On 2016-02-01 15:54, Anton Aylward wrote:
On 01/31/2016 04:21 PM, Carlos E. R. wrote:
Both programs write exif tags and comments. The problem appears when each photo has 3 files:
original.nef camera_generated.jpg shotwell_generated.jpg
Ie, the camera generates both XXXX.nef and XXXX.jpg.
Well its not really 3, but I see your problem. You don't have a single unambiguous "original'.
*YOU* have chose to set your Nikon to generate "RAW+JPG".
That's my setting. The camera generates both a .nef and a .jpg (good). The other choices are raw only, or jpeg only (good, medium, or simple). So two from the camera, and a third file, a jpeg, generated by shotwell (using names such as DSC_XXXX_NEF_shotwell.jpg) I see the point in using RAW only or RAW+JPG, but not in using the JPG setting alone - maybe on emergencies, hundreds of shots to do and no space in the card, no spare cards.
The point is that the JPG it generates can be any one of the 'scene" and manipulation options your Nikon has.
Right. The camera has less processing power, but knows best the hardware and the camera settings for the scene.
I read reviews of cameras I think about upgrading to at DPReview, for example, and see in their detailed reviews many critical analysis of the RAW-to-JPG conversion in the camera.
This motivates me not to use the "RAW+JPG" and simply to do the conversion to JPG using Darktable from the single unambitious original RAW file. Its about quality.
Well, you can simply not use the JPG the camera generates, or move to another directory, and then generate your own, of course.
I should point out that darktable also lets me do manipulations that are way beyond what the camera can do, making, shading, spot elimination, applying various correction filters, a wider range of "scene" settings, playing with grey-scale, overlay, and of course it can also produce TIFF and other 16-bit formats that are less lossy than JPG or GIF.
So my list of files ends up as
original camera generated RAW to which I apply the copyright darktable generated sidebar file any number of JPG files generated by darktable any number of tiff files generated by darktable any number of JPG-2000 files generated by darktable
and so on.
Yes, I understand that. I have tried to use darktable, but I couldn't do much with it. Much too learning to make. Many of my photos are night shots without flash: buildings or objects outside illuminated by the moon or a very small torch (same one I use to get to the place in the dark). Or the moon during the eclipse, or trying to capture the Catalina comet two weeks ago (I got an unconfirmed shot). My camera is not really suited to this. If I try to enhance the stars there is a lot of noise in the form of red dots or granules. Automatic focus simply fails, and manual focus is too sensitive to the touch. Infinite is not the end of the ring turn, but a millilitre or two before the end. To my dismay, several of my unrepeatable (except to immortals) shots are unfocussed :-/ I have learned how to handle it, but still a percent are bad. But the noise of the sensor has no remedy. Yes, a building can be shot at the lowest ISO, but not the stars: more than 5 seconds exposure with the 200 mm and the stars start to morph from dots into lines. Of course, the remedy is to buy a motorized stand for astronomy, but I'm not an astronomer.
When shotwell imports them, it generates another jpg file.
Are you saying that it automatically generates them on import? I don't like that. But such is your choice.
You can choose, use the camera generated one or the software one. I started with the first setting (I think it is the default), but bugs in the software meant it did not always detect both nef and jpg to be the same photo.
Huh, the sport setting. My camera is too slow focusing, sometimes going in one focus direction while the object is going in the other direction and completely blurring it, so much that I lose track of it and miss the shot :-( Happened with kids, eagles and seagulls. But often it works and the shots are worth it. Good thing that I don't have to pay for the film rolls ;-)
I think the comments are saved to the jpg file, but I'm not sure. It can not write to the .nef file.
A photoeditor should NEVER alter the original. My point about adding copyright to the RAW is that I'm paranoid about getting in there before any derivatives can be made. If my camera allowed me to insert the author/copyright information "at source" then I would use that. It doesn't, so I edit the RAW files with exiftools.
Mmm... good point. I'll have a look. What would be a suitable string to write there?
Digikam does not see the comments or tags of these photos. I don't know yet why. It does see them if made on cameras that generate a single jpg file.
There are many cameras, not least of the camera capabilities of cellphones, that ONLY generate GIFs or JPGs. I'm not saying that a cellphone can't produce a great photographs; put one in the hands of a professional and he or she will produce consistent quality just as easily as of were a high end DSLR or a 1950s Kodak box camera. Ultimately skill and creativity will trump technology. But that's not what we're talking about here.
Oh, I always have my cellphone with me, so they are very good for chance shots. I know that :-)
Neither does digikam notice that those 3 files are a single photo.
Of course not, its not a semantic scene analyser, some form of AI. its only a photo editor. if I adopted it after generating 50 to 60 variations on one RAW file, apply various 'scene' pre-sets, using darktable, it wouldn't recognise those either. The only reason darktable "does" is that it has its own database and history. So we're back to something 'external'.
digikam is also a photo organizer, and this is what I want most. For this role I'm using shotwell, and one problem is that one does not see well the organization that the other made, only partially. I would understand it of proprietary software, but not of open source.
It is *YOU* who have chose to set the camera to produce "RAW+JPG"
It is at that setting.
and it is *YOU* who selected the scene setting from which the camera's internal algorithms produced that JPG from the RAW. If you don't like that then why are you also producing the RAW, uploading it and using an image editor on it? Why not use just RAW and then "Hmm, that's a flower, OK apply pre-set flower and see what I get. Hmm, don't like that, go back to the raw and mask out the foreground and apply "bokeh" filter to the background. Better. Now lets play with the colour curve of those petals." BTDT.
Ah, but I'm not in that street yet :-)
A street near me has, fashionable, what looks like old gaslights even though they are actually electric. A RAW of that taken in brilliant sunlight on a cloudless day, make B&W in darktable, ad back spots of colour, highlight grain using solarization to give the effect of rain and most, , a wonderful "noir" Victorian street at dusk.
Sorry, there's no camera "scene" setting to do that. This is art. The camera is a tool. While I'm happy to let it do the focusing and for me and get the exposure close to what I want, that's mechanics. "Render unto the computer" and all that as Norbert Weiner said.
If I were dong this 40 years ago in the darkroom I had set up in the basement, with the enlarger, baths of chemicals, different types of paper, filters, pieces of cotton, mesh and wire and more, the database would be my notebook. Like they say, YMMV.
So be asking yourself: Why are you using a photeditor at all if you are taking the camera's idea of what the editing of the RAW to JPG should be?
No, I'm not using a photoeditor. Shotwell primary use is as organizer. It has a quick edit mode, yes, and it can launch external editors.
And if shotwell automatically generates a JPG on loading, then what algorithm is being used there? And is that a setting you can turn off?
If it fails to detect the JPG generated by the camera, it will ignore the photo. This is some bug, because it sees most of them.
I can tolerate 'automation' making low level decisions for me, when to turn the furnace on for the heating as the temperature falls, things like that. But making strategic, creative decisions, that's another matter. I very much doubt that shotwell could do recognise "ah a single close-up of a plant..." and apply the example reasoning, evaluation, masking and choice of enhancement that I gave in the above example. So why have it automatically generate a JPG you don't want?
No, the idea is simply to see the photos. If I then want to apply further "development", then I'd take the raw and do it. But that would be on a single photo out of hundreds. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 13.1 x86_64 "Bottle" at Telcontar)