Digital Photographer's Software Guide - Bertemes - Net

Raw Therapee’s interface is well laid out, with multiple panels including a large central
image area. Other components of the interface are the Directory Browser, File Browser,
Histogram, Image Processing Adjustments panel, a small Postprocessing Profile
Switcher, Save/Preferences Buttons. It also includes other panels for zoom, rotate/flip,
quick information (about shutter speed, aperture value, ISO sensitivity, and focal
length), and finally a Tools panel.
Comments
Raw Therapee uses an enhanced version of Keigo Hirakawa’s adaptive homogeneitydirected
demosaicing algorithm, which fully matches the quality of demosaicing found
in commercial software. Adaptive routines use rules based on the actual content of an image.
Here, the software uses a special mapping technique (homogeneity mapping) to detect
unwanted color artifacts and direct the interpolation away from them. Side-by-side comparison
of the resolution achieved by Raw Therapee and other RAW converters is significantly
in the favor of this shareware-style product. It was very well received by users
when the developer first announced it on dpreview.com in mid-2006. One user said
“...the best demosaicing yet.” More recent versions have greatly improved the processing
speed, while also adding ICC color management and user interface enhancements.
Version: Raw Therapee 2.4 (2008)
OS: Windows 2000, XP, and Vista; Linux GTK+ 2.10 series (see www.gtk.org)
RAM: 512MB
Supported file formats: Most major RAW and JPEG
Price level: Donation requested
Address: Budapest, Hungary
www.rawtherapee.com
RAW Developer
Vendor: Iridient Digital
Purpose: Powerful RAW image conversion for Macintosh only
Chapter 7 ■ RAW Converters 77
Description
RAW Developer is a low-cost package with some powerful features, including nondestructive
image processing and flexible batch conversion. It handles 16 bits per channel
(48-bit RGB) and for some operations such as image sharpening can go up to 32 bits
per channel using high dynamic range floating point numbers. It supports files from
over 150 digital camera models, offers fast, high-quality image previews, flexible histogram
viewing, and full support for Exif metadata.
Other RAW Developer features include ICC color management support through
ColorSync, tone curves, color correction, exposure compensation, white balance, contrast,