[jatrax]

Thank you--I will look into that. Downloading now. This could be a link in a chain, at least.

I've used it when I had the same issue you describe, shot in PEF instead of DNG. So it should work to get you usable DNG files.

From your workflow: "I tend to work on images one at a time", I am not sure Lightroom is the best solution. It will definitely work, it just might focus on a feature set that is not important to you. I am a heavy Lightroom user and have the subscription version. For me that is not an issue, photography is a business for me and the subscription is a business expense. For your use case though I suspect the LR learning curve would be steep and you would have no use for many of its best features. I have found that folks that are heavy PS users and learned that work flow have trouble grasping the LR concept, which is quite different.


Like you I have concerns about where Adobe thinks they are going with Lightroom. I live in a national forest and while the internet is better than 2 cans & string, its not great. So cloud storage is not an option for me either. As long as they have the 'classic' version I'm fine. And I am watching carefully the several competitors that are developing on the sidelines. At this time there is no viable option for my use case but that will change in the future I believe. The Luminar product from Skylum is one I am watching closely as well as the products from ON1.

[rdenney]

File size from that 51MP sensor might have something to do with the performance of the OP's computer with a given software product. Other packages might use and manage computer resources better.

Yes. I’m used to large files, though. When I scan film from the 67 using my Nikon 9000, I end up with about 90 megapixels. Those tiffs are over half a gig each. The difference is that I always have the film, so I scan only what I want to show.

And 4x5 film even in my Epson 750 creates 90 megapixels.

But with the Pentax, I’m dealing with storing all the photos as raw files.

I didn’t realize this early on, but I need to be able to apply nondestructive edits on top of a raw file, and keep that as the storage medium, rather than processing them all into tiffs (which are 4 or 5 times larger), and then editing. So, the raw processor needs to be the principle editor for most targets, and the source for lower resolution files targeted for screen display, with something like Photoshop being reserved for the few special cases.

That’s a change in basic workflow made necessary by having 645z files in the thousands from just one trip. I had processed an initial edit of a little over 800 images, and at 300mb each in tiff format, it’s not sustainable. I’m feeling my way along with files this size in a production environment.

With my Canon, I could frequently use the jpgs for production applications, but even as PSD files, they are much smaller. The Pentax files invite too much adjustment for the jpgs to serve that role.

Rick “learning lots” Denney

[texandrews]

I'm using the non-subscription model, but might consider switching. But I have had zero problems with it, and I'm slightly surprised about that. But for me, with a chunk of my work professional and feeling the need to at least be in the same Adobe universe as the rest of my museum, it's a bit of a no brainer. And I've gotten used to some of Adobe's always slightly obscure ways and hidden features silliness. To counteract that, I have twice gone to the Scott Kelby seminars, most recently the one in DC this past summer. Just 2 of the tips I got there were worth the price of admission, so I do recommend them---even though there is important stuff (to me ) that is not covered and he said won't ever be by him.

There are some special Pentax profiles available 3rd party, you can search for them here, that are highly regarded. I have not yet applied mine, but that's on the agenda after my Cleveland-Atlanta work is finished mid November. Also on the agenda is a whole new desktop box, custom built for photo processing. It's time, and after that seminar I've got a much better idea about how that box should look.

Living in Baltimore city, with its crappy internet options (no FIOS, ever) especially for uploading to the cloud, I have some similar issues to you. And that's also part of the computer rebuild. Since Collections Management at my museum insists on tiffs, but in inimitable fashion has no real clue how big these files are and that they will only be getting bigger---but there is no storage capacity for all of this. "oh, well we'll just use the cloud!" Yeah, right.

[rdenney]

The Adobe DNG converter worked a treat. All the PEFs are now DNGs, and DXO seems to be playing well with them. I do like Photolab—it does simple things very quickly and the noise filter is excellent.

Rick “making progress, but the real test will be expecting display formats” Denney

[jatrax]

Good news, glad it worked.

[Gyroscope]

I was sceptical about the subsrciption model too but I am a convert after trying it. I use lightroom for basic edits of my 645 files then photoshop with the Nik plugins to finish. The subscription cost is not much and I simply can't see adobe "forcing" us to use the cloud. Not signing up out of principle seems a little counterproductive given the issues the OP is having.

[John Trammell]

I have a variety of editing software, including some of those mentioned in this discussion, but mostly I use Corel's Paint Shop Pro. The only problem with PSP for me is their frequent upgrades that don't really improve the program much.

[donesteban]

Well, if you are woning a Mac, Hasselblad Phocus would be an option, too. Off course, without the advanced features like layers,.. the work for Hasselblad cameras only. But the basiv features are supported for every Camera supported by OS X. The 645Z is on that list. Hasselblad Phocus can be downloaded for free.

I have been using Phocus quite a long time, Then, one day, I found out, Capture One 10 Pro supports the 645D (the D, not the Z). Up to a few days before, I was only owning the D. I knew Capture One 6, from former times, when I was using the D2x, and I loved the software. So I just purchased the 10 pro version.

As I am quite used tu capture One, I deceided to go the way of changing the EXIF data. I have an Icon on my desktop, with a short cut to exif tool with some predefined options. All I have to do is drag and drop the pictures on thet Icon, and Exiftool will convert all of them for me. Off, course, this may take a while, mainly depending on I/O speed of your system. Exif tool will write the whole file again, so it can be many GB of data, if there are plenty of photos to convert.

I don't like Lightroom at all, as you have to use the catalog. I use my own mechanism to manage files, based on folder names.

I I'd have to compare these two softwares to each other and to other programs, C1 does a better job on reducing noise and keeps a little bit more detail in the pictures. But also Phocus will significantly more details in the images than Lightroom, for example. Lightroom is better than both of them at very high ISO. C1 will create very "punchy" pcitures with high saturation out of the box, Phocus creates very neutral pictures with quite low saturation by default.

[kaseki]

For completeness following my earlier comment, I have found that Raw Therapee (RT) is able to read and convert 645Z PEF files. I have experimentally converted one such file to TIFF (307 MB) using RT under (now elderly) Linux Mint 17.3 on a 10-year old quad-Athlon based PC (12 GB RAM). Reportedly, RT uses the JPG file embedded in the PEF file to determine an adequate white balance to work with. So, one can post process in RT using the PEF or the TIFF file, or use some other software that can read TIFF files for post processing. RT versions are available for Linux, Mac, and Windows.

[VellMerlot]

Excuse my ignorance, maybe because I'm really an accidental hobbyist and not a photographer (or however it's spelled). I'm trying to get used to my 645D, and every time I try to get more from my RAWs than from the camera's JPG, I find myself wasting my time: when I reach the jpg I want, I find no differences with the jpg the camera gave me.
I decided to keep shooting dual (RAW+JPG) just because the chances of prevent some banding (I found it with the D700) or to be able to preserve some wrong shoots by forcing the RAW a bit.
But is really too high the difference between a normal camera jpg and the ones you get from the RAW?

[kaseki]

Excuse my ignorance, maybe because I'm really an accidental hobbyist and not a photographer (or however it's spelled). I'm trying to get used to my 645D, and every time I try to get more from my RAWs than from the camera's JPG, I find myself wasting my time: when I reach the jpg I want, I find no differences with the jpg the camera gave me.
I decided to keep shooting dual (RAW+JPG) just because the chances of prevent some banding (I found it with the D700) or to be able to preserve some wrong shoots by forcing the RAW a bit.
But is really too high the difference between a normal camera jpg and the ones you get from the RAW?

Heh heh. Much to my recent surprise, the raw files contain embedded jpgs that the camera generates and the post processing software uses to show what is in the file. Not until one starts messing (editing) with the image file does the software render the actual raw file data into an image. Hence, similarity of jpegs is to be expected.

[VellMerlot]

I knew it, but I'm talking about taking a raw RAW (ouch), use DarkTable or RawTherapee to "cook" it, and look amazed how the results you've got are the jpg your camera provided.
So, or I'm lucky enough to love my camera's algorythms, or I'm too clumsy with those cooking tools to improve them.

I only found that cooking process useful for difficult images (nocturnal skies, with heavy banding, or those pictures you know you cannot shoot properly but you try to do it because maybe the RAW would be able to be rescued).

So, my doubt is how you, people, are able to get those impressive pictures after cooking them. Can anyone point me to a thread of "before and after"?

[rdenney]

I knew it, but I'm talking about taking a raw RAW (ouch), use DarkTable or RawTherapee to "cook" it, and look amazed how the results you've got are the jpg your camera provided.
So, or I'm lucky enough to love my camera's algorythms, or I'm too clumsy with those cooking tools to improve them.

I only found that cooking process useful for difficult images (nocturnal skies, with heavy banding, or those pictures you know you cannot shoot properly but you try to do it because maybe the RAW would be able to be rescued).

So, my doubt is how you, people, are able to get those impressive pictures after cooking them. Can anyone point me to a thread of "before and after"?

Just like it took a lot of work to develop printing skills in the darkroom, or to learn how to predict and control contrast in developing black and white film, it takes a lot of work to learn sophisticated processes for image editing.

The raw developers on the market now have a lot of automated capability. (This includes the raw processor built into the camera.) If their automated methods fit with one’s photographic vision, then they become powerful tools of efficiency. There is no “better”, really, but rather more or less consistency with the image we see in our mind’s eye.

Many loved transparency film because it enforced a look (just as the camera’s internal JPEG algorithm does). Many hated it because it enforced a look that wasn’t consistent with their intentions. And so we had devotees of each of the wide range of transparency films because of the wide range of desired looks, and some that preferred negative film.

Doing better takes study, practice and work.

Rick “if the shortcut works, use it” Denney