Suggestions from a newbie....

Processing
1

I’m using Raw Therapee on a Mac running the latest version of Big Sur. I updated my version of Raw Therapee to 5.8 - and have been struggling with it for several days.

In no particular order…

I wanted to export a jpg image of my image. I looked it up, found that I need to look for an icon that looks like a floppy disk, found it at the top right of my screen, and after a dozen or so attempts gave up. I just made a screen capture. Then, the next day, I see that the exact same floppy disk icon is also at the bottom left of my screen, which works as intended. I would suggest that these two icons be changed so I can tell which is which.

I started with 100 images, and cut it down to 10. I would prefer to be able to right click on the large image down below, where I’m checking for sharpness, etc., and if I don’t like the image, right click and delete it. Instead I had to program the film strip to only show non deleted images, and click the trash can icon to get rid of the image I want to delete. I still don’t know how to actually delete those files.

When I bring up the tone curve, to make adjustments, it already has a bunch of spots selected for control points. That means I need to waste time moving them to the end of the line so they seem to vanish. There is probably a good reason why they are there, but there should be a way to get a straight line, and I can move it around as needed. Maybe that’s the first thing I should do - not sure, rather confused.

Cropping an image is a nightmare. I wish this worked like every other program I use - select the crop tool, move the corners or the edges as desired, and when I turn off the crop tool, MY full image fills the screen at the bottom.

When I go through the dialog to save a jpg image, I wish there was a “create folder” box so I could create a new folder to export the photos to. Would be very convenient. If it’s there now, I just didn’t find it.

Finally, it’s probably something I did wrong, but as I’m moving my cursor around the screen, the displayed image is constantly getting larger or smaller. I like to be able to do that when I want to, like zooming in, but I have no idea to turn that function off.

I did get my images processed, so this attempt was successful. I’m sure my problems are because I don’t yet understand how to use Raw Therapee.

Photos by the way came from my Leica M8.2 which can capture infrared as the camera was sold without a built-in IR filter. I am pleased that Raw Therapee can even work on these images - PhotoLab 4 can’t, as it doesn’t have whatever file it needs to get the optical corrections for my camera and lens. I guess the Leica M8 cameras are too old for them to bother with. I used to use Lightroom for this, but I’m way too stubborn, and I was determined to do the work with Raw Therapee.

I’m sure there is a reason why things are as they are - all I’m saying, is as a newcomer to the software, it didn’t work the way I expected it to work. So, I found work-arounds.

I would post one of my original images here, but I’m not sure what other files are needed. I’ll try anyway, along with my ‘jpg’ image that eventually was created. This is not the “best” image, but it does show what I “did”.

L1030883 2020-12-13
L1030883 2020-12-133912×2630 3.5 MB

L1030883 | 2020-12-13.dng (10.1 MB)

L1030883 | 2020-12-13.dng.pp3 (11.8 KB)

2

I believe the default profile is an attempt to auto-match the tone curve of the JPEG thumbnail your camera embeds in the raw file. If you select a non auto-matching preset you won’t start with any points on the tone curve.

I agree with this assessment. I made Filmulator work this way, but also be able to snap to common aspect ratios, and also able to move the cropped area around without changing the size…

Hopefully someone on the RawTherapee side of things can improve usability here.

3

Sounds good - can you point me towards what I need to read, so I can do this? I didn’t know it was even using a “preset”, let alone give me choices like this.

Maybe a “preset” window could be shown above or below the tone curve, so this would be more intuitive?

Not a biggie - it was just inconvenient, but everything is inconvenient when I’m learning something new.

On the PLUS side, I did get my editing completed, without having to go into Adobe.

I had the impression that Raw Therapee was designed for working with infrared images. Now I think I was wrong, but it DOES have the ability to do so. When I tried to adjust the white balance in other editors, they laughed at me. No can do. With Raw Therapee, once I did the channel swap, everything got easier.

Another admission - I have no idea what a digital image taken with my infrared sensitive Leica M8.2, with my dark red filter, ought to look like. So I just played with controls until I got a pretty effect that I could post, as in the image up above. Since I can’t “see” infrared, I have no idea of what colors things should appear to be. The end result is a combination of what the software showed me, and then a little enhancement to make things more colorful, like back when I used to use infrared film. One thing I miss is the deep blue sky I expected - but I think I need a different filter to get that.

4

Usually for color infrared, this just means swapping the R & B channels. For light room, you need an ICC profile to do this… Which is crazy.

Likely you won’t find much, as you repeatedly reference a red filter, you’re still letting in a lot of visible light.

1 Like
5

The processing profiles are in a dropdown at the top right of the editing window above all of the tools.

It’s not just a tone curve preset, it presets everything.

6

You’re probably right - need to order some 39mm filters that fit my lens.

Update - I did find a way to create a new folder when saving a jpg image. I guess I’m slow.
I also found what you suggested for the “tone curve”, and with that change I ave a straight line with no points, that I can edit more easily/quickly.

Each time I use the program, I learn new things. Each time I use the program, I am frustrated because I can’t do something…but the next time I use the program I figure it out.

I still don’t know how to convince the crop tool to show me ONLY the area I cropped to. On the other hand, I did find the way to crop to my own proportions, rather than the list of what other people might use.

I took several shots of iguanas today, which blended into the scene so well I had trouble finding them. Interesting thing, with my sort-of-infrared filter in place they no longer blend in - they stand out like a neon sign.

L1030942 2020-12-13.jpg.out
L1030942 2020-12-13.jpg.out1230×827 602 KB

I may have no idea what I’m doing, but playing around with infrared is something I enjoy. Always have. Raw Therapee makes it easy!!

7

If.lyou look at some IR filters, they’re pretty much not see thru. https://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/c/search?Ntt=infrared%20filter&N=0&InitialSearch=yes&sts=ps

8

RT could borrow crop tool from ART

9

grafik
grafik751×87 4.72 KB

2 Likes
10

@mikemyers Please read this Getting Started - RawPedia
For example, with regard to your comments about cropping if you had done so, you would have seen this:

You can zoom to fit the crop area by using the f keyboard shortcut, or ⎇ Alt+f if you want to fit the whole image.

Also, try playing with these buttons:
image image

To address some particular points:

I looked it up, found that I need to look for an icon that looks like a floppy disk, found it at the top right of my screen, and after a dozen or so attempts gave up.

I see how this can be confusing, however, the icon in the top right is clearly in a box saying “Processing profiles” which shouldn’t sound to you like exporting an image. Again, if you had read the documentation, you could have found this page which explains it all: http://rawpedia.rawtherapee.com/Saving_Images
Also, please inform yourself about the processing queue, which can export multiple images simultaneously.

I would prefer to be able to right click on the large image down below, where I’m checking for sharpness, etc., and if I don’t like the image, right click and delete it. Instead I had to program the film strip to only show non deleted images, and click the trash can icon to get rid of the image I want to delete. I still don’t know how to actually delete those files.

I agree that this is a little strange. It stems from the design choice that RT has no typical menu bar. However, this should always work to delete an image from your disk:

image
image1242×788 107 KB

When I bring up the tone curve, to make adjustments, it already has a bunch of spots selected for control points. That means I need to waste time moving them to the end of the line so they seem to vanish. There is probably a good reason why they are there, but there should be a way to get a straight line, and I can move it around as needed. Maybe that’s the first thing I should do - not sure, rather confused.

As @CarVac said correctly, this is the default processing mode to approximate the look of the in-camera JPEG. You can either change the default, or reset the curve to linear by using this:
image
or simply use ‘Tone curve 2’ right under the first one to make further modifications.

This sounds like very strange behavior. I have no idea what might be going on here, except that you are accidentally scrolling instead of moving your mouse.

And finally @CarVac

You are already able to pick any number of common aspect ratios
image
What more would you want?
Also, you can easily move the cropped area around by using Shift+Drag. See here: http://rawpedia.rawtherapee.com/Crop

3 Likes
11

Have you tried Filmulator’s crop tool?

In RawTherapee it takes forever to experiment with different aspect ratios because they’re locked away in the dropdown box, which requires a long mouse movement with a fairly high precision click, then a visual search, then another click, just to change to something that might be temporary.

And once you’re locked in, that makes manipulating the cropped area unintuitive, especially when you drag a side instead of a corner.

Compare Filmulator, where, while dragging a corner, holding Shift makes the crop area snap to the nearest common aspect ratio. This snapping only happens with corner dragging meaning the behavior remains intuitive, plus because it’s not locked in it’s easy to experiment with different aspect ratios, or even easily select portrait or landscape as desired; just drag the corner while holding the Shift modifier.

The number of mouse interactions needed to achieve the same result is annoyingly high in RawTherapee.

1 Like
12

I’ll give Filmulator another go! Has been ages since I last tried… What you describe sounds indeed more user friendly than RT. If there is one particular area with rather frequent and mostly negative feedback for RT it’s the crop tool. I wish it were easier to change the behavior, but its functionality is at the core of RT, so it takes great care to modify.
If ART has found another solution, it may be worthwhile to check it out.

1 Like
13

Hello, and thanks. I found this late last night. It wasn’t very obvious, but knowing it now, I’m all set. Again, thanks for the reply.

1 Like
14

I think you’ve explained everything, but I also think some things could be made more intuitive. In order…

The disc icon to save a image - I found in the documentation what icon to look for, found it, and never thought to make sure it wasn’t used in additional place(s). I never bothered to read the text around that image - I was just following the instructions, saw the appropriate icon, and clicked. It was late, I was tired, and I just wanted to save an image to email it. If I remember correctly, I did a “screen capture”, copied and pasted into email, and went to sleep. …of course I learned, and from then on, I’m using it with the correct icon to click on. Unless it messes up the code, I think the icons should be obviously different from each other.

The image growing and shrinking as I was moving my mouse around is probably just what you guessed, I must have had a finger on the scroll wheel. Maybe later I can find a way to switch the mode so this doesn’t happen. For me, it was annoying, but I could work around it. I probably selected something I didn’t realize would cause this to happen. Again, I eventually finished, and figured next time I would find out how to prevent this.

Processing Queue - good to know I need to read about this. I assumed I could right click and select several images, then send them. This doesn’t matter to me, but I’m guessing it matters a lot to others. Once it worked, I selected one image at a time for export. Will read up on this later today.

Can I ask why RT doesn’t have a menu bar up at the top?

Finally, I’m sure it’s very useful to be able to snap to all those many aspect ratios, but I wish it had one simple choice at the top “unrestrained”, and I wish I could make that the default for me. Again, for me, for unrestrained crops, I have no need to click and drag the box anywhere. All I need is a way to crop from the straight lines, or from the corners, and a quick way to adjust the angle if needed so it’s not tilted.

I’m not trying in any way to be “negative”. I’m sure eventually I’ll get things sorted out so it’s easy for me to use. At least as of today I’m feeling pretty comfortable, rather than “lost”. :slight_smile:

15

If you want an unrestrained crop, in the crop tool, uncheck the box labeled “Lock ratio”.

1 Like
16

Thank you. I hope this change is “sticky”, but even if I have to do it every time, that’s fine.

17

Most changes you make to the defaults can be made “sticky”, if you save a new profile, and then set it as default. It’s all explained in the rawpedia.

18

I agree. The documentation is not clear enough and may lead to confusion.

Because everything is at hand (more or less) throughout de GUI?

As @bobm and @mbs have told you, you can create a custom processing profile and use it as your default values for the tools you wish/need. Don’t miss the processing profiles documentation, and very specially the last (and short) part.

RawPedia will always be your friend…

19

Just a thought - you guys, and the people who wrote the software, probably know, what, maybe 10,000 times more about this than I do. I won’t be creating custom processing profiles until I’m at least familiar with how everything is supposed to be used now.

If I mention things that confuse me more than usual, I get an answer, and maybe there are things that can be changed to minimize confusion in the next new user. But as for me, I need to keep on using it just as it is now, and eventually I may start doing things more efficiently.

The single biggest change that would make life easier for me, is to open up all the images and cull out the ones I don’t like. That was a problem for me last time, but I have two ways to improve things for me - either continue to ingest images using PhotoMechanic, or to do so in RawPhotoViewer, and only open up Raw Therapee after I’ve deleted the worst of my images.

I suspect for the time being, I will continue to edit my “normal” photos in PhotoLab4. PhotoLab won’t open images from my Leica M8.2, so those will go to RawTherapee. My infrared photos will all be coming from my Leica M8.2, so by definition those will also go to Raw Therapee. (The reason I first downloaded Raw Therapee was because I read it was a wonderful way to edit IR photos, and it is SO much better than my attempts with Lightroom).

If I ever sound frustrated, ignore that. I’m always frustrated nowadays, because no matter how much I understand something, I’m constantly trying to learn how to do more. Nothing wrong with being frustrated.

One more IR photo from Sunday - need to do better… …but I’ve got a big smile on my face from getting even this far.

L1030908 2020-12-13
L1030908 2020-12-133912×2630 4.03 MB

20

Here in Spain we have a creed stuck into our minds: don’t read the manual!, and most of the time it works! :smile:

But when things doesn’t work as expected, common sense asks to read at the very least the appropriate chapters of the manual…

Same applies here: it’s been said many many times that the learning curve of RT is steep, but a lot of time and effort has been spent on creating RawPedia to solve many of your doubts, so I think it’s wise to use it. In the end there’s even a help icon in the interface that everybody knows what it is for. You just have to click it.

Could RT be better? Yes, and I know devs are working on it, but it will take time.

And about the culling process, to my knowledge RT won’t ever have that feature built-in, so we will have to keep using our favorite software to do it.

Keep learning RT, and for the time being you will use it for all your photos… :wink: