Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/08/10

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Subject: [Leica] Converting DNG
From: bill at photobynelsch.com (Bill)
Date: Wed Aug 10 15:12:32 2005

Thanks for the tips - I'll give that a try.  Frankly the Camera Raw
Converter in Bridge/CS2 is excellent and a whole lot easier to use than
FlexColor which is shipped with the DMR. (Actually it's not shipped, you are
given a web site to visit and download the program from there).  I became a
fan of Picasa because it handled CRW (Canon RAW) files as well as several
other types.  While I like Adobe Bridge, it is considerably slower (I have a
lot of images on my disk and it has to rescan the folders each time it is
opened as opposed to Picasa which puts a thumbnail .ini file in each
folder).   

The problem with opening lets say 20 DNG images is that they are 19+ megs
(which converts to a 28 meg Photoshop file) each and you very quickly tap
the resources of the computer.  I'm using a Sony Vaio GRT240G laptop with
768 megs of RAM and a 60 gig hard drive with a P4 2.66 GHz CPU so it's not
like I'm on a slow machine but there is just no fast way of dealing with the
DNG's.  As a result, and I know this is heresy in this crowd, I'm shooting
quite a bit in Leica's jpg format and I have been very happy with the
results. 

Bill in Denver. 

-----Original Message-----
From: lug-bounces+bill=photobynelsch.com@leica-users.org
[mailto:lug-bounces+bill=photobynelsch.com@leica-users.org] On Behalf Of JR
Geoffrion
Sent: Wednesday, August 10, 2005 3:30 PM
To: lug@leica-users.org
Subject: [Leica] Converting DNG

> The biggest drawback at the moment is that when I shoot RAW (DNG)  I 
> am limited to using the Adobe Bridge/CS2 programs - Picasa does not 
> recognize DNG - yet.  And Adobe is such a humongous program that is 
> just takes too long for quick reviews and there is no easy way (at 
> least that I have found) to batch convert the DNG's to jpgs so that  
> they work on Picasa and for uploading to Smugmug.  I am sure this will 
> change with the next release of Picasa.
>
> Bill in Denver

Bill,

Here are a few alternative solutions for viewing / editing / batching your
DMR DNG files.

For previewing and batch converting, I recommend Adobe Bridge (which is part
of Photoshop CS2) to [relatively] quickly preview your images. It will also
allow you to batch convert the DNG by selecting them all and opening them in
Photoshop CS2. Then, simply select "select all" and "save as" JPG. The same
applies to making batch adjustments.

For cataloging and editing, I recommend iView Media Pro. It is extremely
fast at generating thumbnails (much, much faster than Bridge) and also
allows you to save the catalogs for easy referencing.

Lastly, you can use FlexColor by Imacon (now Hasselblad) to adjust and
convert your DMR DNG files. It requires a Ph.D. to get the hang of it. But
once you do, the result are exceptional.

I hope this helps a little.

JR Geoffrion
http://www.jrgeoffrion.com



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In reply to: Message from jr at jrgeoffrion.com (JR Geoffrion) ([Leica] Converting DNG)