[HN Gopher] RawTherapee
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       RawTherapee
        
       Author : tosh
       Score  : 137 points
       Date   : 2022-11-02 09:10 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.rawtherapee.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.rawtherapee.com)
        
       | yboris wrote:
       | Does it support _JPEG XL_ ? ;)
       | 
       | https://cloudinary.com/blog/the-case-for-jpeg-xl
        
         | paperdigits_ wrote:
         | In the next release it will.
        
       | pestatije wrote:
       | Good comparison from DPReview:
       | 
       | https://www.dpreview.com/articles/0404869946/the-best-open-s...
        
         | paperdigits_ wrote:
         | I thought that article was quite lazy. It was a long winded way
         | of saying "I opened some photos in each application and
         | compared the out-of-the-box rendering to LightRoom, but made no
         | further effort to try and see what might make these
         | applications worthwhile."
        
       | schainks wrote:
       | Not going to lie, with this name I thought this was a prank
       | website somehow related to that Raw Water fad.
       | 
       | So glad to learn it's a good tool!
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | fedeb95 wrote:
       | I've been using it for years with great pleasure. I don't regret
       | anything about lightroom and photoshop used previously. Some of
       | my pictures I edited with it:
       | 
       | http://federicobonfiglio.it
        
       | ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
       | Looks like a nice tool.
       | 
       | I can tell you that the "raw conversion" step is not for the
       | faint of heart. This is the part between Bayer format, and
       | classic RGB.
       | 
       | It's advantageous to try doing some of the pipeline processing
       | before the demosaic step.
        
       | radicality wrote:
       | Anyone have experience with this vs Darktable?
        
         | hhlevnjak2 wrote:
         | I feel Darktable is a lot more powerful and the UI is a little
         | easier to use (small things, like the way sliders work with
         | mouse and keyboard). Masking in DT is great as well.
         | 
         | What I like about Raw Therapee, the starting point when
         | processing RAW files is a lot closer to out of camera JPEG, and
         | for just minor tweaks it's simpler and faster.
         | 
         | There's also an alternative build of Raw Therapee as well.
         | https://bitbucket.org/agriggio/art/wiki/Home
        
         | bayindirh wrote:
         | Darktable is more like Lightroom. RT works on single images
         | mostly. Both are capable of great results. I use both with my
         | Sony A7-III.
        
       | narrowtux wrote:
       | I would love to use the open source alternatives to Lightroom,
       | but I find the cloud offering too convenient. The photos are
       | available from everywhere, even on my phone I can import photos
       | directly from the SD card and start doing light edits. When I
       | arrive home, all the photos have already been copied to my
       | computer where I can finish the project on the big screen.
       | 
       | Is there something that approximates this "effortless" experience
       | using some cloud service and the freedom to use whatever software
       | to manage and convert the photos?
        
         | ISL wrote:
         | Portability has become a challenge for me in darktable (which
         | is my only choice in photo-editing).
         | 
         | My archive is now large enough (~8 TB) that it is impractical
         | to carry around. Keeping edits synchronized between home and
         | remote is hard. Darktable's internal database doesn't play well
         | with remote edits, either. It's tricky.
         | 
         | I'm convinced that there is a simple/clever solution to the
         | problem using existing tools (rsync/git/google drive/etc), but
         | it will require someone with a really solid understanding of
         | Darktable's inner workings and data-structures to prevent
         | corruption of the database/library or, worse, the archive
         | itself.
        
         | truncate wrote:
         | Yes. I love Lightroom for that. It's very convenient and
         | approachable. I think the dealbreaker for me for not using
         | RawTherapee/Darktable was the performance. Lightable or Capture
         | One are way more snappier to work with. You see results as you
         | change things. Which is really important when I'm editing bunch
         | of photos at once.
        
         | paperdigits_ wrote:
         | I keep all my raw files in git-annex. I wouldn't say that it is
         | effortless, you need to have a good understand of git, but if
         | you do, it works really well and is extremely flexible. Raw
         | files go in git annex and sidecar files (XMP, PP3) go into git
         | itself.
        
       | cat_plus_plus wrote:
       | How is denoise quality? I switched from Darktable to commercial
       | DxO PhotoLab, largely because by the time Darktable tames noise
       | at around ISO 3200, a lot of resolution and color is lost.
       | PhotoLab seems to take everything thrown at it and end up with a
       | bright smooth image. Anyway that's one weakness in otherwise
       | great free tool.
        
         | kqr wrote:
         | Did you work with denoising the chroma channels separately from
         | luminance? I believe that's a large part of the trick -- humans
         | are far less sensitive to colour resolution issues, and chroma
         | noise just looks awful compared to luminance noise.
        
         | paperdigits_ wrote:
         | Impulse noise reduction in RawTherapee is pretty good.
         | 
         | For darktable, there was some changes to noise reduction a few
         | releases ago, and its now recommended to use two instances of
         | the profiled denoise module, on that targets luma noise and one
         | that targets chroma noise. It also works pretty well.
         | 
         | Neither work as well as the DxO prime, which is the best noise
         | reduction I've ever seen.
        
         | Cyphus wrote:
         | I don't blame you for switching from Darktable at all.
         | Darktable can be quite powerful but it suffers from ease of use
         | and discoverability issues. It's not reasonable for a photo
         | processing application to expect its users to deeply understand
         | how it all works under the hood in order to get good results.
         | 
         | As someone who did a deep dive into understanding DT's scene-
         | referred modules, it changed the way I think of photo
         | processing. I now have a hard time using any other photo
         | software.
        
           | kqr wrote:
           | Yup, I have the same experience even in smaller ways. Wavelet
           | decomposition, parametric masks, Lab curves -- these things
           | are fundamental to how I think of image processing now, and
           | it all came out of forcing myself to be productive with
           | Darktable.
           | 
           | None of those things are available in commercial processing
           | software.
           | 
           | (Granted, it was a few years ago I did photography stuff
           | last, so this may well have changed since then.)
        
           | dheera wrote:
           | > suffers from ease of use
           | 
           | Yup, and they keep making it harder to use.
           | 
           | I recently upgraded my system and now I can't even open a
           | folder in Darktable, I have to add it to some bullshit
           | "library", put the library in a "collection", and then open a
           | "film roll" from the collection. Why can't I just browse a
           | filesystem tree and click a folder, damnit ...
        
           | IgorPartola wrote:
           | What did you use as a resource for this? I struggle with DT
           | on every update to get my photos looking like I want when the
           | semantics of a module change or a module is replaced with
           | something theoretically better but practically with more
           | controls that I now need to relearn.
        
             | paperdigits_ wrote:
             | The manual has some good overview and explains every module
             | and slider.
             | 
             | Bruce Williams, Studio Pektras, and Boris on YouTube.
             | Aurlien Pierre if you need in-depth, technical explanation.
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | busyant wrote:
         | > Darktable tames noise at around ISO 3200, a lot of resolution
         | and color is lost.
         | 
         | Could you elaborate on what this means?
         | 
         | I tried Darktable a few months ago, and no matter how hard I
         | tried, my images just looked "washed out".
         | 
         | I assume this is what you mean. I really wanted to use DT
         | because the parametric masking features were pretty nice, but
         | every image looked vaguely bleached.
        
           | bobsomers wrote:
           | If you've got 50 minutes for a very complete and in depth
           | answer, this video by Aurelien who works on the pixel pipe
           | covers why Darktable tends to look washed out (out of the
           | box) compared to other apps and how to conceptualize what
           | it's doing and why:
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZCwB7FogUs
        
             | busyant wrote:
             | Thank you. That's actually one of the videos that I watched
             | a few months back. It helped a little bit, but not enough
             | for my tastes.
             | 
             | It just seemed like there was a LOT of extra tweaking I
             | needed to do for each image. My suspicion is that if you
             | want to use DT (effectively), you need to have a deep
             | understanding of color theory and image processing (at
             | least more than I am willing to devote).
             | 
             | I also enjoyed his rant(s) on the new releases of DT,
             | especially the complaints about the UI.
        
               | nuclx wrote:
               | I had similar experiences with DT. When taking RAW+JPG I
               | always struggled to create an edit of the RAW in DT that
               | is more satisfying than the out of camera JPG - and I
               | watched quite a few videos and read a few guides, also
               | trying to work with scene-referred workflow introduced in
               | DT4. I'm currently giving Capture One a shot (Express
               | version is free for Sony users) and I'm really pleased
               | how accessible the UI is. Applying default adjustments
               | already gives a great starting point for further tweaking
               | (similar or better than the OOC JPG). Recovering
               | highlights also works way better than in DT. It just felt
               | like the algorithms in DT are sometimes not quite on the
               | same level.
               | 
               | I never tried RawTherapee.
        
               | busyant wrote:
               | > I'm currently giving Capture One a shot
               | 
               | This is what I use, too.
               | 
               | I did a lot of side-by-side comparisons between C1 & DT
               | on my raw files and I could not get DT to make anything
               | that looked like C1's automatic adjustments.
               | 
               | The best I could determine is that the out-of-the-box
               | adjustments made by C1 were somewhat complex (e.g., it
               | wasn't a 'simple' transformation of rgb values).
               | 
               | Obviously, it's preferable to know what's happening under
               | the hood instead of relying on black-magic, but I just
               | didn't have the time to invest in trying to figure that
               | out.
               | 
               | C1 is really nice. I also compared it to Lightroom and I
               | didn't like those results as much as C1.
               | 
               | edit: Although C1's masking features are excellent, I
               | wish they had more parametric masking features. That's
               | the one thing I miss from DT.
        
         | exar0815 wrote:
         | I was always very doubtful about those AI tools, but I
         | absolutely second DxO. It actually managed to save some Astro
         | Shots which were completely noisy to a manageable level,
         | without too much noticeable LoD
        
       | onehitwonder wrote:
       | hehe pee
        
         | CommieBobDole wrote:
         | You joke, but every time I see this product mentioned my brain
         | thinks it's some sort of trendy alternative medicine thing
         | that's made from cow urine or something before I remember it's
         | a photo processing tool.
         | 
         | I guess the name is memorable, at least.
        
           | QuercusMax wrote:
           | It's following in the footsteps of the gimp, which is
           | probably not a name which would have been chosen today.
        
             | pdntspa wrote:
             | Let's pour one out for the naming of yesteryear, today's
             | realm of acceptability is just soooooooo bland
             | 
             | Except for Coq.... you can carry on, good sir
        
             | ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
             | Whenever I see that name, I think of this:
             | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8kPqAV_74M
        
         | godot wrote:
         | Before clicking, I legitimately thought this was going to be
         | some sort of urine analysis med tech startup. What is the
         | reasoning behind this product naming? Does therapee mean
         | something in photography?
        
           | rpastuszak wrote:
           | Let me guess, a startup "claiming that it had devised urine
           | tests that required very small amounts of urine and that
           | could be performed rapidly and accurately, all using compact
           | automated devices which the company had developed." with a
           | surprisingly young and ambitious founder?
        
         | flotzam wrote:
         | Oh, they might have a bigger problem than that:
         | 
         | https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/raw#Verb
         | 
         | https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rapee#Noun
         | 
         | It's _the rapist finder .com_ but even worse
        
           | barbazoo wrote:
           | Why on earth would someone choose a name like this?!
        
             | formerly_proven wrote:
             | > RawTherapee was originally written by Gabor Horvath of
             | Budapest, Hungary. The name "Therapee" was originally an
             | acronym derived from "The Experimental Raw Photo Editor".
             | 
             | I wouldn't be surprised if the author (Hungarian has the
             | same etymology for therapist, therapy etc.) thought
             | therapee means therapy or perhaps therapist. Because
             | RawTherapist would make sense as a name.
        
             | [deleted]
        
           | idiotsecant wrote:
           | There's a fork of RawTherapee that solves the name problem,
           | except they named it ART which is completely undiscoverable.
           | Some projects are just cursed with bad naming, I think.
           | 
           | https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/63690246
        
         | bayindirh wrote:
         | Considering the capabilities, and the quality of the results
         | you get, this software is a true gem with darktable.
         | 
         | I love and use both of them with great results.
        
       | irthomasthomas wrote:
       | Damn, you got me excited for a minute that there was new release.
       | But no, this hasn't been updated since 2020. I use rawtherapee a
       | lot, and really like it. There is fork, ART, which is more up to
       | date. But in my experience rawtherapee is snappier, for some
       | reason, so I stick with that most of the time. But if you want
       | something more cutting edge then try ART
       | 
       | https://bitbucket.org/agriggio/art/wiki/FAQ
        
         | patdavid wrote:
         | There's a news article with project status on the site from a
         | couple of months ago:
         | https://www.rawtherapee.com/2022/07/rawtherapee-5.9-wip-and-...
        
       | nobleach wrote:
       | I have it installed, but frankly DT has been really great for my
       | workflow I'm really just a novice shooting a mirrorless vlog
       | camera right now - a Sony ZV-E10 with some vintage Canon, Minolta
       | and Nikkor lenses. I have a few Nikon DSLRs but they only thing
       | they give me is a view finder.
       | 
       | Many years ago, I used Apple Aperture when all my real
       | photographer friends were using LightRoom so... I honestly don't
       | know what I'm missing by not using the Adobe product.
        
         | iLoveOncall wrote:
         | What is DT?
        
           | muhehe wrote:
           | Darktable
        
             | hef19898 wrote:
             | Darktable is great! Some things work differently to
             | Lightroom, but it is great if you know what you do in post
             | processing. Not that I really know what I do in post, but I
             | believe that I get better at it.
        
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       (page generated 2022-11-03 23:01 UTC)