Pentax Digital Camera Utility 4

tom_kkh · 01-26-2010, 12:04 AM

Anyone please share where can i download a tutorial for this software for free?

GoremanX · 01-26-2010, 02:33 PM

personally, I'd say skip it. It's a terrible software package with a terrible interface. You can get good results from it, but it takes all kinds of tweaking with controls that are unintutive. With the default settings, you'll usually get the exact same results as you would from the camera itself. Not to mention that DCU4 is super slow and clunky. I dread using it.

tom_kkh · 01-26-2010, 05:21 PM

Originally posted by GoremanX

personally, I'd say skip it. It's a terrible software package with a terrible interface. You can get good results from it, but it takes all kinds of tweaking with controls that are unintutive. With the default settings, you'll usually get the exact same results as you would from the camera itself. Not to mention that DCU4 is super slow and clunky. I dread using it.

May I know what software you using now? I tried Photoshop but its too complicated for a newbie like me.

Thanks

GoremanX · 01-26-2010, 05:26 PM

Originally posted by tom_kkh

May I know what software you using now? I tried Photoshop but its too complicated for a newbie like me.

If Photoshop is too complicated, then DCU4 will be worthless.

What exactly are you trying to do? Just develop RAW files? Or actual image editing?

Last edited by GoremanX; 02-19-2010 at 03:24 PM.

APY · 02-18-2010, 11:59 PM

It is avaliable via torrent:
PENTAX Digital Camera Utility 4 :: rutracker.org

(required registration to download torrent file, Russian lang.)

Oggy · 02-19-2010, 02:53 PM

Originally posted by GoremanX

personally, I'd say skip it. It's a terrible software package with a terrible interface.

You didn't see Version 3 then.

Actually the software behind it is SilkyPix which is one of the best around, but it is a lot easier to handle with it's own GUI.

Tom - the advantage with Photoshop is that there are lots of books and online help. For example here.

SpecialK · 02-19-2010, 04:04 PM

Photoshop Elements is a "light" version of the full Photoshop that many people use and like (me too). I don't do a lot of tweaking, so it works fine for me. I got version 6 just before it was discontinued, and many people say it went downhill a bit with v7 and now v8.

It is a vast improvement over the Pentax v3.50 software I used for over a year, however.

AdrianM · 02-20-2010, 05:30 AM

Hi Tom

I don't know where to get a tutorial for PDCU4, but I actually find it to be a very useful piece of software that runs really well (albeit a little slowly) on my netbook and so it is there when I am travelling or when other family members occupy the household's computing power. I can't do that with Photoshop becaue it requires too much space and power. My advice is, just go start playing with it and if you are not sure, don't save. I usually use it to adjust brightness (through ISO adjustment), crop and resize RAW files (PEF) and save them as JPEG, and for those functions it is just brilliant.

Adrian

rena · 01-23-2011, 04:48 PM

I recently purchased a K7 and installed the software that came with the camera. My system runs Vista with 64-bit encription and 3GB of DDR Ram. Every time I try to view a photo to make corrections I get a pop-up window stating my Pentax Digital Utility 4 has stopped working and Windows closes the program. Is there anyone else new to Pentax who is having the same problem? Are you/were you able to fix it? What did you do? Should I download the firmware update version 1.11 first to see if that fixes my problem? Any help is greatly appreciated.

**klh** · 01-23-2011, 05:17 PM

Originally posted by rena

I recently purchased a K7 and installed the software that came with the camera. My system runs Vista with 64-bit encription and 3GB of DDR Ram. Every time I try to view a photo to make corrections I get a pop-up window stating my Pentax Digital Utility 4 has stopped working and Windows closes the program. Is there anyone else new to Pentax who is having the same problem? Are you/were you able to fix it? What did you do? Should I download the firmware update version 1.11 first to see if that fixes my problem? Any help is greatly appreciated.

Look here...
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/digital-processing-software-printing/8340...tml#post858349

rena · 01-23-2011, 05:47 PM

Originally posted by klh

Look here...
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/digital-processing-software-printing/8340...tml#post858349

This guy was running XP. I'm running Vista. Do you think the fix will work?

**Just1MoreDave** · 01-23-2011, 06:05 PM

Originally posted by rena

I recently purchased a K7 and installed the software that came with the camera. My system runs Vista with 64-bit encription and 3GB of DDR Ram. Every time I try to view a photo to make corrections I get a pop-up window stating my Pentax Digital Utility 4 has stopped working and Windows closes the program. Is there anyone else new to Pentax who is having the same problem? Are you/were you able to fix it? What did you do? Should I download the firmware update version 1.11 first to see if that fixes my problem? Any help is greatly appreciated.

The firmware update won't help, but there is an updated version of the program, version 4.21. I have a K-7, and the latest version works for me on Windows 7 Pro 64-bit, 6Gb RAM.

cats_five · 01-24-2011, 10:08 AM

Originally posted by tom_kkh

I tried Photoshop but its too complicated for a newbie like me.

If you have a copy of Photoshop I'd suggest persisting, maybe with the aid of a Dummies book or similar. It is complicated as there are lots of ways to do things, but it's truely excellent. You can get really high-quality results with t, though as I get more and more to grips with Camera Raw (deals with PEF and DNG images) the less I do in Photoshop itself.

Prior to that I used PaintShopPro and I switched because 1) colour-managed workflow was tricky, 2) it wouldn't handle RAW images from the camera I had at the time and 3) it wouldn't do 16-bit processing for a lot of vital operations.

I tried Elements and the dumbed-down nature of a lot of it drove me nuts plus it was missing a channel mixer - vital for B&W IMHO. That was probably v6, it was a free copy that came with a photo course. However I did find it's CameraRaw would process files from the Fuji I was using at the time, and PaintShopPro seems to be as happy with PSD files as with PSPIMAGE, so I took to dealing with RAW via CameraRaw and doing the rest in PSP.

Then I saw some of the new stuff with CS4, knew it addressed some of the pain with PSP, so I signed up for a cheap Open University course that would qualify me for a student licence. The course plus CS4 plus Windows 7 plus Office 2010 Pro cost me about £250 less than CS4 retail would have. Result IMHO.

There are a lot of good on-line tutorials for Photoshop, and plenty of how-to-books. Far more than for any other photo editing software.

ursamajor · 02-02-2011, 03:17 AM

My PentaxDCU4 crashes under Windows 7 x64... WTF!

ferguner · 02-02-2011, 07:40 AM

is there something that makes this utility is unique?

01-26-2010, 12:04 AM	#1
tom_kkh New Member Join Date: Jan 2010 Posts: 24	Pentax Digital Camera Utility 4 Anyone please share where can i download a tutorial for this software for free?

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01-26-2010, 02:33 PM	#2
GoremanX Veteran Member Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: Georgia, VT Photos: Albums Posts: 1,657	personally, I'd say skip it. It's a terrible software package with a terrible interface. You can get good results from it, but it takes all kinds of tweaking with controls that are unintutive. With the default settings, you'll usually get the exact same results as you would from the camera itself. Not to mention that DCU4 is super slow and clunky. I dread using it.

01-26-2010, 05:21 PM	#3
tom_kkh New Member Join Date: Jan 2010 Posts: 24 Original Poster	Originally posted by GoremanX personally, I'd say skip it. It's a terrible software package with a terrible interface. You can get good results from it, but it takes all kinds of tweaking with controls that are unintutive. With the default settings, you'll usually get the exact same results as you would from the camera itself. Not to mention that DCU4 is super slow and clunky. I dread using it. May I know what software you using now? I tried Photoshop but its too complicated for a newbie like me. Thanks

01-26-2010, 05:26 PM	#4
GoremanX Veteran Member Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: Georgia, VT Photos: Albums Posts: 1,657	Originally posted by tom_kkh May I know what software you using now? I tried Photoshop but its too complicated for a newbie like me. If Photoshop is too complicated, then DCU4 will be worthless. What exactly are you trying to do? Just develop RAW files? Or actual image editing? Last edited by GoremanX; 02-19-2010 at 03:24 PM.

02-18-2010, 11:59 PM	#5
APY New Member Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: Moscow Photos: Albums Posts: 1	It is avaliable via torrent: PENTAX Digital Camera Utility 4 :: rutracker.org (required registration to download torrent file, Russian lang.)

02-19-2010, 02:53 PM	#6
Oggy Inactive Account Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: West Sussex UK Posts: 235	Originally posted by GoremanX personally, I'd say skip it. It's a terrible software package with a terrible interface. You didn't see Version 3 then. Actually the software behind it is SilkyPix which is one of the best around, but it is a lot easier to handle with it's own GUI. Tom - the advantage with Photoshop is that there are lots of books and online help. For example here.

02-19-2010, 04:04 PM	#7
SpecialK Pentaxian Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: So California Photos: Gallery Posts: 16,482	Photoshop Elements is a "light" version of the full Photoshop that many people use and like (me too). I don't do a lot of tweaking, so it works fine for me. I got version 6 just before it was discontinued, and many people say it went downhill a bit with v7 and now v8. It is a vast improvement over the Pentax v3.50 software I used for over a year, however.

02-20-2010, 05:30 AM	#8
AdrianM Pentaxian Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Ipswich, Queensland, Australia Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 589	Hi Tom I don't know where to get a tutorial for PDCU4, but I actually find it to be a very useful piece of software that runs really well (albeit a little slowly) on my netbook and so it is there when I am travelling or when other family members occupy the household's computing power. I can't do that with Photoshop becaue it requires too much space and power. My advice is, just go start playing with it and if you are not sure, don't save. I usually use it to adjust brightness (through ISO adjustment), crop and resize RAW files (PEF) and save them as JPEG, and for those functions it is just brilliant. Adrian

01-23-2011, 04:48 PM	#9
rena Closed Account Join Date: Jan 2011 Location: Atlantic Canada Photos: Gallery Posts: 25	I recently purchased a K7 and installed the software that came with the camera. My system runs Vista with 64-bit encription and 3GB of DDR Ram. Every time I try to view a photo to make corrections I get a pop-up window stating my Pentax Digital Utility 4 has stopped working and Windows closes the program. Is there anyone else new to Pentax who is having the same problem? Are you/were you able to fix it? What did you do? Should I download the firmware update version 1.11 first to see if that fixes my problem? Any help is greatly appreciated.

01-23-2011, 05:17 PM	#10
klh Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: May 2009 Location: West Lafayette, Indiana, USA Posts: 827	Originally posted by rena I recently purchased a K7 and installed the software that came with the camera. My system runs Vista with 64-bit encription and 3GB of DDR Ram. Every time I try to view a photo to make corrections I get a pop-up window stating my Pentax Digital Utility 4 has stopped working and Windows closes the program. Is there anyone else new to Pentax who is having the same problem? Are you/were you able to fix it? What did you do? Should I download the firmware update version 1.11 first to see if that fixes my problem? Any help is greatly appreciated. Look here... https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/digital-processing-software-printing/8340...tml#post858349

01-23-2011, 05:47 PM	#11
rena Closed Account Join Date: Jan 2011 Location: Atlantic Canada Photos: Gallery Posts: 25	Originally posted by klh Look here... https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/digital-processing-software-printing/8340...tml#post858349 This guy was running XP. I'm running Vista. Do you think the fix will work?

01-23-2011, 06:05 PM	#12
Just1MoreDave Site Supporter Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Aurora, CO Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 6,340	Originally posted by rena I recently purchased a K7 and installed the software that came with the camera. My system runs Vista with 64-bit encription and 3GB of DDR Ram. Every time I try to view a photo to make corrections I get a pop-up window stating my Pentax Digital Utility 4 has stopped working and Windows closes the program. Is there anyone else new to Pentax who is having the same problem? Are you/were you able to fix it? What did you do? Should I download the firmware update version 1.11 first to see if that fixes my problem? Any help is greatly appreciated. The firmware update won't help, but there is an updated version of the program, version 4.21. I have a K-7, and the latest version works for me on Windows 7 Pro 64-bit, 6Gb RAM.

01-24-2011, 10:08 AM	#13
cats_five Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Fife, Scotland Posts: 835	Originally posted by tom_kkh I tried Photoshop but its too complicated for a newbie like me. If you have a copy of Photoshop I'd suggest persisting, maybe with the aid of a Dummies book or similar. It is complicated as there are lots of ways to do things, but it's truely excellent. You can get really high-quality results with t, though as I get more and more to grips with Camera Raw (deals with PEF and DNG images) the less I do in Photoshop itself. Prior to that I used PaintShopPro and I switched because 1) colour-managed workflow was tricky, 2) it wouldn't handle RAW images from the camera I had at the time and 3) it wouldn't do 16-bit processing for a lot of vital operations. I tried Elements and the dumbed-down nature of a lot of it drove me nuts plus it was missing a channel mixer - vital for B&W IMHO. That was probably v6, it was a free copy that came with a photo course. However I did find it's CameraRaw would process files from the Fuji I was using at the time, and PaintShopPro seems to be as happy with PSD files as with PSPIMAGE, so I took to dealing with RAW via CameraRaw and doing the rest in PSP. Then I saw some of the new stuff with CS4, knew it addressed some of the pain with PSP, so I signed up for a cheap Open University course that would qualify me for a student licence. The course plus CS4 plus Windows 7 plus Office 2010 Pro cost me about £250 less than CS4 retail would have. Result IMHO. There are a lot of good on-line tutorials for Photoshop, and plenty of how-to-books. Far more than for any other photo editing software.

02-02-2011, 03:17 AM	#14
ursamajor Banned Join Date: Jan 2011 Posts: 242	My PentaxDCU4 crashes under Windows 7 x64... WTF!

02-02-2011, 07:40 AM	#15
ferguner New Member Join Date: Jan 2011 Posts: 5	is there something that makes this utility is unique?