Picasa and RAW

[graham john miles]

Not sure how many of you are using Google's Picasa software for

managing your images, but the latest version now supports RAW formats

from most of the major manufacturers. It also has some simple tuning

and editing tools for RAW. Totally free.

[agardner58]

I downloaded version 2, and it seems to work fine. I have a Pentax *istDS which has .pef raw files. Only big issue for me is that I converted a bunch of .pef to .dng, then archived the .pef files to DVD (I needed the disk space, and it seemed like a good idea at the time, since I use RSE which reads both .pef and .dng files). It turns out that Picasa v2 sees my .pef files fine, but won't read .dng! So much for standards! Hopefully, I have missed some setting in Picasa that enables .dng!

[conrad_fischer1]

Just to clarify, Picasa released a new update about a week ago. In addition to the new RAW support it will also now access external drives

[jimstrutz]

Picassa has a setting that allows it to read PNG files. It's not normally turned on. Look through the menus.

[agardner58]

I don't have a problem with .png files, I have a problem with Adobe .dng files. Thanks though...

[lex_jenkins]

I've been using Picasa for two or three months for quick 'n' dirty editing of batches of NEFs when I wanted to convert them to JPEG slide shows on CD. It's excellent for making these CD-ROM slide shows.

 

Sometimes it does a pretty good job as a basic photo editor and offers better capabilities for tweaking than another freebie I use, Irfanview. OTOH, Irfanview can be used with Photoshop compatible plug-ins.

 

The main disadvantage I can see to Picasa, unless the latest upgrade has changed this, is that edited NEFs can't be saved as TIFFs, PNGs or other lossless file formats. Irfanview reads a wide variety of file formats, including some that are pretty obsolete, and can save to a good variety of formats as well.

 

Also, Picasa's file organization is quirky, at best. Whenever I use Picasa I have to run Windows Explorer or Nikon View/Browser at the same time in order to verify where an edited file actually went.

 

So, while there really is a free lunch, you may not always like what's on the menu. ;>

[kaio1]

I'm a big fan of Picasa for quick and dirty editing and corrections and i was thrilled to see that software had been upgraded to handle RAW images. but to my dismay, i realised that when i converted to jpeg, the size of the image fell dramatically - a 5.5mb RAW NEF file that Nikon Capture or Rawshooter Essentials converts to a 3 mb "fine" jpeg is converted to a 700k jpeg by picasa.

Maybe i haven't noticed an option to save as "fine" (would love to know if that's true). but till that happens, my workflow involves Rawshooters ->jpeg and then i use picasa to process and edit. finally, if i need curves or managing individual channels then i use pixia. these three free programmes put together gives me almost all the functionality i need for post-processing.