linux software

Kadafi · 9 Mar 2010 at 10:19

Ive been using linux for a while now, but ive never done any editing or prost-prod on there. Ive used gimp a bit for the basic's, but now im getting into photography more i'll be using it more and more.

My question is, are there any good plug ins for gimp that i'll find useful and what software can I use for RAW?

my system is quite low powered so I cant really go down the v-box route.

Kona* · 9 Mar 2010 at 13:47

RawTherapee is multi-platform and doesn't require that much horsepower: http://www.rawtherapee.com/

Bluelion · 9 Mar 2010 at 16:05

Actually my experience of rawtherapee was that its performance was borderine dire to unuseable. It seems to get exponentially slower the more raw files you have in the working directory, to the point where it was taking me > 3 minutes to open a file.

I jumped the boat and dived in with bibble, http://bibblelabs.com/, which is commercial software which offers multiple platform support, including Linux. It currently seems to cost $200, so not that cheap but cheaper than the competitors. It offers full control of Raw files and conversion, but at the moment there is limited editing capabilities. It focuses heavily on performance, and will use all the cores your system has. I'd recommend trying the trial, its only a small download.

Kadafi · 9 Mar 2010 at 17:52

well the laptop im currently using is about 5 years old, single core and is basically on its last legs... now that ive got a decent camera setup im saving for a new laptop... it just never ends. and paying for software is a no no mainly cause of the lack of funds but also it kind of goes against the linux ethos which ive gotten myself into.

greengiant · 9 Mar 2010 at 19:43

I use the following:

I import my photos from the usb card / organise the pictures using Digikam.
I then open the raw photos using Gimp by way of the UFRaw gimp plugin.

If there are any images which need 16bit editing, then I use cinepaint (which used to be called filmgimp)

One good thing is that my Spyder2 express works in linux so I can use a colour managed display using dispcalgui http://dispcalgui.hoech.net/.

I hope this helps.