Viewing/Managing Raw files on Atom based computer

[james_jenner]

<p>G'day everyone,</p>

<p>We have a Atom based laptop, the screen is only 10" big and as a result the max resolution is 1024x600. This means that the Digital Photo Professional software from Canon will not work (requires 1024x768 min, gives an error and will not let you use it). I've now downloaded the Codec for windows so I can use windows to view the images, while it does work, it's only for viewing.</p>

<p>However I thought this must be a common problem irrespective of the Manufacturer for managing raw images while away from home via a small footprint laptop.</p>

<p>So any suggestions for software that works on an Atom cpu sized system would be helpful. I was thinking of downloading the picasa software from google. Please note that I am running Windows 7, I also did the google search but couldn't find any previous threads about it (most prob an issue of choosing the correct words to search on).</p>

<p>Cheers and thanks in advance,</p>

<p>James.</p>

[leicaglow]

<p>James, I use PhotoShop on my Asus Netbook (Atom) and it runs really fast. It's a pain to use on large images because of the screen size, but I have no problem running any other image software. It sounds like a limitation from Canon. I would think most software would run on your Atom. I am using Vista on my system though. Maybe Adobe Premiere or something like that would work.</p>

[joshuamck]

<p>I use Lightroom for this. LR3 works without issue on my 10in ASUS EeePc.<br>

LR2 had some issues with not being able to fit the import dialog on the screen in this resolution. I was able to workaround this by using a keyboard shortcut to flip the screen sideways to allow me to click the import button.<br>

Image ingester pro (when I tried it 6 months ago) didn't work well on a small screen either.</p>

[craigd]

<p>I don't recommend doing any kind of serious photo work on a laptop display. The screens on most of them are overly sensitive to viewing angle and will give you a misleading idea of brightness and contrast unless you have it positioned EXACTLY right relative to your head. Even fairly cheap desktop LCD displays are much better about this.</p>

[mightypir]

<p>I use CS3 on my EEE netbook, and it works fine. Only issue I have is that the Camera Raw window does not fit, ie I cannot see the bottom buttons etc. My work arounds are that if you press enter the default is to open the files in photoshop, which is what I usually want to do!</p>

[james_jenner]

<p>Thanks for the responses guys, I'd never thought of the serious photo editing software.</p>

<p>Just to clarify my intention, I not planning on doing any serious work on it, just enough to see if: a) an individual photo is worth keeping; and b) if a series of photos for a location are okay or do i need to go back and redo. I understand the issues with the LCD, but I know it's a lot better than the one on the back of my 450D! :)</p>

<p>What I would love is a tool that allows thumbnail browsing, opening the image quickly and allowing some minor tweaking (to determine if it's okay. Funnily enough the Google software (picasa) works, but because of the screen resolution some panels are overlayed. I'm going to play with the settings to see if I can improve it.</p>

<p>I should note that I'm just new to photography so you can imagine that I'm still half in the spray and pray mode (trying hard to get out of it, it is a slow process). Also I'm shooting in RAW, and not that jpeg combined. Maybe I should shoot in jpeg combined to make it easier to browse/view? I could then delete the jpegs at the end of each day. Hmm wonder if using combined RAW + JPeg would slow down the speed of taking photos, I imagine it would.</p>

<p>Anyway thanks for the suggestions so far.</p>

<p> </p>

[steve_wagner1]

<p>If all you want to do is view and weed out raw files, irfanview is the fastest "raw" viewer (it's not really a raw viewer per se) on the planet and will run in any resolution. Just download the plugins extension pack. It displays raw files instantly, full screen with no program interface to get in the way, at the same speed as if you were viewing jpegs, by using the embedded preview.<br /> <br /> It's also the fastest way to scroll through the images one at a time (if you aren't using a thumbnail grid) and weed them out. The arrow keys advance to the next/previous image instantly, and the delete key deletes the image (not permanently, just to the recycle bin) without a confirmation dialog and immediately goes to the next image (if you configure it this way). If you want to actually process raw files, Lightroom will run on your netbook, thought it won't be the greatest work experience.</p>

[james_jenner]

<p>Hey Brett, thanks for the advice. I've tried using IrFranview with Raw files previously as it's a utility that I've used for a long time. However I found was that it's slow to open the raw files, I don't know if this is a disk i/o issue or the application's implementation for Cannon's raw files. I'll have to check if I have the latest version as I may have an old one.</p>

<p>Did you find that the thumbnail view works okay with raw files?</p>

<p>Hmm just re-read your comment and noticed you mention a plugin pack. I normally don't install it, maybe there is a plugin with better raw support than the standard, I'll have to check it out.</p>

[joshuamck]

<p>Fastpictureviewer (<a href="http://www.fastpictureviewer.com/">http://www.fastpictureviewer.com/</a>) works pretty well and is also on the cheap side.</p>

[steve_wagner1]

<p>Hi James, the plug in pack, which includes raw support, is here</p>

<p>http://www.irfanview.com/plugins.htm</p>

<p>I don't ever use it for thumb view, just single image weeding out. I only ever used it all when I had a netbook. I just use Lightroom otherwise. It is very efficient though.</p>

[james_jenner]

<p>Thanks for that guys.</p>

<p>Hey Joshua, that software you mentioned, have you used it with CR2 files? I'll download the trail version and see if it works okay but I noticed that at the bottom of the image support page it has a footnote that states it uses an embedded jpeg. I wasn't aware there was an embedded jpeg in the CR2 and I'm not sure if there are any camera options that affect this being embedded in the CR2. But as I said, I'll give it a go tonight and see what happens.</p>

<p>Brett, I didn't get a chance to try out irfanview last night, I'll try tonight.</p>

<p>Will post results for both!</p>

<p>Btw, I got the picasa one working fine. It's got some annoying overlay issues with some panels and a lot of wasted space that you cannot turn off. It's not really designed to have a lightweight browsing option and appears to presume that you have at least 1024x768 or more, hence why stuf is squashed. However worse case I think I will go with picasa. interestingly it's got a lot of similar features (in some ways more advanced) to the Canon photo software, and it writes all the changes to a text file that is hidden and begins with a fullstop in the same directory. I presume the cannon software does something similar but I've never bothered to check.</p>