[volosong]

For someone who has used windows and photoshop since verison 2.5, and trying to make the transition to full-time Linux . . . is there an open source version of autostitch (or equivelant) for Linux?

[danbob]

Wow, I thought people would say 'what's Linux?' when I posted this.....
I believe that I got ufraw, and NOT dcraw with it. Off to the repository to check. Just ufraw, with the latest version that Fedora picked up, would not open PEFs.
I'll check out those other software links too--thanks folks!
DAN

[christinelandon]

I've run GIMP under X11 on my Mac G4; nice tools! Gotta confess to doing the great majority of my pp in Photoshop under various versions of MacOS, since I've been using that 800 pound gorilla since it was a version 1.0 baby chimp.

[RBellavance]

For someone who has used windows and photoshop since verison 2.5, and trying to make the transition to full-time Linux . . . is there an open source version of autostitch (or equivelant) for Linux?

Check out Hugin: hugin - Panorama photo stitcher

[zaurus]

Famous nature photographer Thom Hogan is recommending PhotoAcute Studio thusly:


A Program You Might Not Have Heard of But Should
Jan 22--PhotoAcute Studio has just been updated to version 2.7.4. The primary addition is the ability to stack photos to add depth of field. Which brings us to why you might want it: this unique program is a stacking wizard: stack photos to remove noise, stack photos to increase resolution, stack photos to remove things that move, stack photos to increase dynamic range, and now, stack photos to add depth of field. Of course, you have to shoot with that intention, but this product can do things that are very useful with a little planning. Oh, and did I mention it can do geometric and aberration correction? Windows, Linux, and Mac versions are available.


Does anyone have experience with it?

[Kiss]

I believe that I got ufraw, and NOT dcraw with it. Off to the repository to check. Just ufraw, with the latest version that Fedora picked up, would not open PEFs.

Yes, you get dcraw with ufraw, it is built in. Try open a terminal and type dcraw and press enter. Or you could type "locate dcraw". There is actually a configure-option to also build a separate dcraw when you build ufraw from source.

dcraw is the tool that actually does the interpolating stuff with the RAW-data to make it into a bitmap image, ufraw is "only" the graphical frontend to it.

[Cloudy Wizzard]

Yes, you get dcraw with ufraw, it is built in. Try open a terminal and type dcraw and press enter. Or you could type "locate dcraw". There is actually a configure-option to also build a separate dcraw when you build ufraw from source.

dcraw is the tool that actually does the interpolating stuff with the RAW-data to make it into a bitmap image, ufraw is "only" the graphical frontend to it.

Hmm, I tried the Gimp with the UFRaw plugin before but I was unable to open my PEF (K100D Super) files. When I replaced it with DCRaw (you can only have eighter one installed, since synaptic will remove the ufraw gimp plugin when you install the dcraw gimp plugin) it worked.

I thought that they were basically similar, even that ufraw was better since it was based on dcraw.

anyways, with the other plugin it seems to work fine, I did have to upgrade from Stable to Testing to have the newer GTK and GLIBC libraries to run Raw Therapee but that's another isue.

[Kiss]

Hmm, I tried the Gimp with the UFRaw plugin before but I was unable to open my PEF (K100D Super) files. When I replaced it with DCRaw (you can only have eighter one installed, since synaptic will remove the ufraw gimp plugin when you install the dcraw gimp plugin) it worked.

I thought that they were basically similar, even that ufraw was better since it was based on dcraw.

UFRaw and DCRaw uses the same dcraw program to do the work. And you can have them both if you do it yourself insted of depending on your package manager.

dcraw is Dave Coffins little commandline tool that most RAW-converters are based on, even Photoshop was originally based on dcraw. dcraw har no graphical interface, it is pure commandline. You find dcraw here:

Decoding raw digital photos in Linux

If you want you can have UFRaw installed in /usr, the DCRaw gimp plugin installed in /usr/local, and then even have as many different versions of dcraw in different folders in your home directory as you wish. This is Linux, the computer is yours. You can if you want, even if some obscure package manager says otherwise.

If you download the source for UFRaw then you can decide for your self if you want its version of dcraw built in, or if you want the build to build a binary dcraw for you. It is up to you. You can decide if you only want to be able to use UFRaw as a stand alone tool, and you can choose to build the Gimp-plugin or a Cinepaint plugin. The latest UFRaw v0.13 is built on dcraw 8.80, and the latest dcraw as of 2007/12/10 is 8.81.

I guess your package manager give you an old UFRaw built on an old dcraw without support for your RAW-file format. But the code is out there, compile for your self, it is just a mater of ./configure make and make install. You can also replace the "make install" with "checkinstall make install" if you want to make your own package and install that (makes uninstall easier using your package manager). Then you can have as many versions as you want installed in whatever dirs you wish. The stable version in /usr, a developer release in /usr/local and maybe a bleeding edge latest daily change from CVS in your home dir. It is your computer.

[jsherman999]

Another tool that I use quite a bit with my linux boxes, as well as with Cygwin under windows - the "ExifTool" perl module. If you're perlish, you can write all sorts of scripts to read or write Exif data. Works with every image file format, as well as virtually all proprietary RAW formats.

Once under Cygwin I used it to link all my images into subdirectories based on lens used - the images stayed where they were, but I could browse the FA_50_1.4 folder, the 200_f4 folder, the 50_200 folder, etc to quickly see all my files organized by lens used, because they were linked under the subdirectories, which themselves were created by the script. I think it took me 15 minutes to write and test that script, fun stuff.

The ExifTool package comes with the 'exiftool' script, which uses the ExifTool module, so you don't even need to know perl - you can just run the 'exiftool' script.

My SilkyPix browser still does not recognize my new Tamron 18-250, even with latest patch - exiftool did.

Here's a quick command line I use to give me a summary of lens-used counts of all images in a directory:

# > exiftool *.JPG | grep "Lens Type" | cut -d: -f2- | awk '{tot[$0]++} END {for (t in tot) print tot[t]" : "t}'

4 : TAMRON AF 18-250mm F3.5-6.3 Di II LD Aspherical [IF] MACRO
36 : smc PENTAX-FA 28-90mm F3.5-5.6
147 : smc PENTAX-FA 50mm F1.4
39 : smc PENTAX-FA 28-200mm F3.8-5.6 AL[IF]


This gives me a quick focal length count snapshot:

# > exiftool *.JPG | grep "Focal Length" | grep "35mm equivalent" | cut -d: -f2- | awk '{tot[$0]++} END {for (t in tot) print tot[t]" : "t}'

4 : 35.0mm (35mm equivalent: 52.0mm)
32 : 135.0mm (35mm equivalent: 202.0mm)
11 : 70.0mm (35mm equivalent: 105.0mm)
6 : 38.0mm (35mm equivalent: 57.0mm)
142 : 28.0mm (35mm equivalent: 42.0mm)
1 : 113.0mm (35mm equivalent: 169.0mm)
3 : 148.0mm (35mm equivalent: 222.0mm)
3 : 65.0mm (35mm equivalent: 97.0mm)
2 : 85.0mm (35mm equivalent: 127.0mm)
48 : 200.0mm (35mm equivalent: 300.0mm)
169 : 50.0mm (35mm equivalent: 75.0mm)





.

[jebidiam]

I tried Bibble and Gimp with plugins but I stuck with RawTherapee. I'm surprised no one has mentioned it yet. It is basically developed by one guy and has a really simple install (uncompress a tarball into a directory). I am very satisfied with it. Oh, and it understands PEF and DNG (among many others). If you go to the site check out the forum, that's where the good info is. RawTherapee is free, but I was so happy with it I gave the developer some PayPal love...

Raw Therapee

Oh yea, to answer your question I would go with PEF, because it uses lossless compression. DNG is uncompressed, so it uses more of your memory card. IQ-wise there is no difference between the two.

[xixco]

Yesterday I noticed that photos I had in iPhoto were different sizes:

DNG: 3856 x 2576
JPG: 3872 x 2592
PEF: 3880 x 2600

Why are the DNG "smaller" than even the JPEGs?
My apologies if this has been answered elsewhere, but it seemed like a very relevant question for this thread.

[Kiss]

RawTherapee is free,

Not really. It is just free to use, as in free beer, not free as in freedom of speech.

[danbob]

THANK YOU ALL for these detailed responses. I thought that joining this board when I bought my K10D would be a good thing, but the expert knowledge here has exceeded my wildest expectations!

I've been examining some of the RAW converter software that people have linked to in this thread. Some, like Bibble Labs, has 'automatic' correction routines for the RAW conversion. Most of my critical photos I just send into magazines as RAW files....the publisher's art dept. does all the correction work.
So, what I'm thinking is that I might as well just start climbing the learning curve on the GIMP or the other free linux softwares that people have listed here, instead of buying something with 'automatic' correction. Just seems like I'm missing out on some knowledge by using an 'automatic' routine, instead of first learning to do it by hand.
Since my professional output just gets sent as RAW, there's no time problem with the learning curve.
ANy thoughts? And thanks again...
DAN

[nanok]

i must say i am impressed. i guess pentax and linux/opensource must have something deep-down in common, i am talking attitude, philosophy, maybe that's why there's so many black sheep around here

as others have explained, you should be able to use both pef and dng, i myself use dng, as i have a samsung gx10, and have used pef with my former k100d, with no issues. just get a newer version of ufraw/dcraw. ufraw afair does not inculde dcraw as such, dcraw also comes as a c library, and this is what ufraw includes, this is why you can have ufraw installed and working, and no dcraw binary (same goes for digikam), most "serious" dcraw frontends will prefer this approach, as it is faster, i guess, than calling dcraw externally, and also cleaner, easier to integrate. the first thing i suggest would be to go to a more recent version (or branch) of your distro, use source packages and local building of packages from source only as a last resort, unless you find the building itself fun.

for panorama, as mentioned, try hugin. windows users should try it too, as far as i know it is one of the most impressive packages for panorama and co. around (comrecial or not), it can also do perspective corrections (like any panorama software should), CA corrections to some extent (shortly, it can handle lateral CA, but not "purple fringing"), distorsion corrections, and, iirc, even vignetting (need to try it with my 50-200 soon). there is also a project for an open database for optical-related corrections for various lenses, for hugin, don't know the current status, but, more importantly, there are howto's on how to test and determine these parametters, which gets me thinking: how about starting to populate our excellent lens database not only with reviews, but also with such parameters to be inported in hugin?

i myself use ufraw, digikam, gimp a litle, imagemagick and dcraw for batch-stuff. i like ufraw, it is well designed (you can see the hand of the photographer, i guess ), almost bug-free, quick and comprehensive, digikam is nicer, but it is damn huge, and incredibly slow (especially compared to ufraw). i was just thinking about rawtherapee, i need to try it, it sounds really good, i am only sad it is not opensource (i avoid such things usually, mainly because of lack of future-proofness), gabor has done a brilliant job, i think, judging by a first glance, and has a great comunity, it would be a shame to throw that all away just by keeping the source closed -- but i digress, and it is his code (mostly) anyway.
the thing i dislike most about gimp are lack of live histograms (??) and lack of auto-crop for free-rotation, or even of a more automatic leveling function, alltogether ("show me the vertical, and i will set it straight"-type). overall, though, it is a brilliant achievment, especialy knwing it since it was in it's infancy; the best thing about it, funny enough, might be the documentation, tutorials and so on available on the web, which are usually excelent (i even recommend them to photoshop users, as they can be easily "translated", and sometimes are easier to find for gimp)

maybe it would be good to have a subcategory for linux-related talk? (not sure if there's likely to be enough of it to be worth it though, so it's just a thought).

looking forward to the opensource pentax firmware (i know _that_ would shake the industry)

[Steve-O]

Freaks of the world unite!

Since this is shaping up to be a canonical Linux photo tools thread I better post to be in the cool crowd.

I've been using Linux for over 10 years and as an experiment my wife and I use it at home exclusively for the last year. *We will never go back*. I rarely wax poetic about software but the open source GNU movement has done soooo much for us and comparitively few people in the US use it and even fewer appreciate what it really means. Open source programs will never go away, they are here forever. With open source tools you will *never* be beholden to a corporation for your data. They are *our* pictures and we like to keep it that way.

I'm just waiting for someone to re-implement the Ansel Adams zone system in open source and I can quit using Lightzone. This technique IMHO is the best way to get above average quality out of your shots for the least amount of technical knowledge. Best bang for the "brain-buck" so to speak.

Of course, GIMP development is in such sad shape right now, I don't think they have many resources to do this and I've heard the bar for entry is pretty high and thorny over there. In time this will pass, or the community will take another direction... like ufraw.