Author Topic: Help with RAW  (Read 2050 times)

barewirewalker

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Help with RAW
« on: 09:29:16, 06/11/19 »
Yesterday I had a brief opportunity to get out and takes some photos, I wanted to grab some autumnal settings of a footbridge I am discussing elsewhere on this forum. Somehow I had switched my camera over to taking RAW only, without realising. Now I used to take RAW, with a Canon, and this camera came with some software to process it. On the demise of that camera, the replacement Panasonic did not provide the backup of free software, and as keen user of Gimp, I always intended to add the RAW processing feature. Age and laziness has slowed down that ambition so it was a bit of a shock, yesterday, when I got back my "Photo shoot", hah, and d/l Darktable, that I am having difficulties.

Any simple pointers to get me started, would be gratefully received. I am viewing a few tutorials online, bit bemused by all the settings.

BWW
Their Land is in Our Country.

vghikers

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Re: Help with RAW
« Reply #1 on: 10:45:26, 06/11/19 »
That's a remarkable coincidence, in the last couple of weeks I've been experimenting briefly with shooting RAW on our Sony RX100 III. We bought it a couple of years ago and have always shot in Extra-fine JPEG on backpacks up to now. I decided to investigate RAW support particularly for night sky photos since exposure adjustment is better dealt with in RAW before arriving in GIMP for further tweaking.

I don't know your system setup, so first crucial thing: which operating system and which version of GIMP?.

For our Sony I did get Darktable to work in the end but I find the interface spectacularly unintuitive, I don't like it!.
The much preferred way is to use ufraw, it operates as a stand alone utility or, better, as a GIMP plugin. At the moment I can't try it for highly technical reasons but I'm working on it. Regardless of system, everything depends on whether it supports your camera model.

One hurdle I wasn't expecting with the Sony is the need for lens correction. The RAW image opened in Darktable has severe barrel distortion, fortunately the lens-correction options include one that works perfectly with the RX100.

barewirewalker

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Re: Help with RAW
« Reply #2 on: 11:34:41, 06/11/19 »
Hi VGH, interesting  :)
I have GIMP 2.10.8 and have just d/l the latest dark table. My camera is a Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX100. I am trying to work through a tutorial on Davies Media Design website.
Heavy going, but already had a couple of doying moments  ??? . I think I need to find some basic menus to get a basic folder from a group of photos and then decide which images are worth further work. Certainly the interface of darktable is pretty daunting.
Perhaps we can share our difficulties and throw them open to others to comment.
BWW
Their Land is in Our Country.

andybr

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Re: Help with RAW
« Reply #3 on: 14:08:53, 06/11/19 »
As you are using a Panasonic camera you should be able to download Silkypix Developer Studio SE. The current version is 8.0. The interface is a bit quirky but it gives excellent results.

Bigfoot_Mike

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Re: Help with RAW
« Reply #4 on: 19:22:27, 06/11/19 »
I use Adobe Lightroom, which obviously is not free. I always shoot in Raw format, so that I have maximum control of the end results. I don’t like leaving it to the camera to decide on sharpness, noise reduction, white balance, contrast, etc. Also JPEG files are ‘lossy’. Every time you save a JPEG some data is lost.

vghikers

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Re: Help with RAW
« Reply #5 on: 21:15:50, 06/11/19 »
Quote
Certainly the interface of darktable is pretty daunting.

I've spent hours today researching and getting my systems in order and shipshape: it all works very well now in Gimp with Darktable operating as a plugin to handle my Sony .arw raw files and it's pretty easy.
I also obtained a sample Panasonic LX100 .rw2 raw file and that works smoothly too.

I'll be back on the case tomorrow morning to tidy up and discuss it.

You didn't say which operating system you're using...

barewirewalker

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Re: Help with RAW
« Reply #6 on: 21:28:43, 06/11/19 »
You didn't say which operating system you're using...
I use windows 10.

After a day frustrated with error messages, some success;

poynton bridge by Barewirewalker, on Flickr

I think I have a lot to learn about the various adjustments.

« Last Edit: 21:49:00, 06/11/19 by barewirewalker »
BWW
Their Land is in Our Country.

vghikers

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Re: Help with RAW
« Reply #7 on: 08:13:05, 07/11/19 »
Quote
I use windows 10

I guessed as much  :(
It's very hard to tell from that particular photo whether you did lens correction in Darktable, but in general it must be done to fix the inherent distortion and, although easy, it's not obvious from the interface how.
This could become highly technical, I suggest any further discussion move to email.


barewirewalker

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Re: Help with RAW
« Reply #8 on: 09:32:17, 08/11/19 »
 VGH Thanks for your interest, lens distortion is something I had not have not picked up on, in the landscape photos. But now having opened a more architectural picture I realise there a lot of difference in opening in RAW, than the cameras corrected .jpeg.
A have been working on the more straight forward settings to familiarize myself with interface.
The posts provided by everyone has been very helpful. In my operating system the software seems to have taken some time to settle in. A lot of error messages to start with and a few .RW2 files the software did not seem to want to open. But once I opened and worked on them few all the rest seem to have fallen in line.

Working through quite a big batch, learning process is slow. On top of this the reason I took the photos has yielded information that shows how far of the mark the 'powers that be', who regulate where we can walk, are.
BWW
Their Land is in Our Country.

 

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