-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256 On 2015-09-12 10:50, Daniel Bauer wrote:
The camera "develops" the received information according to the settings of the camera (like effects, black-and-white, enhanced colors, sharpening, correction of lens distortion, what ever...) and saves it as the jpg-version. This is a processed version.
Aha.
You see, what I need to learn first is what can be done with raw (.NEF) photos, concepts,
Raw files contain all the information your camera could save with it's chip, not applying any processing. Even if you set your camera to, say, black and white, the raw file will still have all the color information, uncompressed, with no loss.
That's good... so that you can rectify the choices. Those in software, that is, not aperture, speed, iso, focus... Wait! There is a camera somewhere that can correct focus. I understand it has several layers of sensors, or that it senses the direction of the photons, and thus can reconstruct the focus, too. Very strange.
This is *much* more information than the jpg has. From raw you can easily correct many things. For example there is information in the dark parts that just remain black in the jpg, or light parts that remain white. You can even construct "hdr"-images (within limits) from raw. Imagine a raw as a negative. Later, "in the drakroom" you choose the gradation of the photo paper, the contrasts, you develop one part more than the other... all this you can do with raw, but not with jpg.
I saw a program, back in 1991, that took astronomical tiff photos and made visible details that the eye could not see in them. It was quite slow, so I started to redo it in Pascal. Those sensors came coupled with a thermoelectric cooling device (Peltier cell), to keep them as cold as possible. If you do a total dark photo, there is some luminiscence in a corner due to the integrated circuit heat, which is used to do the reading. So a trick is to substract a dark photo from the real photo. I believe this is also possible with my camera. Perhaps. I saw a mention of a dust removal technique in the camera menu, but it requires some specific software from them, not the one they put in the CD. It is extra.
On the other hand very often the cameras are so intelligent that they produce quite optimal jpg's, especially if you have set it to highest quality and largest size. So for many images it might not be necessary to go thru the raw process, because the cameras result is already good enough.
I thought so, yes.
I always convert jpg's to png for further working. Jpg looses information on every save due to compressing, png doesn't.
True. I wonder why cameras do not offer that choice.
and what software is appropriate in Linux.
In fact I gave up "developing" raw's in Linux. The results didn't convince me or it was too complicated to achieve good results. So I use the camera manufacturers program on a Windows in Virtual Box. Except for the Sony, who's software is - to say it nice - crap. There I use DxO Optics, also on Win XP.
I still have to install it in Windows. Perhaps I'm lucky and it runs under Wine. I don't have virtualization in the laptop; on the desktop I do, but I don't have a valid Windows 7 (or later) license for it.
If you have a virtual Win I'd give a try to Nikon's software that came with your camera. It's probably the easiest way to get used to the raw process.
Disclaimer: this is my personal opinion. Lots of people "develop" raws purely on linux and are happy with it and it's about two years since I last went thru the linux raw programs: many thing might have bettered meanwhile. I guess all these programs have their websites, forums, mailing lists...
:-)) - -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 13.1 x86_64 "Bottle" (Minas Tirith)) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.22 (GNU/Linux) iF4EAREIAAYFAlX0e4oACgkQja8UbcUWM1xH0gD/YBYOXf2P+dfiWbHQWJJRlZs0 E+t0ghxm26h/QQ4AppoA/jrc3nMZLniFPQAF9CHh+scDruB9xfL6TnHEvHox+mtS =kanh -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org