[Digikam-users] RAW editing

[Wilkins, Vern W]

This issue comes up repeatedly and I think that does say something about Digikam's raw processing.  There are often responses indicating that Digikam 'can' work well for editing raw files.  I love the program and appreciate all the work of the developers, but I have never found it suitable for my needs when it comes to raw processing.  I can get a reasonable conversion if I tweak different settings for every individual image, but there just doesn't seem to be much consistency and the settings I need to tweak to get a decent image are not at all similar to settings I'd tweak in other programs.  It just seems the initial conversion is so far off that there might be half a dozen different things I have to do to the image to make it look even remotely like the camera jpeg.  It has always been just easier for me to use Ufraw to do the initial conversion from raw to png, and then do sharpening, tagging, etc., in Digikam.

Vern


-----Original Message-----
From: digikam-users-bounces at kde.org [mailto:digikam-users-bounces at kde.org] On Behalf Of Martin (KDE)
Sent: Friday, January 20, 2012 3:07 AM
To: digikam-users at kde.org
Subject: Re: [Digikam-users] RAW editing

Am 20.01.2012 08:36, schrieb Dr. Martin Senftleben:
> Hi Martin,
> 
> Am 20.01.2012 07:25, schrieb Martin (KDE):
>> Am 20.01.2012 07:02, schrieb Dr. Martin Senftleben:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> After the long discussion about jpg lossiness, I have tried some 
>>> editing on the raw files, but I do not seem to be the person for 
>>> that ;-) Ijust can't find the settings which are best to work on, or 
>>> most helpful to improve an image. Is there some place where a 
>>> workflow description can be found on improving an image based on the 
>>> RAW data? I believe that would help me a lot.
> 
>> May be it is a good idea to tell us what went wrong with your 
>> settings. Is the result to dark? is the contrast to low/high? Are the 
>> colours wrong?
> 
> Well, I can't really say - it's just not satisfactory. I want an image 
> with more vivid colours, but I really don't know how to go about it or 
> what to adjust (brightness, contrast, ...)

I had this problem a few years ago. At this time I used ufraw for developing my raw files. As this tool can produce very good results you have to know what you are doing. And it took me some time to get there.

But darktable has very good default settings (similar to the jpeg out of camera - at least for my EOS30D). And since about one year I am using darktable with very pleasing results. And darktables mailing list is similar to this one (but sometimes a little technical).

IMHO the main "problem" in digikams raw development is the missing receipt handling. If you work on a raw photo and finally import it with special settings you can not rework these settings a few days later (lets say a little less contrast or a slightly different white balance setting).

> 
>> If you want to edit your raw files in a more detailed way, may be you 
>> want to try a dedicated raw development tool like darktable (or 
>> rawtherapee - runs on linux and widows). At least I had some photos 
>> digikam was not able to develop in a way that fit my needs.
> 
> What about the tags, descriptions etc, when I save an image in a 
> different format using those softwares?

Darktable stores metadata in xmp sidecar files. On export these metadata are written in the exported file. I don't know RawTherapee.

Currently darktable sidecar files are not compatible with digikam sidecar files.

But in my current workflow I don't use darktables metadata editor. I set all tags and descriptions in digikam. To avoid tagging twice I usually first develop my raw photos and tag afterwards (both files, raw and jpeg/png). If I have to rework my raw settings darktable stores the new exported file with an index (attaches _01 for the first copy, _02 for second ...) I then copy the metadata from the previous export to the new one and replace the old exported file with the new one. I usually don't need a history of one file.

So initial tagging may be a little bit more work, and in general you have to take care that you have raw and jpeg/png selected on tagging.
But if you are used to it is not that hard. I hope that the grouping stuff in digikam will help me out of this in the future.

Regards
Martin

> 
> Kind regards
> 
> Martin
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