PShizzy: The Blog

When you preview a RAW image taken on your camera, most often what you’re doing is reviewing a low resolution JPEG rendering from that RAW data. Some applications offer ways to extract these jpegs. Canon’s own Zoombrowser allows this, as does Photo Mechanic. It’s not a big deal to open up these apps and extract a few files, but now there’s a better way.

From the crew over at Imagenomic (known for their Portraiture and Noiseware plugins), comes Instant JPEG from RAW. It’s not a program, but rather a system level utility. Right click on a folder, select the utility, and just like that the images are extracted. Sounds great. Here are my favorite features

1) Um, it’s free. This is big. I don’t like installing weird apps like Zoombrowser (which is free) to do one single thing. It’s a waste. But a simple utility, that’s right clickable? Awesome.

2) The Imagenomic folk aren’t strangers to many of us. I know a few people who use their Portraiture and/or Noiseware applications.

3) It’s cross platform. Since I rock a Dell laptop and a Mac Pro tower, these things are important to me.

There are limitations. The biggest one, as noted on their blog:

IJFR has no control over the look of the file. Since the file was created by the camera, it was the settings on the camera at the time of capture that rendered the file into what it looks like. In the case of a DNG exported from an application like Lightroom or ACR, it is the adjustments in that application that will affect the look of the rendered JPEG that is stored in the JPEG (it is called the Preview image).

There are ways around this, but it could be more work than just exporting out of Lightroom or Photoshop.

A little more info, the link, and thoughts after the jump.

So when is this useful? Well, that’s up to each of us. I’ve already thought about a few different ways this could be interesting. For one, reviewing photos could be made easier. When I’m done downloading, I could simply use the utility, then review the jpegs. I could choose my selects quicker, because the program has a smaller more managable file to review. Consider this: a current year camera easily takes a 12mb RAW image. Multiply that by 1k, and you’re looking at churning through 12gb of photos.

My laptop gets a little sluggish. It’s a core 2 duo pro, with 4gb of ram. My Mac handles it better. Of course, it’s a Dual Quad Core Xeon with 14gb of ram. yup, fourteen. So… uh, you could spend the cheddar to get that kinda performance. Or you could just use this free utility, review the jpegs, get the image numbers, and then process the relevant RAW file.

You can send out a quick JPEG for review too. The program will even resize (though it is limited to the size of the JPEG preview as its largest size). But sending out an untouched jpeg from the RAW file isn’t always the best move. Images are sometimes flatter, WB may be off, etc. If only we could “edit” the preview file.

Enter the DNG format. For those of us that use it (I don’t use it primarily, but do know how), it allows us to reinsert a JPEG preview file into the image. Simply edit your image as normal, then save out as a DNG. If you import files into Lightroom as DNG, then you’re already there. DNG’s can be very useful. Recently someone was asked to send a RAW file to a client. I don’t know who does this and who doesn’t, and I believe it’s pretty much up to the photographer if they’re willing to do this, but I do know that the JPEG preview from a RAW file can be unflattering.

The DNG file could be the answer. Simply adjust the settings in a program like Lightroom, or Bridge. Then save out the file as a DNG. This does NOT bake in the settings. It simply adds tags to the RAW data about the WB, cropping, exposure, and other settings. Now, when saving out the DNG, it will create a JPEG preview file, which DOES bake in these settings. But now the preview has been adjusted to reflect what the DNG will start off as.

This is a very flexibile solution. Your DNG is still a RAW file, for yourself or clients to edit. Your JPEG preview is a decent low res (or hi res: the DNG format allows full res previews) comp. You can extract that as needed, have the ability to redo the preview, and can always play with the DNG data.

Of course, this really only makes send if you already use DNG.  If you don’t, this may sway you. Not sure. I’m just offering options and opinions.

Here are the links:

The Raw Workflow Blog: this is where you find the blog posting and links to the file. You need to register, but again, it’s the good folks at Imagenomic. I don’t mind. If it were random startup Inc, then I might be a bit wary.

Imagenomic: These are the folk that created the Noiseware and Portraiture Plugins, as well as RealGrain. Their Noiseware plugin is a popular choice for noise reduction, and they even have a standalone Community Edition, which is slightly limited, but FREE.

Please, check them out. While the utility won’t change the way I do everything, I think it’s a nice tool to have, and supporting the creators only gives them reason to improve and innovate even further.

If you try it out and like it (or not), please feel free to comment. As always, I am on the lookout for applications and accessories that can make the average photographers life easier without making our bank account too much smaller.

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