Linux for digital photography

linux for photography

1 (50%)

should i use linux

1 (50%)

Total Members Voted: 1

[kencameron]

When I did photo processing on a Linux machine my favorite editing software was Lightzone. I had to pay for it but thought it worth it. I think it is still available.

[usathyan]

The problem with the question is that - do you enjoy doing more of photography or tinkering? If you said Photography - the desktop and operating system should be the least of your issues and challenges. You should use popular ones, that offers you the most choices of software you like/can use as a photographer or artist.

If you said - You like tinkering - Linux is the choice for tinkerers. Nothing works at first, but then you pour in hours of work and sweat - something eventually does. at least - a compromise in most cases. Regardless of what a lot of people say - Gimp is Gimp - no photoshop.

I use a Mac - because I got sick of troubleshooting Windoze - and living with it. I hate to say it but, the new Windows 2007 is pretty good...and if I have to make a decision now - i would not hesitate to live with either a Mac or Windows. Linux is not ready for prime yet...at least not to photographers who want to focus on photography not geekery.

Just my 2 cents.

[feppe]

If you said - You like tinkering - Linux is the choice for tinkerers. Nothing works at first, but then you pour in hours of work and sweat - something eventually does. at least - a compromise in most cases. Regardless of what a lot of people say - Gimp is Gimp - no photoshop.

Have you actually used a Linux OS or GIMP? "Nothing works at first" is a pretty ignorant statement. I used Ubuntu for a year, and its installation and use is as easy as Windows. This was ~five years ago, and from what I've seen the experience has improved tremendously since then. There's just as little tinkering necessary with most Linux distros as with a PC - but the possibility is there for those who are so inclined.

I don't want this to turn into another PC vs Mac vs Linux "debate," but such outrageous statements need to be addressed.

[fredjeang]

And following Feppe, I'd like to stress that some the most expensive motion softwares, I'm talking about big prods cine stuff really, really, expensive; only run under linux because of its stability.
The only limitation of Linux is that Adobe is not offering a linux version, if so, much more photographers would run under Linux IMO.

[jalcocer]

I've been using Linux (Ubuntu) alongside my mac for almost a year, and have to say they are getting there, the os interface is really nice, customizable and there are apps that in time have come to be as good (some even equal or better) than the windows and mac counterparts. It is true that there are some limitations when talking about photography software, but there are workarounds, and it is not as much as a tinkering issue anymore like some one said, there are other distributions where you don't even have to install anything at all to start using any kind of media and to install one app is just a matter of looking for it in a software center or a command line on terminal.
About photography and linux, well, there are no lightroom or aperture, or even capture one, you could use lightroom on windows inside a VM, or perhaps try to run it using wine, but that's not the goal, the goal is to use it with linux, but still there are some tools you can use, software like bibble, lightzone, rawtherapee, ufraw, gimp, etc etc etc, maybe not as good as the alternatives in mac and windows, but really really good, I guess maybe for a beginner or an amateur could be plenty enough, it was for me, but since I have a mac and aperture is 80 dls, well. But if I had no mac, it would we a tough choice between windows and linux, and most of all because of the speed linux can give you compared to windows in the same base system.

[fredjeang]

Let's face it. If you are pro in commercial, there is no way you can escape Photoshop. It's just not possible. And very little you can do if Phase or Hassy are not playing in Linux territory.

But if you are pro, there is absolutly no problem you have one (or more) dedicated unit Linux only for certain applications.

If you plan to be a retoucher and working for pros, same, you need serious PS knowledge. 

Now, for the people who are not photoshop dependant, Linux has many offers as commented here.

[jalcocer]

I agree, as a beginner and amateur, I found Linux has enough for accomplishing really good results with my pictures, and even with free software you are able (with a bit more time and effort) to accomplish a good output, on the paid apps side, well, you have bibble (won't run on any distro) and lightzone, that give you better results with less effort, but have to say still not as smooth of a workflow as lightroom or aperture.

But bottom line is, you can have a workflow that works in Linux, but I don't think would be good enough for the needs of a pro, although as I said, with a bit more effort you can get pretty good results.

[torger]

I do my photo processing in Linux. I believe I can produce professional results, but there's indeed tinkering, and some things you simply cannot do, you need to adapt your workflows, but I can do what I need for my shooting style (I mostly shoot landscapes). I have myself developed free software and has an interest in image processing and algorithms, so I love being able to access the source code. Also from an artistic standpoint I think it is great with open source, I don't really like those "wow-filter" effects, I want to know exactly what is done so I feel I have total control of the artistic intent. You can choose how much you want to do in post-processing, but it is surely an art too, just as taking the photograph is.

I would not recommend any professional do processing in Linux though, there's too few commercial programs and the workflow in the free programs are not efficient enough, you can produce great results but need to spend more time, and for a professional time is money. If I worked professionally I'd use Lightroom and Photoshop.

Now I use RawTherapee, often directly from the development tree compiled myself, it can produce really great results, I use Hugin for stitching (also great results). The only big thing missing in Linux is 16 bit photo editing (the alternatives that exists are not well suited or efficient at photo editing). Gimp is only 8 bit, which is not feasible in a modern professional workflow. However, I do some tricks with Imagemagick etc to actually produce 16 bit tiff output when I use Gimp for masking and exposure fusion, described here:

http://wiki.panotools.org/16_bit_panorama_blending_using_8_bit_Gimp

(describes a panorama workflow but applies to single images too). In the commercial software world there's however much more competent masking programs than Gimp. You can achieve the same quality with Gimp but may need to put in more time and effort. For retouching (not masking/fusing exposures) I have no 16 bit editing software, however I almost never do any retouching so I have not missed that much. When I have to do it, I do it in a final 8 bit step before print - if no adjustments are made of an 8 bit image it will not visibly differ in quality from 16 bit in print.

[jalcocer]

While on Linux my workflow basically consists of ufraw and gimp, I know ufraw is not as sleek on the interface as rawtherapee or others, but get's the job done, can do most of the processing I need for my raw files, and when needed just jump to gimp for the extra mile, the only downside is that you don't get to preserve the editted version like with lightroom or aperture, and have to send to tiff or jpeg.

What I usually do is make the post on ufraw, the gimp if necessary and then save as jpeg if I don't intend anything else with the picture. Save raw's and jpeg's in separate folder structure and then use shotwell as my organizer for all my editted pictures.

For panoramas I use hugin, and for hdr I use Luminance HDR, not as powerful as photoshop but get's really good results.

For an amateur like me this workflow is more than enough, of course I also have my mac and manage everything in aperture and have to say it's really faster and simpler to accomplish the same results, but I still like it both ways.