Third party Lightroom-type software that accepts X3F!

[daedalusflies]

I have been using Cerious Software's Thumbsplus for my digital images well before Lightroom or Picasa existed. You will be pleased to know that it recognises Foveon X3F files and is able to edit them (including colour balance, resizing and MOST of the usual functions one needs) and also able to batch process. It does not compare to SPP's fill light ability when that function is called into use, but otherwise in well exposed pictures that need little doctoring (by the way, I find the way it adjusts hue and saturation on the Raw X3F files a good shade 'gentler' than SPP's software algorithms), the ability to batch process comes into its own. Worth a try to any of you out there who want to batch process your X3F images to some degree and the link below to the site is where a trial copy is downloadable.

BTW - once you install the program, the thumbnails should be made quite easily. Right click on an X3F thumbnail and select the 'Configure type' submenu item.

Choose the edit file dialogue - select 'command' from the pick list and, to the right of that, use the browse button (shown as '...') to direct it to your Sigma directory in the C drive (sorry, am a Windows user for all you MaC lovers out there). This is usually on the C drive and under Program Files/ Sigma/ Photo Pro. Select Sigma Photo Pro.exe and that is just about it after clicking on OK to close the dialogue!

Good luck and let me know if it is any use to all of you looking / waiting for Lightroom to be X3F friendly.

http://www.cerious.com/

 

[gbainbridge]

I've been using ThumbsPlus for a couple of years now, and I find it ideal for cataloguing all my shots as well as things like changing colour spaces, resizing and printing.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend it for converting X3F files though. It certainly does it, but it doesn't have the adjustments that SPP and other 'real' image processors have.

Also, as yet it doesn't convert DP1 files, although it quite happily extracts the thumbnail.

--
Thanks,
Gary.

 

[yukoner2]

My main interest in software at this time is to have something that will catalogue and allow me to find images quickly and efficiently. Have you found that this product is effective in this?

Can it maintain track of things over multiple drives?

--
http://www.pbase.com/sigmadslr/sd14_norm_hamilton
Yukoner
'Yukon. A special place in Northern Canada'
Ya gotta come and see!

 

[Phil Douglis]

Thanks for the suggestion. However I checked the site, and it does not appear to work with Mac OS X. I mention this because I know there are a lot of DP1 users who, like myself, are on the Mac.

Thanks again,
Phil

--
Phil Douglis
Director, The Douglis Visual Workshops
Phoenix, Arizona
[email protected]
http://www.pbase.com/pnd1
http://pnd1.smugmug.com/

 

[daedalusflies]

Dear Yukoner2

the answer is yes. I find its ability to catalogue by keywords, user-defined fields etc quite helpful, but I suppose most image database programmes will do just that.

Gbainbridge's reservations are correct but in the absence of a software that is able to catalogue X3F files (and batch process them), I thought the forum may find the info useful for now.

Serious workflow is still maintained by SPP and CS2; thumbsPlus does everything else.
I suppose you could always install the trial version and see!

best wishes.

PS

DP1 shots have been so good I had to seriously compare them to my EOS 5D pics ...hmmm, I have finally found my portable / pocketable high quality compact!

 

[daedalusflies]

Agree with your comments about its ability against SPP and other 'big guns'.

When you say it does not convert DP1 files, is this a format from your SD9 camera? It is certainly able to convert the X3F files from the DP1 into jpg or tiffs.

 

[Roland Karlsson]

When you say it does not convert DP1 files, is this a format from
your SD9 camera? It is certainly able to convert the X3F files from
the DP1 into jpg or tiffs.

It is the format from a DP1 camera - and it is highly unlikely that ThumbsPlus can read and convert the RAW data.

--
Roland

 

[daedalusflies]

Dear Roland

do download the trial and install with the additional instructions I described in the first thread and be surprised!

 

[Roland Karlsson]

Dear Roland
do download the trial and install with the additional instructions I
described in the first thread and be surprised!

That instructions do not tell how to read DP1 RAW data in ThumbsPlus IMHO - they tell how to launch SPP from ThumbsPlus - or am I missing something.

BTW - the reasons I can be so sure that ThumbsPlus cannot read DP1 RAW data is: The last version of the RAW reader plugin is from 2005 - and then the DP1 format was probably not even invented.

--
Roland

 

[daedalusflies]

Let me explain what the software can do once I have set up Thumbsplus accordingly:

by double clicking on a thumbnail, the image opens in a separate window, I am able to adjust hue, saturation, colour balance, colour depth, contrast, resize, crop, and all the other usual image manipulation functions and even set up a batch process of them. I cannot see how SPP is doing this instead of Thumbsplus - the interface for all the image manipulation functions are from the Thumbsplus dialogues and not SPP.

I posted the thread to assist any members of the forum who are interested and to let them know there is an alternative that does a reasonable job (but not an SPP substitute for high quality work) - not to engage in a debate of whether it can or cannot. I know it can simply because I use it! By the way - I have no affiliations to the said software company.

Roland, I suggest you try and then tell me if it does the job. The world was once thought flat.

 

[k2racer]

Don't mind me asking, but is it not likely that it is doing all this on the extracted jpg file? and not on the converted x3f raw data?

--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ronaldbunnik/

 

[Roland Karlsson]

Don't mind me asking, but is it not likely that it is doing all this
on the extracted jpg file? and not on the converted x3f raw data?

Hmmmm --- why would it then need the SPP executable path?

The ThumbsPlus people may know some switches to SPP that forces it to make a conversion (silently) and then dump a TIFF file - a TIFF that then ThumbsPlus can load.

One thing is more or less certain though - ThumbsPlus can probably not read the DP1 RAW data.

--
Roland

 

[gbainbridge]

It is certainly able to convert the X3F files from
the DP1 into jpg or tiffs.

Not here. It certainly reads the Thumbnail image from the DP1 X3F files, but if I double click on one it opens a dialog saying:

Plug in 'Digicam plug-in' error.

Which to me means that it doesn't support X3F files from the DP1.
If I right click on the thumbnail and select 'Edit' it then opens SPP.

My Digicam plug-in is dated January 3 2008 by the way. So there have been updates since 2005.

--
Thanks,
Gary.

 

[Erik Magnuson]

Plug in 'Digicam plug-in' error.

Under Options -> Plugins -> Digicam plugins you can choose to make extracting the JPEG the default option for viewing full screen as well.

Which to me means that it doesn't support X3F files from the DP1.

Correct. It won't decode them. Cerious uses the Polybytes libraries which use the Foveon SDK. There is a new digcam plugin beta that I've not tried yet.

If I right click on the thumbnail and select 'Edit' it then opens SPP.

It defaults to using the Windows file association for edit. You can change this to open ACR instead.

--
Erik

 

[Erik Magnuson]

Hmmmm --- why would it then need the SPP executable path?

It doesn't. Or rather those instructions will allow thumbsplus to launch SPP when you click the 'Edit' button (actually, if x3f is associated with SPP in Explorer, this step isn't needed.)

The ThumbsPlus people may know some switches to SPP that forces it to
make a conversion (silently) and then dump a TIFF file - a TIFF that
then ThumbsPlus can load.

No such luck -- although if SPP supported OLE then it could be setup to work like this.

--
Erik

 

[daedalusflies]

SO Erik do you mean to say that double clicking on the thumbnail opens a jpg encoded within the X3F file and that is what I am able to batch edit. etc?

If so, Roland may have been correct.

This is getting more interesting...

Anyone know of any other software out there able to catalogue and arrange X3f files?

 

[k2racer]

I have to say I am not all a technical skilled or trained person.

I understand that the extracting tools for x3f files can also be build in into 3rd party software and you would be ablo to edit it....

BUT, a extracted jpg is about 1.5MB... a converted jpg at quality 12 = about 4.5MB.

What quality of jpg would these programs use for editing and such? Is that not a waist?

With other words, if a SPP jpg at quality 12 =4.5MB, what quality is the extracted jpg?
--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ronaldbunnik/

 

[gbainbridge]

Under Options -> Plugins -> Digicam plugins you can choose to make
extracting the JPEG the default option for viewing full screen as
well.

Good one! I'd not noticed that. Another way to extract embedded Jpegs.

It defaults to using the Windows file association for edit. You can
change this to open ACR instead.

If you right-click on the file then select 'Configure Type' you can change this to whatever you want, not just the Windows File association.

--
Thanks,
Gary.

 

[Erik Magnuson]

SO Erik do you mean to say that double clicking on the thumbnail
opens a jpg encoded within the X3F file and that is what I am able to
batch edit. etc?

I'm saying that ThumbsPlus can be configured to do either: operate on the embedded JPEG or attempt conversion. For DP1 X3F files, only the jpeg extraction works. (For SD9 or SD10 files, the extracted image is too small to be useful. X530 is jpeg like SD14.)

If configured to convert, the default for X3F, Canon, and Nikon files is to use the Foveon, Canon or Nikon SDK code. For other cameras, it appears to punt to dcraw derived code.

Anyone know of any other software out there able to catalogue and
arrange X3f files?

iMatch and FotoAlbum Pro use the same raw libraries.

--
Erik

 

[Roland Karlsson]

Good one! I'd not noticed that. Another way to extract embedded Jpegs.

Hmmm ... I am not sure about that. Can you really extract the JPEG as a file? Or do you get an RGB copy in RAM that you later can store as a new JPEG, losing quality?

--
Roland