Professional photographers only use RAW photos when they’re working on highquality images. But why and what for? How much extra effort do RAW photos entail, and is it worth it for hobbyist photographers? Let’s answer those questions here…
The good news is that Linux users are in an enviable situation: some of the best programs for managing and processing RAW photos are developed under Linux and only occasionally ported to other platforms. On the other hand, RAW photography itself is considered time-consuming and labour-intensive. Nevertheless, three weighty reasons speak in favour of dealing with the subject and taking RAW photos:
• For landscape photography, good illumination must be achieved across all tonal values, especially in difficult lighting conditions; both the sky should have structure, as well as the shadows in the foreground.
• With portraits, the overly smooth automatic mode is deactivated, resulting in more realistic, vivid images.
• HDR images can be created from one RAW photo, which often leads to results really worth seeing.
We’re going to take you through a RAW workflow, looking at the tools available for each stage, from reviewing to converting and editing.
Reviewing
Before converting the RAW images, they should be reviewed. Two programs are particularly suitable for this. () is excellent for quickly viewing images and sorting out blurred or otherwise unsatisfactory photos. Such photos can be deletedor moved to an appropriate folder. only shows the preview images embedded in RAW images, not the RAW data.
