Re: D80 workflow under Linux

floyd@xxxxxxxxxx (Floyd L. Davidson) writes:

really do much with Nikon cameras. It almost certainly
can download files though, using the camera as a USB
storage device. (But I have *NOT* verified the accuracy
of those comments.)

Yes, it's been confirmed to me that the camera can be
set to behave as a UMS device. Apparently gphoto2 works
too in PTP mode. I only care about file transfer.

Regardless of whether /gphoto2/ does or does not work,
using the camera as USB mass storage device is not a
good idea. It takes significant time, needlessly runs
the camera's battery down, and you cannot continue
taking pictures while doing it.

I know. I do have a card reader, but for some reason
its performance is spotty. It will work with some CF
cards and not for others (and I don't know why). I'll
buy a new SD card reader (which is what the D80 uses),
but it's good to know that, at least as a fallback, I
can access the data files directly from the camera.

Get a CF card reader. Apparently the firewire readers
are the fastest, followed by USB 2.0 readers (try a few,
because some are not fast at all), and the slowest are
readers that plug into PCMCIA slots. (Don't even think
about a USB 1.0 reader.)

My computer is old, tops out at USB 1.1. I'm in no hurry,
but I will purchase a new machine in the next few months.

That will work, but is not recommended either. The
default parameters for /dcraw/ are probably not what you
want! Using /dcraw/ directly to adjust parameters would
be a tedious task at best.

Yes, I understand that. I was more concerned about the
NEF metadata decoding done by dcraw, which appears to
be complete? UFRaw looks good.

That can generate a PPM, TIFF, JPEG or PNG image file,
plus an "ID" file (dsc_0001.ufraw) that can be used as
a configuration file for future calls to /ufraw/.

Sounds good!

To then process all NEF files in this directory with
the same parameters:

ufraw-batch --conf=dsc_0001.ufraw *.nef

Cool beans.

Also, for most command line work, using tools from
ImageMagick is prefered. Hence if you insist on using
/dcraw/, it might be better to do this:

dcraw -c dsc_0001.nef | convert - dsc_0001.jpg

Yes, I've used ImageMagick for many years. Not sure how it
compares with cjpeg, I just copied the latter from the
example in the dcraw page.

Is the white balance encryption an issue?

No.

That's the key.

The UFRAW package puts a very nice front end on the code
from /dcraw/, and is by far the nicest way to work under
Linux. Other platforms do have programs that equal it,
but it is a matter of opinion about whether any are
better.

Is there any advantage between using UFRaw standalone
as opposed to using the GIMP plugin? Or are they equivalent?

Yes, but that too isn't such a hot idea! JPEG is a
lossy format. It is *intended* to reduce the size of
the file produced to the absolute minimum required to
provide the image as viewed. It does that by tossing
out as much redundant and excess data as possible. But
tweaking an image _needs_ that data! Hence tweaking
is much easier done using a lossless format, such as
PPM or TIFF, rather than JPEG.

Yeah, I know. That's the "if necessary" part. I currently
use PNG as my non-degrading editing format (but not that
often).

You'd be _much_ better off to use the disk space (and it
will require a *lot* of disk, but 500GB drives are
cheap), and convert from RAW to something like 8 bit
PPM, and then edit that. You can save edits in GIMP as
XCF format if you want to come back and do more (it will
keep layers and so on). But saving intermediate PPM
format files will not degrade your images.

Is there an advantage in using PPM as opposed to PNG? I
use XCF a lot, although not for photographs since I don't
really add layers and the such to them (but now that I
think about it, maybe I should use XCF... I didn't before
because viewers didn't recognize it, but they've improved).

Only the *final* output file should ever be in JPEG
format. Hence, if you want to post an image on your
website, and perhaps offer three different sizes, plus
you want to print a paper image too... generate *four*
different JPEG files, all from a single PPM file! Do
*not* resize any of the JPEG files to get smaller ones.
(You can do that with The GIMP, or using /convert/ from
Imagemagick.)

Indeed. I realize the issues involved with recompressing
JPG files (it's just that I'm often lazy, so I will make
thumbnails out of JPG files :) Then again, my current
cameras only allow for JPG output, I'll pick up better
habits when I start using RAW.

You'll need lots of hard disk. You'll need at least
1-1/2 GB of RAM. And a read/write DVD. A good monitor
is nice, but two of them are *really* nice!

I do a lot of video editing, so I should be OK (but
I still need a new computer). Two monitors would be
nice, but it's still just a hobby (otherwise I'd be
getting a D3!)

In addition to The GIMP, UFRAW, and ImageMagick, you
most certainly will eventually want EXIFTOOLS. I use
/xv/ (with patches) and /gqview/ for viewing.

I'll try that. I'm using exif.py and jhead right now,
and gwenview (or just plain display) for viewing.

If you are a programmer, the Python interface to GIMP
is harder to get going than the Scheme interface, but
it is *far* better to use. Otherwise, /bash/ shell scripts
are good enough for just about everything.

I'll keep it in mind.

Thanks for your thoughts, they have been quite insightful.

Cheers,

--
marco@xxxxxxxxxxx
Gunnm: Broken Angel http://v4u.reimeika.ca
http://reimeika.ca/ http://photo.reimeika.ca
.