Which software can batch-process RAW photos on Linux?

Question

I'm interested in efficient processing of RAW photos on Linux. I've played with RAW a little, but so far I've always reverted back to JPG as I can't be bothered to spend hours doing post-processing. But if I could find a pretty quick way of tweaking RAW photos then I might try again.

There are many tools for working with RAW files in Linux, but which of them let you do things like:

• correct the white balance on one photo and then apply that to a whole set of photos?
• have a process of a couple of clicks per photo in some application?

or is RAW post-processing simply not worth doing if you don't take the time to process each photo individually?

Asked by Hamish Downer

Answer

May I suggest RawStudio? It has support for batch operations of the type you're asking for, and has dramatically simplified my post-processing workflow over my old approach of ufraw + GIMP. If you're familiar with similar "workflow" products on other platforms, the UI should feel pretty comfortable.

Answered by esm

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Is there something similar to Adobe Lightroom for Linux?

Question

I know about digiKam and Photivo, both of which are excellent software for post-processing RAW photographies and performing minor edits. However, these two programs aren't that good at organising large amounts of photography files, the way Lightroom is. On the other hand, there is Shotwell, F-Spot and I dare even mention Picasa, for being also available for free use. These programs have the advantage of coping really well with vast galleries of photography, but they don't have nearly as potent editing capabilities as the other programs. It seems to me that the only software that combines good post-processing capabilities and the ability to handle large amounts of photography data is Adobe Lightroom. My question, then, is the following: do you know any software for Linux which has a good balance of these two essential features?

Asked by the.midget

Answer

As far as I know, the best bet for Linux is Darktable. Workflow management and raw editing all in one.

Some teaser images from their screenshot site:

Answered by rfusca

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What free software can I use to find pictures through meta data on Linux?

Question

I am looking for a software that allows me to find in my collection pictures that have a particular characteristic. For example pictures taken with the same lenses and similar focal length. or find pictures taken in a particular time frame.

Is there something like this for free (or very low price)? I would like it to run under Linux (via wine if necessary).

Answer

If you want free, and cross platform, you could try MaPiVi or XnView. MaPiVi only seems to work with JPG files, so if you shoot RAW it won't work for you. But you can search EXIF data like ISO, camera, shutter speed, and date/time.

Most catalogueing software will allow you to search or filter by EXIF data to some degree. You'd have to trial specific ones to see if they do all that you need.

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If I assign a profile to my monitor in Gnome Color Manager, should I also enable that profile in Gimp?

Question

I finally got around to using dispcalGUI to profile my monitor under Linux. Now, having assigned that profile system-wide using Gnome Color Manager (or the Xfce Color settings dialog), there's a visible change in on-screen rendering (including any open Gimp windows).

Having done, that, should I also go into Gimp's preferences and enable the profile there? There's a "Mode of operation" setting, which has "Color managed display" as an option, and then below that, a place to assign a monitor profile — include a checkbox for "Try to use the system monitor profile".

Should I turn these options on and check the box, or is that "doubling up" where I shouldn't be?

(If I do check the box, there's an obvious change — the colors become brighter and more saturated. But I have a hard time judging by eye which is more accurate.)

Answer

The answer is: yes — color management must be enabled in both places, and the profile must be loaded in each application.

The system-wide profile does two things:

1. Loads the Video LUT at login. This look-up-table includes color temperature and gamma correction, but that's it. (This is via gcm-apply)
2. Provides a way (using colord, on modern systems) for applications to find the system profile.

Then, individual applications must separately have color management enabled. This may or may not be on by default. It was off in Gimp and Inkscape on my Fedora 15 system, but on in the Geeqie quick image viewer. Firefox has it enabled, but only for images with their own embedded profiles — there's a setting to use it for everything.

Then, applications use liblcms to actually apply the XYZ matrix from the profile. This is the real work — the actual correction tables. Most applications seem to have a way to load the system profile automatically, but if you want you can in every case I've found give it a direct path.

In any case, both parts need to be active.

Thanks to Pascal de Bruijn for clearing this up for me on the Gnome Color Manager mailing list.

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Note: one can use the following images to check if your browser or other application is working properly. They use tricks in the color response to make different text show up depending on whether color management is working or not.

— littlecms browser check images

In Firefox 5, I see that it's working, but "not correctly". That's this issue.

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What cheap colour calibrators are available for Linux?

Question

I have several computers (at work, at home, laptops, etc.) that all display my photos differently. Alas, it's time to get a colour calibration device — but which to choose?

I am no professional, so cheap/imprecise/old stuff is perfectly OK. I have been looking at various online stores like eBay and etc., but it looks quite like a jungle, and good reviews seem to be scarce.

And a tricky detail: I am using Linux everywhere, so it must be compatible.

Answer

Gnome Color Manager can use Argyll CMS, but it also supports the Pantone/X-Rite Huey natively. According to the Gnome docs, the profiles produced natively aren't great, but it's easy. If you're using newer Gnome (3.x), it's been re-written and appears to have options to give better results with the same ease of use. I have a GretagMacbeth (now bought out by X-Rite) Eye-One Pro device, and it doesn't seem to work at all with even the new version, though — so maybe you still need the Huey.

Anyway, PeterT pointed out a program called dispcalGUI, which is a cross-platform GUI front end for ArgyllCMS. It's still a little intimidating and not nearly as slick as Gnome Color Manager, but it's really easy to use once you spend a few minutes going through the quick setup and usage documentation. Works nicely with the device I have and produced good results with little fuss. See this question for some after-you've-calibrated-and-profiled usage info on Linux.

Oh, and also from the dispcalGUI docs, a list of supported instruments:

• X-Rite ColorMunki
• X-Rite DTP92
• X-Rite DTP94
• X-Rite/GretagMacbeth Huey
• X-Rite/GretagMacbeth i1 Display 1
• X-Rite/GretagMacbeth i1 Display 2/LT
• X-Rite/GretagMacbeth i1 Monitor
• X-Rite/GretagMacbeth i1 Pro
• X-Rite/GretagMacbeth Spectrolino
• Datacolor/ColorVision Spyder 2
• Datacolor/ColorVision Spyder 3

And some notes on a few of these, based on research I've done:

ColorMunki Design/Photo is expensive ($450), and is a spectrophotometer rather than a colorimeter — it reads wider bands of colors at once, and can be used to measure surfaces like paper, not just monitors. I can't find the reference right now, but one review I found was very disappointed in the results. (I'll update this once I find it.) See below for the ColorMunki Create, though, which is a different product.

X-Rite DTP-94 — this is discontinued, but is one of the few to offer glass color filters rather than the dyed ones found in other instruments. Theoretically, this should last longer (the others may lose accuracy over time). And in general, this gets lauded as having the best results. The caveat, though, is huge — it's not as good for LCD screens as for CRT monitors, and wide-gamut displays are right out. Dunno if you can even find this anymore at non-crazy prices.

Pantone Huey — no particular note other than the one above (direct GCM support), and to mention that it can be had for as little as $55 new if you're lucky. (The Pro version is the same hardware with different, irrelevant-to-us software, and that's not too expensive either at about $80 shipped.)

X-Rite/GretagMacbeth i1/ Eye-One — I have the "Pro" model of this. It's an early revision, so it's pretty slow. I'm happy with the results visually even if it is a few years old; so if there is any filter color decay it's pretty subtle. All the i1 models listed (and the ColorMunki Create, and apparently also Lacie Blue Eye) work basically same way under Argyll CMS. The Pro model has a high-resolution mode which should give somewhat more accurate results. And my old model is quite slow — taking about 4 hours to do a high-quality calibration and profile! — but newer models are apparently faster. But wait! – don't confuse this with the similarly-named i1Display Pro (see what they did there? gah!) which is apparently entirely new and not supported yet (it's more expensive, so you're unlikely to get it by accident). X-rite Versions of this are roughly $135 new; the ColorMunki Create looks like a deal at $65.

Datacolor Spyder 2 / Spyder 3 — the main note is that the Argyll CMS docs say that the maker of these devices, "appears to be hostile to the use of these instruments under Linux", so I think I'd stay away since there are other options. (And using the Spyder2 at all requires pulling loadable firmware from the original installation software, which is less than convenient, although discalGUI has a straightforward-seeming option to do so.) Users of other operating systems seem to like the Spyder 3 over the X-rite offerings, though, and it is competitively priced at about $65 for the version without an ambient-light sensor (or about three times that price if you do want the ambient sensor + fancier proprietary software).

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