Jim Couch wrote:
> ...
>
> I have been downloading and evaluating Windows raw conversion software.
> By and large this is some of the WORST software I have used!
>
> Of the ten or so packages I have played with two won't run reliably on any of
> the three machines I have tried, two will only run on one or two of the
> machines, most are incredible resource hogs, and most of them
Jim Couch wrote:
> Chris,
>
> Could well be. I know that other's have had problems getting [DxO Pro] to
> run. So far it is running fine on my creaky old windows machine, albeit
> slowly. Of course everything runs slowly on that machine, if it runs at all.
> Light zone will not run at all, the Lightroom beta 3 runs, but will not
> export any files, and RAW Therapee continually crashes.
Is it possible that you are using machines with inadequate resources
and/or deeply messed up old registries, so that they aren't suited to
the purpose?
I'm not aware of so many converters out there to be tried, but have used
several. While some suffer various ills and shortcomings, none give me
the sort of troubles you talk about. Some, RawTherapee comes to mind,
run slowly enough to try my patience, but like the others, it works
consistently and doesn't crash.
>
> have terrible interfaces. On two of the software packages I could not figure
> how to save a file to disk without resorting to the manual! On one package,
> even the manual did not help - I never could get a file saved to disk! Most
> of the packages are not content with save as an option - it has to be output,
> export, or some other conceited, obscure, and overblown phrase. I suppose it
> is some way appropriate to the software which is much the same!
>
Most of the free or very inexpensive apps are one person shows. They
tend to reflect the quirks of that person's strengths and weaknesses in
their interface and operation. As an example, VueScan, which can be used
as a RAW developer, is written and maintained by Ed Hamrick. Ed is s
genius programmer who writes slightly quirky interfaces. His scanning
functions are as bood or better than any others out there, but there is
a learning curve to operating it.
Another thing is that one person's beauty is another's ugliness. For
whatever reason, I don't much take to the general approach taken by LR,
RawShooter and Raw Therapee. Use 'em, sure; like em, nope.
There was a beta version of RawTherapee 2.4 that I swear wouldn't save a
file. In the current version, the save process is unintuitive, at least
at first, but certainly works.
> Who comes up with this stuff? People really spend hundreds of dollars on some
> of this stuff? Amazing!
One thing I find interesting about software these days is how the cost
is so often unrelated to performance. I"ve gone wandering the web,
looking for something, tried several apps, and as often as not, found
something free or very cheap that outperforms a couple of trials of
expensive software. The one thing the expensive ones usually have is
really flash web sites. :-)
If you have trouble with resources and stability - and hate the
interfaces, how about skipping all that. Russ has chimed in with
ImageMagick. I seem to recall that one may do all sorts of things with
it, but am not personally interested in command line editing. Besides,
the "interface" of commands confused me.
Even simpler is DCRaw. ALL is does is command line RAW conversion, with
the minimal exposure settings and highlight recovery needed for that
purpose. It is certainly no resource hog. I can't imagine any machine
from the last 10+ years that still runs that won't run it.
I run it using Windows Send To function. Place a bat file like this in
C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\SendTo (Vista, XP
varies slightly), and it will show up in the Send To menu when you right
click a file or files in Explorer. Pick it and off it goes, processing
files in a conmmand window. It will handle about 44 files per batch on
my machine. Depends on some cache size or other, I suppose, and on the
length of the path.
--- dcrawH0.bat ---
@echo on
:begin
if _%1_==__ goto end
echo Processing %1...
C:\[...]\dcrawms -v -w -H 0 -o 2 -q 3 -4 -T %1
shift
goto begin
:end
pause
-------------------------------
Many other RW converters are little more than a pretty face on top of
some or all of DCRaw. IrfanView, FastStone and VueScan all use DCRaw
underneath for their RAW conversion functions. RawTherapee uses the the
DCRaw code for decoding RAW formats, then rolls its own demosaicing and
editing functions. I think many others are similar mixes of DCRaw and
local functions
For someone like me, who believes RAW conversion should be that, and
nothing more, it's great. For someone like Chuck, and many others, who
like to do lots of what I consider editing in the raw processor, DCRaw
would be less than satisfactory.
In my experience, I agree with Chuck, the Adobe Camera Raw engine is
very good, and straightforward to use. I gather it is much the same in
PS, LR and PSE.
Have you tried the software that came with the E-620? Some folks here
like it, others hate the workflow, but virtually all praise the color
results.
Moose
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