pentax raw on ubuntu (linux) raw viewing help

long story short a bet was made and basically i have to devote some time to actualy learn how to use Ubunut (Linux)

and subsequently GIMP

and i'm having trouble with Pentax RAW files.

first it was a hassle just to get GIMP to read raw files, then turns out there is some sort of lock or security against pentax originated raw files... GRRR

can any one more computer literate than me help me out?

What do you mean exactly with:

Gooshin said:

[...] some sort of lock or security against pentax originated raw

Click to expand...

Would be helpful if you could elaborate more on what exactly happens.

Cheers,

PS: Screenshots might help.

i'll copy and paste the exact error msg when i get home

but basically GIMP is telling me that it doesnt want to open X file because it is a pentax RAW file!

You need to have the GIMP ufraw plugin installed. I think a recent version of dcraw is also required. Version 8.39 can not handle K10D PEF files; version 8.73 works.
--
Pontus Lidman, amateurish photographer

Depending on what you are trying to accomplish you need more than just The Gimp. You also have to install UFRaw or use Raw Therapee. I am not sure if Gimp/UFRaw or Raw Therapee will handle .PEF files but they do handle .DNG files from my K10D.

Regards

John

...and if you want to just view pefs, then gqview is probably the best.

Also, for editing pefs you can use showFoto from KDE (requires prior dcraw installation). It has two advantages over GIMP: works with 16-bit images and has very versatile denoising, restoration and focus sharpening plugins.

monty65 said:

Depending on what you are trying to accomplish you need more than
just The Gimp. You also have to install UFRaw or use Raw Therapee.
I am not sure if Gimp/UFRaw or Raw Therapee will handle .PEF files
but they do handle .DNG files from my K10D.

Click to expand...

UFraw handles PEF from from my K100d. I don't know about the K10d.

I found the version of UFraw on http://ufraw.sourceforge.net/ had useful features not found in the version packaged with Ubuntu Gutsy. I'm also prepared to package my own debs and deal with the potential hassles. I don't recommend a new user try this.

exaiphnes said:

...and if you want to just view pefs, then gqview is probably the best.

Also, for editing pefs you can use showFoto from KDE (requires prior
dcraw installation). It has two advantages over GIMP: works with
16-bit images and has very versatile denoising, restoration and focus
sharpening plugins.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip. I'll investigate since it handles 16 bit per channel and gimp does not yet.

Picasa2 works great in Ubuntu, but doesn't show EXIFF on RAW files...

The older version of LightZone is very good, and there's also Bibble Pro... and Silkypix will work with Wine as well.

RawStudio and UFRaw are fine too, just a bit rudimentary, but you can get presets for UFRaw which are useful for base curves. Apply a Nikon D200 curve to your RAW files.

I just use Picasa2 to organize the files on my desktop, and when I get time I move them all to a folder on another hard drive. I really like how the whole Ubuntu system works with graphics and files in general, but GIMP doesn't work with 16bit files yet. Bibble Pro was my favorite, but now I'll have to buy it... so I use either UFRAW or Picasa2, and resize and curves and sharpen in the GIMP. I like the curves tool in the GIMP WAY better than that in Photoshop, but overall it's not nearly as powerful as PSCS2 or 3.

Cheers!
--
Lipo
*

Gooshin said:

time to actualy learn how to use Ubunut (Linux)

and subsequently GIMP

and i'm having trouble with Pentax RAW files.

Click to expand...

Dont use the GIMP with RAW files. GIMP only supports 8-bit colour. Your DSLR and RAW supports 12-bit colour, which you process as 16-bit colour. The program you should use is CinePaint. CinePaint is used by the major Hollywood studios to touch-up their movies, frame by frame. In addition to 16-bit support, it also supports icc colour profiles. To use it with RAW, just open up your RAW files and it automatically converts them to 16-bit tifs, which you can then save as compressed tif files. The GIMP is for web developers and point and shooters, not serious photographers.

Additionally, when you need a command line program, use GraphicsMagick, not ImageMagick.

I've been using Bibble Pro with Kubuntu for quite some time now and I'm more than happy with the results! It's really a great program, way better than UFRaw for sure. It does basic post-processing too (sharpening, getting rid of noise, adjusting curves, that sort of thing). It comes at a cost though...

You can get the Gimp to import PEFs from the K10D (it does over here) but it's very basic and gives you little quality and control. It uses DCRaw as backend which can essentially reach fine results if a good graphic frontend would be available. Maybe there is, I don't know.

Using Cinepaint for your post processing might be a good idea, I only found out about it's existence this weekend so I haven't tried it yet. It's 16-bit capability is a big plus anyway.

You can get a free demo-version of Bibble Pro by the way, see http://bibblelabs.com/get.html

Good luck! Ubuntu is great, Kubuntu even better but you do need to get the hang of it.

Just install UFRaw from the repository. Go to "Add Remove Programs" in your menu, search for "ufraw" and install it. That'll give you a good RAW converter.

And despite what people keep saying here, Gimp works just fine for editing. The critical functions for usign the full bit depth of the RAW files are for adjusting overall brightness, contrast and color, and you do that with UFRaw anyway (along with noise removal).

--
Japan: http://janneinosaka.blogspot.com
Images: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jannem/

Jan Moren said:

And despite what people keep saying here, Gimp works just fine for
editing.

Click to expand...

Editing 8-bit colour only. To take full advantage of your DSLR, you should edit in 16-bit. The GIMP is for P&S and JPEG editing. Use a RAW converter and output to 16-bit. If you want to edit in GIMP, it will give you an error and down-convert to 8-bit. What a waste.

MR The Guy said:

MR The Guy said:

And despite what people keep saying here, Gimp works just fine for
editing.

Click to expand...

Editing 8-bit colour only. To take full advantage of your DSLR, you
should edit in 16-bit. The GIMP is for P&S and JPEG editing. Use a
RAW converter and output to 16-bit. If you want to edit in GIMP, it
will give you an error and down-convert to 8-bit. What a waste.

Click to expand...

High bit editing is most important for global, subtle adjustments to the image; exposure, color balance, saturation, that kind of thing. That's where you risk getting visible artefacts. All of that you do in UFRaw, which does work with 16-bit images. Cropping, selective smoothing, cloning and so on is not a problem in 8 bit. And since all your output devices will be 8 bit anyway it's not a major issue.

Yes, it will be nice when Gimp goes to 16 bit. Not critical, but nice. It does not preclude you from using it well for photo work.

--
Japan: http://janneinosaka.blogspot.com
Images: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jannem/

FWIW, I agree 100% with Jan Moren. I find ufraw to work very well. I find that all adjustments that benefit significantly from 16-bit color can be made within Ufraw. If you really need additional tools to manipulate 16-bit files, you can always save a 16-bit tiff file from Ufraw which can then be further processed in 16-bits by either Digikam or Cinepaint. For most things, I just don't find that saving 16-bit files from Ufraw to be a significant advantage though. My normal workflow is as follows:

Ufraw (Ev adjust, white balance, curves, denoise, etc) -> 95% 8-bit jpeg -> Digikam (aspect-ratio crop, refocus sharpening, etc) -> 95% 8-bit jpeg -> Gimp (Only when I need cloning, processes using layers, etc.) -> 95% 8-bit jpeg -> Imagemagick ( IMHO, the best resizing algorithm. I always use this to resize, sharpen, and compress jpegs for web posting)

Example photos using the above workflow:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1036&message=25653540

For very large prints (Larger than 8x12?), I would probably try to stay with a 16-bit, lossless compression workflow, but for everything else I find the above workflow to work very well without noticeable loss of quality.

--
Scott
All Photos Post-Processed Using Linux Open-Source Software

sajmmiller said:

FWIW, I agree 100% with Jan Moren. I find ufraw to work very well. I
find that all adjustments that benefit significantly from 16-bit
color can be made within Ufraw. If you really need additional tools
to manipulate 16-bit files, you can always save a 16-bit tiff file
from Ufraw which can then be further processed in 16-bits by either
Digikam or Cinepaint. For most things, I just don't find that saving
16-bit files from Ufraw to be a significant advantage though. My
normal workflow is as follows:

Ufraw (Ev adjust, white balance, curves, denoise, etc) -> 95% 8-bit
jpeg -> Digikam (aspect-ratio crop, refocus sharpening, etc) -> 95%
8-bit jpeg -> Gimp (Only when I need cloning, processes using layers,
etc.) -> 95% 8-bit jpeg -> Imagemagick ( IMHO, the best resizing
algorithm. I always use this to resize, sharpen, and compress jpegs
for web posting)

Example photos using the above workflow:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1036&message=25653540

For very large prints (Larger than 8x12?), I would probably try to
stay with a 16-bit, lossless compression workflow, but for everything
else I find the above workflow to work very well without noticeable
loss of quality.

Click to expand...

For what it's worth, I recently printed three images at B1 size, all three of which had gone through the UFRaw-> Gimp workflow, and one of which had required some pretty extensive color balance tweaking to get it right. At that kind of size there's plenty of defects visible if you bother to look close (most people don't of course as they're interested in the picture not a small detail in it), but artefacts from 8-bit processing stages aren't one of them. If anything print is more forgiving than the screen in this regard.

In fact, printing at that size vividly reinforced a truism stated here quite often: zooming in at 100% on an image does not show you anything like what it will actually look like when printed or cropped for viewing. One of the three I thought of as borderline unusable due to noise and a slight misfocus. At 100% it really does not look very hot at all. In print - even at this size - you have to be told about the misfocus, and even then you have to get in close and look for it to see it. And the noise - once I got rid of the chroma component - just becomes pleasing microstructure in the print instead. That print feels more "touchable" and real than the other two, and I think it is because of the noise.

--
Japan: http://janneinosaka.blogspot.com
Images: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jannem/

Jan Moren said:

For what it's worth, I recently printed three images at B1 size, all
three of which had gone through the UFRaw-> Gimp workflow, and one of
which had required some pretty extensive color balance tweaking to
get it right. At that kind of size there's plenty of defects visible
if you bother to look close (most people don't of course as they're
interested in the picture not a small detail in it), but artefacts
from 8-bit processing stages aren't one of them. If anything print is
more forgiving than the screen in this regard.

Click to expand...

Hi Jan,

That's good to know!

What I didn't make clear in my above post is that my main concern with large prints using my example workflow above would be with jpeg artifacts from multiple saves using lossy compression. I've never seen any noticeable problems printing up to 8x12, and I've not tested my above workflow with any larger print sizes, so maybe compression artifacts wouldn't be a problem either. I'd be interested in your opinion on that.

Hopefully, we're not getting to far off the original topic here.

Thanks,
Scott

exaiphnes said:

...and if you want to just view pefs, then gqview is probably the best.

Also, for editing pefs you can use showFoto from KDE (requires prior
dcraw installation). It has two advantages over GIMP: works with
16-bit images and has very versatile denoising, restoration and focus
sharpening plugins.

Click to expand...

ShowFoto, Krita, Digikam, and Cinepaint support 16 bit. I find Digikam 0.92 to be pretty useful. Its raw conversion uses dcraw like the others but seems a little easier. I really like the rule of thirds gradients available in the crop tool as well. You can call krita or any other editor from within DigiKam as well if you do't like its editor. I haven't found out how to use Cinepaint.

You can use Ufraw as a stand alone front end to dcraw without the 8 bit limit of the Gimp plugin.

Adobe's dng converter works under Wine without issue so if you want to convert to DNG or compress your camera DNG files this is available. I believe I was using the latest Wine, but I am upgrading distribution right now so can't be sure.

Thank you
Russell

sajmmiller said:

Ufraw (Ev adjust, white balance, curves, denoise, etc) -> 95% 8-bit
jpeg -> Digikam (aspect-ratio crop, refocus sharpening, etc) -

Click to expand...

DigiKam has a raw converter front end to dcraw like Ufraw. Is there an advantage to using Ufraw over the DigiKam export?

Thank you
Russell

Russell Evans said:

DigiKam has a raw converter front end to dcraw like Ufraw. Is there
an advantage to using Ufraw over the DigiKam export?

Thank you
Russell

Click to expand...

I've used both, and I prefer Ufraw's user interface, but you may prefer working directly in Digikam. I would say try both, and see what you like.

Ufraw loads the PEF files much quicker, and once setup (profiles, base curve, and saved options), I find Ufraw's user interface both faster and more precise. But again, you may feel differently.

Hope that helps,

--
Scott
All Photos Post-Processed Using Linux Open-Source Software