Raw Therapee 2.1 avaiable online-new and improved

For those who are interested, here is a free Raw converter you will find very useful. Those who are already experimenting with Raw Therapee will want to try this new version...and there are even more changes, improvements and surprises on the way.

Here are the features of Version 2.1 Gabor Horvath has provided in this new version:

• Selectable high performance demosaicing algorithms (EAHD and HPHD)
• Image post processing in 16 bit / channel mode

o Exposure control in RGB space

+ Auto exposure with adjustable clipping point / Exposure compensation / Shadow and highight compression / Contrast adjustment, curve editor
o White balance adjustment in RGB space

+ With in-camera, automatic and spot white balance options / Temperature/Green tint fine tuning
o Highlight Recovery
o Shadows/Highlights control in RGB space

o Basic Luminance curve tool to modify the luminance channel in CIELab color space
+ Brightness / Contrast adjustment, curve editor
o USM sharpening applied on the CIELab luminance channel

+ Classical USM parameters (Radius, Amount, Threshold) / Option to avoid noise amplification / Sharpening halo control
o Color shift control in CIELab color space
+ Allows color shift by shifting the CIELab "a" and "b" channels
o Color booster applied on the CIELab "a" and "b" channels

+ Amplifies color channels "a" and "b" together or separately / Avoids color overamplification in high chrominance areas / Option to avoid clipping caused by too high color boosting
o Luminance denoising algorithm applied on the CIELab luminance chanel
+ Edge sensitive method to preserve as much details as possible
o Color denoising tool applied on the CIELab "a" and "b" channels
+ Classical gaussian blur or edge sensitive bluring of the color channels
o Fast switching between different postprocessing profiles

o Image flipping horizontally or vertically, rotation by 90 degrees clockwise or counter clockwise
o Arbitrary image rotation (straightening tool)
o Simple lens distortion correction
o Crop tool
o Chromatic Aberration correction tool

• Change History with bookmarks to support before/after checking
• Output options:

o Supported file formats:
+ JPEG (8 bit), PNG (8 or 16 bit), TIFF (8 or 16 bit)
o EXIF data is preserved in JPEG output (except crw files)
o Output directory and automatic file naming highly customizable

• File browsing with thumbnails

I look forward to commentary, observations and analysis from our resident Raw converter experts. For my part, I am using this converter regularly as well as Lightroom.

http://www.rawtherapee.com/index.html

Have fun

All the best and many thanks to Gabor Horvath for all his hard work

Leo

--
Pentax K10D and Canon G7...simply the very best!
mitch

Looks interesting. Too bad there's no OSX version
--
--- http://www.reneeanddolan.net ---

I agree that Raw Therapee will benefit from being of use to those with Macs,,,right now just Windows and Linux. I can't see Gabor waiting too long before he presents one for OSX systems. He says he has surprises coming but I don't know what they are...maybe this will be one of the welcome surprises for the MACobites.

Thanks for your reply and I will be sure to let Gabor know (if he doesn't already) that this is a concern.

Best regards

Leo
--
Pentax K10D and Canon G7...simply the very best!
mitch

awesome, i hope he's fixed one of the bugs that i reported
gonna check it out now

--
Pentax K100D
Fuji Finepix F30 zoom
http://dtracorp.com

Pretty exciting huh David?! What was the bug you reported to Gabor if you don't mind my asking... or was it a post on this forum?

We will be interested to hear how this version works for you. There are several guys over on the Canon forum and a couple here that are following this software fairly closely...not to forget Gabor too! Don't hesitate to comment pro and con.

All the best

Leo
--
Pentax K10D and Canon G7...simply the very best!
mitch

i reported a bug regarding exif data, issues opening processed jpegs in the gimp

i just tried it, but it doesn't seem to have changed, i posted on the rawtherapee forum, and i'm trying some other stuff, but no luck yet

--
Pentax K100D
Fuji Finepix F30 zoom
http://dtracorp.com

Thanks for your fast response David. You might be interested in sending comments and suggestions to Gabor direct...he is very approachable.

Best regards
Leo
--
Pentax K10D and Canon G7...simply the very best!
mitch

Leo, again, many thanks for the heads up on this latest version.

This new version is somewhat faster than the last one with it's new interpolation algorithm and takes about 10 seconds to do the demosiacing on a 6 MP image on my average non-SSE machine, which is just a bit slower than average as compared to other commercial raw convertors, but still isn't going to win any races.

As far as image quality goes, it's pretty good given that these things are always a trade-off, with less artifacts and better image detail than Photoshop ACR.

It also appears to offer a pretty full suite of raw adjustments and does its transformations in 16 bit resolution, including being able to save to 16 bit per colour channel TIFF.

However, Gabor still has not written the program to install cleanly and be able to be easily used on a multi-user-account system including limited users.

Finally, the biggest obstacle to the programs common adoption (other than raw conversion speed) is how slow it is to update the view panel after any conversion or major update. For the above 10 second 6 MP raw conversion on my machine for the raw demosiacing (I suppose this would be even faster on a SSE machine at a faster clock rate), it takes another full 10 seconds to get the image to appear on the view panel, something approaching this long to do any significant view panel format changes such as change the 1:1, 1:2, viewing ratios, etc. and something about the same amount of time to wait and see the results of any processing parameter adjustment, such as WB. This is not acceptable for a program one would use for their regular daily workflow. Some programming attention has to be paid to making the results of adjustments immediately visible on the preview screen, given that it either shows a greatly reduced image or a small portion of a full size image. It doesn't need to take 10 seconds for the view panel to reflect changes made, even for 16 bit per colour channel manipulations. This appears to be an issue with the programs internal workflow, which applies all of the transformations to the entire image in memory rather than the necessary ones in a streamlined fashion to the preview first.

Also, the raw processing speed would be less of an issue if there were a batch convertor that could run in the background.

Regards, GordonBGood

Leo James Mitchell said:

For those who are interested, here is a free Raw converter you will
find very useful. Those who are already experimenting with Raw
Therapee will want to try this new version...and there are even
more changes, improvements and surprises on the way.

Here are the features of Version 2.1 Gabor Horvath has provided in
this new version:

• Selectable high performance demosaicing algorithms (EAHD and HPHD)
• Image post processing in 16 bit / channel mode

o Exposure control in RGB space
+ Auto exposure with adjustable clipping point / Exposure
compensation / Shadow and highight compression / Contrast
adjustment, curve editor
o White balance adjustment in RGB space
+ With in-camera, automatic and spot white balance options /
Temperature/Green tint fine tuning
o Highlight Recovery
o Shadows/Highlights control in RGB space
o Basic Luminance curve tool to modify the luminance channel in
CIELab color space
+ Brightness / Contrast adjustment, curve editor
o USM sharpening applied on the CIELab luminance channel
+ Classical USM parameters (Radius, Amount, Threshold) / Option to
avoid noise amplification / Sharpening halo control
o Color shift control in CIELab color space
+ Allows color shift by shifting the CIELab "a" and "b" channels
o Color booster applied on the CIELab "a" and "b" channels
+ Amplifies color channels "a" and "b" together or separately /
Avoids color overamplification in high chrominance areas / Option
to avoid clipping caused by too high color boosting
o Luminance denoising algorithm applied on the CIELab luminance chanel
+ Edge sensitive method to preserve as much details as possible
o Color denoising tool applied on the CIELab "a" and "b" channels
+ Classical gaussian blur or edge sensitive bluring of the color
channels
o Fast switching between different postprocessing profiles
o Image flipping horizontally or vertically, rotation by 90 degrees
clockwise or counter clockwise
o Arbitrary image rotation (straightening tool)
o Simple lens distortion correction
o Crop tool
o Chromatic Aberration correction tool

• Change History with bookmarks to support before/after checking
• Output options:

o Supported file formats:
+ JPEG (8 bit), PNG (8 or 16 bit), TIFF (8 or 16 bit)
o EXIF data is preserved in JPEG output (except crw files)
o Output directory and automatic file naming highly customizable

• File browsing with thumbnails

I look forward to commentary, observations and analysis from our
resident Raw converter experts. For my part, I am using this
converter regularly as well as Lightroom.

http://www.rawtherapee.com/index.html

Have fun

All the best and many thanks to Gabor Horvath for all his hard work

Click to expand...

Gordon,

The update time depends on the preview scale. Of course it will be slow if you select 1:1 or 1:2, but setting 1:4 or 1:5 is enough to view the whole image on most monitors and it is much faster. This is the parameter that determines how large image is processed and thus how long the processing takes. On my not-very-up-to-date machine I use 1:4 and the update after an adjustment is almost immediate.

About the multi-user account problem: I implemented multi-user support for the linux version, but it is also available in the windows version. I admit it is not very comfortable to enable it. You have to edit the "options" file and change the "MultiUser" parameter to "true".

Best regards, and thanks for the comments,
Gabor

hi Gabor,

Liked program a lot. Thanks for the hard work. Any plans about adding batch processing? It is so essential for raw converter...

As interspersed:

Gabor Horvath said:

Gordon,
The update time depends on the preview scale. Of course it will be
slow if you select 1:1 or 1:2, but setting 1:4 or 1:5 is enough to
view the whole image on most monitors and it is much faster. This
is the parameter that determines how large image is processed and
thus how long the processing takes. On my not-very-up-to-date
machine I use 1:4 and the update after an adjustment is almost
immediate.

Click to expand...

Gabor, I'll try editing with less than 1:1 and see how it goes. However, my point was that it doesn't need to take so long to do an update of only the parts of the image needed for the preview, even at 1:1.

Gabor Horvath said:

About the multi-user account problem: I implemented multi-user
support for the linux version, but it is also available in the
windows version. I admit it is not very comfortable to enable it.
You have to edit the "options" file and change the "MultiUser"
parameter to "true".

Click to expand...

I'll try that, too, but shouldn't it be "MultiUser by default?

Regards, GordonBGood

This is great news. I just downloaded and tried this latest version of Raw Therapee and am quite impressed. Speed seems pretty good on my computer, and pretty much has all the features I generally use in a raw converter.

Three missing things so far -- color management, batch processing, and better workflow. Color management, from what I read, is the main focus of version 2.2 (excellent news). I'm unsure what the priority of batch processing is, but the sooner the better. And a good workflow setup is a MUST for making modifications. Once those features are implemented, I'm proud to announce I'll be switching to Raw Therapee for most of my edits.

Great news Wyatt...glad you like RT. If you have suggestions you can go to the Raw Therapee forum for discussion with others who love RT.

Gabor has done great work yes? New improvements will be along before you know it!

Best regards

Leo
--
Pentax K10D and Canon G7...simply the very best!
mitch

... I've just sent the developer of this programme AUD$25 - I think he deserves it.

Rawtherapee seems to be at the stage that Rawshooter was a year or so ago and it seems to be every bit as promising.

I spoke to Gabor, the developer, by email and he informs me he's had 15,000 downloads altogether and the grand total of only $180 in donations in the last 2 months. If you have a Paypal account, why not send the guy a few bucks as an encouragement? I'm sure most here wouldn't miss a small amount like that and it could make a big difference to this guy in Hungary. What about it folks? Try the programme I think you'll be impressed.
Mike M. (emem)
http://photobucket.com/albums/d179/emem48/

After trying your suggestions, comments as interspersed:

GordonBGood said:

Gabor Horvath said:

Gordon,
The update time depends on the preview scale. Of course it will be
slow if you select 1:1 or 1:2, but setting 1:4 or 1:5 is enough to
view the whole image on most monitors and it is much faster. This
is the parameter that determines how large image is processed and
thus how long the processing takes. On my not-very-up-to-date
machine I use 1:4 and the update after an adjustment is almost
immediate.

Click to expand...

Gabor, I'll try editing with less than 1:1 and see how it goes.
However, my point was that it doesn't need to take so long to do an
update of only the parts of the image needed for the preview, even
at 1:1.

Click to expand...

Indeed, using a 1:4 scaling on the preview is faster, as it well should be as it only has to process a sixteenth of the data. Now, once one gets used to it, your so-called "crop" viewing option (should probably be called a magnifier or magnifying glass option) that allows one to view any portion of the image at up to 800% zoom means that there is little reason for a 1:1 scaled viewing pane, but it shows that processing options aren't happening as fast as they should as they should only take a couple of seconds for a full image.

GordonBGood said:

GordonBGood said:

About the multi-user account problem: I implemented multi-user
support for the linux version, but it is also available in the
windows version. I admit it is not very comfortable to enable it.
You have to edit the "options" file and change the "MultiUser"
parameter to "true".

Click to expand...

I'll try that, too, but shouldn't it be "MultiUser by default?

Click to expand...

I did set the MultiUser option to true and it does indeed start to save options into a folder structure in the user profile rather than into the installation folder. However, one still has to create their own All Programs shortcut folder or move the installation ones into the All Users profile. Why bother with this and why not just make it a multi-user application on installation?

Regards, GordonBGood

You got that right Mike! I too have contributed...although I didn't realize that Gabor's financial support was so short! I have just sent another contribution to help support this programme that I use and enjoy. Seems to me I paid 126 Canadian dollars for RSE which ceased to exist a short time after I purchased it...I can certainly can spare 25 dollars for a great Raw converter that I now use more and more and with excellent results. Right on Mike!

All the best

Leo
--
Pentax K10D and Canon G7...simply the very best!
mitch