Pentax Digital Camera Utility 5 (V5.4.1) problems

Hi all.

Some info first: Desktop PC, Windows 10, 64bit; Intel i7 CPU 3.07Ghz; Nvidia GTX670 graphics; 12GB RAM. Used for gaming (e.g.Far Cry 3&4, Tomb Raider, Dishonored) and runs all at High/Ultra settings. Runs Olympus Viewer 2 without any problems.

Photos are on my hardrive. When I try to use DCU5 my PC will slow; freeze; stop other programmes from working, etc. I don't understand this - perhaps DCU5/Silkypix is not compatable with Windows 10?

Oh, K-S2 and shooting in JPG format.

Any ideas out there please?

One way round this is that you don't need the Pentax disc at all. Use Photoshop Elements or similar and just open your JPEG files in that.

https://www.pentaxuser.com/article/organising-your-digital-files-252

This is a simple way to organise your files and one that's served me well without having to buy any additional software.

Hi, whyhaveone, welcome.

It may well be Win10 incompatibility, but I can't help there as I'm happy to stay with Win7. If you're just looking to display OOC JPGs, then John's suggestion will of course work.

While DCU5 is very good indeed as a raw converter for Pentax RAW files, if you are looking to further process JPG files, it maybe isn't the best tool for this as I don't believe that all of the options are available, and it doesn't have tools like clone, for example. So you could use the free Faststone viewer for this, and the interface is a Windows-Explorer-type, with a built-in slideshow.

If you want to stick with DCU5 for the JPGs, then there is a very recent DCU5 update to version 5.4.2 on the Japanese Ricoh website which notes Win10 compatibility as one of the upgrades.

Hello and thanks for the responses.

File organising isn't the problem, it's the editing. I liked the look of the DCU programme for editing as I've found that the Olympus Viewer 2 software crashes with the Pentax files - a size (10mb+) problem perhaps? It works perfectly with the Olympus files (usually 3-6mb).

I've now updated to V5.4.2 and have the same problems.

If I can't get the DCU software to work, any suggestions on free/cheap photo editing software?

FastStone Image Viewer is free and it knocks spots off a lot of commercial jobs. It does exactly what you want and how you want, with a minimum of fuss

Yes, Faststone will do a good job with JPGs as indicated, but if you want to get into RAW then it's not so good as a RAW converter, since it introduces a fair bit of noise.

My normal workflow is basic exposure, colour balance, distortion/shift etc on the RAW files in DCU5 and then export as TIFF. Finishing off is in Faststone followed by export as JPG. I find that for example the FS clone tool to be better than the equivalent one in Photoshop CS4.

Have you tried DCU5 with RAW? If you get the same issues then I'm not sure what the solution would be for you. DCU5 works fine on RAW for me on Win7 - don't know about JPG as I've never tried to edit a JPG in it. I'll try later and report back.

Update - DCU5 5.4.1. loads and edits JPGs on my Win7 system with no problem. Looks like Faststone may be a good way for you for JPG editing (http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDetail.htm).

Hello again and thanks for the additional info.

I've not yet tried shooting in RAW, I'll leave that for now.

I'll give Faststone a try. Silkypix is also available, but for Eu49 £36.

I think what you mean is that it has no automatic noise reduction for RAW. But it certainly does have NR which you can apply via sliders.
Depending on your shooting, there should not be a lot of noise in any case. I use FS all the time and rarely see much noise when loading the RAW data (press A) after viewing the JPG.

I swore I would never do this but for the price of a couple of pints or a pack of fags (£8.50) per month, Lightroom + Photoshop CC is good value IMO.

Handles JPG's and RAW, build in cataloguing capability, the best noise reduction module available, always up to date and more and it's super quick on Windows 10.

Edit: I forgot to mention you can get this for a trial period.

"I swore I would never do this but for the price of a couple of pints or a pack of fags (£8.50) per month, Lightroom + Photoshop CC is good value IMO."

i did exactly the same, a no brainer really at the price. if a Scotsman says it is a bargain i know i've done the right thing

I've just Just tried the trial version of Silkypix Studio 6, it has the same issues. However, they do not say it's compatible with Windows 10, just Vista, 7 and 8. So that may explain the DCU5 problems.

Faststone works fine, but does not seem to have the same colour rendition as DCU5 - that seems to match the camera very well.

Not wishing to go off topic, but.............happy new year everyone.

Hi Steve. I already have Faststone set up to display the RAW data rather than the thumbnail JPG, so that pressing A just displays the picture at full size, as it's already showing the rendered RAW data. Compared like this, there is a visible difference between opening a RAW in Faststone and DCU. FS does indeed have noise sliders but in applying them, the sharpness is dulled. Because DCU5 imports and applies the camera settings, the sharpness is unaffected, the picture is brighter and renders colour better and is even less noisy.

Happy New Year to all.

I agree it's not as powerful with RAW as DCU or LR, but it's extremely useful and it my most used image workhorse utility.
I seems our experience with Faststone Image Viewer differs a lot.
Can you show me the settings that you use which forces FS to load RAW data first rather than the embedded JPG?
The versions I've used, including the latest 5.5, don't have an option to load RAW first, the 'A' key has to be pressed in order to do so (see under RAW tab in settings). Yes, the 'A' key also zooms (as seen in the context menu) to the 'actual' size because it's the full size RAW loading.
The embedded JPG is already processed in-camera to your camera settings and in all my Pentax (and now Olympus) cameras are the same size as the RAW so not really to be regarded as a thumbnail.
Personally I don't like that DCU or even Lightroom imports RAW and applies the embedded camera settings, that's just silly and not what RAW is about imho. I want the to see the totally unprocessed RAW so that I can apply the development settings. Also, Ligthroom loves to apply 25% sharpness by default, I don't like that idea much.

By the way, FS uses Dave Coffins DCRAW decoder (as does RAWtherapee, Helicon Filter, Xara Designer, Google Picasa and many other Windows, OSX and Linux programs)