[The Squirrel Mafia]

^ Cool! Yeap. RawTherapee is quite capable to giving lots of other RAW converters a run for their money.

[Mbaez]

Now you made curious to use pixel shift and check what RawTherapee can do.

[The Squirrel Mafia]

^ You ain't got nothing to lose. It's free!

[The Squirrel Mafia]

UPDATE!


It has been a while since I've uploaded a set of PP3 files, but I have been working on them during all this time, playing around with a lot of settings.

So yeah! Here's my latest set. There have been some noise reduction changes & things like that. It's a lot of stuff. Too much for me to remember. There is a PP3 file in the TSM - PP3 Optional - Noise Reduction called Denoise & Refine - Wavelets that can smooth out the grain almost similar to how the Median Filter works, but without the "smearing" & loss of fine detail. It won't work too well with the current Stable version & older Dev versions, though. It will make your image a bit mushy when you use it.

So yeah! Download them & give them a try. I'll have a Windows 64bit build on my Google Drive sometime in the next few days. Have fun!

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Last edited by The Squirrel Mafia; 05-26-2022 at 08:45 AM.

[The Squirrel Mafia]

The Windows 64bit build is in my Google Drive now.

[Mbaez]

The Windows 64bit build is in my Google Drive now.

Thank you! I'll install it.

I had a lot of adventures yesterday, trying to process raw data from my multimegapixley cameras, in order to print on A3+ paper. The problem, ultimately, was Canon's pro-1000 software "preview" function. But I went back and forth with RawT., Affinity Photo, and Affinity Publisher. Since I got rid of that stupid preview function, the problem was solved, but I spent about eight hours blaming the processing software instead of the driver. In doing so, I formed the conclusion that my process will have to be fragmented. I've never been wild about Affinity's raw development, but it's a great raster editor. On the other hand RawT. isn't all that terrific a raster editor, but is wonderful about processing the raw data, particularly since, at that stage, all I'm mainly interested in is things like contrast, black point, exposure, lightness, gamma, and saturation. I'll be exporting the TIFFs I produce with RawT. into Affinity Photo and editing them as I might have done editing JPG's in the 1990's with PhotoImpact. That's where I'll worry about stuff like correcting distortions and fine tweaking the sharpness and stuff. It appears to me that RawT. is not set up to talk to printers at all, while Affinity is pretty good at that (as long as you're not trying to print from raw).

One thing in particular frustrated me - there was a function I wanted to use in AP that is located on the "document" menu item, which I felt I needed to use on the raw file, but that's not visible in the "develop persona" - you have to execute the development function before the document menu item will show up. I feel like the "dumb user" we used to talk about back when I was building database software for the heavy iron, who wanted to know where the "DWIM" key was on the keyboard ("do what I mean").

[The Squirrel Mafia]

EXPERIMENTAL UPDATE!


I've uploaded an experimental set of pp3 files that has the noise reduction set to L*a*b* Conservative & uses the Automatic global chrominance noise reduction. Each ISO has it's own luminance noise reduction curve & chrominance noise reduction curve along with its own Detail recovery settings. They also have some additional noise reduction settings enabled in the Wavelets section.

What do they do? They'll automatically calculate how much chrominance noise reduction is required on their own. There is a catch. You always give up something for something. Since the chrominance noise reduction is done automatically, some colors could potentially "bleed" a bit into other colors and/or some colors might fade a bit. You'll have to zoom in 100% to see if you like the results.

There are 2 other pp3 files in there that change the noise reduction type. The default is L*a*b* in each ISO pp3 file, but you can switch it to RGB with the pp3 file or manually change it in the noise reduction section.

These work on both Windows & Linux. Try them out before you delete any older pp3 files that you have.

You can still find the older PP3 files for Windows HERE & for Linux HERE, in case you haven't downloaded them in the past.

OK! Have fun!

[The Squirrel Mafia]

UPDATE!


So what does The Squirrel Mafia use for his K50 & K-3II bodies? The attached 2 sets of PP3 files specifically tailored to the K-50 & K-3II.

You can use the K-50 ones on similar 16MP Pentax bodies & the K-3II on similar 24MP bodies, but you can pretty much use whatever PP3 files on whatever body. You'll have to pixel peep 100% in RawTherapee to see what is happening.

There are other files to install there like .dcp files & junk. They need to go to the specific folders that I have them listed in.

You can rename the files, make Dynamic Profile Rules, and/or do whatever you want to do with them. OK! Have fun!

[The Squirrel Mafia]

Do the Pentax D-range settings in the camera affect RAW files? ('_' )??


Hmmmm............ See for yourself.

I have attached a zip file containing 9 RAW files that have the D-range settings (Highlight & Shadow Correction) turned on. You can download it from my Google Drive. It's about about a 439MB download.

In the zip file you will find:

• RAW files
• OOC jpegs
• Rawtherapee PP3 settings & jpegs
• Digital Camera Utility 5 INI settings & jpegs

I shot these with my K-3II as I was taking a hike during a late afternoon in February, so don't expect National Geographic type of quality here. Hahaha!

You can compare the brightness & contrast between all jpegs. You'll see how "washed out" the RawTherapee jpegs are. I could manually fix the exposure, but when there are many images to go through, it becomes very time consuming & annoying trying to fix each image manually. You can replicate the same results with the PP3 files & INI files if you want to as well. The RAW files in the ZIP are in higher ISO territory, but this pretty much happens at all ISO ranges with all Pentax image tones when the D-range settings are turned on.

Bottom line is that RawTherapee will still struggle getting the correct brightness & contrast with some D-range RAW files. I've been using DCU5 a bit more lately to avoid those exposure issues.

OK! Have fun!

[Mbaez]

Do the Pentax D-range settings in the camera affect RAW files? ('_' )??


Hmmmm............ See for yourself.

I have attached a zip file containing 9 RAW files that have the D-range settings (Highlight & Shadow Correction) turned on. You can download it from my Google Drive. It's about about a 439MB download.

In the zip file you will find:

• RAW files
• OOC jpegs
• Rawtherapee PP3 settings & jpegs
• Digital Camera Utility 5 INI settings & jpegs

I shot these with my K-3II as I was taking a hike during a late afternoon in February, so don't expect National Geographic type of quality here. Hahaha!

You can compare the brightness & contrast between all jpegs. You'll see how "washed out" the RawTherapee jpegs are. I could manually fix the exposure, but when there are many images to go through, it becomes very time consuming & annoying trying to fix each image manually. You can replicate the same results with the PP3 files & INI files if you want to as well. The RAW files in the ZIP are in higher ISO territory, but this pretty much happens at all ISO ranges with all Pentax image tones when the D-range settings are turned on.

Bottom line is that RawTherapee will still struggle getting the correct brightness & contrast with some D-range RAW files. I've been using DCU5 a bit more lately to avoid those exposure issues.

OK! Have fun!

You're right about D-range. I stopped using it in all my Pentax cameras because every raw converter I tried gave me trouble to get the exposure and colors I wanted. It was after reading about D-range in this thread that I found the solution (disabling it) thanks to you.
PS: I've tried DxO, Adobe Camera Raw, AfterShot, CaptureOne, RawTherapee, SilkyPix

[The Squirrel Mafia]

^ The thing is that D-range can be quite useful at times, especially when shooting scenes that have really heavy contrast. Those settings techinically "give you" more dynamic range in the sensor that can prevent blowing the clouds out or sending the shadows deep into black. It has come in handy at times for me, but it ends up 'causing exposure issues for just about every RAW converter outside of the Digital Camera Utility.

I have no issues in any RAW converter when the D-range settings are turned off, but I have to be far more careful about exposure when I'm shooting. I do that to avoid blowing out the clouds or bright scenes & not loose all detail in the shadows. When I'm in a rush, I'll end up with some overexposed or under exposed images. It can get annoying.

I'm gonna start a thread on GitHub to see if the developers at RawTherapee can somehow tweak the Auto-Matched Tone Curve to better match D-range images. RawTherapee is still hands down my favorite RAW converter, but images with D-range settings can have me pulling out my hair at times. One of 3 things can happen with D-range RAW files:

• Image turns out fine when using the tone curve from the Adobe .dcp file. This is about half the time.
• Image turns out much darker when using the tone curve from the Adobe .dcp file.
• Image looks "washed out" since RawTherapee can't quite match the tone curve of the embedded jpeg in the RAW file when using the Auto-Matched Tone Curve setting.

I'll have similar issues when using Active D-Lighting in Nikon cameras as well. It can be quite frustrating. First world problems. Hahaha!

[The Squirrel Mafia]

UPDATE!


What can I say? Less is more? Hahaha! This is a much more simplified PP3 set. I have been playing with different NR settings for the past few months & have modified the basic ISO PP3 with new settings.

All of them have the noise reduction set to RGB Conservative & are using the Automatic global setting. Keep in mind that each ISO PP3 has other NR settings that work for each ISO. You do have the option of setting the noise reduction to L*a*b* as well. The False color suppression steps has been turned on from ISO 3200 going forward. The TSM - PP3 Optional - Noise Reduction contains some more PP3 files that add additional noise reduction.

I combined the previous exposure & color folders to a new folder called TSM - PP3 Optional - Color & Exposure. If you install the 19 provided camera .dcp files into the dcpprofiles folder in RawTherapee, you can use the Adobe DCP Tone Curve - Flat PP3 file to default your image to the Pentax Natural image tone instead of using the generic Auto-Matched Tone Curve feature. Keep in mind that images shot with the D-range settings turned on in the camera might have some exposure issues.

Always remember that you need to apply a basic ISO PP3 file first before you apply any other PP3 file or change settings. You can make processing rules in the Dynamic Profiles Rule section in Preferences. There is a dynamicprofile.cfg file that has some basic rules already set up for you. It's an optional thing to install, but it will overwrite your current settings if you replace it.

And there you have it in a nutshell. Try them out before you decide to delete your current ones. I'm having issues compiling a RawTherapee build at the moment, but I'll get around to it once I fix it. Have fun!

[rgknief60]

Found a feature that most of you probably know about, but is new to me.

Raw Therapee can interpolate colors to "fix" blown out highlights. Of courses, nothing can truly recover lost data. I do think that RT did a good job on the leaves.

The first image is from the OOC JPG file. The second is the PEF file processed in Raw Therapee to fill in the blown out leaves, followed by some more processing in Camera Raw.

The PEF preserved about 50% more detail than the JPG, but still had a lot of data missing due to over exposure. K-1 & DFA 28-105.

[ThorSanchez]

Found a feature that most of you probably know about, but is new to me.

Raw Therapee can interpolate colors to "fix" blown out highlights. Of courses, nothing can truly recover lost data. I do think that RT did a good job on the leaves.

The first image is from the OOC JPG file. The second is the PEF file processed in Raw Therapee to fill in the blown out leaves, followed by some more processing in Camera Raw.

The PEF preserved about 50% more detail than the JPG, but still had a lot of data missing due to over exposure. K-1 & DFA 28-105.

Recovering blown highlights in RT works quite well in my experience. I use it all the time for clouds, as well as fixing the bright yellow-green jerseys that teenage goalkeepers tend to wear and seem to always blow out even using highlight weighted metering.

I use the function so much and I see so little downside that I've thought about modifying all my Squirrel Mafia pp3 files to have that box checked automatically.