[Digikam-users] Processing RAW images to get to the look of the jpg preview

[Sven Burmeister]

Hey everybody!

I have a Panasonic LX3 and shoot RAW pictures. Compared to the jpg preview the 
RAWs are always darker, no matter whether I pick 8 or 16bit for demosaicing.

I do see that "dark" has the advantage of showing more details (e.g. on the 
pink flower bits), especially in bright areas but I would like to be able to 
get to almost the same picture from the RAW as the jpg preview shows.

So I'd like to know what others do for processing their RAW pictures and 
whether the darker is better or inevitable in your opinion or whether I'm 
doing something wrong.

I have added a few pictures to a flickr album. The jpg is the embedded preview 
and the -raw is the demosaiced RAW picture with no post-processing but only 
resized. http://www.flickr.com/photos/34017986@N05/sets/72157626996362812/

For me enhance > local contrast works quite well to get closer to the preview 
but has side effects, especially for highlights. Using other methods than 
"solid white" while demosaicing makes the picture even darker. So e.g. getting 
the wall of the building as bright as in the preview makes the clouds look bad 
because they do not blend. Also very good visible in the DSC_xyz crops. The 
jpg is brighter but does still blend the highlights better than if I take the 
-raw and apply local contrast or any other tool to get the picture brighter.

Also, colours > levels adjust or auto-correction (auto-exposure) do work 
towards the preview but don't get there. Especially the sky does not get that 
bright blue from the preview.

I also tried white-balance (sun) but that makes the picture a bit too blue.

Colours > Hue/Saturation/Lightness also helps regarding vibrance and 
saturation.

So what do you do with your pictures? Do you also see that "always darker"?

Sven