[Leica] Q2 question

[Howard L Ritter Jr]

A question for Q2 users: Can I get the computer thumbnail images of DNG files taken in B&W mode to display in color? (The DNG file itself is the native color image, despite being taken in B&W mode.)

The Q2 manual is remarkably uninformative in respects that I’m discovering almost every time I look to it for guidance. For example, it refers to saving images in B&W when that mode and the JPEG file format are chosen, but doesn’t seem to address what happens when the DNG file format is chosen. When I experimentally set my Q2 to take monochrome images, I found that even though it displays in mono on the LCD screen and viewfinder, as well as in mono in the thumbnails in the image folder on the computer, the DNG file it saves is in color, because it opens that way in Photoshop. Obviously, the file carries the instruction that it is to be thumbnailed in mono – by a computer as well as by the Q2’s monitor.

I didn’t realize this would happen, so for several hundred pictures, I left the camera in B&W mode, not doing any pixel-peeping that required seeing the image in color. Now after transferring the files to a computer I have a folder full of color images with monochrome thumbnails. To get color thumbnails, I have to open the image file in Preview or PS and save a copy as something other than DNG. Now I have two thumbnails for the image, a mono of the DNG file and a color one of the corresponding JPEG.

I just got finished automating PS to produce a color JPEG for each of the hundreds of color images whose thumbnails are in mono, and save the thumbnail alongside its DNG original. This makes for a lot of clutter and waste of storage space for images that are no more than indexes and not to be used for display or printing.

Does anyone know how to get a DNG file that is in color, but was shot by the Q2 in B&W mode, to thumbnail in color so I can trash all those duplicate JPEG color files?


And while we’re complaining about the instruction manual, what the #3!! is up with the Keyword Index in the back of the book? Large chunks are alphabetized, or sort of, and interspersed with seemingly random words, or alphabetized groups, that have escaped from elsewhere in the alphabet. If you can’t find your topic alphabetically, you have to scan the whole index to find it. 

And I still can’t find the ‘GPS’ entry that the index tells me is on page 50. What is the relevance of GPS to the Q2, anyway?


—howard