[Digikam-users] articuRe: Preview is "better" than RAW conversion?

[Remco Viëtor]

On Sunday 31 August 2014 12:09:48 Niels Ott wrote:
> Hi there,
> 
> I take my pictures with a Pentax K-7 in PEF format. When I view the PEFs
> in DigiKam, they usually look quite nice already.
> 
> However, when I use the RAW converter to convert a batch of images, I
> just don't manage to make them look as good as in the preview.
> Especially the contrast is often too low. I don't know what's going on 
here.
> 
> It doesn't matter really to me for good shots which I manually "develop"
> in the image editor, but for giving someone a bunch of pictures, it's a
> shame that those images always look flawed compared to cheap jpeg
> shooters. 8-)
> 
> If DigiKam does quite well automatically in Preview, why can't it also
> ofter the same automatic quality in the RAW converter?
> 
> 
> Best
> 
>    Niels

What you see in the preview is the jpeg embedded in the Raw file (which is 
a quarter size).

That preview jpeg has had all the treatments applied to it that a 'normal' 
in camera jpeg would get, including brightness, contrast, and saturation 
adjustments, and noise reduction and sharpening.

If you do your own RAW development, those adjustments are not automatically 
applied (although some RAW developers from the camera makers do apply 
them). 
Particularly sharpening will have to be applied separately, and you always 
need some sharpening (to correct for the anti-alias filter in the camera, 
and the softness from the demosaicing)

Regards, 

Remco