Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Medium Format / Film / Digital Backs – and Large Sensor Photography => Topic started by: torger on May 22, 2014, 08:14:25 am
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The free and open-source raw converter RawTherapee has now been released in version 4.1.
I contribute myself to this project, and as I have a special interest in medium format I've contributed patches to support various MF cameras. Leaf MOS and Phase IIQ has good support, Hasselblad 3FR should be quite okay too but it has been much more difficult to get Hasselblad test files so it's not so much tested. Leica and Sinar DNGs should work of course, and various older MFD formats.
There's also native support for Adobe (Lightroom/Camera Raw) DCP profiles and Capture One ICC profiles, so if you own any of those programs you can use profiles from there if you want to.
There's now also a Mac version in addition to the usual Windows and Linux versions, but note it's built with a cross-platform GUI toolkit so it does not have a streamlined native look and feel.
I use RawTherapee a lot myself, for all my fine-art work as I like to have control. However I'm not going to lie to you and say that it's a super-smooth user-friendly software. We're doing stepwise improvements in user-friendliness, but currently I'd say that it's a quite high threshold to get into it. A key thing that makes it a bit difficult is that it's possible to develop a file in many different ways, with different color models. You can work in RGB space, in Lab space, and in CIECAM02 space, and you have many different types of tone curves to play with. Not exactly ideal to make a user-friendly software, but quite nice to have for an advanced user interested in color.
In addition to being a great raw converter once you learn it, it's also a good learning tool concerning how digital photography works. It doesn't try hard to simulate film behavior like the commercial converters, meaning that the "Neutral" profile is really neutral, and +1 on the exposure slider really is +1.
If you use a technical camera like me and need color cast correction you can do this in RawTherapee, it's called "flatfield correction". Normally this is done on a blurred LCC shot, but if you need to kill dust spots reduce "Blur Radius" to 4 (default is 32), and to kill potential tile lines reduce to 0 (or experiment with vertical/horizontal filtering). If you have a tech wide angle shot plagued with crosstalk so you get demosaicing artifacts, switch to the VNG4 demosaicer. The default demosaicer (Amaze) is very good at extracting detail, one of the best around, with the disadvantage that it can become unstable in crosstalk situations, which can be seen on some tech wides and sensor combinations.
If you work with Capture One ICC profiles note that they expect that there is a RGB curve applied with lots of highlight compression. You can provide that by applying a standard tonecurve manually.
The default profile applied when opening a file first time applies auto-tone and various fixups, and according to me it's a disaster, I never use it. Hopefully we'll make a better default to the next version, I'll fight for it :). Anyway, today I start off with the neutral profile and work from there, and I'd recommend you to do so as well.
http://www.rawtherapee.com/
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Here's a quick workflow for a MF tech cam picture.
1. Open the main file and apply the Neutral profile. It will look kind of dull and flat.
2. Goto the color tab and apply an input profile if you have one, either Lightroom DCP or Capture One ICC. Otherwise use "camera standard" which is matrix only, which in many cases are good, especially for manually processed landscape photography
3. Goto the raw tab, and enable hot/dead pixel filter, and apply flatfield correction if you have an LCC shot, set blur radius to 4 to kill dust, 0 to kill tile lines, or experiment with vertical or vertical+horizontal filtering. Best all-around setting for suppressing most things without introducing much additional noise is blur radius 4 and vertical+horizontal filtering.
4. Go back to the exposure tab and apply a tone curve to your liking. Start with "standard" (RGB, Capture One style) or "film curve" (Adobe style) to put in a contrast and highlight compression you like, and use exposure slider if you need exposure correction.
5. Now you should have a starting point, start playing with all sliders and checkboxes you can find.
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Hasselblad 3FR should be quite okay too but it has been much more difficult to get Hasselblad test files so it's not so much tested.
I can send you 3FR files from an H3D-31 and from an H3DII-50 if you need them. Do you need a particular test picture or would anything do?
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A base ISO file of anything real is good (so one can figure out if the color rendering is okay or not), a clipped highlight doesn't hurt (to see where clip levels are).
Usually the file can be read (as the general 3FR format has been reverse engineered), and what needs fixing is just things like get the proper sensor crop, clip levels and possibly a color matrix.
For IIQ we have some problems with high ISO files (maybe some different calibration data used then), but we don't prioritize high ISO that much as most MFD shooters shot at low ISOs. Thus having test files at low ISO is good enough for now.
The only test files I have now from Hassie cameras is for the CFV-50 and lots from CF-22 (as I've shot some with it myself), so yes it's surely welcome with more. My guess is that the 3FR format does not need much hacking to support various models, maybe nothing at all, but I don't know because I don't have the files to test with.
You can send me a private message. I won't publish the files (only keep in my personal archive for developing and testing raw format support). Any format support will be public though of course as it's an open source project. The IIQ patches to support calibration data I made has now recently become available in dcraw, which means that other small third-party software both commercial and open-source will get better support, and I hope the same will happen with any Hasselblad patches I make.
For the P+ and IQ series I've got files from most models, as well as Leaf Aptus and Credo. I haven't prioritized getting for Sinar as it's DNG and is supposed to work as DNG is an open documented format.
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Is there a compiled Windows 64 bit version available? I can't find it in the download page
Regards
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Win x64 build version 4.1.1 is now on the download page
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I've now got some more Hasselblad test files from kind people on the forum, and the fff/3fr format handling turned out to need more work than I thought. It's generally about constant fixing (ie crop masks etc), so it takes 10 minutes per model to fix if I just have a file to test with. As many backs use the same sensor it's generally only needed to have a test file from one back with that sensor. Ie if I got H4D-60 working, H5D-60 should work too.
I'm working on a patch (not yet available) that hopefully will make files from all the 22, 31, 40, 50 and 60 megapixel Hasselblad backs load properly. 16 and 39 is still missing plus the special H5D-50c as I don't have any test files, and I'm a bit uncertain about 40 crop.
That is, I still need files for the following:
- CFV or CFV II (aka CFV-16)
- CF-39 or CFV-39 or H3D-39 or H3DII-39
- H4D-40 or H5D-40
- H5D-50c
So if anyone can provide a .fff or a .3FR for any of these models I would be most grateful (and so will the rest of the independent raw developer community that relies on open and shared format support efforts.)
If you don't have a drop-box or similar you can upload to my web server directly, just send me a private message and I give you the web address and username/password to upload.
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torger - does the software work with Achromatic+ (P45+) files?
Kind regards,
Gerald.
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torger - does the software work with Achromatic+ (P45+) files?
Oh, that's about the only Phase One back I don't have a test file for. I'd be glad to receive one ;). I know you have one but I haven't asked before as we don't have a real monochrome rendering pipeline in there yet, so I cannot really show any true results until that is in place.
IQ260 Achromatic works anyway though, so probably P45+ will work too, but it's not really optimal since it makes a dummy demosaicing. For true monochrome support there's some tweaks required in the processing pipeline. It's mostly about disabling stuff so it's a lot simpler to fix than supporting say foveon so at some point we'll do it.
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Sounds good.
I'm travelling at the moment. Let me know what you need and I'll get you files in early June.
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Torger
I have not downloaded the software yet. However can you elaborate a bit on the tech camera processing with LCC. I am coming from a C1 background where you process the LCC the save it an apply it to the particular raw file. With this software do you process the LCC and save it? How does the LCC get applied to the raw file?
Will be pulling down the code later this weekend
Thanks
Paul
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Torger
I have not downloaded the software yet. However can you elaborate a bit on the tech camera processing with LCC. I am coming from a C1 background where you process the LCC the save it an apply it to the particular raw file. With this software do you process the LCC and save it? How does the LCC get applied to the raw file?
Will be pulling down the code later this weekend
With RawTherapee you don't process the LCC shot separately, in fact you don't even open the LCC shot (unless you want to look for it for some reason to investigate exposure for example). You just go to the raw processing tab, to the Flat-Field toolbox, click on the "File" button and select the LCC shot. You need to keep the LCC shot, ie you can't throw it away like with C1.
RawTherapee will then load and apply the LCC shot, according to the LCC settings. If you have a 6um Dalsa sensor so you can get microlens ripple and tiling you should change blur type to "horizontal+vertical" or reduce blur radius to zero.
The RT flat-field is basic, it's quite effective but has a few weaknesses:
- If you have a clipped highlight in a area with low vignetting that highlight may become pink (compensate with raw scaling or pushing exposure)
- If you have heavy microlens ripple that cannot be cleaned up as good as C1 does (because it takes more than just flatfield correction to do so due to crosstalk)
I have not contributed myself to the flat-field algorithm and I will not do that as it conflicts with my commercial software Lumariver HDR for which I'm in progress to develop the best LCC you can get ;). RT's basic algorithm will however work well in most situations, and sometimes better than C1 as the C1's current algorithm seems a bit unstable concerning tiling suppression.
If you have an image with lots of crosstalk (say a shifted SK35 or SK28) the Amaze demosaicer will break and you will see mazing and poor color (due to green channel separation), and then you need to switch to the VNG4 demosaicer. The VNG4 handles crosstalk even better than C1's demosaicer does, but you lose some fine detail.
More documentation on the flat-field correction function exists at http://50.87.144.65/~rt/w/index.php?title=Flat_Field
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torger - have you been able to open LumaRiverHDR DNGFloat images in RT successfully? On my 2011 MacBook Pro running Mavericks, trying to open a DNG Float exported from LumaRiverHDR crashes RT. The build on the download page says that it is for OS X 10.7 but that it should work with 10.8 and 10.9.
Thanks,
kirk
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Uhh haven't tested. I'll do it after the weekend, I'm travelling for the moment. I'm one of the minor contributors though, my time is spread over too many projects already so if it's hard to fix someone else's gotta do it. :-\
torger - have you been able to open LumaRiverHDR DNGFloat images in RT successfully? On my 2011 MacBook Pro running Mavericks, trying to open a DNG Float exported from LumaRiverHDR crashes RT. The build on the download page says that it is for OS X 10.7 but that it should work with 10.8 and 10.9.
Thanks,
kirk
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Hi Torger,
RAWTherapee was never quite what I wanted before, but this new version has some of the things I had feature-requested:
(1) Option for no de-Bayering
(2) View RAW pixels in R/G/B alone (a fantastic diagnostic when used with (1) above!)
(3) More responsive rendering...and it no longer crashes when it has to make thumbnails of Kodak .DCR files!
It's still missing one important thing I feature-requested though!
(1) The "Hot/Dead pixel filter" under RAW (and the similar "Impulse Noise Reduction" filter under Detail) should be split into separate controls for dark/dead and bright/hot noise pixels.
There is hardly ever a natural (photographic subject) cause for single dark pixels - in my experience they are always due to oversubtraction of hot pixels in long exposures, or the occasional completely dead pixel. So this needs an aggressive control, to interpolate across them. Single bright pixels, OTOH, are not uncommon in photos from fat-pixel sensors without AA filters [MFDBs!] - they are a sign of sharp rendering of the photographic subject. But sometimes they are due to thermal noise. So this needs a separate, subtle control.
It should be possible to zap the dark pixels, while leaving the bright ones alone or hardly modifying them.
Overall, I've enjoyed trying out the new version. Needless to say, the flat-fielding and dark-frame subtraction features, which have been there for some time, are standout attractions too.
Ray
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No problem - I reported the bug on the RT forum.
kirk
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In addition to being a great raw converter once you learn it, it's also a good learning tool concerning how digital photography works. It doesn't try hard to simulate film behavior like the commercial converters, meaning that the "Neutral" profile is really neutral, and +1 on the exposure slider really is +1.
Hi Torger,
Hmmm...I wonder if that is really the case. Here's a situation I just encountered with the new version, where I zeroed everything in RT, but I get very different results to when in zero everything in Dcraw:
First Dcraw - no de-bayering, no channel intensity scaling, 400% view:
(http://imageshack.com/a/img835/6959/6haq7.jpg)
Now RT - no de-bayering, settings applied for no channel intensity scaling - but it does still seem to be applying a strong scaling:
(http://imageshack.com/a/img836/9252/dmz1.jpg)
The image is a small section of an IR > 780nm shot with a Kodak CCD, where all 3 channels respond identically in quantum efficiency from 820nm longwards, and very closely as 820nm is approached. So this is almost the same response as an Achromatic back (pure mono sensor) in this wavelength regime. Therefore I think that de-bayering is not actually needed and a sharper image could be obtained without this interpolation. Which is why I turned it off [- which in turn is why I was so excited about the new RT being able to turn it off!].
All that should be needed, I hope, is a tiny bit of channel scaling so as to even out the intensity differences coming from the slightly difference responses below 820nm. Or denoising might even take care of that faint mottling in the Dcraw rendering.
But RT is applying some major scaling because the R, G and B pixels come out at strongly and systematically different intensities in the jpeg - you can clearly see the CFA grids - even though the RAW histograms showed the 3 channels as being almost identical.
Any idea what's wrong with RT here? It is not leaving RAW stay RAW, that's for sure.
Ray
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Hmmm...I wonder if that is really the case. Here's a situation I just encountered with the new version, where I zeroed everything in RT, but I get very different results to when in zero everything in Dcraw:
You saw through my claim ;) that neutral is totally neutral is not 100% true, there is some processing/scaling related to white balance. What I meant with neutral is neutral is that there is no curve applied, there's no sharpening or noise reduction etc, all those things that commercial programs usually apply.
I don't know exactly what the problem is but I do know that the b/w pipeline needs more work, there is no real support for B&W imagery, turning off demosaicing is only a initial step. My guess is that what you see is the white balance processing that's still active.
Few have B&W cameras so it has not been prioritized, but you could file a new issue or vote for this one I made a while ago:
http://code.google.com/p/rawtherapee/issues/detail?id=2017
Unfortunately I'm in a period now when I cannot contribute as much myself (contributed a lot fall 2013, but not much now), so I've focused my efforts on smaller 10-minutes-at-a-time things like adding support for another MF camera if I get a new test file etc (soon a new patch release will be coming with lots of new Hasselblad camera support). Like many open-source projects RT is a bit understaffed in periods, so if you do programming yourself any contributions are welcome. Reporting bugs and suggesting features are also valuable contributions of course.
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You saw through my claim ;) that neutral is totally neutral is not 100% true, there is some processing/scaling related to white balance. What I meant with neutral is neutral is that there is no curve applied, there's no sharpening or noise reduction etc, all those things that commercial programs usually apply.
I don't know exactly what the problem is but I do know that the b/w pipeline needs more work, there is no real support for B&W imagery, turning off demosaicing is only a initial step. My guess is that what you see is the white balance processing that's still active.
Few have B&W cameras so it has not been prioritized, but you could file a new issue or vote for this one I made a while ago:
http://code.google.com/p/rawtherapee/issues/detail?id=2017
Unfortunately I'm in a period now when I cannot contribute as much myself (contributed a lot fall 2013, but not much now), so I've focused my efforts on smaller 10-minutes-at-a-time things like adding support for another MF camera if I get a new test file etc (soon a new patch release will be coming with lots of new Hasselblad camera support). Like many open-source projects RT is a bit understaffed in periods, so if you do programming yourself any contributions are welcome. Reporting bugs and suggesting features are also valuable contributions of course.
Thanks, I voted on that issue and supplied a link to a sample IR RAW file.
Yes, I think you're right that it's "the white balance processing that's still active".
Ray
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Thanks, I voted on that issue and supplied a link to a sample IR RAW file.
Yes, I think you're right that it's "the white balance processing that's still active".
Thanks, got some time to do make a patch, seems to work. Thanks for providing the file. It's not committed yet but I expect to do during the weekend.
The patch also adds supports for other monochrome cameras like Leica Monochrome.
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It's a bit slow to publish new builds on the main web. I make the OS X builds, so here's a preview OS X build which contains the latest fixes:
http://torger.dyndns.org/rt-bugs/RawTherapee_OSX_10.7_64_4.1.26.zip
I will remove that link when the build is available on the main web. I don't make the windows builds so you'll have to wait for someone else to build that, or compile yourself ;)
This build should work with IR modified cameras and other monochrome cameras like Leica M Monochrom and Phase One Achromatic. If you are going to use a monochrome file, be sure to read the docs:
http://50.87.144.65/~rt/w/index.php?title=Demosaicing#Monochrome_Cameras
There's also support for H5D-50c and IQ250 and a bunch of other Hasselblad and Leaf Credo and etc, and all the previous Phase Ones of course.
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Hi Torger,
Thanks, I tried out that new build - seems to work great!
Ray
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This software is quite frustrating ... I need to convert a few Samsung NX raw files on my windows laptop (win7 64 bit), downloaded 4.1.38, can't get it to start up (crashes every single time). Tried 4.1.1 as the latest stable version, I cannot even close the "What's new" window. Crashes every single time on startup.
The only time it loads properly is when I ask it to open a file directly (however I want to convert all of them as a batch). So something is hosed up in default startup. I even tried to start it in the directory with the raw files (51 files total), same story.
It works much better under Linux and I got an earlier version to work on Windows, but 4.1 is unusable for me. Is there an option to start it CLEAN, like no action is taken unless I tell it to ?
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This software is quite frustrating ... I need to convert a few Samsung NX raw files on my windows laptop (win7 64 bit), downloaded 4.1.38, can't get it to start up (crashes every single time). Tried 4.1.1 as the latest stable version, I cannot even close the "What's new" window. Crashes every single time on startup.
The only time it loads properly is when I ask it to open a file directly (however I want to convert all of them as a batch). So something is hosed up in default startup. I even tried to start it in the directory with the raw files (51 files total), same story.
It works much better under Linux and I got an earlier version to work on Windows, but 4.1 is unusable for me. Is there an option to start it CLEAN, like no action is taken unless I tell it to ?
Probably it crashes because it gets some problem with a file in the start directory.
Look in your user's system dir AppData\Local\RawTherapee4.1 and edit the options file with notepad. Change "StartupPath" to something else. If you want to start real clean remove the RawTherapee4.1 directory
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Probably it crashes because it gets some problem with a file in the start directory.
Look in your user's system dir AppData\Local\RawTherapee4.1 and edit the options file with notepad. Change "StartupPath" to something else. If you want to start real clean remove the RawTherapee4.1 directory
I figured that out after 3 crashes (and a bit of googling around) .... However I had to point it to an empty directory and then change to the raw directory .... if I point it into the raw directory at start, it crashes ...
The main problem is, there should be a safe mode startup available without editing config files.
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Hi torger-
I was hanging out on dpreview and the Rawtherapee forums and it was suggested that I reach out to you. I am looking for an OSX compiled version of the most recent Rawtherapee, which has the ability to process Fuji X-trans RAW files. Have you compiled one yet, and if so, can I get a version? Thanks so much!
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Hi torger-
I was hanging out on dpreview and the Rawtherapee forums and it was suggested that I reach out to you. I am looking for an OSX compiled version of the most recent Rawtherapee, which has the ability to process Fuji X-trans RAW files. Have you compiled one yet, and if so, can I get a version? Thanks so much!
Hello, yes I'm the guy that usually makes the OSX builds. I mostly run the Linux and Windows versions myself though.
Unfortunately I'm on vacation now not able to reach my OSX build box. But I'll see what I can do...
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In the meanwhile I can speak from personal experience that capture one pro does a fantastic job with color and detail out of the fuji x-pro 1, and have via client experience heard it does well on the other xtrans files.
The trial is free for 60 days.
(Note my bias - see my signature)
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Via three SSH tunnels and two remote desktop systems I finally reached my build box on a slow remote link. Here you have an OS X build made minutes ago, if you can't wait for it apperaing on the official site:
http://torger.dyndns.org/rt-bugs/RawTherapee_OSX_10.7_64_4.1.42.zip
I haven't tried to run it, but hopefully it works. Don't worry that it's built on 10.7, it's compatible with the latest OSX.
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I have no idea of the status of the X-trans demosaicing quality in RT, haven't tested it myself. It's probably not as on-the-frontline-of-quality as RT's Amaze demosacier is for normal bayer arrays. Anyway, it's a start. Do compare with the competition.
Most that use RT use other tools too. I'm myself a multi-tool user. From a look perspective it can be nice to use a toolchain that not everyone else is using.
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Via three SSH tunnels and two remote desktop systems I finally reached my build box on a slow remote link. Here you have an OS X build made minutes ago, if you can't wait for it apperaing on the official site:
http://torger.dyndns.org/rt-bugs/RawTherapee_OSX_10.7_64_4.1.42.zip
I haven't tried to run it, but hopefully it works. Don't worry that it's built on 10.7, it's compatible with the latest OSX.
Thanks so much, and sorry to disturb your vacation!! Hope you are someplace nice with awesome photography subjects...
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There's also native support for Adobe (Lightroom/Camera Raw) DCP profiles and Capture One ICC profiles, so if you own any of those programs you can use profiles from there if you want to.
Stupid question before I download (I did look at the manual): does the product support my converted DNG's? The manual doesn't appear to outright state it can.
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Stupid question before I download (I did look at the manual): does the product support my converted DNG's? The manual doesn't appear to outright state it can.
Yes it should... I use DNGs with it all the time. It should support even floating point DNGs these days. The best way is to test though, and be nice if it doesn't work ;). There are many types of DNGs and not all are supported. I don't think linear DNGs are supported, and maybe not all B&W types (Leica's should work though) or odd mosaic arrangements.
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Thanks, will now download! I'm not using Linear DNG's at all, so not a concern. But 99% of my raw library files are converted to DNG and I'm always looking at other raw converters besides my standby, Lightroom that supports them.
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Downloaded, no issues with DNGs. Wow, a lot going on in this pup, could take awhile to uncover all the functionality. But so far, pretty impressive.
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Doh--no more white point adjustments in the Raw tab. I heard that this would likely be removed but it was useful.
Just discovered that white point adjustment is now in it's own section.
Downloaded, no issues with DNGs. Wow, a lot going on in this pup, could take awhile to uncover all the functionality. But so far, pretty impressive.
Compared to the last Mac build of 4.1.26, what else new are you seeing? I just installed the new version and don't see anything new besides this plus the X-trans sensor support.
Thanks Torger for the new build!
thx
PP
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Compared to the last Mac build of 4.1.26, what else new are you seeing?
For me, everything, first time I've download it.
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Then welcome to the club. I'm a relatively new member of the RT club myself. Lots to like in RT (noise reduction, sharpening, Lab space tone curves) but also lots to bang your elbows on (the myriad ways to adjust tones/color, lots of clicks to do simple things...can't anyone make a simple block of controls to adjust hue, saturation, value, and range one one place?)
Overall it's impressive with a somewhat steep learning curve but definitely worth getting to know. Currently I'm gouging my eyes out trying to reproduce a render of an image I did in C1...just can't get it to look right in RT. It's an interesting challenge to try and reproduce a print you like in a completely different tool, and the effort required is certainly partially due to knowing one tool better than the other...but also illuminates how different design decisions and UIs can ultimately enable and/or hinder the user in achieving their goal.
Good luck
PP
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I'm a little late to the news of the RT upgrade but does the latest version work with the old Mamiya ZD files? The previous vesrion opened them but they were all green and 'orrible.
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but also illuminates how different design decisions and UIs can ultimately enable and/or hinder the user in achieving their goal.
RT is more of an experiment box for interested image algorithm developers and digital photography interested users rather than a fast to learn efficient production tool.
Personally I find it to be a great tool for artistic low volume work and I do all my medium format landscape work in it (with some aid of other post-processing tools when needed), but I fire up Lightroom when I have 1500 images from the latest sports shoot to deal with.
We in the developer group know about the issue that RT allows to do things in multiple ways, RT is not at all as user-friendly as Lightroom. We do strive to make it more user-friendly and take one step at a time, but it will never be as stream-lined as say Lightroom. Developers come and go based on time and interest, each developer has typically interest in some smaller subset functionality and put an effort into that.
Simply put we don't have the resources and continuity to make it a streamlined application as user-friendly as the commercial apps.
I also find it quite interesting from an educational perspective to for example have four different curve types. Few actually know how a contrast curve affects color, but RT can demonstrate this really well. We have standard RGB curve (ie Capture One way), we have Adobe's film-like curve (close but not same to RGB), a more color-neutral weigthed curve and the theoretically neutral luminance curve (but will actually produce a perceptually desaturated result). Likewise we allow selecting different demosaicers, which in a streamlined user-friendly app would be an auto-choice of course.
So if you ask me I actually prefer if we don't make it too user-friendly but instead leave options for the user to experiment with various processing methods. User-friendly means cutting away all but one tool for making a specific task, reduce slider ranges to not include "crazy range", and make many settings automatic. While this would make it more competitive with Lightroom and C1, it would also rob the user of understanding of how digital photography works. RT is "rawer", while commercial tools try to immitate film behaviour.
That said RT can be used quite efficiently, with your own custom profiles and reducing the number of tools you use.
My own pet hate of RT is the default profile which enables auto-levels ("auto tone"), typically works well for high contrast landscape images but sucks for everything else (there's an ongoing debate of replacing it). You can replace that default profile with your own though, which is what I have done, with just a DCP and a curve.
As a Lightroom and C1 owner I enjoy the possibilty to use both Lightroom DCPs and C1 ICCs in RT. For my MF back I use a custom DCP, but when I casually process files from my compact I generally use ICCs from C1 (which I think has better color than Adobe). Note that C1 ICC are designed to be used with a standard (RGB) curve, and Lightroom DCPs with a film-curve if you want to replicate their looks.
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I'm a little late to the news of the RT upgrade but does the latest version work with the old Mamiya ZD files? The previous vesrion opened them but they were all green and 'orrible.
The only way we can support a camera is either that dcraw has builtin support or someone sends us a file so we can tune support for it. I have got a lot of MFD test files, but so far none from ZD.
So likely it still doesn't work. However, if you send me a test file I can probably make it work. If the file opens it's generally only some minor things that needs to be tuned.
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I work with zd files without any issues. You do need to use flat field correction to compensate for the lens color cast.
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RT is more of an experiment box for interested image algorithm developers and digital photography interested users rather than a fast to learn efficient production tool.
Personally I find it to be a great tool for artistic low volume work and I do all my medium format landscape work in it (with some aid of other post-processing tools when needed), but I fire up Lightroom when I have 1500 images from the latest sports shoot to deal with.
We in the developer group know about the issue that RT allows to do things in multiple ways, RT is not at all as user-friendly as Lightroom. We do strive to make it more user-friendly and take one step at a time, but it will never be as stream-lined as say Lightroom. Developers come and go based on time and interest, each developer has typically interest in some smaller subset functionality and put an effort into that.
Simply put we don't have the resources and continuity to make it a streamlined application as user-friendly as the commercial apps.
I also find it quite interesting from an educational perspective to for example have four different curve types. Few actually know how a contrast curve affects color, but RT can demonstrate this really well. We have standard RGB curve (ie Capture One way), we have Adobe's film-like curve (close but not same to RGB), a more color-neutral weigthed curve and the theoretically neutral luminance curve (but will actually produce a perceptually desaturated result). Likewise we allow selecting different demosaicers, which in a streamlined user-friendly app would be an auto-choice of course.
So if you ask me I actually prefer if we don't make it too user-friendly but instead leave options for the user to experiment with various processing methods. User-friendly means cutting away all but one tool for making a specific task, reduce slider ranges to not include "crazy range", and make many settings automatic. While this would make it more competitive with Lightroom and C1, it would also rob the user of understanding of how digital photography works. RT is "rawer", while commercial tools try to immitate film behaviour.
That said RT can be used quite efficiently, with your own custom profiles and reducing the number of tools you use.
My own pet hate of RT is the default profile which enables auto-levels ("auto tone"), typically works well for high contrast landscape images but sucks for everything else (there's an ongoing debate of replacing it). You can replace that default profile with your own though, which is what I have done, with just a DCP and a curve.
As a Lightroom and C1 owner I enjoy the possibilty to use both Lightroom DCPs and C1 ICCs in RT. For my MF back I use a custom DCP, but when I casually process files from my compact I generally use ICCs from C1 (which I think has better color than Adobe). Note that C1 ICC are designed to be used with a standard (RGB) curve, and Lightroom DCPs with a film-curve if you want to replicate their looks.
Thanks for your comments Torger--I hope my comments did not appear too critical. I've only been using RT for about a month (many hours each night after work!) and I love it because it does things no other tool does, and in some areas does them better than any other tool can. I wouldn't trade all the features/benefits you mention above so that RT becomes a LR or C1 clone. FWIW I haven't used Aperture or C1 much recently...RT is pretty cool!
My interest in RT began upon hearing the news about Aperture. I bought a copy of C1 and downloaded RT within a week of hearing the news.
For the record, I definitely appreciate the opportunity to use a tool like RT, which (due to it's non-commercial status) doesn't need to be "a product" with all the baggage that that entails. Your description that RT is an "experiment" for image processing enthusiasts makes me appreciate it even more--it doesn't feel like one ;)
Regarding my comments about "gouging my eyes out" trying to duplicate in RT what I did in another tool...Now that I've been able to sleep on it I think my outburst can be distilled to this:
For some of my RAW 5D3 files RT seems to render a yellow/orange or orange/magenta cast that is very difficult for me to eliminate...it's not just color temp/tint... Strangely, this may be coupled with a general "flatness" or lack of contrast/punch between tones. Generally speaking, I always zero out the Neutral profile for the reasons you state above, and agree with your "pet hate" ;)
To tackle flatness I have been using both tone curves in the Exposure set, the Lab Lightness curve, Lab CH, and Lab CL curves, as well as Contrast by Level.
To tackle the color cast I have been using RGB curves, and the assorted Lab Chromaticity/Hue related curves.
As you can see, this particular image has me in futzing with just about every curve and curve type in RT ;) I have three UI suggestions that I believe will make a big difference:
1. Eliminate the Flat tone curve in all curve drop downs. Instead, make one of the various curve types the default (doesn't matter which) and make the curve flat. This will eliminate two mouse clicks anytime someone wants to work with a curve. If people want to save their curve settings they can save a history snapshot.
2. Consolidate RGB/HSV type adjustments into a single control, perhaps similar to C1's neat little color wheel or Aperture's Color adjustment block. These UI's enable someone to pick a color and then adjust hue, saturation, level, and range all in one spot. This does not mean I want to eliminate RGB curves...
3. RT, LR, C1, DarkTable...all these tools offer some form of a tabbed interface for organizing adjustments like exposure, color, sharpness/noise, etc. IMO these UI's are horrible because the user has no way of seeing all the adjustments that have been made to an image. In addition, while this categorical "workflow-driven" interface makes sense on paper (...get your exposure right, then do sharpen/noise...then do color...etc) this disciplined workflow paradigm breaks down in practice, and the user is constantly switching back and forth between different tabs to "get it right." If they haven't already, I highly suggest that the RT UI team take a look at how Aperture does this, which provides a single tab for all adjustments...which only need be exposed within the UI if they are actually being used. Note in the attached image all "adjustments" are centralized under one tab. Scrolling through a list of adjustments is far easier than clicking, scrolling, collapsing...etc.
Anyways--thanks for your contributions to the project and for compiling the latest for us Mac users; I appreciate it!
PP
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"RT seems to render a yellow/orange or orange/magenta cast that is very difficult for me to eliminate...it's not just color temp/tint..."
Hi Paul,
You might want to try the lab a, b curves. One shifts yellow/blue, the other green/magenta.
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Fine_Art--great suggestion, that did the trick. Those were the only curves I didn't touch. It took me a few tries and several hours, but I was able to recreate the look I achieved in C1 and Aperture...but the RT image is cleaner with better detail and less noise.
Thx
pp
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I work with zd files without any issues. You do need to use flat field correction to compensate for the lens color cast.
When you say flat field correction I wonder if you could enlarge upon that as I'm not quite sure what it is.
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When you say flat field correction I wonder if you could enlarge upon that as I'm not quite sure what it is.
Flatfield correction is the formal name of what is popularly called "LCC correction" in Capture One. In RT this is like said called flatfield correction, which is a better term as it just like C1's LCC corrects more than just color cast.
More elaborate docs you can find on the rawpedia: http://50.87.144.65/~rt/w/index.php?title=Flat_Field
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Flatfield correction is the formal name of what is popularly called "LCC correction" in Capture One. In RT this is like said called flatfield correction, which is a better term as it just like C1's LCC corrects more than just color cast.
Hi,
The RT implementation works fine. The only improvement I could think of, is the selectable combined operation of both dust removal and flat-fielding (perhaps with an automatically adapting blur radius, or two passes which are combined) from the same file. One currently has to choose between either dust (small radius) or flat-field (larger radius), being able to use 2 sliders would also make it clearer that dust removal is a similar operation as Flat-fielding, it just requires different radii.
Cheers,
Bart
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Flatfield correction is the formal name of what is popularly called "LCC correction" in Capture One. In RT this is like said called flatfield correction, which is a better term as it just like C1's LCC corrects more than just color cast.
More elaborate docs you can find on the rawpedia: http://50.87.144.65/~rt/w/index.php?title=Flat_Field
Thanks for the rawpedia link.
Is it possible to have the wavelet sharpen/soften (contrast by detail) have user set radiuses rather than 1,2,4,8,16 ?
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Broader suggestions is better posted in the RT forum or as feature request in RT issue tracker on google code, I personally mainly make smaller contributions now and then, there are others that are better at responding to specific feature requests.
Your suggestions on FF improvements are great, but as I also work on commercial software which has flat-field correction (Lumariver HDR) there's a conflict of interest so you have to ask some other developer to improve RT's implementation :-). Personally I use RT's FF for the basic cases and Lumariver HDR's flat-field correction in more difficult cases (export to DNG from Lumariver HDR and process the FF-corrected raw file in RT).
RT's FF correction works alright for most cases but when you have issues like microlens ripple or crosstalk (mostly tech cam specific issues) it's not up for the task, then C1 does a better job and Lumariver HDR even better.
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Hello Torger, if you are still around ;)
There was a fix committed recently for improper scaling when using the Lab a* b* curves...which apparently is available in 4.1.44 onwards. Any chance you would be interested in posting another build for OS X?
Also, are there any OS X specific build instructions? I'd be up for taking a whack at it, but the RawTherapee OS X build instructions page is devoid of any info.
thx!
pp
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Hello Torger, if you are still around ;)
There was a fix committed recently for improper scaling when using the Lab a* b* curves...which apparently is available in 4.1.44 onwards. Any chance you would be interested in posting another build for OS X?
Also, are there any OS X specific build instructions? I'd be up for taking a whack at it, but the RawTherapee OS X build instructions page is devoid of any info.
It's a mess to build on OS X. I build on 10.7 currently as it's a lot less messier than 10.9. The problem with 10.9 is that you can't build with GCC in the same effortless way as in 10.7, the reason is that macports are built with the Clang compiler and links to libc++, while GCC links to libstdc++. The solution I came up with to build on 10.9 is to first build a custom Clang compiler with OpenMP support (which RT requires, but the standard Clang doesn't have it) and then build RT with this custom Clang instead of GCC.
However, instead of doing that I found that the current best solution is to build on 10.7 (those builds work on 10.9 too) and hopefully we can do that until Clang gets OpenMP integrated so one can build on a standard 10.9 setup.
Here's a build I just made: http://torger.dyndns.org/rt-bugs/RawTherapee_OSX_10.7_64_4.1.51.zip (edit changed from 50 to 51, added a P65+/P40+ bug fix I got reported during my vacation)
I've attached a draft compile instruction for 10.9 I did back in March. I have not built on 10.9 since then so I don't know how up to date it is today.
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Hello Torger and thanks for your reply and the new build.
I'm on the road right now and won't have a chance to download or digest the build instructions you sent...but I will this weekend.
Thanks again and have a great day
PP
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Leaf Credo 50 got released today, and through the Capture Integration raws at https://captureintegration.com/introducing-the-leaf-credo-50/ I added a basic color matrix support for it in RawTherapee, here's the new build (it's a quick and dirty release, haven't test run this OS X version yet as my main test box is Linux, but it should work):
http://torger.dyndns.org/rt-bugs/RawTherapee_OSX_10.7_64_4.1.68.zip
If you don't load any separate color profile (both standard and Adobe-style DCPs and Capture One-style ICCs are supported) the color matrix will be the same for Hasselblad H5D-50c, Phase One IQ250, Pentax 645z and now Leaf Credo 50 in this version of RawTherapee. I haven't been able to verify 100% sure through side-by-side shots that the raw colors indeed are exactly the same, but they are highly similar for sure. Even with exact same sensor and the digital readout CMOS provides I would expect at least some very slight measurable difference in raw colors, as IR filters in front of the sensor are probably not the same. Most will come down to your ICC or DCP profile though.