floyd@apaflo.com (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@reimeika.ca
Gunnm: Broken Angel                      http://v4u.reimeika.ca
http://reimeika.ca/                      http://photo.reimeika.ca