# Does anyone here use open source software for Canon?



## cayenne (Mar 29, 2012)

Hi all,

While I do have a mac and access to a windows box (I don't do windows that often)...I'm primarily a Linux guy.

Is there anyone else out there using open source tools for working with their Canons?

I was wanting to try my hand at using things like Cinelerra for video...and the GIMP for stills.

I'm about to pull the trigger on a 5D mkIII....and wondering if anyone had used Linux with opensource tools to do things with say, the Canon 5D mk2?

TIA,

cayenne


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## JerryKnight (Mar 29, 2012)

I haven't used it much, but I think GIMP is getting pretty good. Not sure I would encourage someone to use it professionally yet, but it's certainly good enough for personal use.

The main reason is not the quality or capabilities. Anything you can do in Photoshop, you can probably do in GIMP, but the difference is philosophy of design. GIMP, like Linux, is very "figure it out yourself". If you want something a certain way, do it yourself. Instead of getting extensive tutorials and support from professional photographers using Photoshop, you have to figure out how to do everything on your own with GIMP.

Example: CS5's "content-aware fill" was functional in GIMP for at least 2 years before Adobe released it. It actually can do a comparable job, too, in some cases.

The other difference is the caliber of programmers employed by Adobe. If they spent one week on GIMP, it would be 10 times better, faster, more reliable, etc. GIMP is just not as optimized, and it can crash more often. Another thing you have to remember is that GIMP was written and is maintained by open-source programmers, some of which might be photographers, but most of them are probably photography hobbyists who program for a living. Adobe probably employs many photographers to guide their designs.

Some specifics you might want to check on.. Look at the dcraw project to see how they're doing with the 5D3 CR2 files, since I'm pretty sure the default raw converter in GIMP uses dcraw. Also, research the color management tools on Linux. I know they exist, but I've never experimented with them, so I'm not sure how good they are.

Cinelerra, I have almost zero experience with, so I can't give any opinions there.


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## cayenne (Apr 1, 2012)

JerryKnight said:


> I haven't used it much, but I think GIMP is getting pretty good. Not sure I would encourage someone to use it professionally yet, but it's certainly good enough for personal use.
> 
> The main reason is not the quality or capabilities. Anything you can do in Photoshop, you can probably do in GIMP, but the difference is philosophy of design. GIMP, like Linux, is very "figure it out yourself". If you want something a certain way, do it yourself. Instead of getting extensive tutorials and support from professional photographers using Photoshop, you have to figure out how to do everything on your own with GIMP.
> 
> ...



Thanks for the reply.<P>
Whew...Adobe is mighty "proud" of their products...they want an arm and a leg for their stuff, and honestly, I can't figure out exactly what package I need from them...many seem to overlap...do I need photo shop or just Lightroom...etc.

Well, I'll start with what I have on my mac...iMovie and iPhoto...and what I can use open source on Linux.
I'm looking to see if friends with kids in college, can get a copy of the Adobe stuff with educational discount....which is SIGNIFICANT.....$199 vs like $899.....

C 8)


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## elflord (Apr 1, 2012)

cayenne said:


> Hi all,
> 
> While I do have a mac and access to a windows box (I don't do windows that often)...I'm primarily a Linux guy.
> 
> ...



yes. I have a 5DII and I do everything with linux. 

ufraw is essential if you're shooting raw. I use digikam to organize/browse raw files, and ufraw to process them.

When I need to edit the jpegs, I use gimp. 

The only issue I ran into so far was that I bought a Pansonic GF2 and as it was a newer camera, I needed to get a bleeding edge distribution to ensure that the packages I use could read the raw files (you can't really "upgrade" digikam without upgrading KDE and at that point you basically have a distribution upgrade on your hands). 

Another workflow option would have been to use a lightweight raw to DNG converter and then worked with the DNG files instead of the .CR2s. These are better supported in linux (for example, the standard file browser windows will preview DNG files) I haven't looked into whether any information would be lost in a raw to dng conversion (the image data "should" stay the same, not at all clear what happens to the metadata)


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## well_dunno (Apr 1, 2012)

+1 to ufraw and gimp. I am not much of a post-processor but I use them when needed.

Also Luminance HDR is a nice opensource software for creating HDR...

Cheers!


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## Isurus (Apr 2, 2012)

While not open source, if you are willing to use your Mac another option is Pixelmator 

http://www.pixelmator.com/

While most of my post processing is done with LightRoom and Nik plugins, Pixelmator has a ton of functionality and at $30 is a steal. You can grap it off the Mac App Store.


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## dr croubie (Apr 2, 2012)

I'm a Linux user, Gentoo to be specific.
I've installed DPP under WINE (I can look up version numbers for you later). One problem is that I tried to update DPP and it went to a version that didn't support WinXP, and if it doesn't support XP it doesn't work under WINE (or at least that's my theory). If you want to test-install/upgrade stuff under WINE, just Copy your ~/.wine/ folder somewhere safe, if the update borks it, just copy the working copy back.

I use GIMP for most other stuff, which admittedly isn't much (the occasional fuzzy-select and gaussian-blur on backgrounds of bird-shots). GIMP only takes 8-bit TIFFs though, so not so good with HDRing.
For Panoramae I use Hugin Panorama Creator (it's a bitch of a program to learn from scratch, if I had time i'd write a manual for it).
And for HDR I use Luminance HDR. That program is pretty much the epitomy of "figure it out for yourself" linuxness, best I can suggest when tone-mapping is just try out what every option does, and repeat it ad-nauseum until you get a picture that looks OK.

If you're already a linux user, you probably already know the best tips I can give.
Backup, try, try again, restore, repeat.


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## digitalride (Apr 2, 2012)

I use Linux (Ubuntu 10.04 at present) and have a 60D, but I don't do much post processing. I could not find an open source raw processor that looked OK when noise was an issue. I tried ufraw and bibble (now corel aftershot pro) for a while but couldn't get decent results compared to DPP or the in camera jpg (or even the embedded jpg preview in the raw). 

I use DPP 3.9.1.0 version under wine and if DPP didn't work under wine I'd have to consider shooting jpg only or getting a different camera system or operating system just for photo work. There are a few small glitches, mainly related to window management, but all of the functionality seems to work flawlessly. Installing it was a bit tricky, see http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=7813

I use gimp for occasional editing, and my own file based organizational system and gqview (now Geeqie) for viewing. I'm never going to spend time organizing and tagging photos in a proprietary system that can be changed or discontinued or price-hiked with no way to fully export my meta-data.


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## well_dunno (May 11, 2012)

By the way, I came across a series of gimp tutorials (they started back in 2007 and are ongoing) by Rolf Steinort. I downloaded first couple of tutorials and found them to be very good. You can find them here:

http://blog.meetthegimp.org/


For the older videos:
http://blog.meetthegimp.org/getting-the-old-shows/

Naturally the initial ones are on gimp 2.3-2.4 but it does give a good idea on how gimp works and what one can do with it. It is a powerful program...

Cheers!


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