Aperture Support for Panny LX5 RAW files

Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX 5 users,

Please send your request for Aperture support of the camera's RAW files to Apple:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/aperture.html

The more requests Apple gets, the sooner we can expect RAW support.

Thanks.

Already done. The strange part is that Aperture doesn't support LX5 DNGs created by Adobe DNG Converter v6.2.

—Andreas
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http://yank.to/

Stubb said:

Already done. The strange part is that Aperture doesn't support LX5 DNGs created by Adobe DNG Converter v6.2.

Click to expand...

This was the case with DNGs for the LX3 as well. It's because of the software corrections that take place to deal with lens distortion (which are applied during conversion, not within the RAW).

The brief history is:

1. ACR/DNG converter was released with support for LX3
2. Everyone screamed when they saw the poor quality uncorrected raws.
3. It was reported that Panasonic but pressure on Adobe to remove support.
4. ACR/DNG converter was released with support for LX3 eliminated.
5. ACR/DNG converter was released with support for LX3 re-added, but only by converting to linear image.
6. The linear image DNG has 3 times larger file size and is not supported by Aperture.

To be honest, I had the DLux 4 version, and when Aperture eventually got support for the LX3/DLux4, I found very little reason to use the Raws as the JPEGs were superior (I shot RAW+JPEG due to the unsupported raw).

Apertures import feature for treating RAW+JEPG as a single master could be useful if you are shooting RAW+JPEG. Just import them as matched pairs and set the JPEG as the master. This allows you to work with the images straight away. Once the raw becomes supported, you can then switch to RAW as master.

I'm planning to dump nearly all my DLux 4 RAWs to an archive and just have the JPEGs in Aperture. I'll keep a handful of the raws where shadows/highlights can be salvaged, but it isn't that many.

-Najinsky

Did it.

Wow, I did the opposite and quit shooting JPG with RAW because I found the JPGs to be useless and it took longer to write to the card. (I bracket most of the time so writing is slow.) It's a shame Panasonic and Apple are so slow with RAW support for the LX series. I waited well over a year to buy Aperture, just waiting for LX3 support.

--
LB

Dave321 said:

Wow, I did the opposite and quit shooting JPG with RAW because I found the JPGs to be useless and it took longer to write to the card. (I bracket most of the time so writing is slow.) It's a shame Panasonic and Apple are so slow with RAW support for the LX series. I waited well over a year to buy Aperture, just waiting for LX3 support.

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I have the Leica D-Lux 4 version of the camera which has a tweaked JPG engine so perhaps some of the difference can be attributed to that. I like the JPEGs I get. Also, it came with Capture One raw processing software where the raws with default processing were almost identical to the equivalent JPEGs.

I agree that Aperture manages to squeeze a little extra DR from the file, (I'd say less than a stop) but at the expense of the Leica colour processing, which I find almost impossible to replicate without spending ages on each image, and so most of the time the I stick with the JPEGs.

-Najinsky

I was wondering if any of you LX-5 users have tried using the DNG convert utility to convert your RAW files into DNG files and then open them in Aperture??? If Adobe supports the LX5 (I think I've read that LR does) then the utility (which is a free Adobe product) should be able to do the conversion. I've been thinking about getting an LX-5 but will wait until Aperture supports it if this workaround doesn't work. I've tried converting the RAW files from my other cameras (E-P2 and S90) to DNGs and opening them in Aperture. The Canon files work just fine, but the Olympus files convert but will not open in Aperture. After doing some reading, it appears this has something to do with the lens correction, which both of my cameras and the LX5 depend on pretty heavily. So bottom line - all should work, but in reality some do and some don't.

So, has anyone tried this with LX5 files? If not, would anyone be willing to give it a try? I'd sure like to find out before I plunk down a bunch of money on a camera if I'm not going to be able to shoot RAW with for a few more months....

Thanks for any input,

-Ray

Never mind. Found some LX5 RAW files online, downloaded them, and tried it. No go. They convert but Aperture can't read them. The Samsung EX1 files worked just fine, but not the LX5, so I guess its back to waiting for Apple.

-Ray

Ray Sachs said:

I was wondering if any of you LX-5 users have tried using the DNG convert utility to convert your RAW files into DNG files and then open them in Aperture??? If Adobe supports the LX5 (I think I've read that LR does) then the utility (which is a free Adobe product) should be able to do the conversion. I've been thinking about getting an LX-5 but will wait until Aperture supports it if this workaround doesn't work. I've tried converting the RAW files from my other cameras (E-P2 and S90) to DNGs and opening them in Aperture. The Canon files work just fine, but the Olympus files convert but will not open in Aperture. After doing some reading, it appears this has something to do with the lens correction, which both of my cameras and the LX5 depend on pretty heavily. So bottom line - all should work, but in reality some do and some don't.

So, has anyone tried this with LX5 files? If not, would anyone be willing to give it a try? I'd sure like to find out before I plunk down a bunch of money on a camera if I'm not going to be able to shoot RAW with for a few more months....

Thanks for any input,

-Ray

Click to expand...

Aperture can't open DNG conversions of LX3 images even though both Adobe and Aperture supports the camera natively. I can't imagine that it will do so with DNG conversions of RAW files from the LX5.

Ray Sachs said:

I was wondering if any of you LX-5 users have tried using the DNG convert utility to convert your RAW files into DNG files and then open them in Aperture??? If Adobe supports the LX5 (I think I've read that LR does) then the utility (which is a free Adobe product) should be able to do the conversion.

Click to expand...

Though I have not heard anything definitive, the LX-3 relied on software distortion correction, I bet the LX-5 does as well.

Until Aperture is updated to explicitly know it can read and understand the embedded software distortion correction instructions, it probably won't touch a file which has embedded correction that is not on its know cameras list.

Right, but as jhersco noted in the post above yours, even the LX3 DNG files did not and do not open in Aperture, and Aperture has directly supported those RAW files for quite a while now. So I think there's something beyond that at work. I fleshed this out a bit more in another thread on the forum - I inadvertently posted similar versions of the same question in two different threads, not realizing that both were in the same forum (having originally found the existing thread via a search).

-Ray

Ray Sachs said:

Right, but as jhersco noted in the post above yours, even the LX3 DNG files did not and do not open in Aperture, and Aperture has directly supported those RAW files for quite a while now.

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Yes, I have overlooked that part. Maybe any raw file with image correction instructions is supported by Apple only its original form, not as a DNG file. This seems like something they missed to put in in terms of functionality.

But, though by supporting DNG files from any camera without explicitly supporting the camera, they made life a lot simpler, they also put themselves into the position what to do about DNG files coming from cameras (directly or via the DNG Converter) that write image adjustment instructions into the files. If a new camera came out, either Aperture would not support the DNG files from that camera (which is the case with the LX-5 at the moment) or it might not support the image adjustment instructions (which would be unacceptable to Apple).

The simplest line was to only support in direct camera-generated raw support for such cameras and not in DNG Converter generated raw files. If they supported the latter, they again would have put themselves into a position where it would 'only' support the DNG files from cameras whose original raw files it supported. So, they seem to cut out all DNG files needed image correction. At least it serves the purpose of being a clear-cut strategy (not they would have communicated it as such, but internally it made things simpler for them). But naturally, it would serve its customers better if added support for cameras like the LX-3, which also would not really take much effort on their side.

That makes a certain amount of sense, but don't the S90 and EX1 also need image correction? They're both very similar to the LX 3 and 5 in that they're small sensor cameras with a fairly broad zoom range. The lenses and focal lengths they use wouldn't function without significant correction for lens distortion, right? So, I get why Apple might not support DNG files with lens correction information, but it seems to support them from some cameras and not others. I'm fundamentally confused, but have accepted that this is not a problem I'm gonna be able to solve - its up to Apple to eventually support the LX-5 RAW files.

It does raise questions for the future viability of a lot of the RAW files we're all creating today though. As I understand it, DNG has been partially sold as the common format that everyone could convert to to avoid their RAW files becoming obsolete as newer versions of RAW processing software dropped support for older cameras. If it only works with some cameras output and not others, its not much of an insurance policy against future obsolescence....

-Ray

Added my request for the RAW support for Panasonic FZ series
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Richard Lee