[Digikam-users] How do you generate good quality jpegs from raws quickly, automatically ?

[Linuxguy123]

On Wed, 2009-12-23 at 20:56 +0100, Martin (KDE) wrote:
> Am Mittwoch, 23. Dezember 2009 schrieb Linuxguy123:
> > 
> > So how do you convert your raws to jpgs automatically and get a
> >  good result, ie something close to the preview jpg ?  I would
> >  prefer to use the tools in digiKam but will consider using outside
> >  tools and eventually write a plugin to use them in digiKam.
> 
> I usually use UFRaw to set exposure, white balance etc. and safe it as 
> ID file only (ID file contains settings only and is much faster to 
> save than a jpeg or png). After that is done, I run ufraw-batch with 
> the ID files (which can take very long).

That is what I used to do and what gives me the best result.  As long as
the shooting situation doesn't change much the same ID file will give a
good result across a large number of images.

As far as I know, ufraw is the only converter that allows one to do this
sort of thing.

Did you know that one can extract the icc file from the raw file using
Exiftool ?  http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/

> I have created a curve which matches (almost) the EOS30D one. I use 
> the EOS standard icc profile with gamma set to 0.45 and linearity to 
> 0.1. Additionally I set saturation to 1.1 and enabled auto black-point 
> adjustment.

Very interesting.

> Most raw files looks pretty good with this settings. If many pictures 
> can be developed the same way, you can use one ID file for many raw 
> pictures. But I take the extra time to set some values for every 
> picture.

Right.  But shouldn't the raw file theoretically have all the
information that a raw converter needs to do a really good job of
converting the image, at least to something that matches the embedded
jpg ?

> My results mostly looks better than the embedded jpegs. Color is a 
> little less intensive but I think more accurate.

OK.