Raw Therapee
Based on Dave Coffin's dcraw conversion engine, Raw Therapee adds adjustment tools that allow you to make full use of the extra quality which the basic conversion provides.
First, it lets you select the actual demosaicing algorithm (EAHD, HPHD and VNG-4) used for making the conversion. Second, it offers processing features in RBG space such as exposure control, highlight recovery, white balance with fine-tuning controls, and brightness/contrast adjustment. It also works on the image in CIELab color space where it can modify the luminance channel and perform color shifting and boosting while applying a denoising algorithm to keep artifacts to a minimum. Other features include cropping, ICC based color management, vignetting and simple lens distortion correction, plus edge detection and preservation. Output formats are: JPEG (8 bit), PNG (8/16 bit), TIFF (8/16 bit).
Comment
Raw Therapee's name is derived from "THe Experimental RAw Photo Editor," but it seems less experimental all the time. It is one of the best of all RAW converters, bar none. Don't take our word for it: ask around in the photographic forums or go to the developer's amazing comparison page to see the various algorithms in action, with comparisons to well-known commercial products including Adobe Camera Raw, Bibble, Capture One, DxO, LightZone, and SilkyPix.
This FREE product is in no way inferior to commercial offerings -- and is often better. Try it. It may be all you need.
Tech info
- OS: Windows 2000 onward; Linux
- Price level: FREE
Gábor Horváth and the RT Team
Gábor Horváth of Budapest, Hungary, has spent many years refining Raw Therapee to make it the product it is today. He now has a full team to help him. A lively forum explains every aspect of the software.
From the same vendor:
- Language packs for Raw Therapee
©trl