[patrickt]

I shoot Pentax raw and process on my desktop computer with Lightroom4. I have a new netbook for traveling. I want a device onto which I can download my raw files and do some very minimal editing on a few to send out with emails. Most editing will wait till I get home.

I'm trying Faststone right now and I am looking for other suggestions for software that will run on a netbook and will convert Pentax raw files.

[DeadJohn]

Take a look at Google Picasa. It's very easy to use and I think it should run okay on a netbook. Test raw files from all of your cameras before deciding. I think Pentax DNG works better than PEF; I used to get screwy white balance with K-r PEFs.

[stormtech]

I have just ordered a small laptop/netbook and had in my mind to use Faststone for the same reason as you have stated. Are you having any problems running it or just looking into other options?

I've had an Android tablet for about a year now, but it just doesn't cut it for me for viewing/sorting/storing my pics on the go being I shoot primarily raw so I just bought a small 11.5" laptop that runs Windows 7.

[dhodgeh]

Take a look at Picture Window Pro - Digital Light & Color - Welcome - What's New. Designed to be a digital darkroom more than a graphics package. The tri-zone adjustment transformation is worth it's price alone.

[k0og]

+1 for Faststone Image Viewer. That is what I use for 90%+ of my routine processing. I'm not sure it gets much better than Faststone - and for free!

The last few weeks I've been experimenting with Sagelight Image Editor, and it is quite impressive. It's not free, but is low price. It is good as a low-cost replacement for Photoshop for a lot of things (even runs PS plugins just fine).

Regardless of whether I stay with PS or Sagelight, I still will continue to use Faststone for my routine organization & processing.

-Joe-

[patrickt]

DeadJohn: Thanks for the suggestion. I had browsed at Picassa using Google and immediately hit a page with raw files supported and it didn't list Pentax so I went no further. I looked again, it does handle Pentax, so I downloaded it. It's much larger than FastStone but it seems faster and more responsive when I use it. Now, to play with it enough to figure out it's logic.

StormTech: I'm just looking for options. Faststone worked and is small but I'm not discounting other options. Picassa is much larger on the hard drive but is more responsive when it runs and, after a 10 minutes peek, is simple to use.

DHodgeH: I used to use Picture Window Pro but I'm not looking to replace Lightroom4 as my editing program on my desktop. I can't remember but I think a lack of raw support might have been why I left Picture Window Pro. I did like it for color control and will take another look. EDIT: I found my old manual for Picture Window Pro and it was from 2003. I still don't remember why I left but it might have had to do with raw support.

Thanks all.

[Stone G.]

On my little netbook I use - - - do i dare to tell ??- - - - Pentax Digital Camera Utility ver. 4.34 for both JPEG and PEF files. To me, the main problem with netbooks and editing lies not in the software, nor the computing power, but in the netbook screens that aren't really suited for the job.

[civiletti]

Remember that mobile apps may not conserve your original image as LightRoom does, so you may not be able to undo changes you make.

[Marc Sabatella]

Seems the OP is talking about RAW images, which no program ever modifies.

[civiletti]

Seems the OP is talking about RAW images, which no program ever modifies.

Some programs work on RAW images, but do not output in RAW. If they work on a copy, then the RAW remains. If they convert the original, it's gone away.

[patrickt]

So far, my workflow involves downloading the raw files from the SD card to a folder on the netbook entitled, "raw". I'm good at naming files. When I get home, that raw file is transfered to my desktop computer for editing. I've been shooting raw since my IstD.

[southlander]

While I quite like Picasa as a good intro level, lightweight photo organiser and editor for JPEGS, I'm not keen on it for RAW images. Behind the scenes, on loading a RAW file, I believe it does a conversion to a JPEG before displaying on screen [EDIT: I use DNG file format for RAW, no idea if PEF format supported by Picasa.] You have no control (that I can see) over the RAW conversion process (which I suspect is a very generic process and doesn't read much of the metadata in the RAW file), and in my experience, RAW images from my Pentax K-x look very ordinary in Picasa (dull, flat, highlight burnout, white balance pretty ordinary). You then have the usual problems of trying to undo things that have been baked into the JPEG which is normally not entirely successful and negates why you shot RAW in the first place.

This led me to a shift to Lightroom for cataloging and editing and I'm much happier with the resulting images. I still use Picasa with exported JPEGs of the best final Lightroom images to upload and sync to Picasa Web which I still use to share photos with friends (just sending a link to whatever Picasa album I wish them to see).

It's probably ok for a quick and dirty review of photos while you are on the go, but may not be good enough to send reasonably well PP'd images off to other parties.

You might be better off shooting RAW + JPEG (using one of the smaller image sizes definable in the camera menu), and just viewing the JPEGs in Picasa on the netbook, and leaving the RAW images alone until you get home. I'm thinking of going that way on my next trip and using an Android tablet to check photos as I go (as well as also backing up the camera SD card). That way, the RAW to JPEG conversion is being done in camera and is fully aware of the camera settings eg saturation, contrast and sharpening settings, so should provide a pretty reasonable starting point on import to Picasa.

Netbooks are rather lacking in the grunt department, so any PP too sophisticated is likely to bog down the machine 'til your ready to toss it out the window (I imagine just basic conversion of large RAW files will probably be pushing a netbook pretty hard).

[iTod]

Irfanview may well qualify as a lightweight, quick, process-very-little-and email sort of app also. Very simple, lots of codecs available, dead simple, and best of all, free!

[Marc Sabatella]

Some programs work on RAW images, but do not output in RAW. If they work on a copy, then the RAW remains. If they convert the original, it's gone away.

??? No programs output RAW (well, I think there might be some sort of lens correction preprocessing programs somewhere that do, but no regular RAW processing programs). All RAW processing programs work by reading in the RAW file, applying some adjustments internally, then either outputing a converted file or just remembering the adjustments and reapplying them every time you view that image, but they *never* overwrite your RAW data. If you use DNG as your RAW format, some programs will store the settigns you made within your DNG file, but the RAW data remains intact. it is never overwritten by any RAW processing program. And that means you can *always* recover your original image - because it was never lost in the first place. It is right there in the original file where you left it, no matter what RAW processing program you use.

The (sort of) unique thing about LR is that it also uses this model for *JPEG*. It's only sort of unique because at this point, quite a few other programs do this too - non-destructive JPEG processing is perhaps now even the norm. But for RAW, it's not "perhaps now even the norm" - it is without exception the way it is and and always has been done.

[dmfw]

GIMP works well on a smaller laptop. It will NOT read RAW, but you can use IFRAN to convert some Pentax RAW files to JPG.