> > DB> Am I missing something here? Have you found a good RAW converter, also > DB> allowing color balance (unlike the Genzo)? Joe (and other folks doing the > DB> same) can you explain your thoughts on this? > > Have you tried "dcraw" ? It is a command line utility, though > (although a GIMP plugin is already for it under Linux, I heard, with > live preview and controls). I found it useful for quick conversions > with (intentionally) lowered quality, but haven't tried it yet with > full conversion.
I tried dcraw - I even went as far as to download the source and take a look at it. At least part of my playing around with my own conversion code is based on my dissatisfaction with dcraw; quite aprt from the fact that the conversion process loses all the EXIF information, I found the colour balance to be terrible (and I'm not all that keen on the algorithm it uses for the Bayer interpolation). Many of the programs that now offer Pentax raw file conversion are based on the dcraw code, and so they will have all the undesirable artifacts of the conversion. The one big exception, from what I hear, is Photoshop CS; although it too is based on dcraw, Adobe have done a lot to enhance the implementation with code to use some of the other information in the file (other than just the raw pixel sensor values). That won't help with the Bayer artifacts, but it will help with white balance, sharpening, etc.
