# Darktable now supports Canon’s CR3 in v3.8.0, which is available now



## Canon Rumors Guy (Dec 24, 2021)

> Darktable, the open-source RAW processing software now supports the Canon EOS R5, Canon EOS R6 and more cameras that use the .CR3 RAW format.
> *You can download Darktable 3.8.0 now for Windows, MacOS and Linux.*
> The Big Ones
> 
> ...



Continue reading...


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## Chaitanya (Dec 25, 2021)

it took quite a long time but hopefully it's not a stability mess.


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## Tidy Media (Dec 25, 2021)

I feel like a year and a half to support two of the most popular camera bodies in the world isn't really good enough, wonder what took them so long


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## koenkooi (Dec 25, 2021)

Tidy Media said:


> I feel like a year and a half to support two of the most popular camera bodies in the world isn't really good enough, wonder what took them so long


From what I’ve seen over the past year: mostly human drama.


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## Skyscraperfan (Dec 25, 2021)

So it took until now to support ANY camera with CR3 files, which came up with the EOS M50 in June 2018? That was 42 months ago.

I wish though that modern cameras would still offer a CR2 option. It is annoying that CR3 files are only supported by subscription versions of Lightroom.


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## Antono Refa (Dec 25, 2021)

Tidy Media said:


> I feel like a year and a half to support two of the most popular camera bodies in the world isn't really good enough, wonder what took them so long


The developers are not paid, and don't get support from Canon to decode its raw format, so you pass off as spoiled.


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## Antono Refa (Dec 25, 2021)

Skyscraperfan said:


> So it took until now to support ANY camera with CR3 files, which came up with the EOS M50 in June 2018? That was 42 months ago.
> 
> I wish though that modern cameras would still offer a CR2 option. It is annoying that CR3 files are only supported by subscription versions of Lightroom.


DXO supports CR3 for quite a while.

Its bothersome, but you can use DPP, which is free, to convert CR3 to 16 bit TIFF.


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## jvillain (Dec 25, 2021)

Tidy Media said:


> I feel like a year and a half to support two of the most popular camera bodies in the world isn't really good enough, wonder what took them so long


The developers who aren't paid were worried that they would be sued by Canon in the US if they put in CR3 support. Canon has one of the largest patent portfolios in the world and an army of lawyers to defend them. Software patents which were invented out of thin air by the out of control US courts not Congress are only recognized by I believe 3 countries. The US, India and maybe one other. But they F things up for every one in the world.


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## Dragon (Dec 25, 2021)

Skyscraperfan said:


> So it took until now to support ANY camera with CR3 files, which came up with the EOS M50 in June 2018? That was 42 months ago.
> 
> I wish though that modern cameras would still offer a CR2 option. It is annoying that CR3 files are only supported by subscription versions of Lightroom.


A non-subscription version of LR is by definition obsolete and unsupported, so you are optimistic in expecting support for a new formant. At this point, PS, LR, PS elements, DXO Photolab, ON1, Luminar, Capture One, Paint Shop and now Darktable all support cr3 files. Seems like enough choices.


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## Skyscraperfan (Dec 26, 2021)

Dragon said:


> A non-subscription version of LR is by definition obsolete and unsupported, so you are optimistic in expecting support for a new formant. At this point, PS, LR, PS elements, DXO Photolab, ON1, Luminar, Capture One, Paint Shop and now Darktable all support cr3 files. Seems like enough choices.


Of course software companies are interested in new formats that give them the chance to sell new software, but camera companies should at least try to find a RAW format that will not have to change all the time. The information how to interpret that data and especially how to demosaic the image should be baked into the file, so that even old software can support it. It is also quite annoying that each software needs support for every new camera separately to apply new profiles. There should be a standard to import new profiles after you download them from the webseite of the manufacturer.


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## ReflexVE (Dec 26, 2021)

Does Darktable not simply rely on LibRAW for its file support like a ton of commercial and non-commercial projects do? I know they had support for CR3 about 6 months after the M50, and that's how it appeared in Luminar which relies on the library.


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## gsm (Dec 26, 2021)

Darktable relies on rawspeed for many raw file formats, and an attempt was made to use that. There was a patch for that which made it work, but the maintainer didn't or hasn't merged it. In the end the maintainers of darktable went with libraw for CR3. I use darktable for all of my edits and I'm happy to not have to convert my files to DNG before editing.


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## Antono Refa (Dec 26, 2021)

Skyscraperfan said:


> Of course software companies are interested in new formats that give them the chance to sell new software


Darktable is opensource written by volunteers.


Skyscraperfan said:


> but camera companies should at least try to find a RAW format that will not have to change all the time.


AFAIK, the CR2 format was introduced with the Canon EOS 1Ds in 2002 (a year after Windows XP was released), and the CR3 format was introduced with the EOS R in 2018. Is any part of your computer, or any software installed on it, 16 years old? Do you complain on those changing all the time?



Skyscraperfan said:


> The information how to interpret that data and especially how to demosaic the image should be baked into the file, so that even old software can support it.


I have >10,000 CR2 files on my hard drive, and I bet some forum members here have at least ten times as much. Keeping thousands upon thousands of copies of this information is wasteful. You can always download the latest version of DPP, and use it to convert the raw file to some other format your old software accepts, e.g. TIFF.


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## Dragon (Dec 26, 2021)

Skyscraperfan said:


> Of course software companies are interested in new formats that give them the chance to sell new software, but camera companies should at least try to find a RAW format that will not have to change all the time. The information how to interpret that data and especially how to demosaic the image should be baked into the file, so that even old software can support it. It is also quite annoying that each software needs support for every new camera separately to apply new profiles. There should be a standard to import new profiles after you download them from the website of the manufacturer.


You are completely missing the whole issue of intellectual property. Camera RAW files involve either lossy or lossless compression and those compression algorithms (particularly the lossless ones) are big competitive advantage. For starters, compare the size of a CR3 file to TIFF file of the same image or more importantly to a Sony uncompressed raw file (hint, the Sony files are HUGE). In order for an editing software company to support the new camera raw formats, they have to be able to decompress the files and that almost certainly involves contracts, NDAs, etc. In some cases, it may well also involve license fees.


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## jvillain (Dec 26, 2021)

Dragon said:


> You are completely missing the whole issue of intellectual property. Camera RAW files involve either lossy or lossless compression and those compression algorithms (particularly the lossless ones) are big competitive advantage. For starters, compare the size of a CR3 file to TIFF file of the same image or more importantly to a Sony uncompressed raw file (hint, the Sony files are HUGE). In order for an editing software company to support the new camera raw formats, they have to be able to decompress the files and that almost certainly involves contracts, NDAs, etc. In some cases, it may well also involve license fees.


oI don't disagree with what you wrote. But in this case CR3 was reverse engineered by the open source community pretty quickly.









GitHub - lclevy/canon_cr3: Describing the Canon CR3 fileformat from Canon M50 / EOS R / SX70 HS / EOS RP...


Describing the Canon CR3 fileformat from Canon M50 / EOS R / SX70 HS / EOS RP... - GitHub - lclevy/canon_cr3: Describing the Canon CR3 fileformat from Canon M50 / EOS R / SX70 HS / EOS RP...




github.com





That made writing a free open source decoder possible and legal for free sans NDA every where except for the US and India. The truth is if you look at the format there really isn't a lot of net new involved. It is mostly a lot of existing stuff that has been repackaged. The biggest proprietary thing is the pixel shift part.


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## Dragon (Dec 27, 2021)

jvillain said:


> oI don't disagree with what you wrote. But in this case CR3 was reverse engineered by the open source community pretty quickly.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Figuring out how it was done doesn't get you out of the patent/copyright jungle. Some of that stuff (like HEIF) is protected pretty much worldwide. Even Canon has to license HEIF. You can tell this is the case because when you load DPP, it goes through a procedure to enable the HEIF feature that only happens with protected and licensed stuff. This is the case with most contemporary CODECs for video and audio as well. The power struggle that went on during the development and deployment of MPEG was epic. I was in the middle of the fray and remember it well. The singular reason for the release of the Microsoft video and audio codes was to force the devaluation of the MPEG stuff so it would be widely affordable, and the power play worked. MS owned a big enough percentage of the IP that they were able to force the rest of the players to sell cheap. Still image CODECS have not had the drama of the video stuff, but there is still value there that companies try to extract. Many of those patents extend far wider than the US and India.


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## gsm (Dec 27, 2021)

Setting aside the discussion of why it took so long, I'm grateful for darktable and to all it's volunteer developers. It's an awesome piece of software backed by solid algorithms grounded in physics, color science, etc. I haven't used Adobe Lightroom or other commercial products so I cannot compare, but if you haven't given darktable a try, consider doing so. There is definitely a learning curve but it's worth it.


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## jvillain (Dec 27, 2021)

Dragon said:


> Figuring out how it was done doesn't get you out of the patent/copyright jungle.


Copyright in code is the same as it is in text. If it isn't extremely similar the it isn't copying. Just because what it does is similar is not the same as it's code being the same. Clean room implementations of code are done all the time and are accepted even in the US. That just leaves us with the pesky patents. 

Some one posted the big list of video patents a few months ago trying to make the case that software patents were enforceable all over the world because there were patents related to video codecs all over the world. I took a dive on the patents that applied to the country I live in and every single one of them applied to using the codec is conjunction with a specific hardware device often players if one form or another,. Not one of them was a software patent.


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