[Digikam-users] RAW editing

[Martin (KDE)]

Am 21.01.2012 13:06, schrieb Remco Viëtor:
> On Saturday 21 January 2012 11:29:06 Martin wrote:
>> Am 21.01.2012 11:10, schrieb Anders Lund:
>>> On Lørdag den 21. januar 2012, gerlos wrote:
>> [...]
>>
>>> That is absolutely right. But I don't see darktable doing a better job
>>> than digikam, albeit a different one. So far, I see darktable images
>>> being a bit more saturated/vivid than the preview, while digikam goes a
>>> bit the other way. (I use a canon EOS 30D)
>>
>> For me the main difference here is that darktable does a constant job.
>> If I have a series of pictures the results are predictable (more than
>> with digikams raw processing). Esp. if you enables some of the automatic
>> tools the results are sometimes very good but sometimes next to useless.
>> And then it is very hard to get a pleasing result with digikam's
>> available settings.
> 
> What settings do you use for the raw import (from 'settings', then 'Raw 
> decoding tab')? I tell it to always use the last option: 'Always open the Raw 
> Import tool...'). This, like other tools, keeps the settings from the previous 
> use.

I have this enabled. This does not help if I want to change the white
balance after some days. In general I do some basic setup for my raw
files and in a second run I do the fine tuning.

> 
> And, click the 'Update' button after a change to apply the changes. Don't use 
> the 'Use default' button, as it applies the defaults defined in the settings 
> dialog, and imports straight away.
> 
> And I agree that raw decoding seems slow in Digikam, compared to e.g. 
> darktable; otoh, once you have a good preview, importing it is virtually 
> instantanuous. 

To me digikams raw importer is really fast. darktable seems not to be
faster here (Fedora 16).

> 
> Also, don't forget that Digikam's RAW import tool is exactly that, RAW import. 
> This means that a lot of the processing that is done on the developed image is 
> NOT in the RAW import tool (sharpening, saturation, local contrast etc.). From 
> what I've seen, darktable and others don't have this sharp separation between 
> RAW development and editing. So, what you think of as RAW development in 
> darktable is RAW development + editing in DK...

Yes, darktable is not only pure raw development. But if I sit down and
work on my photos it matches my work flow. And as I said several times:
If I need a different version of my raw file I can simply export the
same photo once again into a different format and work on it, without
the need to do the same stuff I did weeks ago once again.

Martin