On Tue, Feb 12, 2013 at 11:36 PM, Denise Hamilton wrote:

I photographed the aurora while living in Alaska in RAW format which produces a CR2 extension. Why will GIMP not open these photos?

Please install UFRaw.

Alexandre Prokoudine http://libregraphicsworld.org

On Tue, Feb 12, 2013 at 02:36:51PM -0500, Denise Hamilton wrote:

I photographed the aurora while living in Alaska in RAW format which produces a CR2 extension. Why will GIMP not open these photos? Are there plans to expand GIMP to access these file types?

CR2 files are a type of RAW, and Gimp doesn't handle RAW files. There is a UFRaw plugin for gimp (as just discussed on the gimp-developer list), but you may be better served by a dedicated RAW converter such as RawTherapee, DarkTable, or LightZone.

Matthew Miller           mattdm@mattdm.org          

On 13-02-12 02:36 PM, Denise Hamilton wrote:

I photographed the aurora while living in Alaska in RAW format which produces a CR2 extension. Why will GIMP not open these photos?

You need either the dcraw or ufraw plug-in for GIMP. I prefer the dcraw plug-in. The ufraw plug-in has too many options about what should be done to the image when it is loaded. I don't know what I might want/need to do to the image until after I load it and look at it.

On Wed, Feb 13, 2013 at 12:03 AM, Kevin Cozens wrote:

the image when it is loaded. I don't know what I might want/need to do to the image until after I load it and look at it.

If only there were viewers capable of displaying raw images... ;-)

Alexandre Prokoudine http://libregraphicsworld.org

On Tue, Feb 12, 2013 at 03:03:38PM -0500, Kevin Cozens wrote:

I photographed the aurora while living in Alaska in RAW format which produces a CR2 extension. Why will GIMP not open these photos?

You need either the dcraw or ufraw plug-in for GIMP. I prefer the dcraw plug-in. The ufraw plug-in has too many options about what should be done to the image when it is loaded. I don't know what I might want/need to do to the image until after I load it and look at it.

So, the downside of this approach is that the decisions you make *during* RAW conversion are generally lossless operations; you can go back and do them differently with no destruction of data. If you start from a file converted in a certain way, you've already lost a lot of flexibility.

Matthew Miller           mattdm@mattdm.org          

On 02/12/13 13:09, Matthew Miller wrote:

On Tue, Feb 12, 2013 at 03:03:38PM -0500, Kevin Cozens wrote:

I photographed the aurora while living in Alaska in RAW format which produces a CR2 extension. Why will GIMP not open these photos?

You need either the dcraw or ufraw plug-in for GIMP. I prefer the dcraw plug-in. The ufraw plug-in has too many options about what should be done to the image when it is loaded. I don't know what I might want/need to do to the image until after I load it and look at it.

So, the downside of this approach is that the decisions you make *during* RAW conversion are generally lossless operations; you can go back and do them differently with no destruction of data. If you start from a file converted in a certain way, you've already lost a lot of flexibility.

Whoa! :-) That is hardly a downside. RAW conversion is something you can dorepeatedly without degrading the image, as it always starts from the original raw data and never modifies it. You don't need to do anything with the ufraw options *when the image is loaded*; you can tweak them after it is loaded into ufraw. The main reason for tweaking them during the load process is if you have a fixed set of parameters you generally use for images from a given camera, such as color profiles, etc. Maybe I mis-interpreted your statement?

"If you start from a file converted in a certain way" and that conversion is unsatisfactory, reopen the file from gimp, using the ufraw plugin, and convert it in whatever different way you want.

What is a pain is that the ufraw plugin does not allow for saving a .ufraw file, an option you have when starting ufraw stand-alone. So if you want to preserve the options you work out in ufraw, you need to set up a pipeline / shell script to run ufraw and then feed the result into gimp.

Is your objection that the ufraw tweaks are not part of the undo history stack? The ufraw process is an advantage, although an inconvenience, in this respect. The gimp undo history stack is wonderful, but it is (unfortunately) not saved with the xcf image. Once you save and quit gimp, reloading the image you have lost all of the history. The ufraw tweaks are totally repeatable and modifiable without degrading the image.

Gary

On Tue, Feb 12, 2013 at 06:11:09PM -0700, Gary Aitken wrote:

You need either the dcraw or ufraw plug-in for GIMP. I prefer the dcraw plug-in. The ufraw plug-in has too many options about what should be done to the image when it is loaded. I don't know what I might want/need to do to the image until after I load it and look at it.

So, the downside of this approach is that the decisions you make *during* RAW conversion are generally lossless operations; you can go back and do them differently with no destruction of data. If you start from a file converted in a certain way, you've already lost a lot of flexibility.

Whoa! :-) That is hardly a downside. RAW conversion is something you can dorepeatedly without degrading the image, as it always starts from the original raw data and never modifies it. You don't need to do anything with the ufraw

Let me clarify: it's a downside of doing a simple RAW conversion without "too many options" and taking the result into Gimp to do the bulk of the work.

Matthew Miller           mattdm@mattdm.org