Better RAW support needed??

I've posted the following at the dpreview site forum for Pentax. I thought it might be of interest to some of you here too, as I'm sure there are quite a few of us who want better RAW conversion tools - the more support we can get the better...


I'm still waiting for some better RAW support for the *ist D like many of us here, to replace the poor effort that Pentax has given us. I've had a go with the Photoshop CS trial and downloaded the RAW update and it's superb. Works really well, BUT it costs around £550. Way out of my budget (and I expect many others).

So I feel we need some other software like Capture One or BreezeBrowser to support the *Ist D. Currently BreezeBrowser shows RAW files but does not convert them. Something like the Capture One C1 LE would be ideal and retails for around £60 - it seems to be well received in the Canon forums.

I've enquired about the *ist D before with Capture One, and was told that it was a possibility. I've just seen this recent thread which is promising, but shows that the *ist D is either just not popular enough to support, or that we're just not loud enough to ask for support. I suspect it might be the latter...

http://www.pictureflow.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=15734


I would like to make a suggestion. Can anyone who wants some decent RAW conversion software, please go to this thread and add their comments for support (I think you might have to register to add a message though, but that's fairly painless. If it's a problem, maybe we should leave our messages here, and I can put a link to this thread).

Can we please let them know that there are some of us who want the *ist D RAW Support, otherwise our camera might well just get forgotten about for this software and for other software out there. We have well over 100 *ist D users on this forum judging by the owner thread recently. It would be great if we could get 100 messages stating that we want software to match the capabilities of our camera.

Thanks,

Mark Downer

Mark,

Just added my penny's worth to the list. Even though I can use PS-CS, I'd like to see more *istD support all round

Matt

If you like getting your hands dirty, try DCRAW. Works on all systems: Linux, Mac, Windows and others. Available as command line based, or as a plugin for the GIMP. Other permutations are available since it is open software and the source is provided. Basically garenteeing future software to convert RAW files on any platform. YAY!

http://www.cybercom.net/~dcoffin/dcraw/
or do a google search for dcraw.

Using it requires twiddling gamma, brightness, red and blue multipliers till things look right. Reminds me of the dark room! Though it can be frustrating till you are used to it, the results are often worth it. Many other RAW convertion utilities don't just convert but also sharpen, and do strange things to the colour curves. You'll see what I mean after you play with this for a few weeks.

Hope that helps!

ThumbsPlus Pro let's you view and convert

Even better, BreezeBrowser now does *istD RAW conversion