Editing RAW pictures

[caz]

When I was using Windows Vista I used Digital Photo Professional, for my Canon 450D, to edit the pictures and the EOS utility to load them onto the PC. The good thing about this method was that the DPP showed a list of thumbnails of all the pictures in a certain folder. Now that I'm running Mint 14 on a separate partition I decided to use UFRaw for the processing work but was disappointed to find that there was no way, that I could find, to display a list of thumbnails.
Now, I'm not sure if I'm missing something and UFRaw can show thumbnails or if I would need to install the DPP onto Mint. Not overly keen on the second option as from what I've read it would appear best not to introduce non-Linux software onto the Mint system.
I can load the RAW images onto Vista and then access them through Mint after I've done any process work to them but they still only appear one at a time in UFRaw, and it's a pain having to go through the whole start up, shut down process to get the images from one OS to the other.
I do a fair bit of photo manipulation work with Gimp so it would be great to use Vista for storing the pictures and Mint and Gimp for the real work.

Any thoughts and tips on this, or suggestions as to other other imaging software that can solve this problem, greatly appreciated.

As a side issue, and I hope it's okay to put this here, rapped knuckles if it's not I guess, I've got 4GBs of memory on my PC but Mint only shows that there are 3GBs. Would it be that Vista is hogging the other Gigabyte and won't let Mint use it or is it just being reported wrong?

[DataMan]

I am still using Canon's Digital Profession in Win7 Pro. I've tried tha various RAW apps in Lx and, for me, they just come up short compared to the Digital Pro. The ease of use etc. is worth the boot to Win$7.

My typical workflow is:
1. Download the RAW images from the SD card in my 60D to a NTFS partition. (Note no use of photo app's to download from the SD).
2. Re-boot to Win7 and launch Canon's Digital Pro.
3. Do all RAW processing on the lot.
4. Re-boot to M14 MATE.
5. Launch GIMP and do the final editing / storage.

My $0.02 worth.

-DataMan

[nomko]

I am still using Canon's Digital Profession in Win7 Pro.

Before providing such an answer, first look if there are Linux alternatives available. And yes, they are!
Ofcourse you can use Windows applications under Linux by using WIne, but best is to look for alternatives.

Rawtherapee for example: http://www.rawtherapee.com/. Good tool for editing RAW photo files.
And there's Darktable: http://www.darktable.org/. Does the same as rawtherapee.

So, before recommending Windows software, which IMHO is totally out of it's place here, check first for Linux applications!

[DataMan]

The OP was sharing his experiences with Canon Digital Pro which is a Windows product. I was sharing my experiences with some of the Lx counterparts vs the Canon product.

We should all be adult enough to consider opinions on Windows products in the context of Lx equivalents. I do 95% of my work (including work-work) on Mint 13 MATE using native Lx apps. For my needs, there are still a few remaining Windows apps that handily meet my expectations with no near competitor in Lx equivalents. What I had offered was an opinon which I do not expect everyone to subscribe to.

-DataMan

[Orbmiser]

Still trying to make the transition from Lightroom to darktable. Tho for critical clients work I still use Lightroom on Win7 side.
As still learning darktable. And took a look at rawtherapee http://rawtherapee.com/blog/features but not to my liking as unintuitive to getting things done.

darktable is more lightroom like with tagging and organizing as well as an extensive array of editing tools.


Darktable 1.1.2 by Orbmiser, on Flickr

http://www.darktable.org/

Usually have images imported and tagged and organized on windows side first than boot up to Mint side when I have time to give study to learning as I go with darktable. Knowing my fallback Windows7-Lightroom is there if I need it.

Not an issue for a lot of my images but critical for clients like Getty and other's where fiddling around and learning is not optimal for delivering results in a timely manner.

After a long hiatus Lightzone may be coming back and then there is Bibble which is a paid version tho powerful program.
And Corel Aftershot Pro to look at. As well as Dikicam,Gwenview,etc..
http://server.ericsbinaryworld.com/blog/2012/02/16/using-digikam-from-the-point-of-view-of-lightroom-user/
As DigiKam just out with version 3.

http://www.rileybrandt.com/2012/07/31/linux-photo-1/
http://scribblesandsnaps.com/linux-tools-for-serious-photographers/

More searching on google for photography editing and many more choices depending on needs and use will determine your final solution. And most of these are in the Software Center and easy to search for and install.

Remember to always have more than one location to backup your files to. Way too many have the one and if that dies then left with none. Always take the time ahead to plan and implement organization thru common sense folder structure and copious amounts of tagging which will allow for searching and finding in a timely manner.

Also will take time to find the program that fits your needs. Also more time to get a handle on delivering results that satisfy.
.

[caz]

Thanks for the info guys. I think I'll give Darktable a go and see how I get on.
Canon's Dpp works fine and I find it easy to use, for an amateur, but what I really need is a way to open 10 to 20 images that I've edited with DPP whilst using Mint. Looks like Darktable will solve this problem and give me the ability to view all of the files as thumbnails, which is a must when I'm working with Gimp and setting out a new image.

Cheers.

[Orbmiser]

Well consider Gimp kind of overkill for doing image editing. As darktable has more specific to image editing parameters.
But steep learning curve and DigaKam 3 has thumbnails,tagging,etc... And less learning curve than darktable.
And may be better suited if using Gimp as your main image editor.
.

[caz]

Just thought I'd add an update here in case anyone else has a similar sort of a problem.

So I tried out Darktable and In all honesty it's too dark. I guess there's a way to change the theme but the colour put me off straight away. I've got a dark desktop like a lot of folk but if I'm going to use a programme for any length of time it needs to have a fairly bright background.

Then I downloaded Digakam via the synaptic manager and it didn't work. No idea why, I clicked on the shortcut to fire it up and nothing, so I never had the chance to find out what it was like. But then I noticed that gThumb can load thumbnails of RAW files so with this in mind I reinstalled UFRaw and now all's well. I scan through the list of thumbnails with gThumb and then open up whichever one I want to have a better look at with UFRaw, great stuff.

Still going to do work with DPP though, it's designed for my camera and I've sort of got used to it. But at least now I've got an easy way to move the pictures from one OS to the other.