAW Converter is a quick way to access to those commands. And same here, all of the important images have to go through Photoshop before going to photolab for print. Only the unimportant images like local parish events don't need detail work I can just do a quick adjustment (while learning more about RAW converter) then upload to my web site for members to download. And only the close-up go through Photoshop to make sure I don't leave any ugly side of any member to public. "\(not quite so\) Fat Sam" <samandjanet@knox.orangehome.co.uk> wrote: > > On Jan 22, 1:56 pm, "\(not quite so\) Fat Sam" > > <samandja...@knox.orangehome.co.uk> wrote: [quoted text clipped - 22 lines] > I've heard that S7RAW and RawTherapee are both very good, as well as > affordable. Have you any experience with either of these? The price is pretty high if you have to pay for the full price $300, but I only paid around $99 for mine (Educational). I am using ARC, but because I had installing problem with CS3 beta, and because I am a slow learner who don't want to stay too far behind then doing catching up later (and forever), so I had my grand-daughter got me the educational deal for $99. I still using ARC, but at least I know some about LightRoom > "\(not quite so\) Fat Sam" <samandjanet@knox.orangehome.co.uk> wrote: > [quoted text clipped - 34 lines] > > I still using ARC, but at least I know some about LightRoom I'd love to do that if I could, but unfortunately, I don't know anyone who's a student at the moment. "\(not quite so\) Fat Sam" <samandjanet@knox.orangehome.co.uk> wrote: <snip> > > The price is pretty high if you have to pay for the full price $300, > > but I only paid around $99 for mine (Educational). I am using ARC, [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > I'd love to do that if I could, but unfortunately, I don't know anyone who's > a student at the moment. Also, Adobe may not offer the educational deal on all countries. > "\(not quite so\) Fat Sam" <samandjanet@knox.orangehome.co.uk> wrote: > [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > > Also, Adobe may not offer the educational deal on all countries. That's also a good point. I've downloaded RawTherapee and I really quite like the results it's putting out so far. One interesting side effect however. It's taking my 6 megapixel RAW images and converting them to 12 megapixel Tiff's. Weird. "\(not quite so\) Fat Sam" <samandjanet@knox.orangehome.co.uk> wrote: > > "\(not quite so\) Fat Sam" <samandjanet@knox.orangehome.co.uk> wrote: > > [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > and converting them to 12 megapixel Tiff's. > Weird. That's the beauty of TIFF and for some reason I never care for TIFF. And if you want the best for both quality and size then DNG seems to be the best. Also, I don't use DNG either but read some about it On Jan 22, 5:03 pm, "\(not quite so\) Fat Sam" <samandja...@knox.orangehome.co.uk> wrote: > > On Jan 22, 1:56 pm, "\(not quite so\) Fat Sam" > > <samandja...@knox.orangehome.co.uk> wrote: [quoted text clipped - 22 lines] > I've heard that S7RAW and RawTherapee are both very good, as well as > affordable. Have you any experience with either of these I looked at the information for other ways of converting RAW when I got the S5600 and fund them hideously complicated. I did T189 with the Open University (£160 or thereabouts) and that included a copy of Elements 5 and it's the RawCamera plugin I use with that. Maybe the first thing to do is to see if you can upgrade the RAW interface you are using. BTW I found the converter supplied with the camera gave all the oversharpening problems I had with JPGs from it. That was why I started shooting RAW. <snip> > I looked at the information for other ways of converting RAW when I > got the S5600 and fund them hideously complicated. I did T189 with [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > all the oversharpening problems I had with JPGs from it. That was why > I started shooting RAW. This is something I don't hear often, moct if not all RAW converters give user the option to adjust the level of sharpen, noise reduce etc.. some may set some value as default setting, but I don't think any FORCE you to accept whatever the default setting may be. So there should be no oversharpening problem And with JPG is another story I don't hear often either. Yes, I read some waco commends about JPG but not something like yours. > <snip> > [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > whatever the default setting may be. So there should be no oversharpening > problem You are talking about a bit of software you've never used and hence know nothing about. The basic in-the-box RAW converter with the Fuji S5600 (and other Fujis quite possibly) simply converts - no choices are given at all. Fuji want you to fork out for some more expensive software. NB this is in the UK - the US offering (S5200) might be different. On Tue, 22 Jan 2008 13:56:04 +0000, \(not quite so\) Fat Sam wrote: > I'm currently using the RAW fiel converter plugin for my camera in > Photoshop, but it's not everything it could be in my opinion. Can anyone > recommend a good (either free or else easily affordable on a low budget) > RAW converter that will work for Fuji RAF format files? Muchos Grazias. > Sam. ufraw. > On Tue, 22 Jan 2008 13:56:04 +0000, \(not quite so\) Fat Sam wrote: > [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > ufraw. Cheers Ray. I'll be checking that out today. > I'm currently using the RAW fiel converter plugin for my camera in > Photoshop, but it's not everything it could be in my opinion. > Can anyone recommend a good (either free or else easily affordable on a low > budget) RAW converter that will work for Fuji RAF format files? > Muchos Grazias. > Sam. Hola, Sam! If you are interested to try a free software, you can download GIMP (http://www.gimp.org/) and after that to install the GIMP plugin for manipulation of RAW files -- ufraw. It is available for different platforms, you can see and download from here: - for windows: http://ufraw.sourceforge.net/Install.html#MS - for MAC OS: http://ufraw.sourceforge.net/Install.html#Mac - for Linux: http://ufraw.sourceforge.net/Install.html#Linux You may check also the list of supported cameras as well here: http://ufraw.sourceforge.net/Cameras.html It's not only that ufraw gives you all the possibilities to manipulate your raw files, but also GIMP is very intuitive, fast, quite lighter than Photoshop and easy to use. Good luck and keep snapping! :) Geri >> I'm currently using the RAW fiel converter plugin for my camera in >> Photoshop, but it's not everything it could be in my opinion. [quoted text clipped - 25 lines] > > Geri Thanks Geri. I do like GIMP, but I don't have it installed at the moment. I'll install it and check out ufraw, as that's 2 recommendations I've had for it now. On Thu, 24 Jan 2008 12:01:57 +0000, \(not quite so\) Fat Sam wrote: >>> I'm currently using the RAW fiel converter plugin for my camera in >>> Photoshop, but it's not everything it could be in my opinion. Can [quoted text clipped - 29 lines] > install it and check out ufraw, as that's 2 recommendations I've had for > it now. FWIW - I prefer to use ufraw standalone - it has the ability to do most of the changes I generally need. > On Thu, 24 Jan 2008 12:01:57 +0000, \(not quite so\) Fat Sam wrote: > [quoted text clipped - 34 lines] > FWIW - I prefer to use ufraw standalone - it has the ability to do > most of the changes I generally need. I just downloaded and installed S7RAW, RawTherapee and UFRaw to run side by side comparisons. So far, S7RAW has a difficult to use interface - text on buttons so small that its barely readable etc. But it's fast to load and doesn't hog system resources. RawTherapee has all the tools I'm looking for and has a nice interface, but it's very resource hungry, loads slowly and runs slowly. UFRaw just won't run on my computer at all. I installed it, and double clicked the icon to open it, but nothing opens. It doesn't seem to be even trying to open. I'm running winxp sp2. Is anyone else having a problem running UFRaw on this configuration? >> On Thu, 24 Jan 2008 12:01:57 +0000, \(not quite so\) Fat Sam wrote: >> [quoted text clipped - 50 lines] > I'm running winxp sp2. Is anyone else having a problem running UFRaw > on this configuration? Oh, I see. Even if I want to use it as a standalone converter, I still need to have GIMP installed, is that right? On Jan 27, 5:11 pm, "\(not quite so\) Fat Sam" <samandja...@knox.orangehome.co.uk> wrote: > >> On Thu, 24 Jan 2008 12:01:57 +0000, \(not quite so\) Fat Sam wrote: > [quoted text clipped - 54 lines] > Even if I want to use it as a standalone converter, I still need to have > GIMP installed, is that right? Before I got Elements (+ CameraRaw) I gave up on UFRaw as once I was having to install Gimp as well it stopped being easy. UFraw is actually a standalone program that has a GIMP plug-in mode. So no, you don't have to have GIMP to use UFraw. On my XP machine, it is the default application for Nikon .NEF files. >>> On Thu, 24 Jan 2008 12:01:57 +0000, \(not quite so\) Fat Sam wrote: >>>>> [quoted text clipped - 53 lines] > GIMP installed, is that right? >  SignatureDominic Richens | knob@storm.ca "If you're not *outraged*, you're not paying attention!" > UFraw is actually a standalone program that has a GIMP plug-in mode. So > no, you don't have to have GIMP to use UFraw. On my XP machine, > it is the default application for Nikon .NEF files. Weird. I couldn't get it to work as a standalone. I'm on XP sp2. When I tried to run UFRaw without Gimp installed, it just refused to do anything. Not even a wee hourglass icon beside my cursor to indicate it was thinking about it. But when I installed Gimp, it worked fine. All very strange. I'm starting to get quite used to S7RAW now. Its user interface could do with a bit of tidying up, but I like its results, and it's very fast. >> UFraw is actually a standalone program that has a GIMP plug-in mode. So >> no, you don't have to have GIMP to use UFraw. On my XP machine, [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > I'm starting to get quite used to S7RAW now. Its user interface could do > with a bit of tidying up, but I like its results, and it's very fast. There is one little dll or something which Gimp installs, so installing Gimp is the easy way to make it work. >>> UFraw is actually a standalone program that has a GIMP plug-in >>> mode. So no, you don't have to have GIMP to use UFraw. On my XP [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > There is one little dll or something which Gimp installs, so > installing Gimp is the easy way to make it work. Aaaah. One feature I didn't like with it was it's inability to display thumbnailed versions of my Fuji .RAF files in the file-open dialogue. Of course that might just be a quirk with how it handles Fuji's raw files. "\(not quite so\) Fat Sam" <samandjanet@knox.orangehome.co.uk> wrote: > > UFraw is actually a standalone program that has a GIMP plug-in mode. So > > no, you don't have to have GIMP to use UFraw. On my XP machine, [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > I'm starting to get quite used to S7RAW now. Its user interface could do > with a bit of tidying up, but I like its results, and it's very fast. In general, about ALL current RAW converters are stand alone converters and they are not plug-in of any main graphic program, *but* some of them may require or use the same .DLL that the main program's use. So, you may have to have the main program installed in order to have the required .DLL, but when you use it then it should be by itself. As everyone know nobody can force anyone to do anything they don't like, but it never hurt to give some thought that may help other to make a good or better decision. And just like everyone else I kinda (not 100% or I like good deal, resonable price more than free with least value) like getting something for nothing, but I don't like to have to pay for expensive price (don't mean $$$$) in the long run. For some very simple reasons. - It usually take many years with lot of practicing to be able to master a program, and it will take lot longer if we have to UNDO the previous to start a newer one. - In our quest for knowledge, we often need as much help from many others as possible, and the more popular the more help we may get. - Sure, it's nice to have something free and usable, especially if we are looking at few days/weeks or few uses. But what about the long run? will we still continue to use it year(s) from now? Is it worth the price we spent years of learning and practicing then end up starting something else from beginning? Yes, I have heard many people making excuses that once we learn PSP then we can use what we learned on Photoshop. It's sad but the answer is NO, we can adapt most of the *techniques*, "ideals" but tnot the commands and the commands don't work exactly the same way. It sounds more like if one knows how to ride a bicycle can also drive a car, because it's nothing more than steering the wheel. Same with the camera, lens, flash etc.. even I have been using digital camera for over a decade, and lens for decades etc.. I still have to spend months to get to know the newer camera, and newer lens. And luckily they don't have hundreds or thousands of commands to remember, just few newer and how each work differently than other. Yup! I do understand when one says why pay lot of $$$ for something the freeware can do better, and if it's true then I would go for the freeware because it's doing better. But I am not go for freeware just because it's free (something not important or won't effect my future use then I have no problem with free) but I often aim for the long run. > As everyone know nobody can force anyone to do anything they don't > like, but it never hurt to give some thought that may help other to [quoted text clipped - 38 lines] > future use then I have no problem with free) but I often aim for the > long run. I go for whatever option I can afford. Quite often the only option I can afford is the free option. If there is no free option, I go without. In this case, there are free options, so I prefer to use them. Not everyone has the $$$ to spend, and in those cases it's easier to learn a new skill than it is to raise money that simply doesn't exist. "\(not quite so\) Fat Sam" <samandjanet@knox.orangehome.co.uk> wrote: <snip> > Not everyone has the $$$ to spend, and in those cases it's easier to learn a > new skill than it is to raise money that simply doesn't exist. As I have mentioned I don't talk about $$$$ but the PRICE (price can be anything *not* just money) each has to pay in the long run. > "\(not quite so\) Fat Sam" <samandjanet@knox.orangehome.co.uk> wrote: > [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > As I have mentioned I don't talk about $$$$ but the PRICE (price can > be anything *not* just money) each has to pay in the long run. Sorry, the shops around here only accept money as payment. "\(not quite so\) Fat Sam" <samandjanet@knox.orangehome.co.uk> wrote: > > "\(not quite so\) Fat Sam" <samandjanet@knox.orangehome.co.uk> wrote: > > [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > > Sorry, the shops around here only accept money as payment. That's the PRICE you have to pay <bg> On Jan 22, 11:56 pm, "\(not quite so\) Fat Sam" <samandja...@knox.orangehome.co.uk> wrote: > I'm currently using the RAW fiel converter plugin for my camera in > Photoshop, but it's not everything it could be in my opinion. > Can anyone recommend a good (either free or else easily affordable on a low > budget) RAW converter that will work for Fuji RAF format files? > Muchos Grazias. > Sam. After battling with s7raw and being frustrated with the interface and often lacklustre results, I've now gone 'backwards' and just use DCRAW in command line mode, with the following settings on my S9000 - much better results! The version I have isn't EXIF aware, though, so that's a minor annoyance. dcraw -v -w -H 0 -o 0 -4 -T Excellent tutorial page to discuss the settings: http://www.guillermoluijk.com/tutorial/dcraw/index_en.htm And the UFRAW front end is available if you prefer, as well as others. |
Reply to this Message |
 Sign In
 Join
 My Latest Posts My Monitored Threads My Blog My Photo Gallery My Profile My Homepage Start New Thread Enable EMail Alerts Rate this Thread
|
©2008 Advenet LLC Privacy Policy - Terms of Use
This website includes both content owned or controlled by Advenet as well as content owned or controlled by third parties.