BOUNCEFLASH

Canon DPP (Digital Photo Professional), the RAW processor for Canon RAW, is my preferred method of handling RAW files from my Canon 300D.  Yes, it’s an outdated camera, but that’s irrelevant. 

However, it’s a Windows program, which causes problems for Ubuntu. 

My situation is largely one of experimentation at this point; I have a different computer that I really use for what photo processing I am doing at this point.  However, I really am interested in the options that Ubuntu offers, because I REALLY like the operating system and what Ubuntu has done with Linux. 

As a result of installing Ubuntu on this laptop, an IBM Thinkpad T30, the need for a RAW converter became obvious.  GIMP, the photo processor that I am starting to like more and more, comes with Ubuntu, but I have almost stopped shooting in JPEG mode, simply because the ability to adjust white balance and exposure in RAW is SO valuable.  

So, I set off to learn how to iinstall DPP in Ubuntu.  Various sites mentioned it as being possible, so I dove off into WINE. 

WINE basically functions as an interface for Windows programs in Linux.  To install a Windows program, WINE must be started first, then pointed at the Windows installer file.  This works pretty cleanly and I was very surprised at how the installation screens work just like Windows.  WINE apparently creates some type of “virtual C: drive” and installs the programs there.  It even puts a shortcut on the desktop for the new program.  Once the program is installed, starting it automatical fires up the WINE engine and things pretty much proceed as normal with Windoze.

After a little stumbling around the first time, I got DPP up and running pretty quickly.  I also found some “glitches” pretty quickly. 

WINE does NOT does a good job of showing and managing the directory tree that we are used to seeing on the left side of the screen in DPP.  It’s there, but it’s ugly, and it doesn’t work really well.  however, once I learned the “method” of working with it – it’s basically transparent, and some of the hierarchical folders look really strange – I have no trouble finding my files. 

After FINDING the files, though, there becomes the necessity of opening and editing the files, and it’s fairly obvious that this current machine really doesn’t have enough horsepower.  Whether it’s the noisy hard drive or the limited memory, or the processor, i don’t know.  Regardless, pictures are TERRIBLY slow loading, and I suspect it’s more of the WINE / Windows problem than it is JUST the computer. 

However, with a little patience, it does basically seem to behave. 

This has led me to explore the raw converters that are Linux native, and I’ve so far tried two – Ufraw and Rawstudio.  Ufraw is my favorite of the two, but I’ve got to work with it more to see if I like it.  Ufraw is best with white balance, but it’s really bad at previewing images.  Rawstudio, however, previews nicely but does extremely little with white balance changes. 

Both claim to have an “export to GIMP” button, but I haven’t yet made it work with either one.   As well, neither one has the “contrast” adjustment that I really like about DPP.  They do allow curves adjustment, which should be able to accomplish the same thing with a little more “work”. 

There will be more in this saga, but the basic thrust of this post is that Canon DPP does work with Ubuntu, using WINE, and that there are other raw converters available for Ubuntu.  Thus, RAW and Ubuntu are not exclusive, and for that I am thankful. 

I am currently experimenting with Ubuntu Linux on a very outdated IBM Thinkpad T30 Laptop.  So far, I have successfully installed Ubuntu in a double-boot configuration with Windows 2000 as the other operating system.  I’ve set up one of the partitions so that it is shared as storage between Ubuntu and Windows, and Ubuntu is able to read virtually anything and everything.

However, I’ve got one major difficulty facing me – how to get Canon RAW files through this system.  I can use GIMP all day long, but I can’t convert RAW yet.

My current direction is to try Canon DPP with WINE. 

I’ll keep y’all up to date.

1. Set the background color to the desired border color.
2. Click Image, Canvas Size.
3. Select “pixels” and enter the appropriate size for one dimension.  For instance, if you have a 640×480 image and you want to add a 5 pixel border to each side, enter 650 and 490.  For a more proportional look, enter 650 and then click the “lock” and the other dimension will be automatically calculated.
4. Click the “Center” button.
5. Click the “Resize” button.
6. Click Layer, Layer to Image Size.
7. Voila.

Some things I like about GIMP, so far…

1. It starts up much quicker than the older versions.
2. It even runs on my Windows 2000 laptop.
3. It has a healing brush.
4. It has curves and levels, which my old version of Photoshop Elements really didn’t.
5. The “resize” tool allows locking of the aspect ratio, as does the “crop” tool.

Some things I don’t like about GIMP, so far…

1. It doesn’t do adjustment layers.
2. It runs kinda slow on my Windows 2000 laptop.  Of course, so does everything else. 

More on this later!

Five minutes with the latest version of GIMP for Windows has STRONGLY turned me in that direction.  There are some awesome things there that I’ve been missing with Paint Shop Pro 7 (I can’t afford Photoshop, sorry…)

Okay, so a week after I “start” this “bounceflash” blog, I’ve decided to change it a little bit…

Since I do want to experiment and explore off-camera flash just like I do bounce flash, I’m going to make this just be a “photography blog” named BOUNCEFLASH.  Thus, the whole “rebellion” idea is kind of going away, but there will be lots of stuff about bounce flash on here as well.