1

This question has been asked before for Lightroom but my question is about free RAW editors such as LightZone, Dark Table or Rawtherapee. More detail follows. I've turned off all in-camera modifications that affect the JPG file. But still when I open a RAW file in one of the above software it looks much different from the preview JPG inside the RAW file.

Of course I can use the software to edit the result to my liking but sometimes I just want to get the JPG (a higher quality version of the JPG inside the RAW file) quickly in Linux. Do I need a camera profile of some kind?

Community
  • 1
Reza
  • 133
  • 3
  • Raw and Jpg is like apples and oranges. If you turn off the modifications, that's like peeling the orange: different, but still far from being an apple. – null Feb 18 '16 at 22:49
  • 1
    The other question may mention Lightroom but it means exactly the same thing, and so do the answers, if you substituted any non-camera based raw editor-->jpeg convertor – Michael C Feb 18 '16 at 22:53
  • 1
    ...and you don't shoot RAW+JPEG because...? – inkista Feb 18 '16 at 23:23
  • @MichaelClark Do you mean non-camera-manufacturer based, because Nikon software can do the job for Nikon DSLRs. – Reza Feb 19 '16 at 00:13
  • 1
    This is actually a very common question but you cannot, with free or paid software, the algorithms simply cannot match exactly. – Itai Feb 19 '16 at 00:52
  • @RezaRezazadegan The convertors offered by the various manufacturers may get as close as possible to the in-camera JPEG, but i'm not convinced they do things identically. To do so would ignore the advantage an off-camera application provides in terms of processing power and looser time restraints. While I'm not familiar with Nikon ViewNX, I am familiar with Canon's DPP. Some aspects of lens correction, for example, can be turned on in-camera but not performed on in-camera JPEGs. But if the option is turned on, then DPP will apply that correction by default when an image is opened with it. – Michael C Feb 19 '16 at 03:15
  • 1
    @inkista makes a very good point. I take wildlife and landscape shots while hiking, always shoot raw+jpeg, and only go to the raw for good shots that need some work (more than just a crop before printing). Downsides: slightly slower burst shooting (not a big deal for this sort of thing); uses slightly more storage (but only by the size of the jpeg, i.e. rounding error). – Chris H Feb 19 '16 at 07:48
  • Thanks this helps but now that we are on this, can you point me to a reference on how RAW conversion works from a technical point of view? – Reza Feb 19 '16 at 15:22

1 Answers1

0

Each one of these programs have a default preset on how to interpret RAW data so it can be displayed as an image.

Even your camera or operational system have some defaults that are used to create thumbnails.

You can not expect that every interpretation system uses the same rendering parameters.

Chose one program, take some time to create a preset as you like and save it so it can be applied to all your photos later or to be used as default for visualizing the images.

Rato Zumbi
  • 1
  • 1