Ok, I’m baack. I can sit down and write a post for the site but I’d like some help from the community please.
I’m presuming the post will be about a 5.9 release?
Is there a good list of features/fixes you want me to address in the article (and bonus points if you can include a link or some other information to help me understand what’s going on).
If there are new release links or a place for releases can everyone please provide it here?
Should i also include it as a “release” post in general? Or are we going to point users to a couple of different places for the time being?
Can I get a list of current contributors and team members (if possible linked to work done above or just in general). I’d like to frame the post as an announcement that the project isn’t dead and there are contributors and team members still working diligently on things!
Ideally I’d get enough information to have a rough post built by the weekend…
Please respond here and keep the chatter to a minimum if possible so I can easily grok things in this one thread while I hammer at a keyboard.
Again, please feel free to ask for changes or point out anything I’m missing/messing up. (You’re not going to hurt my feelings - I just want to get the message out to the users! ).
This page has a long list of updates and contributors. I will try to highlight the ones I think are big.
Local Adjustments
This one is a major addition and deserves more discussion because it is a tool containing other tools.
Local adjustments allows parts of the image to be edited based on color similarity to a target. The affected regions can be further refined by a rectangle or ellipsoid region and masks. Multiple local adjustments can be made and multiple tools can be used per adjustment. I won’t go into the details of the tools now, but it’s a good idea to do so in the website post.
Waveform and Vectorscope
RawTherapee had a raw histogram, RGB histogram, and CIELAB lightness and chroma histogram. Now, it also has a waveform, RGB parade, CIELAB Hue-Chroma vectorscope, and HSL Hue-Saturation vectorscope.
Camera-based Perspective Correction
The existing perspective correction tool is good for quick and simple correction, but fails on more complex or extreme corrections. The new camera-based perspective correction is geometrically correct and allows a user to adjust the correction based on the camera’s field of view and angle with respect to the subject. The new tool also has automatic correction which straightens user-drawn lines or automatically-detected lines.
Full-screen/Detached Inspector
The old inspector lived on a tab on the right side of the file browser. Now, users have the option to use the inspector in a separate window. The window can be full-screened and the image can be panned and zoomed.
Improved Film Negative
Film negative can be used on non-raw images and produces better color results.
Spot Removal
RawTherapee finally has a basic spot removal tool for cloning-out circular regions.
Color-Correlation Automatic White Balance
This is an improved automatic white balance algorithm.
Dual-Demosaic with Bilinear
New dual-demosaic algorithms have been added which use the speedy bilinear method for smooth regions.
Although I had many commits this version, 5644 is by far the most complex change made to the macos app. The patch started when 5.8 was released and has been subject to public beta test and adjustment for more than two years.
This transition was made for users of the new macos 10.15 who encountered increased system integrity protections: the macos application now uses the standard Apple LaunchServices bundle structure instead of a shell script. To further enhance system integrity, the application is also hardened, sandboxed, signed (by me), and notarized (by Apple).
For the main developers (D) and main contributors (C), which doesn’t mean that others didn’t intervene, sorry but the request is not an exhaustive list, so there are important omissions especially for “Local adjustments” :
For the modules where I intervened in an important way
I’m outlining some a basic post with all the great information from @Thanatomanic and @Lawrence37 and @jdc and many others.
Here’s my confession - I haven’t shot/edited any images since pre-COVID, so I am really far behind in keeping up with these new features and how they work. I have no problem writing prose and doing my best but I’ll need to find some time to sit down and really try some of these things out unless folks are willing to help fill in the gaps for me.
IF anyone wanted to take a stab at writing something and including some screenshots that would make all this go much faster. It doesn’t have to be fancy and can just point out the major points - I’ll wordsmith it to something consistent in the longer post.
So any takers for the Local Adjustments?
(If not, I’ll grab a dev release and start playing with it myself, but it will be a few days at the soonest).
Some might be surprised that I don’t mention in the news, “Abstract profiles”. This is not an oversight, but a deliberate omission for a wide communication before the new version 5.9
Indeed this addition was the subject of long and heated debates (with misunderstandings on the purposes, and the technique).
Nevertheless it is an important step forward for those who are interested in it (this is not a criticism, but an observation - new things often bring this kind of reaction - what is the use of it, it is not in software A or B).
But it will be essential to put it for the release of 5.9
Here is a summary of the main features
TRC: adjust gamma and slope to: a) modify the image rendering, which by default is g=2.4 s=12.92; b) raise the shadows and modify the lighter tones while preserving the colorimetry and the gamut.
Illuminant (white point): a) adjust the gamut of the Working profile to adapt it to the shooting conditions taking into account the colorimetry. If an image is taken at 4000K, in sRGB (which is D65), the gamut may not be suitable. The joint action of the Illuminant and CIECAM (symmetrical mode) allows you to ensure good chromatic adaptation; b) used in conjunction with the modification of the Primaries below.
Primaries: this is where the notion of Abstract profiles comes into its own. Several possibilities are available: a) Use this module as a Channel Mixer in order to create special effects similar to Color Toning, with or without CIECAM; b) Use it to modify or refine the result of the Input profile to improve the colorimetry (calibration).
As far as screenshots are concerned, I think there is everything you need in the “Local adjustments” documentationas far as screenshots are concerned, I think there is everything you need in the “Local adjustments” and “Wavelets” in Rawpedia
Not sure how to describe this one. Allows color profiles to be used artistically rather than for typical color management. Never mind, Jacques posted before I could.
Wavelet Levels
explained by Jacques above
Fix for Disappearing Window
Several users have reported an annoying bug where RawTherapee would start, but the window would not appear. It actually appeared off the screen. This has been fixed.
Camera Support
As usual, support for several cameras or file formats have been added or improved (ProRaw, EOS R5, EOS R6, EOS RP, GFX 100, Z 5, Z 50, etc.)
Miscellaneous Bug-fixes and Performance Improvements
Self-explanatory.
In addition to all the updates that will be part of 5.9, there has been a lot of work done which are expected to be completed and included in the following release. This is an important point because it shows development is on-going.
Contributors
5.9 has been over 2 years in the making, so I’ll try my best to remember as many contributors. Please help me out if I miss anyone or their associated contributions.
Code Contributors
Beep6581 / @ Morgan_Hardwood (Maciek Dworak) : Maintainer. Camera support. Adding translations from translators. Benitoite / @HIRAM (Richard Barber) : Maintaining and improving RawTherapee for MacOS. Side note: Name is not in the credits yet. Bezierr : Resizing by long or short edge of the image. Bugfixes. Side note: Is name in the credits? Desmis / @jdc (Jacques Desmis) : Primary developer of Local Adjustments. Abstract Profiles. Improvements to Wavelets. Color correlation Automatic White Balance. Bugfixes. Floessie / @floessie : Many bugfixes. Code review. Many small but important code contributions. Hombre57 / @Hombre (Jean-Christophe Frisch) : Spot Removal. heckflosse / @heckflosse (Ingo Weyrich) : Bilinear dual-demosaic options. Camera support. Bugfixes. Performance improvements. Haze Removal saturation blending. Square crop guide. jonathanBieler / @jonathanBieler (Jonathan Bieler) : Reducing issues with the rendering of the parametric curves. Adding default size for Spot Removal. Side note: Name is not in the credits yet. Lawrence37 / Me (Lawrence Lee): Camera-based perspective correction. Waveform and vectorscopes. Bugfixes. Automated Windows and AppImage builds on GitHub. Pandagrapher / @Pandagrapher (Pierre Cabrera): Local Adjustments, with major contributions to the UI. Fix for disappearing window. SimonSegerblomRex (Simon Segerblom Rex) : Fixes for image decoding. sgotti / @sgotti (Simone Gotti) : Improvements to DNG decoding. Side note: Name is not in the credits yet. stwunsch (Stefan Wunsch) : Improvements to the CMake build. Side note: Name is not in the credits yet. Thanatomanic / @Thanatomanic (Roel Baars) : Camera support. Bugfixes. UI theme updates. Code review. Unofficial co-maintainer. ThorNielsen (Thor Nielsen) : Camera white balance for certain CR3 files. Side note: Name is not in the credits yet. rfranke (Rüdiger Franke) : Full-screen/detached inspector. rom9 / @rom9 (Alberto Romei) : Improved Film Negative.
I’ll finish this list with non-code contributors another time and maybe elaborate on the Local Adjustment tools and the things I’ve added, if that’s desirable.
Again, please feel free to ask for changes or point out anything I’m missing/messing up. (You’re not going to hurt my feelings - I just want to get the message out to the users! ).
Thanks Pat! And thanks to everyone for moving this project forward in light of difficult circumstances. Just for clarification, is this announcement going to be posted on top of the main page of the RawTherapee website? Or is this a new web location all together?
First of all, thank you for this work which makes things move forward.
The introduction fits me overall (with my understanding of English).
The list of people who have done at least one PR is interesting, it shows that many people have developed something. but two remarks :
don’t do the ranking by number of PR/commits, not that I’m looking for any benefit or ego (I don’t care at all), but it shows better the contributions of each one (it’s just a remark)
should we not also note the main contributors who (at least in my case, Local adjustments, Abstract profile, Wavelets, Color-correlation automatic white balance, etc.) have been indispensable both to detect upstream of the PR the dysfunctions, and to realize the important change of the documentation (tooltips, Rawpedia, videos) and write the tooltips and Rawpedia in good English
It is probably necessary to leave the links that you put, but it seems to me that the list made by adding the proposals of @Lawrence37 and mine, should clearly appear in simple reading. These proposals which give a summary description of each “novelty” (Local adjustments, Waveform and vectorscope, …, abstract profile, etc.) as well as the developers and contributors seems to me very desirable (rather than only links, which of course must be maintained) to show the evolution of the work and thoughts in progress, and of course for each new feature some screenshots
But once again thank you for this initiative which will improve the communication and I hope (finally) unblock the imbroglio in which we are
Excuse my bad english, and my current very poor contribution due to very serious health problems (and my age 74)
I just added some words while working on an Artilcle about RT, just did it on the side because I noticed that something was missing.
I think they mentioned me because I have several commits, most of them being translation commits. One of them is tiny but actual code but I guess that’s not enough to mention me as a developer. So I am kind of a contributor.
BTW, thanks @Lawrence37 , it’s really a great honor.
@patdavid How much detail and what kind of information do you need for the descriptions of each feature?
@jdc Those are good points.
The associations of people to their respective features, I think, is a sufficient replacement for the number of PRs and commits. Numbers don’t tell the whole story, but the associations give a clear idea of how people have contributed to 5.9.
On the point of documentation, I’m not good at keeping track of all those who have helped. In addition to what Jacques has written, I recall @XavAL wrote the Spanish RawPedia documentation on Waveform and Vectorscopes.
).