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#1
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converting raw images from Canon EOS 600D
Hi to Everyone !
I previously had an old Powershot G2, and I used "dcraw" to convert RAW images to such formats as tiff, ppm or jpg. I must state that I dont use MSWIN and don't intend to, so the software that is meant to be used with those cameras is useless to me. My favorite OS are Debian Squeeze on one PC, Ubuntu 13.04 on the other one. DCRAW works fine, but... the results are not as good looking as those that the camera delivers in jpg format, since, I suppose, the latter go through one or more enhancement processes such as sharpening, improving contours and contrasts through the use of various filters or in altering gamma factor etc.. I have tried to treat my converted raw pictures using various filters and else, but I never got results as good as expected, especially if compaired to those that the camera delivers in jpg. With my new EOS 600D, I use "ufraw", which works as an interface for dcraw. The results that I obtain are neither better nor worse than those with the G2. So, I wonder if anyone would know about what treatment Canon exactly applies to raw images so as to deliver enhanced jpeg pictures, either inside the camera, or through the software that they provide for use with MSWIN. Is there a place or address where I could expect to find this ? Thanks in advance for any useful input. Bernard |
#2
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converting raw images from Canon EOS 600D
On 2013.11.29, 19:48 , bd wrote:
Hi to Everyone ! I previously had an old Powershot G2, and I used "dcraw" to convert RAW images to such formats as tiff, ppm or jpg. I must state that I dont use MSWIN and don't intend to, so the software that is meant to be used with those cameras is useless to me. My favorite OS are Debian Squeeze on one PC, Ubuntu 13.04 on the other one. DCRAW works fine, but... the results are not as good looking as those that the camera delivers in jpg format, since, I suppose, the latter go through one or more enhancement processes such as sharpening, improving contours and contrasts through the use of various filters or in altering gamma factor etc.. I have tried to treat my converted raw pictures using various filters and else, but I never got results as good as expected, especially if compaired to those that the camera delivers in jpg. With my new EOS 600D, I use "ufraw", which works as an interface for dcraw. The results that I obtain are neither better nor worse than those with the G2. So, I wonder if anyone would know about what treatment Canon exactly applies to raw images so as to deliver enhanced jpeg pictures, either inside the camera, or through the software that they provide for use with MSWIN. Is there a place or address where I could expect to find this ? Thanks in advance for any useful input. Monsieur Debreil, I have no idea (no interest either) in what "treatment" Canon apply to raw to make jpg.s. And in your Linux prison, nor should you. You would, however, find solace in The Gimp, the de facto photo editor for Linux which will (with the correct installation of ufraw) allow you to extract all manner of information from the Canon raw files and of course adjust them to your taste - whether that is Canon's taste you'll be able to compare yourself. Bonne Photo! -- À noter: Les vrais photographes utilisent Mac OS X et Photoshop car OS X est ce que Linux veut faire quand lorsque il grandit et Photoshop est ce que "The Gimp" veut faire lorsque il grandit. |
#3
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converting raw images from Canon EOS 600D
bd wrote:
[...] DCRAW works fine, but... the results are not as good looking as those that the camera delivers in jpg format, since, I suppose, the latter go through one or more enhancement processes such as sharpening, improving contours and contrasts through the use of various filters or in altering gamma factor etc.. There are many things that are simply impossible (sharpening) or difficult (any adjustment that isn't automatic) with DCRAW. It is not meant to be used as a general tool. With my new EOS 600D, I use "ufraw", which works as an interface for dcraw. The results that I obtain are neither better nor worse than those with the G2. Note that UFRAW is a lot more than and "interface" using DCRAW. It uses DCRAW as the basic converter engine, but has it's own processing for many other of the enhancement tools you need. However, it is a RAW converter, not an image editor. Hence there is more to post processing that it can do alone! The next step is to process each image with GIMP. This is certain to get a bit lengthy, but let me walk you through some suggestions for your workflow. First, you want UFRAW to set a "base" configuration that you start with. That's a little complex because when working you want it to save all setting each time you save an image. When you start work on a group of files, the first thing is to check the configuration of UFRAW. Here are my defaults, from top to bottom: ---- Pre-Configuration ---- At the top: Enable Raw histogram 2nd line: Set Exposure to 0.0 (see Note) Set Restore Details for Negative EV to "HSV space for sharp detail" Set Clip Highlights for Positive EV to "digital linear" Set Auto Adjust Exposure to disabled (see Note) Note: Clicking the last icon will set exposure to 0 and disable Auto Adjust. 3rd line: White Balance -- set to either "auto" or "camera" Grayscale Mode -- None (which means color) Lens correction (optional, may not exist) -- None Base Curve -- Straight Line (use reset button on right) Color Management -- A. Input ICC Profile: No profile B. Gamma: 0.45 C. Linearity: 0.10 D. Output ICC Profile: sRGB E. Output intent: Perceptual F. Output Depth: 8 (16 sometimes) G. Display ICC Profile: sRGB H. Display intent: Perceptual Correct Luminosity, Saturation -- A. Contrast (Optional, may not exist): 1.00 B. Saturation: 1.30 C. Manual curve D. Click on both left and right bottom reset buttons Lightness Adjustments -- Does nothing on mine (if it exists, set everything to 0) Crop and Rotate -- Click on two reset buttons, and "lock" icon. Note that there are bugs associated with the functions in this menu, and on occasion odd crops may show up that require these resets to be reset to get a normal view. Save -- THIS IS IMPORTANT! A. The "path" should be your current working directory. B. Select the output file format (I would recommend only TIFF). C. Set JPEG compression level as desired (less than 92) C. Enable JPEG progressive encoding D. Enable TIFF lossless compression E. Enable Embed EXIF F. ** Set Create ID file to ONLY ** G. Set save image defaults to Always H. Disable remembering output path I. Enable overwriting files without asking Bottom of page: Enable Live Histogram Check the indicate box for Overexposure Uncheck the indicate box for Underexposure ---- End of Pre-Configuration ---- Obviously there are some items you might want to set differently. I would suggest waiting until you work with those for awhile first, and then slowly start changing things to match your specific needs *after* you get an idea what the purpose is for each. However, it is also true that sometimes you'll want something different for a specific set of images, so if it actually makes a difference, change the default on a case by case basis. The effect of setting UFRAW to only write an "ID" file is important. I start UFRAW like this: ufraw *.nef You will want to change *.nef to whatever suffix is appropriate for your raw files. But it will do each raw file in sequence. If you don't want to do a given file, click on "cancel" instead of "save" and it will skip to the next file. Clicking on "save" will *only* write a *.ufraw file, which happens almost instantly. It then goes to the next RAW file. You don't need to wait for it to convert each file. When you've gone through all of the files you want to process, convert them to TIFF format files with a batch process like this: ufraw-batch *.ufraw You can then take a coffee break, read Usenet, or whatever while all of the time consuming number crunching is done. But lets go back to the first RAW file you process, and follow a typical sequence for making the adjustments. I usually just put the exposure slider somewhere near correct, and then adjust White Balance. You can switch between different presets, or go to manual and adjust it yourself. Then I click the "Color management" icon and adjust gamma and linearity plus exposure to get the look I want. If the image is going to be processed by GIMP, leave the output bit depth at 8. If you will process with software that can deal with 16 bits, change it to that. The next step will be processing with an editor. If you use GIMP or any other 8 bit editor you'll want to get the gamma and brightness very close to perfect with UFRAW, because changing either in GIMP can cause posterization. But GIMP is fine for cropping and most other edits. You can do minor adjustments to contrast and brightness, in particular to local area selections. Local sharpening and blurring is also done with GIMP, and then before writing the final output file to disk it should be 1) saved as an XCF formatted intermediate file, 2) scaled to the appropriate size, 3) apply Sharpen and Unsharp Mask, and finally 4) saved to disk (perhaps as a JPEG format). Your first efforts may not match the perceived quality of images produced by the cameras JPEG engine, but... rest assured that with practice you can develop the skills needed to always produce a better result than the camera does. The reason is fairly simple too. Your computer can at least equal what the camera's computer can do, but it has the advantage of 20-20 hind sight too. The camera has to be configured before you make an exposure. You only get one guess at what is right for each exposure, and that's it. With post processing you take the exact same raw sensor data the camera used, but you get to try any and every possible variation on configuration until you get not just something close, but rather the precise configuration you like the best. Many times every single shot is slightly different, and you do get better results for each one! Just don't expect to do that immediately, and do expect to save your raw files because I guarantee that in 2 years, not to mention 5 years, you'll be better at editing! Also be aware that with Linux if you become proficient at writing shell scripts there is just no end of ways to improve productivity. The ImageMagick tools are fabulous for editing. And there are many ways a shell script can speed up your workflow. For example, I preview my images, as JPEGs, with a very customized version of XV which can sort them into various directories. The JPEG images I don't want to convert with UFRAW go into one special directory, and then a shell script moves the RAW files to the same directories where the JPEG is now at. Then I run UFRAW and it never loads a file I don't want to process. Plus when I want to run the batch on all of them, I use a script that does odd things like automatically setting wavelet noise reduction depending on the ISO it was shot at, and it determines how many CPU cores are available and proceeds to keep each CPU busy with a different process (which with as many as 12 cores can make a huge difference in how fast a few hundred RAW files can be converted to TIFF files). -- Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/ Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska) |
#4
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converting raw images from Canon EOS 600D
On 2013-11-30 00:48:42 +0000, bd said:
Hi to Everyone ! I previously had an old Powershot G2, and I used "dcraw" to convert RAW images to such formats as tiff, ppm or jpg. I must state that I dont use MSWIN and don't intend to, so the software that is meant to be used with those cameras is useless to me. My favorite OS are Debian Squeeze on one PC, Ubuntu 13.04 on the other one. DCRAW works fine, but... the results are not as good looking as those that the camera delivers in jpg format, since, I suppose, the latter go through one or more enhancement processes such as sharpening, improving contours and contrasts through the use of various filters or in altering gamma factor etc.. I have tried to treat my converted raw pictures using various filters and else, but I never got results as good as expected, especially if compaired to those that the camera delivers in jpg. With my new EOS 600D, I use "ufraw", which works as an interface for dcraw. The results that I obtain are neither better nor worse than those with the G2. So, I wonder if anyone would know about what treatment Canon exactly applies to raw images so as to deliver enhanced jpeg pictures, either inside the camera, or through the software that they provide for use with MSWIN. Is there a place or address where I could expect to find this ? Thanks in advance for any useful input. Bernard You might get some information, or help from one of the two, or perhaps three declared Linux advocates in this NG (I think that's the number who have ID themselves). The most likely sources should be Floyd or sid, perhaps Pablo. The majority here are using a variant of either OSX or WIN, with more mainstream image editing software, including some users of the bundled Canon software (at least one that I know of). Most are using a version of Photoshop (CSx CC or Elements), Lightroom, Aperture, iPhoto, PSP, Nikon's NX, Canon's DPP, or GraphicConvertor. A handful, including Floyd and sid are using ufraw & GIMP. I seriously doubt that even the geekiest of us have any interest in just what Canon does in its cameras, or software to process its RAW files to JPEG. I will say this, you should be seeing a difference, a big difference in the image quality between files produced by your G2 and your 600D. If not, the problem might lie in some peculiarity in your photographic technique, but most importantly I have a feeling your hardline choice of OS is your real problem, and it is distracting you from paying attention to improving your photography. Floyd might have an answer, but be warned, he is a Nikon shooter. Good luck with your quest. -- Regards, Savageduck |
#5
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converting raw images from Canon EOS 600D
Savageduck wrote:
[...] most importantly I have a feeling your hardline choice of OS is your real problem, and it is distracting you from paying attention to improving your photography. That in fact seems to be *your* most serious impediment to improving your photography. The OP seems to be well aware that a more functional OS is eventually going to allow him to produce better results...] Floyd might have an answer, but be warned, he is a Nikon shooter. He didn't ask how to operate his camera though, and if he had I certainly would not be the one to ask, nor would I bother to try answering questions I know nothing about. Good luck with your quest. True, because most answers here will be equal to yours... garble about a topic you don't know the answer to, or even enough to understand the questions. -- Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/ Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska) |
#6
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converting raw images from Canon EOS 600D
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#7
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converting raw images from Canon EOS 600D
In article , Floyd L. Davidson
wrote: Also be aware that with Linux if you become proficient at writing shell scripts there is just no end of ways to improve productivity. The ImageMagick tools are fabulous for editing. And there are many ways a shell script can speed up your workflow. For example, I preview my images, as JPEGs, with a very customized version of XV which can sort them into various directories. The JPEG images I don't want to convert with UFRAW go into one special directory, and then a shell script moves the RAW files to the same directories where the JPEG is now at. Then I run UFRAW and it never loads a file I don't want to process. Plus when I want to run the batch on all of them, I use a script that does odd things like automatically setting wavelet noise reduction depending on the ISO it was shot at, and it determines how many CPU cores are available and proceeds to keep each CPU busy with a different process (which with as many as 12 cores can make a huge difference in how fast a few hundred RAW files can be converted to TIFF files). if that isn't proof that linux users do things in the most difficult and most convoluted way possible, i don't know what is. |
#8
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converting raw images from Canon EOS 600D
In article , Floyd L. Davidson
wrote: The OP seems to be well aware that a more functional OS is eventually going to allow him to produce better results...] except he said he didn't want to switch to a more functional os. |
#9
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converting raw images from Canon EOS 600D
In article 2013112920210554849-savageduck1@REMOVESPAMmecom,
Savageduck wrote: The OP seems to be well aware that a more functional OS is eventually going to allow him to produce better results...] Locking himself into a single OS solution in the face of what is minimally recommended by the camera manufacturer, in this case Canon is certainly going to be a distraction of some degree. it also locks out a significant number of apps, many of which are *extremely* good, and in some cases better than canon's own software. My knowledge of Linux is nonexistent, and I have little desire to dabble in those mysterious waters. there's little reason to bother for desktop use. linux is well suited for servers, although not always the best choice My knowledge of GIMP is limited to making a comparison with Photoshop using OSX, and I found it lacking in several areas, but that is just ignorant me. it's definitely not ignorant you. gimp wishes it could be photoshop when it grows up. |
#10
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converting raw images from Canon EOS 600D
In article , Tony Cooper
wrote: [...] most importantly I have a feeling your hardline choice of OS is your real problem, and it is distracting you from paying attention to improving your photography. That in fact seems to be *your* most serious impediment to improving your photography. The OP seems to be well aware that a more functional OS is eventually going to allow him to produce better results...] I am curious how you come up with this. To me, it's like saying a better developing pan will lead to better photographs when working with film. the advantage of a more functional operating system is the availability of more functional apps which can produce better results. better apps can also greatly increase productivity, which means fewer hassles in producing the results, leaving more time to concentrate on photography itself rather than the processing. |
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