Linux photo management software?

[Boudewijn van der Drift]

OK, thanks.

Many people here went Mint when Ubuntu created unity, and I am not fully satisfied with Ubuntu myself. That is why I am still on 16.04, but trying out 20.04 which is back to gnome.

Here is anyway the documentation of how Ubuntu implements color management:

Color management

They recommend making testshots of special color charts. Compare the real chart with its screenimage. And repeat that because screens age. No spectrofotometer, good.

Generally I am satisfied with just taking out obvious colorstitches. I went digital because I found the darkroom work with unhealthy liquids like Cibachrome and big Simmard drums too much work.

But I have one particular Kodacolor II (the one with the very dark orange backcoloring) roll shot in 1982 at 4000 m in the Alps (the Pointe du Vouasson), some of which was unprintable then. I did not have a UV filter but did use a KR 1.5 filter.

A few winters ago I scanned that roll to 16 bit .tiffs and got sharp images but some with very crazy colors after forcing the snow to white in GIMP. Maybe I should have raised this whitepoint to whatever colortemperature is appropriate for 4000 m, and then whiten that snow. So I will pursue that a bit more. My tourmates from then are eager to see some better quality prints.

regards Boudewijn

 

[CAcreeks]

But I have one particular Kodacolor II (the one with the very dark orange backcoloring) roll shot in 1982 at 4000 m in the Alps (the Pointe du Vouasson), some of which was unprintable then. I did not have a UV filter but did use a KR 1.5 filter.

A few winters ago I scanned that roll to 16 bit .tiffs and got sharp images but some with very crazy colors after forcing the snow to white in GIMP. Maybe I should have raised this whitepoint to whatever colortemperature is appropriate for 4000 m, and then whiten that snow. So I will pursue that a bit more. My tourmates from then are eager to see some better quality prints.

This sounds like a job for darktable's color lookup module.

If you post a link to the TIFF on the Retouching forum, or private message me on upper right to negotiate a spot for file transfer, I'll try my hand at it.

 

[Boudewijn van der Drift]

Hi CaCreeks,

looks like ubuntu (=gnome nowadays) has a system wide colormanagement feature.

Is that the way to go? I am purely at "default" now of course. Do I need to buy/borrow a spectrometer?

I would recommend doing so, I've been using a ColorMunki Display with DisplayCal.

Windows is actually quite bad with color management, thus, I let DisplayCal manage and load the calibrated monitor color profile on startup.

In Ubuntu, you can just select the .icc file in Color setting, or DisplayCal can install the profile directly after calibration.

I must confess, looking at pictures in the W10 viewer looks better than in ubuntu's. All on the same dual boot system. And that difference has to do with color and/or brightness. Need W for updating my TomTom and.. the Nikon firmware which comes compressed in a way ubuntu had problems with. The Nikon decompression was a maybe, but I do not want to risk feeding my camera mutilated new firmware.

Yeah, I still have a small Windows partition with almost nothing on it, just to handle those proprietary firmware updates. Luckily, those situations are getting rarer as manufacturer getting better at using standard methods (e.g. zip file, ...), and I consciously avoid buying stuffs that rely on Windows only. Haven't booted into Windows for 3-4 months now.

yesss. Panasonic used something I could decompress within linux and place on the memorycard, but Nikon sent a selfunpacking .exe file. On the other hand, TomTom solves this pain another way, their "lifelong map support" ends this year.

Every time I start up windows it begins with updating itself for hours, while I can do nothing but drink coffee. Or look at my pictures in their fileviewer, seeing the pictures look better, I think more because of brightness range than colors. Or finding out it is waiting for me to do something, like click "yes" or restart again. After that more waiting. All to do a 5 minute file decompression/copying job. Why compress it in the first place.

And about f-spot, it was an ubuntu decision to replace it with shotwell (seamless data base conversion though). I tried it, and it was an improvement. They are now talking about a program Photos.

I've always removed f-spot right after installing Ubuntu, mostly because f-spot depends on Mono, which is a port of .Net, too risky with legal issues. The community was very clear in opposing the Mono patent minefield.

maybe Ubuntu color support changed/improved/is improving? This page shows supported "colorcharts" (my simplistic term).

Which target types are supported?

I am not going to buy a spectrophotometer just to improve the likeliness of my screen to mother nature, that will never be perfect anyway (it would still be missing smell, sound, company, ...) and it sounds expensive. And what if I send my picture to a friend? Do I have to go there and adjust her screencolors, or has she have to buy a spectrophotometer, just to be reminded of good times? But a "colorchart" to now and then include in a picture (like the old Kodak 30% neutral gray reflective exposure metering card, maybe. I have used that seldom though, always having the palm of my hand at hand.

regards Boudewijn

 

[sluggy_warrior]

maybe Ubuntu color support changed/improved/is improving? This page shows supported "colorcharts" (my simplistic term).

https://help.ubuntu.com/stable/ubuntu-help/color-calibrationtargets.html.en

I am not going to buy a spectrophotometer just to improve the likeliness of my screen to mother nature, that will never be perfect anyway (it would still be missing smell, sound, company, ...) and it sounds expensive. And what if I send my picture to a friend? Do I have to go there and adjust her screencolors, or has she have to buy a spectrophotometer, just to be reminded of good times? But a "colorchart" to now and then include in a picture (like the old Kodak 30% neutral gray reflective exposure metering card, maybe. I have used that seldom though, always having the palm of my hand at hand.

yeah, it's hard to justify buying a colorimeter. I'm lucky that my works involve photos and graphics so I got one at work, and been making good use of it with at least a dozen monitors. But, once you're spoiled with a calibrated screen, it's very annoying to look at an uncalibrated one

Before buying a colorimeter, I used to adjust the monitors using this tool, pretty good basic starting point, except laptop screens don't have anyway to adjust :-(

http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/

The ColorMunki has been on sale every now and then:

Slickdeals: The Best Deals, Coupons, Promo Codes & Discounts

Your search for great deals and coupon savings ends here. Find the best bargains and money-saving offers, discounts, promo codes, freebies and price comparisons from the trusted Slickdeals community.

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I've also lent it to others nearby as well, and shared calibrated profiles online, see if your monitor is included:

ICC Profiles and Monitor Calibration Settings Database - TFTCentral

ICC Profiles and monitor calibration settings database to help you set up and calibrate your monitor for improved performance and colours

www.tftcentral.co.uk

 

[Mr Bolton]

I allready had a rant here:

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/64010762

The whole thread maybe interesting to you.

It was. Everything you said made sense. I've used GIMP for years and like it a lot. However I get better colors out of darktable than dcraw. As I understand it, UFRaw calls dcraw from inside GIMP.

In that thread, you said:

And for archiving I use Shotwell.

Do you have a color managed version of Shotwell, or does color management not matter to you? Last I tried, Shotwell could not read ICC profiles. Nor could Pix.

The Z6 and Z7 look like great cameras! Judging by DPreview's studio comparison widget, it looks like the Z6 has less high ISO noise than any other 135 camera.

OK, I studied it a bit more.

Downloaded the software to define colorbalance, and I see my Dell really has a Sharp (Corporation;--)) monitor with a whitepoint of 6500 degK. I should not put deg there, Celsius, Fahrenheit and Rankine need a deg(sign) Kelvin not, as per ISO. But we are talking temperature of radiating black bodies here.

I can switch to another profile with whitepoint 5000 K. And indeed I get much more saturated colors, almost garish I would say. Makes me think of the Fujichrome Velvia film. In all programs including Shotwell. So it has colormanagement when using ubuntu, and probably all Debian derived linuxes as OS.

There must be more to it then just temperature, these profiles are 1,7 kB en 12 kB (for the velvia one).

I see the famous gamut pictures. Had those in university, but I forgot all about it. Need some more studying but it looks like the larger envelope is what my screen announces it can do, and the inner triangle what the profile uses of it. As you see the 5000K one begins to be slightly out of bounds. And red and green gain most terrain just like in Velvia film.


Whitepoint 6500K


5000K

So I need to check if my desktop PC with a Samsung display has a 6500 K profile. It actually has a number, so apparently different profiles can lead to the same whitepoint.

Prints, if any, I mail to a printshop. They ask nothing, may look at the exif, and they are just beautiful. Do not change a winning team.

The camera's have lot of whitebalance adjustment stuff, but automatic has served me well sofar. I only change defaults when it matters, and I know what I am doing.

If I send .jpg's to somebody else, it is up to them. The only complaints I get are about messy hair or raccoon eyes. Or too many pixels.

Yes the Z6/7 are great, you can study lenssharpness in the extreme. But in the end nobody has an 8K monitor yet, there is one 5K one now. Or needs an 8K print at 300 dpi. Then, suddenly you see a little bird in a landscape you never saw with the naked eye. And can still crop it out. I need to crop a lot anyway because Nikon is already 5 months promising a 70-200 mm and I paid in full. Maybe that should be spelled paid in fool? The longest Z lens is now 85 mm, and I have it. Not going to buy any Nikon stuff untill I got that zoom.

And you are right the Z6 works great at dinnerparties. A few candles is already enough. Just before corona broke out I noticed restaurants here are dimming their lights very slowly during the progress of the dinner. And I need to open up more and more.

regards Boudewijn

So if I'm reading the charts correctly, the 5000K profile displays more color gamut, so that would be the one to use? And if not, why not?

 

[Boudewijn van der Drift]

So if I'm reading the charts correctly, the 5000K profile displays more color gamut, so that would be the one to use? And if not, why not?

I am no expert. In fact I think I understand the physics of this now. But what it means for the chain: real world, camera, processing, display on my screen/somebody else's screen/photopaper I am not sure of yet. I had the whole laptop for a while on the "Velvia" colors (5000K), but got bored and changed back to default (6500K). So no, more colors might not be better. Or not always. And if we are talking photopaper that gamutgraph probably shrinks a lot (both the big blob what the paper can do, and the triangle that we use of it. Should I then restrict my screen to what the photopaper can do? I think not.

Besides what about my existing pictures, should I reprocess those? Rather not.

I believe I can get the same effect either in camera when I shoot .jpg, or in rawdevelopment (.raw/.nef), or in GIMP on a per picture basis.

I would not like the "Velvia" effect on skintones, but it might be great on landscapes or architecture. After all I am probably wearing sunglasses when I go out sailing, so what is true color then?

regards Boudewijn

 

[Boudewijn van der Drift]

maybe Ubuntu color support changed/improved/is improving? This page shows supported "colorcharts" (my simplistic term).

https://help.ubuntu.com/stable/ubuntu-help/color-calibrationtargets.html.en

I am not going to buy a spectrophotometer just to improve the likeliness of my screen to mother nature, that will never be perfect anyway (it would still be missing smell, sound, company, ...) and it sounds expensive. And what if I send my picture to a friend? Do I have to go there and adjust her screencolors, or has she have to buy a spectrophotometer, just to be reminded of good times? But a "colorchart" to now and then include in a picture (like the old Kodak 30% neutral gray reflective exposure metering card, maybe. I have used that seldom though, always having the palm of my hand at hand.

yeah, it's hard to justify buying a colorimeter. I'm lucky that my works involve photos and graphics so I got one at work, and been making good use of it with at least a dozen monitors. But, once you're spoiled with a calibrated screen, it's very annoying to look at an uncalibrated one

Before buying a colorimeter, I used to adjust the monitors using this tool, pretty good basic starting point, except laptop screens don't have anyway to adjust :-(

http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/

Hey that is great, thanks.

This makes me think of the days of my parents first TV, which was color. And a technician came out many times to adjust the screen because of bad colors. Many times because we lived close to a railway station (with magnetic fields). When my parents moved to the outskirts all the out of adjustment sittings were over. All on guarantee, because this was really the first color model of Philips. Maybe we got in the end a free later model that was improved. My memory is abit dim here, I was already in university when that TV came.

But I see, nowadays we do not even think on adjustments to a TV, just unpack and plug it in.

So maybe photography still needs a bit of a learningcurve here.

The ColorMunki has been on sale every now and then:

https://slickdeals.net/newsearch.php?q=colormunki

I see now that what I called colorcharts in the Ubuntu menu, really were brands of spectrophotometers.

I've also lent it to others nearby as well, and shared calibrated profiles online, see if your monitor is included:

https://www.tftcentral.co.uk/articles/icc_profiles.htm

I have a Samsung desktopscreen hopefully same model or at least same colortechnology. It is definitely LED though.

I think the laptopscreen communicated it's colorcapabilities to ubuntu (16.04!) so lots to investigate. How otherwise could the OS tell me the 5000K profile was a better match?

Fantastic what you can learn by just kicking the ball around abit in corona times.

thanks again Boudewijn

 

[Boudewijn van der Drift]

But I have one particular Kodacolor II (the one with the very dark orange backcoloring) roll shot in 1982 at 4000 m in the Alps (the Pointe du Vouasson), some of which was unprintable then. I did not have a UV filter but did use a KR 1.5 filter.

A few winters ago I scanned that roll to 16 bit .tiffs and got sharp images but some with very crazy colors after forcing the snow to white in GIMP. Maybe I should have raised this whitepoint to whatever colortemperature is appropriate for 4000 m, and then whiten that snow. So I will pursue that a bit more. My tourmates from then are eager to see some better quality prints.

This sounds like a job for darktable's color lookup module.

If you post a link to the TIFF on the Retouching forum, or private message me on upper right to negotiate a spot for file transfer, I'll try my hand at it.

Hi,

you are busy on these forums! Difficult to find you back, but Vouasson is unique on the site.

Two things, I threw the filmscan away. Means it was an 8 bit scan, in the time that Gimp could not do anymore. Then Gimp announced 16 bit and I started scanning that way. But hardly did any scanning/editing work since the Z's do not produce any scans. So these are some of my oldest scans,and first tries in Gimp. Sometimes I see blue and yellow casts in one pictire. Maybe I can solve these probs now with my better understanding of color.

And the other is our Minister President decided to open up yachting harbors including showers a.s.o. and restaurants. So scanning is something for next winter.

Hope corona does not reappear by the time everybody starts sneezing from normal colds and then corona hitchhikes on that again.

I will let you know Boudewijn

 

[CAcreeks]

This is why experts recommend against editing JPEG!

 

[Boudewijn van der Drift]

This is why experts recommend against editing JPEG!

OK, thanks.

Hopefully scanning the film in 16 bit will give some more leeway showing both the light and dark parts. While compressing the midtones. It is probably going to be an interesting gradation curve. Kind of a reverse S.

I think while shooting I knew the face would be underexposed, so it is abit unreasonable that I would like to see some more definition of the face.

raw from film my filmscanner cannot produce alas;-)

regards Boudewijn

 

[Mr Bolton]

This is why experts recommend against editing JPEG!

Well you could just post these and say it's an Instagram filter.. :-D I'm kidding, but seriously sometimes a kinda beat up picture is better than no picture at all, when it comes to an obviously worth preserving memory like this one.

The mountains in the background look like the cover of a 1960s sci-fi novel. All you need to do is put in an alien, a flying saucer, and a scantily clad lady..

 

[Boudewijn van der Drift]

This is why experts recommend against editing JPEG!



T

OK, looking some more at the pictures I remember so much more. I see, I filled out exif data by hand (the Rollei 35, did not know about electronics, it had a CdS non coupled lightmeter, and 1/500, not 1/10000 was fastest shutterspeed). The date is right, a saturday, just before I went for four years to th US). Somewhere I have a bill that I stayed there two weeks with 3 glorious meals a day for SF 1000. So DG 400 or US$ 400/3.6 =111! The days you skipped lunch you got a lunchbox. No more terraces or bars above hotel Kurhaus in Arolla!

That is what you make photos for, thanks again.

regards Boudewijn

 

[Boudewijn van der Drift]

This is why experts recommend against editing JPEG!

Well you could just post these and say it's an Instagram filter.. :-D I'm kidding, but seriously sometimes a kinda beat up picture is better than no picture at all, when it comes to an obviously worth preserving memory like this one.
The mountains in the background look like the cover of a 1960s sci-fi novel. All you need to do is put in an alien, a flying saucer, and a scantily clad lady..

mm Januari 4000 m altitude = 40*0.7 = sealeveltemp - 28degC, abit cold for a scantily clad lady )

And these peaks are not alien to me, this is "haute route" territory. The picture is about 1800 m above Arolla which is 2000 m. This map looks like a mountainbike version, the skiroute stays mostly higher up. Never done the whole route in one go (7-10 days on skis). But over the years done most of it piece by piece.

regards Boudewijn

 

[Boudewijn van der Drift]

P.S. Cannot leave it alone. Got the scanner out, now find the neg's and the neg carrier. Xsane now also has embraced color management. Scanned some slides, works, I I need some memory refreshing.

This is what to strive for, complete with the names for all these 4000'ers:--))

File:Pointe de Vouasson panorama.JPG - Wikimedia Commons

commons.wikimedia.org

regards

 

[Boudewijn van der Drift]

P.S. Cannot leave it alone. Got the scanner out, now find the neg's and the neg carrier. Xsane now also has embraced color management. Scanned some slides, works, I I need some memory refreshing.

This is what to strive for, complete with the names for all these 4000'ers:--))

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pointe_de_Vouasson_panorama.JPG

regards

maybe it is as I said earlier. For this picture it would mean.

The "daylight" say 6500K whitepoint while photographing at 4000 m say 7500K gave me the Velvia colors.

When I use a higher whitepoint in Xsane or Gimp, and then start balancing the colors I hope to get a more neutral colorrange.

regards

 

[Boudewijn van der Drift]

P.S. Cannot leave it alone. Got the scanner out, now find the neg's and the neg carrier. Xsane now also has embraced color management. Scanned some slides, works, I I need some memory refreshing.

This is what to strive for, complete with the names for all these 4000'ers:--))

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pointe_de_Vouasson_panorama.JPG

regards

maybe it is as I said earlier. For this picture it would mean.

The "daylight" say 6500K whitepoint while photographing at 4000 m say 7500K gave me the Velvia colors.

When I use a higher whitepoint in Xsane or Gimp, and then start balancing the colors I hope to get a more neutral colorrange.

regards

and here a 3D model lined up with my picture, with all the names. Matterhorn 13 miles away, and 4-5 days of hard work to reach the base. Then you would still have to climb it!

Fantastic what internet can do.



Not sure if the link preserves location and view, but I think so:

Pointe de Vouasson

The Pointe de Vouasson is a mountain of the Swiss Pennine Alps, overlooking Lac des Dix in the canton of Valais. It lies between the valleys of Hérémence (west) and Arolla (east), north of the Aiguill...

peakvisor.com

 

[Mr Bolton]

P.S. Cannot leave it alone. Got the scanner out, now find the neg's and the neg carrier. Xsane now also has embraced color management. Scanned some slides, works, I I need some memory refreshing.

This is what to strive for, complete with the names for all these 4000'ers:--))

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pointe_de_Vouasson_panorama.JPG

regards

maybe it is as I said earlier. For this picture it would mean.

The "daylight" say 6500K whitepoint while photographing at 4000 m say 7500K gave me the Velvia colors.

When I use a higher whitepoint in Xsane or Gimp, and then start balancing the colors I hope to get a more neutral colorrange.

regards

and here a 3D model lined up with my picture, with all the names. Matterhorn 13 miles away, and 4-5 days of hard work to reach the base. Then you would still have to climb it!

Fantastic what internet can do.



Not sure if the link preserves location and view, but I think so:

https://peakvisor.com/peak/pointe-de-vouasson.html?yaw=132.38&pitch=-11.16&hfov=60.00

That's so cool!! I have some pics I took in the French Alps as well, I wonder if I could do this with them..

 

[CAcreeks]

P.S. Cannot leave it alone. Got the scanner out, now find the neg's and the neg carrier. Xsane now also has embraced color management. Scanned some slides, works, I I need some memory refreshing.

This is what to strive for, complete with the names for all these 4000'ers:--))

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pointe_de_Vouasson_panorama.JPG

Beautiful photo capture and scan! I'll have to try out Xsane.