I have many thousands of DCS images shot with 760 and 14n cameras.
I'm looking for an alternative to PhotoDesk.
Has anyone used RawTherapee to view and convert your DCS files (targeting jpg, tif, and/or dng)?
Thanks
Hello, yes, I do currently use Rawtherapee for developing the images from my Kodak cameras.
At this point my workflow is organized this way:
DCS -> [Adobe Camera Converter] -> DNG -> [Rawtherapee] -> TIF16 -> ......
I use the Adobe converter (freely available on the Adobe site) to batch-convert all files from the memory card to the hard-drive. I'd have to copy the files from the memory card in any case so the conversion is done on-the-fly and doesn't impact productivity.
At that point, the material is available in the Rawtherapee browser in DNG and I start developing from there. Results are excellent.
One of the reasons I don't work directly on DCS files (.DCR) is that their support in Rawtherapee was removed at some time. Recently it has been reintroduced but there's still a bug that affects the Rawtherapee image browser. Here are the details.
1) By default, .DCR support is disabled, you have to open the Preferences panel, reach the File Browser tab, then add the ".dcr" string into the "Parsed Extension" box. You have to type .dcr and press the "+" button.
2) Still in the Preferences panel, File Browser tab, you have to uncheck "Show embedded thumbnail" as THIS is the buggy part of the DCS decoder in Rawtherapee. By not using the thumbnails, you avoid the execution of the buggy code.
With the setting above you should be able to test Rawtherapee with your Kodak files. The main drawback is that folder scanning becomes much slower as thumbnails must be generated on the fly. As you proceed with editing each picture the problem should be mitigated by the fact that Rawtherapee smartly caches a thumbnail of the EDITED image, so the embedded thumbnail is not needed anymore at that point. Obviously, as you load new pictures the process starts again from the beginning (slow scanning). And so on.
There are good reason both for choosing DNG and/or DCR. I'm currently on DNG mostly because of Rawtherapee. But I'm open to change back to native DCR later (NOTE: you can't back-convert from DNG to DCR unless you keep a copy or embed the complete original file inside the DNG, doubling its size).
Please see this thread: "Fast Raw Viewer - supports Kodak and 5.4.10 firmware" where I'm having an interesting discussion with Alexey (developer of the latest custom firmware) on this same topic. From my very recent measurements, a DCR converted to DNG with the Adobe tool preserves raw pixels as they are. The image area is slightly cropped in DNG-mode (you loose no more than a dozen of rows of pixels in total, on the right and botton edges).
There's no warrantly that TAGs are preserved, but in any case most of them are not usable outside PhotoDesk. I have no idea about correct preservation of Lenses Data as I shoot only full manual with AIS lenses and this means the camera body doesn't have lens info available in any case, regardless DNG or DCR. ISO and shutter speed are preserved.
With the info above you should be able to quickly try both formats with Rawtherapee and see which one better fits your workflow.
Once more, as Alexey recommends, consider not deleting your orginal DCR files as there's no warranty (just partial experimental evidence) that the DNG preserves all the relevant data from the original. (Here "relevant" depends on your current, and future, needs).
