Open source alternative to the combined Adobe Bridge/camera raw (xmp) functionality?

[tpf1000]

Hi, I used to do digital photography a while back but never got expert or even very experienced at it. I still have an Adobe subscription for all their programs on the student discount ($30/month), but don't use it much. I'm looking into open-source replacements for all Adobe programs I'm using.

I'll focus here on photos and bitmap editing.

So there's GIMP of course. But I'm also looking for something to recreate Bridge's ability to browse raw files.

Any thought are welcome.

-Mike

 

[wobe]

I use Darktable which is the open-source answer to Lightroom and has a catalog in much the same way, on Windows I don:t use Bridge at all so not sure what benefit it brings over the catalog in Lr, I`m guessing superior sort and search etc(?)

Otherwise XnViewMP seems to support most RAW file types.
Supported graphic and image formats | XnView.com

 

[Dikkie]

I use RawTherapee to convert my raw's to jpg, batch-export,... (and pre-edit them before I do more adjustments in Gimp).
You can use Rawtherapee to browse raws too.

I used DarkTable years ago to test, but it wasn't my cup of tea for some reason. Maybe the new versions are more suitable.
RawTherapee has much more options.

 

[jeffashman]

I found this discussion to be very helpful, and did some further research, because I'm looking to replace my Adobe subscription. After looking at what both Darktable and rawtherapee do, it looks like they complement each other. Currently I use bridge to copy my raw images to from camera to disk, then pre-process through Topaz Photo AI for sharpening and denoising, Lightroom CC for tweaking the raw image parameters and converting to jpg, and finally Photoshop Elements to use their AI processing to put a final polish on the image. It looks like I might be able to replace the Bridge and Lightroom software for processing. We'll see.

 

[tpf1000]

I use Darktable which is the open-source answer to Lightroom and has a catalog in much the same way, on Windows I don:t use Bridge at all so not sure what benefit it brings over the catalog in Lr, I`m guessing superior sort and search etc(?)

Otherwise XnViewMP seems to support most RAW file types.
Supported graphic and image formats | XnView.com

To answer one of your questions here, I don't know LR so I can't say with definitiveness what features Bridge has compared to LR, but I can say some of the non-photography related features bridge has. It's also designed to browse Illustrator and After Effects files and is integrated into After Effects as a way to browse various effects you can apply to text and other things.

Also Adobe Bridge is free as a photo/video browser. I'm guessing LR is a paid program. Adobe Camera Raw is not free, so Bridge is not going to help me with that once I let my Adobe subscription lapse.

Does Darktable have integrated Raw browsing?

 

[tpf1000]

I use RawTherapee to convert my raw's to jpg, batch-export,... (and pre-edit them before I do more adjustments in Gimp).
You can use Rawtherapee to browse raws too.

I used DarkTable years ago to test, but it wasn't my cup of tea for some reason. Maybe the new versions are more suitable.
RawTherapee has much more options.

Maybe I should clarify something. I have a couple thousand Raw photos that have never been converted to non-proprietary format like jpg, but you can browse them without converting them with Bridge/Adobe Camera Raw. I saw RawTherapee and realized this would help me once I've decided to convert something, but it wouldn't help me browse raw files before I convert them. So I'm not sure if DarkTable will help me with that.

 

[Ysarex]

Maybe I should clarify something. I have a couple thousand Raw photos that have never been converted to non-proprietary format like jpg, but you can browse them without converting them with Bridge/Adobe Camera Raw. I saw RawTherapee and realized this would help me once I've decided to convert something, but it wouldn't help me browse raw files before I convert them. So I'm not sure if DarkTable will help me with that.

RawTherapee would not help with the browsing need. DarkTable would, but still would be a poor substitute for what you'd get from FastRawViewer for less than $20.00.

 

[jeffashman]

Maybe I should clarify something. I have a couple thousand Raw photos that have never been converted to non-proprietary format like jpg, but you can browse them without converting them with Bridge/Adobe Camera Raw. I saw RawTherapee and realized this would help me once I've decided to convert something, but it wouldn't help me browse raw files before I convert them. So I'm not sure if DarkTable will help me with that.

Hi! I'm not sure what you mean by "browse raw files" so here is what I did, and I hope this info helps. I installed the Windows version of RawTherapee and it automatically added my Pictures folder, which is where I copy all my shots from my camera in RAW CR3 format. I was able to navigate to my folders, they are all listed on the left side of the screen, and pick one, and it gives me thumbnails of all of the pictures in that folder. I can then select one and open it, and I can use all of the sliders on the right side to make all the adjustments I want. It pretty much has the functionality of Lightroom, so it is a definite candidate as a LR replacement.

The one thing it couldn't do was pull the exif data from the raw file, but since I pre-process with Topaz Photo AI which does get that info, and saves a copy as a DNG (also RAW), that is not an issue, because RawTherapee does get the exif data from the DNG file. It also doesn't catalog the images, but I personally really don't use cataloging, my file folder system is good enough for me, and the Windows Photo app does a decent job of cataloging to my needs. Hope that helps.

A note on Topaz Photo AI and why I use it, I have not found software that handles sharpening and denoising as well as this app due to its AI capabilities, something that neither RawTherapee or darktable have, but that is just a personal preference.

 

[tpf1000]

Hi! I'm not sure what you mean by "browse raw files" so here is what I did, and I hope this info helps.

Thanks for that info. I noticed you wrote that RawTherapee shows thumbnails. That's one thing I mean by "browse raw files." In macOS, using the finder, raw files just show up as a filename, so it's useless to look through folders trying to find something I would recognize. Adobe Bridge can do that and it can even show a larger version of the file before you load it into Adobe Camera Raw. Not sure if RawTherapee would show a larger version or just the thumbnail.

The one thing it couldn't do was pull the exif data from the raw file, but since I pre-process with Topaz Photo AI which does get that info, and saves a copy as a DNG (also RAW), that is not an issue, because RawTherapee does get the exif data from the DNG file. It also doesn't catalog the images, but I personally really don't use cataloging, my file folder system is good enough for me, and the Windows Photo app does a decent job of cataloging to my needs. Hope that helps.

A note on Topaz Photo AI and why I use it, I have not found software that handles sharpening and denoising as well as this app due to its AI capabilities, something that neither RawTherapee or darktable have, but that is just a personal preference.

Another thing I mean by "browsing" files is that I didn't do any preprocessing on them before I saved them to my external drive, and I don't want to take the time to do that for all my photos now. I'd like to find what I need by looking at images (thumbnails or larger images) and only then decide when to adjust the raw processing settings and what to load into GIMP. It sounds like RawTherapee would do that, but let me know if you think there would be any significant problem with this approach.

Thanks.

 

[AlanKlein]

Couldn't you use the camera manufacturer's program to browse raw photos taken with their camera(s).

 

[tpf1000]

Couldn't you use the camera manufacturer's program to browse raw photos taken with their camera(s).

That's a good idea. One issue that may come up is that I have images from different cameras in my photos folder tree (not in the same folder, but in the same tree of folders grouped by various topics) so as I'm browsing I may run into files I can't see, but that wouldn't be too disruptive. I would just switch to the other manufacturer's software.

 

[jeffashman]

Ah, I see. I don't have a Mac, so didn't know that the RawTherapee software works differently like that. On Windows, RawTherapee can see the camera RAW files, CR3 in my case, and RawTherapee is capable of handling sharpening and denoising directly, but it's very a manual process, and I'm lazy. I did a cursory check online, and it looks like there are a lot of complaints of MacOS not being able to see the newer Canon RAW format images, but that was really the only thing I looked for. The camera manufacturer should have drivers that enable that, though, I can't imagine that they wouldn't with Macs being touted as goto media editing platforms.

 

[tpf1000]

Now I feel silly. It's been a long, long time since I tried to browse raw files on a computer (Mac or Windows) in any way other than Adobe Bridge, and I just now discovered that Photos (a built-in Mac application) can see and display raw files. I should have tried.

Of course, I can still benefit from integration with a raw editor/developer so it was worth learning about other apps mentioned in this thread.

I also looked up Canon applications for browsing files and found one listed on their website for macOS. Haven't downloaded it and still need to find one for CR2 files but these are some great options I'm finding here.

 

[AlanKlein]

That's a good idea. One issue that may come up is that I have images from different cameras in my photos folder tree (not in the same folder, but in the same tree of folders grouped by various topics) so as I'm browsing I may run into files I can't see, but that wouldn't be too disruptive. I would just switch to the other manufacturer's software.

You could also sort the files by file type. That way, each manufacturer's pictures would be in its separate grouping. That might help you sort through them as well.

 

[Dikkie]

You can also use it directly under Linux, you won't get bothered by the limitations or sluggishness from proprietary systems.
Open source applications in an open source environment. I'm already 10 years free from Windows or Mac.

At work, I still have to use Windows and I'm frequently baffled because of everything that goes wrong... in fact I'm not amazed, but hey.... the 'managers' know better I guess, paying tons of licences each year for all kinds of stuff and then complaining there is no budget for...