[momtographer]

So I have a k10d, and I'm trying to learn to shoot in raw. I was wondering if anyone uses a file converter, and if you do do you convert it to jpeg? Is there a really good file converter program? I am able to convert it to jpeg with photoshop but each time I forget how I do it and spend half an hour trying to remember and then end up with a crappy looking picture because converting it seems to destroy the photo. how on earth is everyone working with raw?

[bbpa103]

Suggest trying the free stuff that came with the camera - Pentax Photo Browser (PPB) 3 to start, you can simply "File save as" a JPG from RAW with the camera settings, next you can try the AutoImageFix (the yellow icon), and then you can try Pentax Photo Lab (PPB) 3 to try tweaking white balance, noise, etc. It depends on what you want to do and how simple and friendly a user interface you want. In Photo Lab you can save an adjustment file and recall that same file later as well you process a batch of RAW images at once - works okay for the same camera settings ie if you shoot a bunch of shots at the gym/park/etc. Suggest you update to the latest version - Pentax Imaging - Software & Firmaware Updates Since you have Photoshop - you have all sorts of tools for touching up in more detail. Find out what you like/dislike about PPB and PPL and that might sway you towards some other simple/free/inexpensive tools that are more user friendly or using Photoshop for specific things. The processing and software threads have lots of info too. Perhaps others will suggst a simple work flow for using PhotoShop and Adobe Camera RAW? My two cents. Good luck and welcome to the forum. Ken.

[danbob]

There was a long thread about that here recently, give the board a search.
I use the GIMP with UFRAW for my raw work----both are free, and both are available for windows, mac and linux. I adjust the color balance and exposure, then make JPGs only of what i need.

There are better options than what I use, but what I have is easy to use and give good results. And free! If you are up for paying money, the Biddle Labs software works really well and has some 'easy' modes for working on RAW files, making corrections for lens distortion and CA, etc.

DAN

[robert]

The benefit of using raw is you have all the information about your photo. You can adjust white balane,exposure and color balance without degrading the image. After doing so you can then convert to jpeg and twwek the image further. If you convert to jpg without doing anything you might as well shoot in jpg...Bob

[momtographer]

THANKS guys, I work with light room so someone helped me out I didn't know you could save it as a jpeg from there. I'm a dork

[Fototim]

THANKS guys, I work with light room so someone helped me out I didn't know you could save it as a jpeg from there. I'm a dork

There are a gasillion good video tutorials out there. I used to have them bookmarket, but I lost them with my computer at sea.

But this Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Killer Tips is a starting point. Just fart around and you will learn a lot.

MaritimTim

[Mike Cash]

The simplest way I have found to batch convert for free is via IrfanView. 99% of the time the default rendition works just fine. For the other 1% I use ufraw.exe in conjunction with The GIMP.

[Matt Miller]

THANKS guys, I work with light room so someone helped me out I didn't know you could save it as a jpeg from there. I'm a dork

I shoot RAW and use Lightroom as well. After you import your Raw images, and process them, go to File, Export, and put them in a folder. In the Export window, you'll have the choice to save them as a high quality jpeg. You'll then have the jpeg with all of your work done to it, and the Raw file. That's how I do it, and it works beautifully.

[regken]

THANKS guys, I work with light room so someone helped me out I didn't know you could save it as a jpeg from there. I'm a dork

Glad to see you are using raw. Since you have both Lightroom and Photoshop you are set. It's not as hard as it seems at first. The more I learn about Lightroom the less I'm using Photoshop. If you have a lot of hard drive space and want to try doing more to a photo later export it from Lightroom as a tiff file and play with it in Photoshop. As an old fart with little or no computer skills the idea of having a tiff file to experiment with is a great help.

Here is a great site for Lightroom tips:
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Killer Tips

Try this on something you want to get crazy with:
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Killer Tips Video - Surreal Edgy Effect

Have fun,

Ken

[jdg]

I shoot RAW and use Lightroom as well. After you import your Raw images, and process them, go to File, Export, and put them in a folder. In the Export window, you'll have the choice to save them as a high quality jpeg. You'll then have the jpeg with all of your work done to it, and the Raw file. That's how I do it, and it works beautifully.

I do the same thing.

[maxwell1295]

The simplest way I have found to batch convert for free is via IrfanView. 99% of the time the default rendition works just fine. For the other 1% I use ufraw.exe in conjunction with The GIMP.

I've found Irfanview to be a really good converter (I use GIMP as well). The only issue I have with it is losing the EXIF info upon conversion. With UFRaw that doesn't happen, but Irfanview converted files look much better when I open them in GIMP. They're much more crisp and brighter than when I open them in UFRaw. Are you experiencing that? I'm at the point to where the EXIF info doesn't matter enough to give up the image quality and ease of use of Irfanview.

[Mike Cash]

I'm with you, Maxwell. Pretty much the only time I need to go into ufraw and fiddle with things is to adjust the white balance, and fortunately that doesn't happen very often. I do most of my shooting with older lenses and some of the data doesn't get saved in EXIF anyway on those. I very rarely find that I care anything about the data that does get recorded, and if I do need to access it for some reason, I just open the RAW file and take a look at it. I rename all my RAW and JPG files to a common name, with the only difference being the extension, so it is never a problem to hunt up the RAW file.

[Tomas_IV]

I've found Irfanview to be a really good converter (I use GIMP as well). The only issue I have with it is losing the EXIF info upon conversion. With UFRaw that doesn't happen, but Irfanview converted files look much better when I open them in GIMP. They're much more crisp and brighter than when I open them in UFRaw.

Try to play with UFRaw parameters. I'm on Linux, so the help apperars when I type

Code:

ufraw -h

on the comman dline. But in your case it might likely be something like

Code:

ufraw /h

I think especially the gamma or curve parameter would be of interest. You can tweak anything you normally do in GUI.
In fact you can try in GUI what values of various parameters your images usually need an then create a batch script with the parameters preset and use it to batch convert your images next time instead of the .exe file.
So for example content of your myufraw.bat file might look like this:

Code:

ufraw --gamma=0.6 %*

(not sure about the parameter syntax, in DOS it might be /gamma=0.6 or similar, see the help)
Place the file in the same directory where the .exe is. It will use all default settings as plain ufraw, except that it will apply gamma correction (in this example). Usage of such batch file is the same as of the original .exe.
If you use ufraw to batch convert your images from command line, you can also give a try to dcraw. It is commandline-only program which is used (either directly as .exe, or its code) in most free and even in many commercial RAW converters (including UFRaw). I found its default settings more appropriate than those of ufraw for my images. Only that it by default creates ppm images of reduced size, so it is needed to apply two parameters to get full-size .jpg images. Fresh Windows executables are available here: Pukkita's Digital Darkroom Corner

[patrickt]

I don't think you'll get a program simpler, in this, than Lightroom. You click export and a window pops up. You set where you want it to go, what quality, file type--where you'd set JPEG, and so forth.

[bymy141]

So I have a k10d, and I'm trying to learn to shoot in raw. I was wondering if anyone uses a file converter, and if you do do you convert it to jpeg? Is there a really good file converter program? I am able to convert it to jpeg with photoshop but each time I forget how I do it and spend half an hour trying to remember and then end up with a crappy looking picture because converting it seems to destroy the photo. how on earth is everyone working with raw?

You can also download Google's Picasa. It is for free and very intiuitve.

Picasa works fine with your RAW files. Try the Export button for conversion to JPEG.
You can also directly send your RAW files to media, e-mail, webalbums and photo printing services.

At some point in time, you may want to start using something like Adobe Lightroom.
Lightroom will remember your export settings, so you don't need to find out how to do that over and over again.

Success,

- Bert