I finally started shooting in DNG. WOW!

[raid]

GIMP is free, so this is good to know.

 

[daveleo]

GIMP can handle DNG afaik.

It's the 8-bit color that is GIMP's limitation. Using GIMP to edit a 12- or 14-bit RAW file (be it DNG or whatever) means the GIMP is tossing away data.

There is a 16-bit (I think?) GIMP in the works, but it never seems to get here. When it does, I have some hard(ware) decisions to make.

 

[Godfrey]

GIMP can handle DNG afaik.

I don't believe that's true. GIMP is an RGB component image editor, not a raw converter. There's another app that you use with it—UFRaw http://ufraw.sourceforge.net—to do the raw conversion and output to 8-bit RGB to edit with GIMP. UFRaw can work with DNG files.

G

 

[raid]

How good is UFRAW?

 

[Godfrey]

My point is that they are dependent. I understand that you perform the two steps independently,
but to translate the benefits of RAW processing to your prints,
you must really have your monitor and printer calibrated to each other (if those are the correct words).

People who don't do that are , what? . . . throwing their hard work away.
(This also raises the issue of sending your files out to a lab for printing - who calibrates the lab?)

My general point is that the benefits of the RAW process are dependent on your hardware and its calibration,
as much as the quality of your software (8-bit GIMP is a serious limitation in this case).

Unless you do the whole RAW process correctly with the right equipment, I think you are wasting your work.
That's the way it seems to me anyway.

EDIT: I don't think that we disagree on the printing issue.

A color management system is not quite how you describe up above.

1- You calibrate your display to a set of reference targets, then create a display device profile for it.

2- You set your computer's OS to use that profile.

This sets up the display to have the desired brightness, contrast curve, and white point and tells the underlying color display system how to translate colors for that display.

3- Once that's taken care of, you set up your image processing application to use the desired bit depth and a device-neutral color space as a working colorspace. Typically for Photoshop CS and photographic image processing, this is 16-bit per component RGB and the ProPhoto RGB color space. Lightroom sets this up automatically, there are no options on the working colorspace (it automatically promotes any image to those specs when you're working). Other image processing apps are similar.

The goal up to this point is to create a consistently calibrated display that your eye can use as a reference for image adjustment. The image processing app does all the work of displaying your image through the system's embedded graphic system so that it encodes the right values in the image file and represents them on the display at high fidelity/accuracy.

Printing and other output products are dependent upon this setup, but are independent of it. That is, you can set up several different printers (of different types as well) and once set up correctly, you can print to all of them and achieve the same outputs to the limits of their physical capabilities.

4- When it's time to print, there are a lot of different configurations possible depending upon the OS platform you're using, the image processing app you're using, and the specific printer/inkset/paper. The standard method that I use, assuming the hardware I have, Lightroom as the printing engine, and my Epson R2400/K3 inkset/paper choice, goes like this:

A- in the Print module, once the print is designed and styled, use the Print Job panel choose the appropriate color profile designed for the printer, ink set, and paper.

B- either let the resolution float (let LR do the interpolation require to set the output PPI) or set a fixed output PPI. This Epson tends to print best at 240, 300, and 360 ppi, so if the automatic interpolation falls into that range, I let LR take care of it. If it doesn't, I force it to one of those settings.

C- set the output transform intent (Relative Colormetric or Perceptual) which affects how LR adjusts color values that are at the boundaries of the color space defined by the printer/ink/paper.

D- set the output sharpening (usually standard does just fine ... LR auto-adapts the output sharpening for you).

E- print.

You save a lot of time, once you know the right settings for a particular printer and paper type, and print to known print designs, by encapsulating all of the print values from A-E into a preset. In which case, you just choose the photos you want to print, go to the Print module, select the preset, and click the Print One button.

If you wish to print to a different printer, or use a different output method (like the Advanced B&W or a ColorSync based color management scheme) you set that up in the Print Job panel instead.

Photoshop printing has a similar flavor, but it's designed for much more than just printing photographs and has a bazillion more settings, which you have to make for each image you want to print. This is why I use LR to do my printing... ;-)

G

 

[Contarama]

Look at http://lightzoneproject.org/

Like GIMP it is open source so it is free.

It does M9 DNG and a lot of other stuff too.

 

[raid]

Thanks for the link. I will check it out.

 

[Godfrey]

How good is UFRAW?

Not really state of the art.

G

 

[airfrogusmc]

I had an exhibit back in April. 35 images total and I print from CS4. Usually 16 bit Tiffs and I really like Epson Exhibition Fiber for B&W and I have an Epson 2880 printer.

 

[Kwesi]

Hi Raid,
I would strongly suggest buying Lightroom- they (Adobe) created the DNG format which Leica then adopted. Also at $149, I am sure some of us have spent more on uv filters 🙂.
But seriously you get a rock solid product now and into the future.
My only concern would be that you make sure that the minimum system requirements for lightroom is no problem for your computer(s).

Kwesi

 

[daveleo]

@Godfrey

I'm going to save that description to a text file. Thanks !

 

[daveleo]

I don't believe that's true. GIMP is an RGB component image editor, not a raw converter. There's another app that you use with it—UFRaw http://ufraw.sourceforge.net—to do the raw conversion and output to 8-bit RGB to edit with GIMP. UFRaw can work with DNG files.

G

There's a UFRAW plugin for the Gimp, so if you're in the Gimp and ask to open a RAW file, it will do so using the UFRAW plugin.
The Gimp itself does not open RAW files. You then export the file from the plugin into the Gimp for further editing.
But again, the Gimp degrades it to 8-bits.

 

[Godfrey]

There's a UFRAW plugin for the Gimp, so if you're in the Gimp and ask to open a RAW file, it will do so using the UFRAW plugin.
The Gimp itself does not open RAW files. You then export the file from the plugin into the Gimp for further editing.
But again, the Gimp degrades it to 8-bits.

Isn't that what I just said in the quote you included?

G

 

[daveleo]

^ must work on my reading skills 😱


EDIT: I remember what my point was now . . . JAAPV thought the Gimp
handled DNG files on it's own. UFRAW will run as an application by itself
and then export to the Gimp. OR (this was my point) you can install UFRAW
as a Gimp plugin - so it appears that the Gimp is handling DNG files,
but it does not. This is only an important point if your running the Gimp and
cannot understand why it's not opening that DNG file everyone says it can
open - you need to install the UFRAW plugin

 

[willie_901]

G,

Thanks for the very helpful and succinct tutorial.

I assume if one uses a commercial printer then you can use their color profile for the final stages and the export a jpeg or tiff based on the lab's specifications.

 

[Godfrey]

G,

Thanks for the very helpful and succinct tutorial.

I assume if one uses a commercial printer then you can use their color profile for the final stages and the export a jpeg or tiff based on the lab's specifications.

You're welcome.

Almost. You use their supplied color profile when outputting the JPEG or TIFF made to the lab's specifications; that's the only time you need it. In LR you do this in the Export operation for the print file (you can soft-proof to see what their profile does to the image and make adjustments before exporting if required; best to do it with a virtual copy and leave your finished master alone). In PS, after you're done editing, you save your master copy, then apply their profile and use the soft-proofing tools to do the same final adjustments, then output a new file for printing.

BUT, as I intimated on another thread just a few minutes ago, it's much harder to learn how to make fine, satisfying prints when someone else is doing the printing. I found it impossible for me. I need to feel the nature of the paper and ink relationship in order to learn how to render my images for the best print, and the turnaround time to a print service makes that impossible. Once I learned how to make a satisfying print with my own printer, outputting an image for a service bureau became a piece of cake. ;-)

G

 

[CliveC]

The thing I don't like about RAW is that my images look like crap (flat, boring) before I go in and tune them. On my GXR, in order to have the screen show black and white, you have to shoot RAW+JPEG. As a result, pictures look great on screen, crap as RAW, but I also have a fairly nice looking JPEG file which I generally don't use.

I wish the camera could save RAW metadata. Can Leicas do that? Fuji's X-series?

 

[Godfrey]

The thing I don't like about RAW is that my images look like crap (flat, boring) before I go in and tune them. On my GXR, in order to have the screen show black and white, you have to shoot RAW+JPEG. As a result, pictures look great on screen, crap as RAW, but I also have a fairly nice looking JPEG file which I generally don't use.

I wish the camera could save RAW metadata. Can Leicas do that? Fuji's X-series?

Nearly all cameras save the camera settings as metadata in the raw files, although I'm not certain of that for the GXR. However, the only raw converter that knows how to process the photos to match what the camera's JPEG engine produces is typically the one produced by the camera manufacturer. This is true for Nikon, Canon, Olympus, and Pentax raw processing software, not sure of any others. I know Panasonic and Ricoh license Silkypix to deliver their raw software and neither is capable of reading the camera metadata and applying it.

Leica writes DNG raw files and supplies Lightroom with the M, M9, M8, X2, and X Vario, but Lightroom is not customized for their files so it doesn't interpret the camera metadata in the raw files either.

However, if you have a good handle on exposure and know how you want your final exposures to look, and find yourself making the same adjustments most of the time, there is a good solution. You can set up Lightroom to apply those adjustments as a starting point with a preset when importing and/or set it to apply your customizations as a default. That cuts down on the amount of time you need to spend tweaking each photo individually.

(It should be said that I look at raw files the same way I look at negatives: they're not finished photos, they are the data from which finished photos will come. I don't want my negatives to be overly contrasty, out of focus, or lacking highlights or shadow details. That means my negatives "look like crap, flat and boring" but they contain all the raw material for what I want to achieve in the finished image. The same goes for my raw image files.)