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One interesting thing to note about open-source vs commercial software when it comes to RAW conversion is that commercial offerings like Adobe CS, CaptureOne an

by Fwirt 5y ago

One interesting thing to note about open-source vs commercial software when it comes to RAW conversion is that commercial offerings like Adobe CS, CaptureOne and Affinity Photo sometimes have a relationship with camera manufacturers to get access to their proprietary demosaicing algorithm for their camera's sensors. These algorithms are also embedded in the camera firmware and are responsible for converting the RAW sensor data into something resembling an image. Thus, when you view a RAW file in the camera (or a JPEG straight off the camera), or in a commercial offering, you're getting an image that looks more like what the manufacturer of the camera intended. Likely that's what they used in-house when developing the camera software. So whether or not you trust the camera company to do the best job of demosaicing their own sensor is up to you, but if you use open-source software you're still going to get great images, but they're never going to look exactly like the JPEGs you get off the camera. If you're a professional this probably doesn't matter, but for an amateur who just wants to shoot RAW to take great lossless photos and be able to do some tweaking in post-processing it can be frustrating. For Canon at least, their in-house raw converter/photo editor is available for free (Canon Digital Photo Professional) and while its features are definitely not quite as good as either free or commercial offerings, its features are (for a total amateur like me) "good enough", and it will produce images that are identical to what comes off the camera. Plus you can save some of the raw processing steps that you did to a profile that you can load onto the camera and use in the field, so if you're shooting to JPEG you can bake in some of that processing ahead of time.

notyourday 5y ago
> One interesting thing to note about open-source vs commercial software when it comes to RAW conversion is that commercial offerings like Adobe CS, CaptureOne and Affinity Photo sometimes have a relationship with camera manufacturers to get access to their proprietary demosaicing algorithm for their camera's sensors. This is absolutely true even for Nikons and Canons of the world. I'm always baffled about the obsession with open source for photo editing workflows on a desktop. From "I just want to get stuff done" OSS is just junk. It is a better junk than it was before, but it is still junk. And why would not it be? It is all about optimizing for the experience and there's not a single piece of open source software that is optimized for user's experience. Why on earth do we think this -- a fairly complex type of software -- would be any different if we cannot get themes in GNOME work consistently?
- uuyi 5y ago
  After battling with Linux on the desktop periodically for a couple of decades I came to the same conclusion. All the boring problems like consistency and stability are never solved. Only new problems written. I gave up and went to Mac. It’s not perfect but it’s less imperfect. However I will say that Lightroom is horrible and I hate it. Only because of the memory gobbling and the persistent cost until I’m dead. As I’m not a professional I settled on Apple Photos and Pixelmator Pro for when I bend Photos too far. This is good enough and doesn’t come with the persistent cost issues associated with subscriptions and paying for lots of RAM. Also works entirely offline or online if you need it to.
- inferiorhuman 5y ago
  Open source photography software is, by and large, garbage. I'm working on a RAW parser for shits and giggles. The existing stuff is breathtakingly hacky. My motivation for moving on from Lightroom is simply that Adobe no longer sells Lightroom. I'm not going to rent software that doesn't need constant updates to be useful. Sure, Adobe pushes out constant updates but their primary utility is in support for new bodies and I don't go through camera bodies that frequently. Unfortunately Adobe used a 32-bit installer for their 64-bit version of Lightroom so if I ever do a clean macOS install I'm boned.
fleddr 5y ago
"So whether or not you trust the camera company to do the best job of demosaicing their own sensor is up to you, but if you use open-source software you're still going to get great images, but they're never going to look exactly like the JPEGs you get off the camera. If you're a professional this probably doesn't matter, but for an amateur who just wants to shoot RAW to take great lossless photos and be able to do some tweaking in post-processing it can be frustrating." I don't really see the distinction between amateurs and professionals here. I think both want the RAW starting point (after import) to look the way it was rendered in-camera. I think it's a myth that professionals "want" a bland starting point and customize everything. The ideal workflow is that your RAW looks the same as in-camera, and then you use the power of RAW to customize. That's quite different from having a neutral RAW and trying to reconstruct everything.
- Fwirt 5y ago
  I meant that a professional likely has an end goal in mind for developing an exposure and can use any software to obtain the result they want, whereas an amateur is likely more reliant on the software to provide sane defaults that look good enough. I don't think professionals necessarily want a bland starting point, but they probably end up straying so far from the default settings anyway that having a different starting point is less of a hindrance to them. Aside from that, the default settings and processing that the manufacturer applies may be undesirable for someone pursuing a more realistic and less "filtered for focus groups" result. All photography is illusion, but some want more control over the illusion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMMogOoWEbI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMMogOoWEbI
  - igouy 5y ago
    The simple fact that my ancient Sony SLT-A65 is set to M maybe excludes me from your notion of amateur without including me in your notion of professional ;-) My guess is that professionals need to take a lot of photos, process them quickly; and probably show their clients what they are doing, while they are doing it.
    - 5y ago
throwanem 5y ago
> if you use open-source software you're still going to get great images Not necessarily. My D500's raws look OK in Darktable, but my D850's were awful last time I tried it, noisy and with patches of weird color casts. I didn't try very hard to fix it, because I like Lightroom's functionality and UI a lot better anyway. Maybe they've successfully reverse-engineered the format by now, and I respect their work immensely no matter that it doesn't work for me, but especially with relatively new or relatively high-end cameras there is no guarantee of good FOSS support for raw formats.

by Fwirt 5y ago

notyourday 5y ago

> One interesting thing to note about open-source vs commercial software when it comes to RAW conversion is that commercial offerings like Adobe CS, CaptureOne and Affinity Photo sometimes have a relationship with camera manufacturers to get access to their proprietary demosaicing algorithm for their camera's sensors. This is absolutely true even for Nikons and Canons of the world. I'm always baffled about the obsession with open source for photo editing workflows on a desktop. From "I just want to get stuff done" OSS is just junk. It is a better junk than it was before, but it is still junk. And why would not it be? It is all about optimizing for the experience and there's not a single piece of open source software that is optimized for user's experience. Why on earth do we think this -- a fairly complex type of software -- would be any different if we cannot get themes in GNOME work consistently?

uuyi 5y ago
After battling with Linux on the desktop periodically for a couple of decades I came to the same conclusion. All the boring problems like consistency and stability are never solved. Only new problems written. I gave up and went to Mac. It’s not perfect but it’s less imperfect. However I will say that Lightroom is horrible and I hate it. Only because of the memory gobbling and the persistent cost until I’m dead. As I’m not a professional I settled on Apple Photos and Pixelmator Pro for when I bend Photos too far. This is good enough and doesn’t come with the persistent cost issues associated with subscriptions and paying for lots of RAM. Also works entirely offline or online if you need it to.
inferiorhuman 5y ago
Open source photography software is, by and large, garbage. I'm working on a RAW parser for shits and giggles. The existing stuff is breathtakingly hacky. My motivation for moving on from Lightroom is simply that Adobe no longer sells Lightroom. I'm not going to rent software that doesn't need constant updates to be useful. Sure, Adobe pushes out constant updates but their primary utility is in support for new bodies and I don't go through camera bodies that frequently. Unfortunately Adobe used a 32-bit installer for their 64-bit version of Lightroom so if I ever do a clean macOS install I'm boned.

fleddr 5y ago

"So whether or not you trust the camera company to do the best job of demosaicing their own sensor is up to you, but if you use open-source software you're still going to get great images, but they're never going to look exactly like the JPEGs you get off the camera. If you're a professional this probably doesn't matter, but for an amateur who just wants to shoot RAW to take great lossless photos and be able to do some tweaking in post-processing it can be frustrating." I don't really see the distinction between amateurs and professionals here. I think both want the RAW starting point (after import) to look the way it was rendered in-camera. I think it's a myth that professionals "want" a bland starting point and customize everything. The ideal workflow is that your RAW looks the same as in-camera, and then you use the power of RAW to customize. That's quite different from having a neutral RAW and trying to reconstruct everything.

Fwirt 5y ago
I meant that a professional likely has an end goal in mind for developing an exposure and can use any software to obtain the result they want, whereas an amateur is likely more reliant on the software to provide sane defaults that look good enough. I don't think professionals necessarily want a bland starting point, but they probably end up straying so far from the default settings anyway that having a different starting point is less of a hindrance to them. Aside from that, the default settings and processing that the manufacturer applies may be undesirable for someone pursuing a more realistic and less "filtered for focus groups" result. All photography is illusion, but some want more control over the illusion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMMogOoWEbI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMMogOoWEbI
- igouy 5y ago
  The simple fact that my ancient Sony SLT-A65 is set to M maybe excludes me from your notion of amateur without including me in your notion of professional ;-) My guess is that professionals need to take a lot of photos, process them quickly; and probably show their clients what they are doing, while they are doing it.
  - 5y ago

throwanem 5y ago

> if you use open-source software you're still going to get great images Not necessarily. My D500's raws look OK in Darktable, but my D850's were awful last time I tried it, noisy and with patches of weird color casts. I didn't try very hard to fix it, because I like Lightroom's functionality and UI a lot better anyway. Maybe they've successfully reverse-engineered the format by now, and I respect their work immensely no matter that it doesn't work for me, but especially with relatively new or relatively high-end cameras there is no guarantee of good FOSS support for raw formats.