[pschlute]

File management. If you don’t have many photos this tends not to be a problem, but in 5 years time you could have thousands of images and you’ll need to find them.

Very good advice

[twilhelm]

I use and have used several. I was a Lightroom and Photoshop kind of person for years, but I refuse to do cloud or subscription.

Right now I’m using Darktable, Rawtherapee and Gimp, on Linux and Windows. Rawtherapee works better for me for digital, and Darktable gives me better results with scanned film. Either is more than adequate, but if you get pixel shift soon, rawtherapee seems to have the best support right now. On my Windows machine, I like to use Irfanview for resizing and printing. Which is something to note, you cannot print from rawtherapee.

Good luck!

[pentaxfall]

DT stores metadata in XMP format which is recognized by more vendors so your metadata is more migration friendly. RT stores metadata in PP3 format.

[Paul Pheiffer]

This question can draw out some opinions, hopefully though, all will be useful. Can I suggest you consider some of the points raised by Jatrax? A program that develops RAW files is one thing, but as the range of options today has completely changed it is best to reflect on more than just the ability to process a raw file.
Tas

Sound advice from Tas and everyone else.

I used the free software that came with the camera because I was not really interested in changing the look of the photo with any Post Processing, until about a year ago when I found out about ON1 Photo RAW, where you can develop and edit RAW files non-destructively. There are also a lot of other things that you can do in ON1 Photo RAW.

ON1 Photo RAW 2018
ON1, Inc. – Award Winning Photography Software and Plug-ins
ON1 End of Year Sale!

Some discussion about ON1 Photo RAW in the forums:
Help me leave Lightroom and explore my fascination with ON1 - PentaxForums.com

[jonthechippy]

Wow, that's a lot to take in. Thanks.

Ok, here's the history: Film SLRs (Cosina, Nikon) then Canon G2 digital. Sony A350 and A580 DSLRs then Sony point and shoot. I sold the A580 (took great photos) as it hoovered up dust. Still got the Sony pos and now the K-5 (same sensor as A580?).

What do I take of photos of: for pleasure, mainly landscapes, family etc and for work/web site photos of furniture I make. The little Sony is OK for all of these but there are shortcomings!!

How many: A few hundred a month.

I asked the original question because I've had a quick look at RawTherapee and Darktable. They both do more than I think I'll ever need, but that's now...in a years time I'll discover more of the other features they can offer and wonder how I survived this long without them!

Still can't decide, RT interface looks easier to use, DT has that useful split screen snapshot feature and so on.....more experimenting clearly needed.

Cheers

Jon

[tibbitts]

FastStone Image Viewer, Screen Capture, Photo Resizer ...

As easy to learn as it gets.

I really like FastStone and it's absolutely amazing for the price - I've donated a few dollars a couple of times now. However it has two issues:

1. Raw conversion is horrible. Seriously horrible. You lose a lot in the highlights, shadows, or both.

2. Selections can't be feathered.

I'm sure there are many advanced features I don't know enough to miss but those are the glaring omissions for me.

[emalvick]

To the op. I think I'd stick with learning RT or DT and see how it goes. They are both pretty good.

LightZone is another open source option with a unique interface, which may benefit an experienced film photographer.

I used RT for a year or two when I stayed with raw and then I started wanting more. At that point it was easier to know what I needed and trial different programs and test the features that would streamline the workflow vs RT.

Times have changed though and we all have our ways. You might find RT or DT work for you forever. Many people do.

[jonthechippy]

Hi and thanks for all the help and encouragement....much appreciated.

After playing with both RawTherapee and Darktable for a couple of days it's still difficult to choose, both do more than I need but I have to decide.

So..... I'm going with Darktable. I like the split screen "before and after" feature, the manual is very clear and there are plenty of tools which are fairly easy to understand and plenty more to find out about. Sorted!

Thanks again

Jon

[twilhelm]

Hi and thanks for all the help and encouragement....much appreciated.

After playing with both RawTherapee and Darktable for a couple of days it's still difficult to choose, both do more than I need but I have to decide.

So..... I'm going with Darktable. I like the split screen "before and after" feature, the manual is very clear and there are plenty of tools which are fairly easy to understand and plenty more to find out about. Sorted!

Thanks again

Jon

One of the nice features of Darktable is being able to quickly and easily create your own presets while you are editing a photo.
Something else I learned is if one of the features doesn’t go far enough, you can open a second, or third “instance” of that to go further. The example many use is noise reduction, I’ve heard some say the noise reduction in DT isn’t strong enough, but you can open a second which will take you to the same level as Lightroom.

Good luck and enjoy!

[Nicolas06]

Very good advice

Personnally I am not sold on file management. I know the obvious benefit and before anybody try to explain I am a software dev and know what a database is and what is allows.

The thing is anyway if you change too you either migrate or loose all the time spend creating that database. Don't say it doesn't happen. Some open source project get neglected, paid for software may become too expensive (think all the people that don't want to use lightroom anymore). Actually the older the photos, the more valuable a file management system,; but the most likely it is that you lost the database already or that you didn't updgrade the tool, that it doesn't work on the new computer and all.

Beware of raws file format too, while it will be likely to have support in the future, this support for by them ancient camera may become costly or neglected. Or many of the software will just stop being in business and all the non destructive changes you made to the files will be simply lost.

Whe I see people using lightroom I find the file management the worst. They use the feature as an excuse to keep crap photos, need to apply many filter to get anything done and need 5 minutes of work to display an diaporama that would be instantaneous if the images where just jpeg in a folder where you just had to double click on of them to get the slide show running.

Keeping things simple for archiving with a file system and jpeg files or another widely supported format allows you to stay free from any specific tool and will work just as well in 20 or 50 years.

I don't say don't use raws, I am just saying that the final product is the jpeg and only keeping the best photos, sorting them in the file system say per year/event or something like that, eventually renaming the photo file name with the tags you want to add can be searched then by the OS just fine, displayed on any computer without any additional software and is easy to backup and require only a few percent of the storage page neeeded to keep all the raws and all imported image in the library.

[pschlute]

Personnally I am not sold on file management. I know the obvious benefit and before anybody try to explain I am a software dev and know what a database is and what is allows.

You make some valid points Nicolas. My support for Tas's comment about file management was not based on recommending one software program or another, but was supporting the notion that one must have a "system" of sorts. You yourself use a system of file/folder dating and naming and if that works then great, but it is important for a new photographer to start out on the right course otherwise in a few years time their files will be unmanageable. I prefer to use software (Lightroom) so for example I can in a couple of clicks look at all my pictures that have nametags. If I want to see instantly all my pictures I have taken in the last 4 years of my dog Rio I can. Future proofing this can not be guaranteed, I accept, but it works fine right now.

I don't get your point about RAW files perhaps not being supported in the future, but you assume that JPEG will ?

One other thing to take into consideration is programs like Lightroom are colour-managed and will respect your tagged photos and display them correctly as part of a colour-manged workflow. I use windows (still on 7 !) and the windows slideshow on that is not colour managed even though the default picture viewer is. I dont know about windows 10 or Mac products. But if colour-management is paet of your workflow you need to be confident you are viewing pictures in a colour-managed environment.

[Rondec]

I think DNG files will be supported in the future. Not totally sure about maker specific RAW files like PEF and NEF files. Seems as though fifteen years from now, if you want to revisit your images you might have trouble doing so.

I think of the free software packages out there, Raw Therapee is probably the best. It is a little clunky and doesn't offer quite as many processing features as Lightroom (no clone/heal tool), but there are tons of presets available out there and that really helps. Squirrel Mafia has a thread about his use of RT and I would recommend looking at that, at the least.

I am still using stand alone Lightroom and probably will continue to do so until there is a new camera that is not supported -- and even then I may continue to use it. It works for my needs and I can easily download camera files from Hue Light to make my DNG files work in the future if there is a K3 III or whatever that isn't supported by Lightroom 6. The DNG files will still be opened by it.

[Nicolas06]

You make some valid points Nicolas. My support for Tas's comment about file management was not based on recommending one software program or another, but was supporting the notion that one must have a "system" of sorts. You yourself use a system of file/folder dating and naming and if that works then great, but it is important for a new photographer to start out on the right course otherwise in a few years time their files will be unmanageable. I prefer to use software (Lightroom) so for example I can in a couple of clicks look at all my pictures that have nametags. If I want to see instantly all my pictures I have taken in the last 4 years of my dog Rio I can. Future proofing this can not be guaranteed, I accept, but it works fine right now.

I don't get your point about RAW files perhaps not being supported in the future, but you assume that JPEG will ?

One other thing to take into consideration is programs like Lightroom are colour-managed and will respect your tagged photos and display them correctly as part of a colour-manged workflow. I use windows (still on 7 !) and the windows slideshow on that is not colour managed even though the default picture viewer is. I dont know about windows 10 or Mac products. But if colour-management is paet of your workflow you need to be confident you are viewing pictures in a colour-managed environment.

I agree that anybody can do what they want and as long as one is aware of the limitation that's fine...

My point for the library is that at some point if you decide to change of vendor, for example people that do not want to use lightroom anymore because of the subscription model, they have either to admit they have 2 libs or need to migrate and if they migrate, quite likely the new software will not be able to read all the change you applied in say lightroom and aply it the same way in the new software (say Raw Therapee or Capture One).

For RAW, first raw isn't a single format. Each camera as a different enough format with different bit deph, meta data and ways to do things that one doesn't need to support a single raw format but hundred of them. It depend of the filters used on the sensor, how the sensor work and all. But it is also not that much used because each camera maker and model are different.

In 20 years nobody will be interrested anymore in Pentax K20D raws for example except a few people here and there. Then all the change you have made, like exposure/constrast/color adjustment but also fixing the perspective or horizon are stored in a separate file of the tool or in the library you use on top of the lens profile. The day this tool doesn't exist anymore or you want to migrate to another tool, you may have to migrate your raws, likely some change will be lost and your images with look quite differently if supported at all. The new tool 20 years from now may consider handling not so popular very old camera/lenses sensor as not really a priority and either not support it at all or support it partially.

Jpeg on the contrary is ubiquitous. There billions of jpeg image everywhere the standard is perfectly well defined and at worst if nobody was to use jpeg 20 years in the future, you can just one time convert all your files in the new format without loosing anything. All the corrections are already backed in the file and do not need a specific editing tool to work. If you plan for your digital photo to last, this is a far better format.

TIFF and alike are quite likely to get that benefit too. A specific raw format of a small manufacturer specific model with all the change made in a proprietary tool, this is completely another story. You can consider to save/work with raw as an extra benefit for the long term and hope for the best, but you'd be better to have jpegs or even prints on paper on the photos you really not want to loose.

For color management, when you export your file you choose the color space so there no particular issue there. If you choose sRGB you get the most compatible format and most screens and printer expect professional one can't really support more than that anyway.

[acoufap]

The points you’re talking about are real. In the past years I did different things:

• photographed in jpeg and changed to raw and raw processing
• reorganized the photos at file system level
• skipped to Aperture 3 and used the catalog with links to the image files
• skipped from Aperture 3 to Capture One Pro 7
• updatet Capture One step by step up to 11

Not only the software changed but also my thinking about the process and how to organize my pictures - I changed my mind. Happy, the one’s absolutely stable in their vision!

Aperture 3 still runs besides Capture One Pro. I can work out my pictures on both apps but prefer Capture One. When will I change my mind again? - I don’t know. I also can develop them with Adobe Bridge CS4 ACR … but stop, last time I wanted to do this, my mac said I’d have to install an older Java Runtime … software risks are real.

The jpg-files you mentioned, I generate by selecting the desired Capture One Album. One click and some seconds later the album images are there in whatever format. If I want it in different pixel resolutions, I have only to mark different output recipes. One for Pentax Forum, one for my website, one for the iPad, one for making an advanced 4K video slide show using Fotomagico in post, one for the perfect print. Just one click and the machine does all this - flexibility and productivity.

Imagine you see too much risk for the future of your images using such software. But you may want to be able to change your images according your changing vision and abilities in the future. Then you really shouldn’t go the jpg route IMO.

You then IMO should make good balanced color managed workouts of your pictures that save as much detail as possible and store it in 16 Bit tiff with ProPhoto RGB profile. It will cost a lot of hard drive space (originals plus at least one backup) but that’s a format you will very long time be able to work with. For presentations you make the jpegs from this base as you need, organized in appropriate directories.

My conclusion: everything changes over time - the process, the hardware, the software, myself.

What’s the best way to go today for the future? - I don’t know. Everyone has to make the decision for himself. I'll stay with my dynamic flexible solution. Hopefully my best images will survive me. Maybe I should fine art print at least my best ones, direct usable, long lasting and independent from digital ...

[jatrax]

Personnally I am not sold on file management. I know the obvious benefit and before anybody try to explain I am a software dev and know what a database is and what is allows.

I think all I will say is that my opinion on this issue is 180 degrees from yours. Good thing we have the option to do what works for each person.