I've got a couple of cameras that shoot in RAW but which also can generate and save a thumbnail or lower quality JPEG version of the same photo, but the RAW image ends up incorrect in its colors / white balance when the tools I most often use import the RAW files. In comparison, the camera generated JPEG or RAW thumbnail is usually "about right" in terms of its color matching to the actual scene and its white balance.
I'd like to automate the batch conversion of the RAW files to other formats that are more easily browsed / manipulated by most other software like JPEG or ppm or whatever while keeping the master RAW file of course for any selective manual editing or printing I may choose to do.
When I use the "use camera white balance" or "auto white balance" import options the images are not satisfactorily close to correct. I usually use something based on dcraw or ufraw under LINUX for the conversion. I am not sure how well PhotoShop would handle it, I don't use that very often since I'm usually running LINUX.
I'm surprised to see no built in ability in the various freeware RAW import programs to just take the color profile / white balance hints from any camera generated JPEG or thumbnail of the same photo and use that to guide the conversion of the RAW image if the "auto" or "camera generated" settings don't work sufficiently well.
Is there an easy way to extract this differential information between photo A and photo B to generate image specific command line import parameters while using the dcraw / ufraw type of workflow?
I'm sure I could fool around with ArgyllCMS / LittleCMS and come up with something custom, but given the commonality of the problem that everyone with similar camera must face, I'd expect there would already be a better solution than having to hack one together myself.
I know I could / should shoot a grey target and possibly some color checker chart at the start of a set of shots to enable color correction of the images, but I don't always remember to do that, and we've got several hundred RAW images already taken that I'd like to convert without doing it manually one by one.
I'm sure I could just use PhotoShop one day and I expect it'd do a better job (or maybe not), but I've heard the freeware RAW converters were actually supposed to be pretty good, so perhaps I just need to learn a few tricks of using them.
Of course I could just shoot in JPEG mode but then I'd lose useful capacity for manual correction of the photos that especially need it.
I'd like to automate the batch conversion of the RAW files to other formats that are more easily browsed / manipulated by most other software like JPEG or ppm or whatever while keeping the master RAW file of course for any selective manual editing or printing I may choose to do.
When I use the "use camera white balance" or "auto white balance" import options the images are not satisfactorily close to correct. I usually use something based on dcraw or ufraw under LINUX for the conversion. I am not sure how well PhotoShop would handle it, I don't use that very often since I'm usually running LINUX.
I'm surprised to see no built in ability in the various freeware RAW import programs to just take the color profile / white balance hints from any camera generated JPEG or thumbnail of the same photo and use that to guide the conversion of the RAW image if the "auto" or "camera generated" settings don't work sufficiently well.
Is there an easy way to extract this differential information between photo A and photo B to generate image specific command line import parameters while using the dcraw / ufraw type of workflow?
I'm sure I could fool around with ArgyllCMS / LittleCMS and come up with something custom, but given the commonality of the problem that everyone with similar camera must face, I'd expect there would already be a better solution than having to hack one together myself.
I know I could / should shoot a grey target and possibly some color checker chart at the start of a set of shots to enable color correction of the images, but I don't always remember to do that, and we've got several hundred RAW images already taken that I'd like to convert without doing it manually one by one.
I'm sure I could just use PhotoShop one day and I expect it'd do a better job (or maybe not), but I've heard the freeware RAW converters were actually supposed to be pretty good, so perhaps I just need to learn a few tricks of using them.
Of course I could just shoot in JPEG mode but then I'd lose useful capacity for manual correction of the photos that especially need it.
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